Basic Kanji for Beginners: Chart & Tips for Foreign Students

2026/06/20

Kanji are the meaning-carrying characters at the core of written Japanese, used together with hiragana and katakana. 

The reassuring part of learning kanji for beginners is that just a few hundred characters already unlock real reading. 

This guide walks you through a clear plan, simple reading and writing rules, and a basic kanji chart to lock in your first 100 characters.

How Should I Start Learning Kanji as a Beginner?

Knowing how to start learning kanji as a beginner is mostly a question of order. Follow these steps and the mountain turns into a staircase:

1. Read kana : Kanji assume you can already read hiragana and katakana, so cover those two scripts first. Our complete guide to Japanese letters walks you through them.
2. Begin with pictographs: characters that look like their meaning, such as 山 (mountain), 川 (river), and 木 (tree), are the easy kanji for beginners to anchor on.
3. Learn kanji inside words : Never study a character on its own, learn 食 through 食べる for example. 
4. Use radicals as clues : Radicals are recurring building blocks. The water radical 氵 hints at the meaning of 海 (sea) and 池 (pond) before you even look them up.

A simple first-week schedule:

• Days 1~2: the ten number kanji (一 to 十)
• Days 3~4: the days of the week (日 月 火 水 木 金 土)
• Days 5~7: everyday words (人, 大, 小, 入口, 出口)

Is Learning 20 Japanese Kanji a Day Too Much?

Learning 20 Japanese kanji a day is possible, but only in a narrow sense. With a mnemonic system, many learners can recognise 20 to 30 new characters daily for a while. But most people who study at that pace forget the characters just as fast and burn out within weeks.

The right pace for learning kanji for beginners is a small daily set, ideally one kun-reading and one on-reading example per character. Studying a few basic kanji every day for fifteen minutes will always beat memorising fifty the night before a test and losing them the week after.

How Long Does It Take to Learn Kanji as a Foreign Student?

How long it takes to learn kanji depends almost entirely on consistency, but here are realistic milestones:

• First 100 basic kanji: one to two months with daily practice.
• Around 1,000 kanji: enough to read everyday Japanese, roughly a Japanese sixth-grader’s level.
• 2,136 Jōyō (“regular-use”) kanji: full adult literacy, which native speakers themselves spend years in school mastering.

Treat the first hundred as a milestone. 

Kanji Reading Tips for Beginners

The most useful reading tip for beginners is to learn words,. Most kanji have two kinds of pronunciation: kun’yomi and on’yomi. Memorising every reading from a dictionary is a waste of time, you absorb them naturally through vocabulary.

A few patterns make how to read kanji for beginners far less daunting:

• A kanji followed by hiragana usually takes its kun reading: 見る (miru).
• Two or more kanji together usually take their on readings: 大学 (daigaku).
• A single kanji on its own is most often read with its kun reading: 国 (kuni).

And when a text shows small hiragana above a kanji, that is furigana, a built-in pronunciation guide and a beginner’s best friend. For a closer look at how the three scripts work together, see our Japanese writing systems guide.

Kanji Writing Rules to Know

The kanji writing rules worth knowing early are about stroke order, and they follow clear patterns rather than rote memorisation. The two golden rules are top to bottom and left to right: horizontal strokes run left to right, vertical strokes run top to bottom. A few more cover most characters:

• Write horizontal strokes before the vertical ones that cross them (十).
• For a symmetrical character, write the centre line first, then the sides (木).
• A box like 口 is three strokes, not four, and an enclosure is closed off last (国).

Good news on how to write kanji for beginners: you almost never need to write from memory today. Typing handles 99% of modern writing, so beyond your own name and address, recognising kanji matters far more than reproducing them by hand.

100 Basic Kanji Chart for Beginners (+ Free 100 Kanji PDF)

This kanji chart for beginners is organised around the everyday themes you meet first, with a common reading, an example word, and its meaning for each character. For a complementary list built around the exam, see our JLPT N5 kanji list.

Counting from One to Ten

Kanji	Reading	Example	Meaning
一	ichi / hito	一つ (hitotsu)	one
二	ni / futa	二つ (futatsu)	two
三	san / mi	三つ (mittsu)	three
四	shi / yon	四つ (yottsu)	four
五	go / itsu	五つ (itsutsu)	five
六	roku / mu	六つ (muttsu)	six
七	shichi / nana	七つ (nanatsu)	seven
八	hachi / ya	八つ (yattsu)	eight
九	kyū / ku	九つ (kokonotsu)	nine
十	jū / tō	十 (tō)	ten

Days of the Week

Kanji	Reading	Example	Meaning
日	nichi / hi	日曜日 (nichiyōbi)	day, sun
月	getsu / tsuki	月曜日 (getsuyōbi)	moon, month
火	ka / hi	火曜日 (kayōbi)	fire
水	sui / mizu	水曜日 (suiyōbi)	water
木	moku / ki	木曜日 (mokuyōbi)	tree, wood
金	kin / kane	金曜日 (kinyōbi)	gold, money
土	do / tsuchi	土曜日 (doyōbi)	earth, soil

People & Family

Kanji	Reading	Example	Meaning
人	jin / hito	一人 (hitori)	person
男	dan / otoko	男の人 (otoko no hito)	man
女	jo / onna	女の子 (onna no ko)	woman
子	shi / ko	子ども (kodomo)	child
父	chichi	お父さん (otōsan)	father
母	bo / haha	お母さん (okāsan)	mother
友	yū / tomo	友だち (tomodachi)	friend

Parts of the Body

Kanji	Reading	Example	Meaning
目	moku / me	目 (me)	eye
耳	ji / mimi	耳 (mimi)	ear
口	kō / kuchi	口 (kuchi)	mouth
手	shu / te	手 (te)	hand
足	soku / ashi	足 (ashi)	foot, leg
体	tai / karada	体 (karada)	body

Nature & Weather

Kanji	Reading	Example	Meaning
山	san / yama	山 (yama)	mountain
川	sen / kawa	川 (kawa)	river
天	ten	天気 (tenki)	sky, heaven
空	kū / sora	空 (sora)	sky, empty
雨	u / ame	雨 (ame)	rain
花	ka / hana	花 (hana)	flower

Describing Things

Kanji	Reading	Example	Meaning
大	dai / ō	大きい (ōkii)	big
小	shō / chii	小さい (chiisai)	small
高	kō / taka	高い (takai)	tall, expensive
安	an / yasu	安い (yasui)	cheap
新	shin / atara	新しい (atarashii)	new
古	ko / furu	古い (furui)	old
長	chō / naga	長い (nagai)	long
白	haku / shiro	白い (shiroi)	white

Everyday Actions

Kanji	Reading	Example	Meaning
見	ken / mi	見る (miru)	to see
聞	bun / ki	聞く (kiku)	to hear
食	shoku / ta	食べる (taberu)	to eat
飲	in / no	飲む (nomu)	to drink
行	kō / i	行く (iku)	to go
来	rai / ku	来る (kuru)	to come

Download our free 100 Basic Kanji chart (PDF), ready to save on your phone for daily review.

Start Learning Your First Easy Kanji Before Studying in Japan

Before studying in Japan, a little beginner’s kanji for foreign exchange students goes a long way. Learning these on your own is a great start, but a structured course gets you reading, writing, and speaking far faster. 

At Nihongo Online School, our private 1-on-1 online lessons are designed for students planning to study in Japan, and they build your kanji alongside the vocabulary, grammar, and conversation you will actually use.

 Our 150-hour foundation program takes you to around JLPT N5 (CEFR A1) in three to six months, with regular JLPT mock exams and a certificate of completion to support your language-school application. It is the fastest, clearest path through kanji for beginners, guided by a dedicated teacher from start to finish.