How to Study JLPT N4 Kanji: A 14-Week Plan

How many kanji do you need for N4?

N4 is the second level of the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test, one step above N5. The official level summary says N4 test takers can read and understand passages on familiar daily topics written in basic vocabulary and kanji. That is a real jump from N5, where the reading goal is typical expressions and short sentences.

As with N5, the JLPT does not publish an official kanji list. The organizers explain that the test is not designed around memorizing word lists, so they stopped publishing content specifications when the test was revised in 2010. Before that, the old level 3 (roughly today's N4) listed about 300 kanji in total, compared with about 100 for the old level 4. Most study lists still follow those numbers, so a sensible target is about 300 kanji in total, or roughly 180 new ones on top of the N5 set.

Before week 1: make N5 solid

N4 vocabulary leans heavily on N5 kanji. Words like 病院 (びょういん, hospital) or 旅行 (りょこう, travel) pair a new kanji with one you should already know, so gaps in N5 slow everything down. If you have not finished it yet, start with our JLPT N5 kanji study plan and the JLPT N5 kanji list. If you have, spend a few days reviewing until characters like 食, 行 and 語 feel automatic.

The 14-week plan

Each week groups kanji by theme so the characters reinforce each other and you can read whole words quickly. The table shows a sample of each group, not a complete list, because N4 study lists differ by a few dozen characters. Add any extra kanji from your textbook or list to the week where they fit best. At 13 to 16 new kanji a week, that is two or three per study day.

A typical study week

1. Days 1 to 5: do your due reviews first, then learn two or three new kanji. For each one, learn the meaning, one or two common words, and the stroke order.
2. Day 6: no new kanji. Review the whole week, write each new kanji from memory, and read the example words aloud.
3. Day 7: a light day. Do due reviews only, or read a short graded text and note which kanji you recognize.

By N4 your review pile is bigger, so expect 20 to 40 minutes on a normal day. If reviews start taking much longer, pause new kanji for a few days instead of skipping reviews. Our guide to spaced repetition for Japanese explains why that trade is worth it.

What changes at N4

• More compounds. Many N4 words are two-kanji compounds read with on'yomi, such as 研究 (けんきゅう, research) and 質問 (しつもん, question). Learn the reading inside a real word rather than memorizing every reading of each kanji. The onyomi vs kunyomi guide explains how to tell which one a word uses.
• More verbs and adjectives. Kanji like 始, 終, 借 and 悪 usually appear with hiragana endings, as in 始まる (はじまる, to begin) and 悪い (わるい, bad). Learn the full word with its ending, as covered in okurigana explained.
• More look-alikes. Pairs such as 待 and 持, 体 and 休, or 借 and 貸 cause most N4 mistakes. Put them side by side and name the part that differs.
• More shared parts. Components like 言 (in 話, 語, 試) and 門 (in 開, 問, 聞) repeat across the level. Our list of common kanji radicals helps you spot them.

Weeks 13 and 14: review and test practice

Use the last two weeks to go back through each theme, focusing on characters you keep missing. Read short texts about familiar topics, since that is exactly what the N4 reading goal describes.

Then work through the official sample questions on the JLPT website. On N4, kanji are mainly tested in the vocabulary section, which lasts 25 minutes and includes kanji reading questions (choose the reading of a word written in kanji) and orthography questions (choose the correct kanji for a word written in hiragana). The test is multiple choice with no handwriting, but writing practice still helps you tell similar shapes apart quickly. For the overall test format, our guide on how to pass JLPT N5 covers the structure shared by both levels.

Short on time? Stretch each week over two weeks and keep the review days. Moving faster? Combine weeks, but never drop the review. Kanji is only part of N4, so pair this plan with grammar, vocabulary and listening practice.

Moji follows the same structure on your phone: it tracks JLPT progress from N5 to N1, schedules spaced repetition reviews, and adds guided stroke-order writing and Lock Screen widgets, so short daily sessions keep the plan moving.