---

Why OpenJLPT?

Building a Japanese-learning app means stitching together half a dozen half-maintained repos, then discovering none of them agree on levels, most have no example data, and the licensing is a mystery. OpenJLPT fixes that:

• ✅ Complete — vocabulary and kanji for every level, N5 through N1.
• ✅ Example sentences — real Japanese↔English sentence pairs (Tatoeba) on 89% of words.
• ✅ One canonical schema — documented, versioned, validated in CI.
• ✅ Three formats — JSON (per level), CSV (spreadsheet-friendly), and a prebuilt, indexed SQLite database for real queries.
• ✅ Honestly licensed — CC BY-SA 4.0 with a full NOTICE. We tell you exactly where every field comes from.
• ✅ Reproducible — one command rebuilds the whole dataset from upstream sources.

How it compares

Repo	Vocab	Kanji	Examples	Grammar	SQLite	Clear license	Maintained
Typical vocab list repo	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	⚠️	❌
Typical kanji-data repo	❌	✅	❌	❌	❌	⚠️	⚠️
OpenJLPT	✅	✅	✅	🔜	✅	✅	✅

Who is this for?

New here and not a programmer? In plain terms: the JLPT is the official Japanese exam, with five levels (N5 = beginner → N1 = advanced). To study, you need to know which words and kanji belong to each level. OpenJLPT is a clean, complete, free master list of all of them — with real example sentences — ready to drop into any app or study tool. Think pre-washed, pre-chopped ingredients instead of digging them out of the dirt yourself.

• 🛠️ App & tool makers — building a flashcard app, quiz game, or study bot? Skip weeks of tedious data-gathering and go straight to building the fun part.
• 👩‍🏫 Teachers — pull ready-made word and kanji lists for worksheets and lesson materials.
• 🎓 Learners & self-studiers — grab the exact "what do I need for N4?" lists, with examples.
• 🔬 Researchers & tinkerers — a clean, well-documented dataset to build and experiment on.

Not sure how to use the files? Start with the Quick start below — you can grab the data with no coding at all.

What's inside

Level	Vocabulary	Kanji
N5	662	79
N4	632	166
N3	1,784	367
N2	1,793	367
N1	3,463	1,232
Total	8,334	2,211

data/
├── json/
│   ├── vocab/{n5,n4,n3,n2,n1}.json
│   └── kanji/{n5,n4,n3,n2,n1}.json
├── csv/
│   ├── vocab-n5.csv … vocab-n1.csv
│   └── kanji-n5.csv … kanji-n1.csv
└── openjlpt.sqlite          # tables: vocab, kanji (indexed by level, word, character)

Quick start

Just the data (no install)

Grab the JSON or CSV straight from data/. Each vocabulary entry — with example sentences where available (89% of words):

{
  "word": "食べる", "reading": "たべる", "meanings": ["to eat"], "level": "N5",
  "examples": [
    { "ja": "魚を食べる。", "en": "I eat fish." }
  ]
}

Each kanji entry:

{
  "character": "日", "level": "N5", "strokes": 4, "grade": 1, "freq": 1,
  "onyomi": ["ニチ", "ジツ"], "kunyomi": ["ひ", "-び", "-か"],
  "meanings": ["day", "sun", "Japan", "counter for days"]
}

npm (TypeScript loader)

npm install openjlpt

import { getVocab, findKanji, searchVocab } from 'openjlpt';

getVocab('N5');            // → all 662 N5 words, fully typed
findKanji('日');           // → { level: 'N5', strokes: 4, onyomi: ['ニチ','ジツ'], ... }
searchVocab('eat', 'N5');  // → [{ word: '食べる', reading: 'たべる', ... }]

Python (PyPI loader)

pip install openjlpt

from openjlpt import get_vocab, find_kanji, search_vocab, query

get_vocab("N5")               # → all 662 N5 words, typed dataclasses
find_kanji("日")              # → Kanji(character='日', level='N5', strokes=4, ...)
search_vocab("eat", "N5")     # → [Vocab(word='食べる', reading='たべる', ...)]

# Prebuilt SQLite database is bundled, ready for analysis:
query("SELECT word, reading FROM vocab WHERE level = 'N5' LIMIT 5")

SQLite

-- All N3 kanji, most frequent first
SELECT character, strokes, meanings FROM kanji WHERE level = 'N3' ORDER BY freq;

-- Look up a word
SELECT word, reading, meanings FROM vocab WHERE word = '食べる';

Where the data comes from

JLPT never publishes official word/kanji lists, so level assignments come from Jonathan Waller's community-standard lists (CC BY), and kanji details are enriched from KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0). Full details and caveats are in NOTICE.md.

Rebuild from source

npm install
npm run build        # fetch upstream → build JSON/CSV/SQLite → validate

Individual steps: npm run fetch, npm run build:data, npm run validate.

Roadmap

• N5–N1 vocabulary (JSON + CSV + SQLite)
• N5–N1 kanji enriched from KANJIDIC2
• Canonical JSON Schema + CI validation
• Example sentences per word (Tatoeba)
• Structured grammar points per level
• Audio (native / TTS)
• Python package on PyPI
• Hosted REST / GraphQL API

Contributing

Corrections and additions are very welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md.

💛 Support

OpenJLPT is free and open. If it saves you time, please consider sponsoring — it funds the ongoing data updates that keep the dataset current and correct. A ⭐ helps too!

License

• Dataset & code: CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to use, including commercially, with attribution and share-alike. See NOTICE.md for source attribution.

Related resources

A small curated hub for building Japanese-learning tools:

• JMdict / EDICT & KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG) — the foundational dictionaries
• Jonathan Waller's JLPT Resources — JLPT lists & study material
• Tatoeba — CC-licensed example sentences
• Yomitan — browser pop-up dictionary
• Anki — spaced-repetition flashcards