Memorize JLPT N1 Vocabulary: 771 English-to-Japanese Flashcards with Kana, Romaji and Kanji

Most JLPT N1 vocabulary decks run Japanese to English: you see 詮索する and try to recall what it means. JLPT N1 Vocabulary (deck code PQ9503, 771 cards) runs the other way. The front is an English word — to discern, contamination, to ameliorate — and the back gives you kana, romaji and kanji. That makes it a production deck, and production is exactly where N1 candidates stall.

Sample cards

What the 771 cards cover

Abstract registers, almost all of them Sino-Japanese compounds: contemplation and judgement (黙想, 瞑想, 熟考, 思案, 審議, 識別力), starting and undertaking (就任, 着手, 開始, 乗船, 事業), pollution and decay (汚染, 汚れ, 悪化), coercion and manipulation (強制, 強いる, 制約, 操作), slander and provocation (中傷, 扇動, 嘲笑う), improvement and legal change (改善, 改正, 償却), plus abstention (棄権), invalidation (無効にする), satisfaction (満足), impediment (障害), authentication, augury, attenuation and auditing. Every entry is paired verb-and-noun: to pollute / pollution, to amend / amendment.

It is really two decks

Cards 1 to about 565 are grouped by meaning — you get a whole cluster on defilement, then one on compulsion. From roughly card 566 the deck switches to a straight alphabetical list, and it stops dead: 164 entries under A, 42 under B, ending at to behead. Nothing from C to Z. Treat the tail as a separate, unfinished sub-deck rather than the home stretch, and shuffle after your first pass so you are not drilling attenuation, attribute, attrition, auction, audit, augur in that order forever.

Two things to fix as you go

Collapse the synonym fans. Only 663 of the 771 backs are distinct. To defile, to pollute and to contaminate all resolve to 汚染する; coercion and compulsion both give 強制. You are not learning four words, you are learning one Japanese word with four English doors into it. Suspend the extras, keep the most natural English prompt, and note the fan on that card instead — otherwise your streak counts progress you have not made.

Check a few backs. To behead is written 首を跳ねる here; the correct kanji is 刎ねる (跳ねる means to jump). To deliberate is glossed しゅくぎ for 熟議, which reads じゅくぎ. Scrutiny is answered with 注目 (attention), not 詮索. And to embark gives 乗船する, which only covers boarding a ship, not embarking on a project. Rewrite those four rather than memorising them.

Reading N1 kanji is the other half of the job — pair this deck with the Kanji N2 and N1 study guide so recognition and production advance together.

Find JLPT N1 Vocabulary (PQ9503) in the library at flip-it.app.