Learning Kanji - Numbers

Learning Kanji - Numbers

At first, learning kanji felt pretty overwhelming—all those complex characters and meanings! But now that I’m preparing for the JLPT N5, I’ve come to see it as a challenge worth taking on. I’ve already got a good grasp of hiragana and katakana, and now I’m slowly adding basic kanji to my study routine. There’s something incredibly rewarding about recognizing a character on a sign, a menu, or in anime—it makes me feel like I’m actually starting to understand real Japanese.

Since the JLPT N5 covers essential and frequently used kanji, I’m tackling them little by little. And where better to begin than with numbers? You see them everywhere—on prices, dates, times, and more. They’re also some of the first kanji learners encounter, and for good reason.

So today, we’re focusing on the kanji for 1 to 10, 100, and 1,000. They’re straightforward in structure, but once you learn them, you’ll start noticing them all around you.

Let’s get started!

一: 1

二: 2

三: 3

四: 4

五: 5

六: 6

七: 7

八: 8

九: 9

十: 10 

百: 100 

千: 1000

I hope this helped you learn your first 12 kanji characters—you’re off to a great start!