Memorize JLPT N5 Vocabulary: 697 Flashcards, the Homophone Pairs and Where the Deck Drifts Past N5
Learn JLPT N5 vocabulary with 697 English-to-Japanese flashcards: real cards, homophone pairs like 箸/橋, the も cards to merge and the tail that goes past N5.
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JLPT N5 Vocabulary (deck code WX0139, 697 cards) is a production deck: the front gives an English word, the back gives kana, romaji and kanji, as in station → えき (eki) — 駅. That is the direction you need for speaking. At N5 it is also the hardest direction, so plan for more misses than you would get going Japanese → English.
Study this deck: JLPT N5 Vocabulary
1 / 10water
Tap the card for the answer · swipe right if you knew it, left if not
A few real cards
| Front | Back |
|---|---|
| water | みず (mizu) — 水 |
| younger sister | いもうと (imouto) — 妹 |
| post office | ゆうびんきょく (yuubinkyoku) — 郵便局 |
| coffee shop | きっさてん (kissaten) — 喫茶店 |
| expensive | たかい (takai) — 高い |
| to wear (above waist) | きる (kiru) — 着る |
| yesterday | きのう (kinou) — 昨日 |
| hardly | ほとんど～ない (hotondo ~ nai) |
What the deck covers
The first ~470 cards are grouped by theme. Body parts: 手, 足, 目, 耳, 口. Family, in the humble forms 母, 父, 兄, 姉, 弟, 妹. Places: 駅, 空港, 病院, 銀行, 図書館, 公園. Then numbers and months (二, 二月), い-adjectives (白い, 新しい, 狭い), verbs (食べる, 帰る, 閉める, 遊ぶ, 運ぶ), food and tableware (ビール, カップ, 箸) and time words (先月, 後で). 155 cards are katakana loanwords or kana-only words with no kanji: ドア, バス, テレビ, コンピュータ, これ, みんな, どうぞ.
Homophones: learn them in pairs
24 backs are shared by two or more fronts. They fall into two groups:
- One word, two English glosses: たかい (tall / expensive), きれい (beautiful / clean), あし (foot / leg), さら (plate / dish). Merge these into one card each, with both meanings on the front.
- Different words that sound alike: はし 箸/橋 (chopsticks / bridge), ひ 日/火, はな 花/鼻, くも 雲/蜘蛛, かえる 帰る/蛙, きる 切る/着る, きく 聞く (listen / ask). Keep both cards, and add the other one's kanji to the hint, so that recalling はし forces you to say which はし. Native speakers tell 箸 and 橋 apart by pitch accent, so this is a good point to start learning it.
The four cards also / too / either / neither all give も. That is one particle, not four words. Replace them with a single grammar card, for example 私も行きます / 私も行きません.
Where it drifts past N5
From about card 470 the deck starts listing nature and animal words, and many are well beyond N5: 稲妻 (lightning), 鷲 (eagle), 白鳥 (swan), 鯨 (whale), 烏賊 (squid), 情報, 種類. The same goes for 決して (never, card 396). They are good words, but the label is wrong. Learn cards 1–470 before your exam and leave the tail for later. Gold → きん (金) is correct, but the N5 word you will actually see is お金 (money). Add it.
Study tip
Before the exam, run a reverse session (kanji → reading only). N5 tests 漢字読み, reading kanji, and this deck mostly trains you to produce words.
Once N5 is solid, the next step uses the same card format: JLPT N3 Vocabulary.
Find JLPT N5 Vocabulary (WX0139) in the library on Flip It.
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