Before kanji
Before Chinese characters arrived in Japan, only simple pictograms have been found on ancient artifacts from the early Yayoi period(300BCE-300CE).
Your kanji journey starts here
Meet Kenta.
Your guide to kanji.
こんにちは！ I’m Kenta. I know many people who sees kanji for the first time get intimidated by its unfamiliar structure compared to the latin alphabet, but you never have to learn alone. We’ll discover their radicals, practise their readings, and build your confidence one character at a time.
A short writing-system history
How kanji, hiragana, and katakana came together
Adoption of Chinese characters
Through extensive trade with China, many new ideas and inventions were passed on to Japan. The Japanese were eager to adopt the writing system but made modifications to suit own their spoken language.
Hiragana grew from flowing forms
During the early Heian period(794-1185), a phonetic cursive handwriting called grass kana were used to easier memorize the Chinese characters since the characters only convey meaning and not how it is supposed to be said. This form of writing evolved into hiragana.
Hiragana for women
Hiragana become known as 女手(woman's hand) or woman's writing because women had been discouraged or barred from learning kanji. Japan's arguably most famous book 源氏物語(The tale of Genji) by 紫式部(Murasaki Shikibu) is written almost entirely in hiragana.
katakana takes its place
Katakana's symbols are made from kanji but have taken on a more angular shape and is like hiragana phonetic. Katakana means part of kanji and were developed by Buddhist monks to show correct pronunciation of Chinese texts. It is now used in modern Japanese as a way to show foreign or technical words in a sentence.
Three written languages together
Today, kanji, hiragana, and katakana work together to form the Japanese writing system. Kanji is used to convey the central meaning and hiragana to help with grammar and also many native Japanese words.
Kanji ever evolving
before 1900 there was about 7000 kanji that were in "normal use". In 1923 the first step to limit the number of kanjis were made. The ministry of education formed a list of 1134 kanji that all Japanese should be able to understand and write with an addition of 1320 kanji that everyone should understand but not necessarily be able to write. After the war another restructuring occurred and the list now made up 1850 characters which were to be taught in schools. In 1981 it was revised again to 1945 characters. in 2010 it was revised again and now consists of 2136 characters which are all included on this site.
If you want to learn more, please visit these sites.
Encyclopaedia Britannica: Japanese writing system
Kyohaku: Japanese Kanji Dictionary
Omniglot: Japanese Katakana
Meihoku Training: Japanese Writing System
Build a strong foundation
Kanji make more sense
when they connect.
Learn the standard Jōyō kanji used in everyday Japanese, or study by JLPT or Kanji Kentei level.
Are there different standards for learning kanji?
Yes. Three useful ways to organise kanji study are the official Jōyō list, the proficiency levels associated with the JLPT, and the graded progression used by the Kanji Kentei.
Jōyō kanji
The Jōyō list contains 2,136 characters designated by the Japanese government for common use. Japanese schools teach them gradually across primary and secondary education.
JLPT kanji
The Japanese-Language Proficiency Test has five levels, from beginner N5 to advanced N1. Because the test does not publish official kanji lists, these groups are widely used community estimates.
Kanji Kentei (漢検)
Kanji Kentei has 12 grades, progressing from 80 beginner kanji at Grade 10 to roughly 6,000 at Grade 1. Kenta follows these proficiency ranges as an independent practice aid, not an official exam.
What is a radical?
A radical is a recognisable component inside a kanji. It can suggest part of the character’s meaning or provide a useful visual clue. If you recognise a shape but do not know the complete kanji, select it—or combine several radicals—to narrow the library to matching characters.
Radical finder
Which radicals can you see?
Kanji library
Choose a collection
Jōyō kanji are the 2,136 characters designated for common use in Japanese public life and taught across Japanese primary and secondary school.
Words built from kanji
Kanji dictionary
Search every word in the local database by spelling, kana reading, rōmaji, English meaning, or radical.
Dictionary radical finder
Which radicals should the words’ kanji contain?
Complete local word database
Kanji, kana, and mixed words
Length filters count the kanji in a spelling; kana and okurigana do not add to that count.
Practice dojo
Train with Kenta.
Kenta remembers your progress, reviews difficult kanji with you, and helps you work toward your next belt.
Kenta's belt dojo
Your mastery journey
1 · Choose a curriculum
Jōyō means everyday-use kanji: this course follows the kanji taught across Japanese primary and secondary school, arranged here as school Grades 1–9.
Independent practice aid: elementary levels follow Japanese school-grade coverage and Grade 2 covers all Jōyō kanji. Upper pools use frequency-ranked approximations to the published proficiency totals; this is not an official 漢検 exam simulator or affiliated with the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation.
2 · Choose a challenge
3 · Choose your round length
0 saved mistakesKenta remembers missed questions on this device.
0 saved kanjiCharacters you want to practice extra.
Study before the quiz
Review meanings
Select a kanji to open its readings, meanings, radicals, and example words.
Knockout rankings
Top 10
Start an “All kanji” knockout quiz to enter this local leaderboard.
Round complete
Brush practice
Learn each kanji
one stroke at a time.
Trace the faint guide or hide it and draw from memory. Kenta keeps count while you practice.
日
day · sun
4strokes needed
0 of 4 practice strokes
The out-of-line score compares your brush path with the guide currently visible on the board. It does not grade missing parts, exact stroke order, or calligraphy quality.
Follow the growing radicals
Grow a kanji
one branch at a time.
Search all 6,359 kanji, then follow characters that contain the selected form as a component. Explore direct branches in manageable groups, including advanced kanji.
Try:
A component map, not an origin story: the tree recognizes both directly listed components and larger shapes reconstructed from the same smaller radicals. For example, it can connect 共 (together) to 供 (submit/offer), even when the source data lists 共 only through its inner shapes.
Words from this branch
Real dictionary examples show how the selected kanji behaves inside words.
Kenta's Kanji Corner
Interesting and useful,
according to Kenta.
This is where Kenta collects the details he finds most interesting and useful: kana references, practical ways to organise Japanese titles, and frequently used kanji worth recognising.
Two syllabaries, the same soundsHiragana & katakana chartsOpen
Hiragana is common for grammar and native words; katakana is common for loanwords, emphasis, and many names. Each pair below represents the same sound.
HiraganaKatakanaRomaji
Voiced and semi-voiced sounds
Combination sounds (yōon)
Kenta's practical tipHow to alphabetise Japanese booksOpen
Japanese books are alphabetised by the recorded pronunciation of their titles in the gojūon sequence—not by the shape, stroke count, or Unicode position of their kanji. Write a kana sorting form for every book title before comparing them.
Write the official reading
Copy the title's furigana, publisher reading, or catalogue reading. Convert a kanji title such as 雨 to あめ. A kanji has several possible readings, so its printed shape alone cannot determine its place.
Normalize the script
For comparison, treat katakana as its hiragana equivalent: カ → か and ゲ → げ. Ignore spaces and ordinary punctuation unless your bookshelf needs a special house rule.
Compare one mora at a time
Start with the first kana. If two titles match, compare their second kana, then their third, continuing until they differ. A shorter reading comes first when every sound up to its end is identical.
Basic gojūon order
あ い う え お
か き く け こ
さ し す せ そ
た ち つ て と
な に ぬ ね の
は ひ ふ へ ほ
ま み む め も
や ゆ よ
ら り る れ ろ
わ を ん
Marks and smaller kana
- ゛ Voiced mark
- Keep it with its base row and place the plain sound before the voiced sound: か before が; は before ば.
- ゜ Semi-voiced mark
- In the は row, use the practical order は, ば, ぱ (and likewise ひ, び, ぴ).
- Small ぁ・っ・ゃ
- Compare them at the position of their full-size counterpart first. If two readings otherwise match, use small versus full size as a tie-breaker.
- ー Long-vowel mark
- Read it as the vowel prolonged by the previous katakana. For a hand-sorted shelf, write that vowel into your sorting form before comparing titles.
- 々・ゝ・ヽ Repetition
- Expand the repeated kanji or kana to its spoken reading in your sorting form rather than sorting by the repetition mark itself.
For a personal shelf: write each title in hiragana on a temporary label, normalize the special marks using the rules above, and sort those labels from あ to ん. Large catalogues use formal collation standards and may differ in their final tie-break rules, so retain an institution's supplied reading when matching its catalogue.
Let Kenta help you sort your books
Enter hiragana or katakana readings separated by commas.
Most useful firstMost common kanji wordsOpen
This ranking follows the frequency field in the local KANJIDIC2-derived dataset. Unranked characters come after ranked ones.