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The 50 most common kanji JLPT order withholds

Ranked by published-Japanese frequency. None of these are on the JLPT N5 vocabulary lists that feed Kanji Drift’s exam path, so an N5-first syllabus makes you wait.

Frequency order and exam order are different cuts of the same 2,608 characters. N5 first is a tight match to a test; it is not a match to what you will actually read. These fifty are the most common characters that cut withholds.

“JLPT level” here is the easiest official word in the deck that uses the character (N4, N3, N2, N1), or a dash if no exam-listed word in the deck uses it. Frequency path / exam path are the bands those characters sit at in Kanji Drift.

#	Freq rank	字	Meaning	Easiest word	Freq path	Exam path
1	17	思	Think	N4	I	I
2	24	的	Target	N3	I	XVII
3	26	合	Suit	N4	I	II
4	31	場	Location	N4	I	I
5	33	第	Ordinal Number Prefix	N3	I	VIII
6	37	定	Determine	N4	I	II
7	44	法	Method	N4	I	II
8	47	性	Gender	N4	I	II
9	52	用	Task	N4	I	I
10	57	実	Truth	N3	I	II
11	63	代	Substitute	N4	I	I
12	67	感	Feeling	N3	I	II
13	71	力	Power	N4	I	I
14	73	対	Versus	N4	I	II
15	74	発	Departure	N4	I	I
16	79	心	Heart	N4	I	I
17	80	田	Rice Paddy	N4	I	I
18	81	内	Inside	N4	I	II
19	85	通	Pass Through	N4	I	I
20	87	化	Change	N4	I	II
21	89	現	Present Time	N3	I	II
22	90	最	Most	N4	I	II
23	91	考	Think	N4	I	I
24	92	世	World	N4	I	I
25	93	以	From	N4	I	I
26	95	彼	He	N4	I	III
27	97	主	Master	N4	I	I
28	98	不	Not	N4	I	I
29	99	条	Clause	N3	I	VIII
30	101	成	Become	N3	I	III
31	104	回	Times	N4	I	III
32	107	表	Express	N4	I	III
33	108	面	Face	N3	I	III
34	110	身	Body	N3	I	XVII
35	113	戦	War	N4	I	III
36	116	変	Change	N4	I	III
37	121	等	Equal	N4	I	III
38	125	相	Mutual	N4	I	III
39	127	数	Count	N4	I	III
40	129	受	Accept	N4	I	III
41	135	続	Continue	N4	II	III
42	136	正	Correct	N4	II	I
43	139	原	Original	N4	II	III
44	140	記	Write Down	N4	II	III
45	142	解	Solve	N3	II	III
46	144	決	Decide	N4	II	III
47	145	界	World	N4	II	II
48	152	説	Theory	N4	II	III
49	154	経	Passage Of Time	N4	II	III
50	156	平	Flat	N3	II	III

Compiled from a Japanese government frequency survey of published Japanese (文化庁, 2022). Not a government publication. Rank is a sort order, not a coverage percentage. Full frequency ranking.