Most Japanese learners start with kanji. They buy a kanji workbook, memorize stroke order for 日月火水木金土, and feel like they're making progress. Then they try to hold a basic conversation and realize they can't say anything useful. Kanji alone doesn't give you a language.
Nihondex takes a different approach. You learn vocabulary first. Kanji comes as a byproduct of that vocabulary, not the other way around.
Why vocabulary first?
Context makes kanji stick
When you learn the word 食べる (to eat) as a vocabulary item, the kanji 食 comes with it automatically. You're not memorizing an abstract symbol. You're memorizing a word that happens to be written with that symbol. The kanji sticks because it has meaning.
JLPT is vocab-driven
The JLPT tests vocabulary and grammar comprehension, not isolated kanji reading. N5 requires ~800 words, N4 ~1,500, all the way to N1 at ~10,000. The kanji you need to recognise appear in those words. Learning the words is learning the kanji.
You'll see the same kanji over and over
The 100 most common kanji appear in roughly 50% of all written Japanese. Those 100 kanji show up constantly in N5 vocabulary. By the time you finish N5, you'll have seen them hundreds of times in context, far more effective than drilling them in isolation.
What about writing kanji?
Nihondex focuses on reading and recognition, which covers 99% of real-world JLPT requirements. Writing kanji by hand is a separate skill that modern Japanese people increasingly rely on input tools (phones, keyboards) for anyway.
If you want to practice writing, the kanji section has stroke order animations. But don't let "I don't know how to write it" block you from learning what a word means.
The takeaway
- 1. Do your daily vocab and grammar reviews at /learn. That's where kanji knowledge is built.
- 2. Use the kanji lessons here as background context (history, radicals, readings), not as a primary study path.
- 3. Don't panic when you see a kanji you don't know. Exposure and repetition through vocabulary will take care of it.
A few kanji you'll meet in N5
These appear constantly. You'll memorise them without trying just by doing vocab reviews.
person
ひと / じん
day / sun
ひ / にち
book / origin
ほん / もと
see / look
み(る)
eat / food
た(べる)
language
ご / かた(る)