The Most Common Kanji in Japanese

Where the frequency numbers come from

The ranking most learners see is the frequency field in KANJIDIC, the free kanji dictionary file maintained by the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group. It ranks the 2,501 most used characters, based on an analysis of four years of the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper by Alexandre Girardi. Many dictionary sites and apps show this number, often as a line like "5 of 2500 most used kanji in newspapers".

Two caveats come with it. The data is newspaper text, so characters from politics and business rank higher than they would in a novel or a text message. And the KANJIDIC documentation itself notes that the order of the last few hundred ranked characters is imprecise. Treat the top of the list as reliable and the tail as rough.

Frequency is also very uneven. In a 2007 survey of books, magazines and textbooks, Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs found that more than 96% of all kanji occurrences were characters on the official jōyō list, which then had 1,945 characters. A small core does most of the work, which is why the total number of kanji matters less than which ones you learn first.

The top 10 most common kanji

Eight of these ten are taught in the first year of Japanese elementary school (国 and 会 come in the second), and all but 会 are usually listed among the JLPT N5 kanji. Most are also tiny: 人 has two strokes, 大 three and 日 four. The exception is 国 with eight, and even that is just a king's jewel (玉) inside a border (囗).

Numbers and time

Dates, prices and times fill real text, so number and time kanji rank very high. After 一, 十 and 二 in the top ten, 三 is 14th, 時 (hour, time) 16th, 月 (moon, month) 23rd and 分 (minute, part) 24th. 年 at 6th appears in almost every date.

• 時 (じ): 三時 (さんじ, three o'clock), 時間 (じかん, time, hours)
• 月 (がつ, げつ): 十月 (じゅうがつ, October), 月曜日 (げつようび, Monday)
• 分 (ふん, ぷん, ぶん): 五分 (ごふん, five minutes), 自分 (じぶん, oneself)
• 今 (いま): 今日 (きょう, today), 今年 (ことし, this year)

These are worth learning as a set together with Japanese numbers and the days of the week, because they keep appearing on the same calendars, receipts and timetables.

People, places and organizations

News is about people and institutions, so these kanji climb high in a newspaper count. 会 (4th) shows up in 会社 (かいしゃ, company), 会議 (かいぎ, meeting) and 国会 (こっかい, the Diet, Japan's parliament). 社 (21st) appears in 会社 and 社長 (しゃちょう, company president). Others in the top 100 include:

• 者 (しゃ, もの, 38th): person who does something, as in 記者 (きしゃ, reporter)
• 東 (ひがし, 37th) and 京 (きょう, 74th): together 東京 (とうきょう, Tokyo)
• 子 (こ, 72nd): child, as in 子ども (こども, child)
• [学](/kanji/学) (がく, 63rd): study, as in 学生 (がくせい, student)
• [生](/kanji/生) (せい, 29th): life, birth, as in 先生 (せんせい, teacher)

This is also where the newspaper bias shows most clearly. 政 (politics) is 17th and 議 (deliberation) is 25th, mostly because of words like 政府 (せいふ, government) and 会議. You will see them in the news far more than in a manga, so if your goal is casual reading, they can wait a little.

Size, position and direction

Short descriptive kanji are everywhere, both on their own and inside compounds. Several of them come in natural pairs, which makes them easier to learn together:

• 大 (big, 7th) and 小 (small, 114th): 大きい (おおきい) and 小さい (ちいさい)
• [中](/kanji/中) (middle, inside, 11th): 中国 (ちゅうごく, China), 中 (なか, inside)
• [長](/kanji/長) (long, leader, 12th): 長い (ながい, long), 社長
• 上 (above, 35th) and 下 (below, 97th): 上 (うえ) and 下 (した)
• 前 (front, before, 27th) and 後 (behind, after, 26th): 午前 (ごぜん, a.m.) and 午後 (ごご, p.m.)
• 高 (tall, expensive, 65th): 高い (たかい)

The everyday verbs

A handful of very common verbs give you a big boost in reading, because each one also appears in many compounds. Their kanji readings change between the verb and the compound, which is the on'yomi and kun'yomi split in action:

• [出](/kanji/出) (13th): 出る (でる, to go out), 出口 (でぐち, exit)
• [行](/kanji/行) (20th): 行く (いく, to go), 銀行 (ぎんこう, bank)
• [見](/kanji/見) (22nd): 見る (みる, to see), 見物 (けんぶつ, sightseeing)
• 来 (102nd): 来る (くる, to come), 来年 (らいねん, next year)
• 同 (15th): 同じ (おなじ, the same)
• 事 (18th): 仕事 (しごと, work), 事 (こと, thing, matter)

How to learn the most common kanji first

A frequency list tells you what to learn, not how. A few habits make the difference:

• Learn each kanji through a word. 会 alone is abstract, but 会社 is a word you will read and hear constantly.
• Group by theme, not by rank. Learning 上 and 下, or 前 and 後, together is easier than following the list one number at a time.
• Do not skip simple characters. 一, 二 and 十 rank in the top ten for a reason, and they are the easiest wins you will get.
• Review on a schedule. Common kanji come back often in reading, but short spaced reviews make sure they stick before you meet them in the wild.

If you prefer a ready-made order, the JLPT N5 and N4 sets cover most of the characters on this page, and our guide to learning kanji explains a full study routine. Moji teaches kanji from JLPT N5 to N1 with spaced repetition reviews and guided stroke-order writing, and you can test yourself any time with the free kanji quiz.

Pick any Japanese web page and circle the kanji you already know. Doing this once a week is a quick way to watch the most common characters turn familiar.