JLPT N5 Study Plan: How Long It Takes and a Week-by-Week Schedule

This JLPT N5 study plan is built around the free tools on Nihongomachi: the kana trainer, 25 lessons, the study app with daily spaced-repetition reviews, practice for every question type and 5 timed mock tests. Below you will find an honest answer to how long N5 takes, a 30 to 45 minute daily routine, and three dated schedules for the July 2027 test (expected on 4 July). If you want the exam basics first, read the complete JLPT N5 guide.

• How long does it take to study for JLPT N5
• What the test looks like
• The daily routine
• The four phases
• Three schedules for July 4, 2027
• How to use listening practice
• The final two weeks
• Test day
• Common mistakes

How long does it take to study for JLPT N5

There is no official number of study hours for the JLPT. The Japan Foundation and JEES, who run the test, do not publish one, and the hour figures you see online are guesses that vary wildly. A more useful way to answer is to count what you have to learn.

Nihongomachi’s N5 set has 814 words and 103 kanji, so 917 items, split into 25 lessons. There has been no official vocabulary or kanji list since 2010, so the word list follows the widely used Tanos N5 list plus a few common beginner words (see the N5 vocabulary list guide). Grammar adds 89 points, about three or four per lesson.

The study app’s default is 10 new items a day. At that pace:

• 917 items ÷ 10 a day ≈ 92 days, so about 13 weeks to finish all 25 lessons.
• Add 1 to 2 weeks for hiragana and katakana before the lessons.
• Add 3 to 6 weeks of exam-format practice and mock tests after them.

That gives the estimates below. They come from the site’s own structure, not from any official source, and they assume you study every day.

Daily time	New items a day	Lessons finished in	Total, with kana and exam practice
15–20 min	5	about 26 weeks	about 7–8 months
30 min	8	about 17 weeks	about 6 months
45 min	12	about 11 weeks	about 4 months
60–90 min	20–25	about 6–7 weeks	about 10–12 weeks

Two things change these numbers. If you already read kana or have studied some Japanese, take a few weeks off. If you miss days, reviews pile up and the plan stretches. At 30 to 45 minutes a day, 4 to 6 months is a realistic range.

Estimate, not a rule: reviews take more time as you go. With 10 new items a day, expect your daily reviews to settle at a few times that number. If your reviews regularly take more than 20 minutes, lower your new items for a week.

What the test looks like

The current N5 format (since December 2020) has three separately timed sections:

Section	Time	What it tests	Practice types
Language Knowledge (Vocabulary)	20 min	Kanji readings, spelling, words in context, paraphrase	kanji reading, orthography, context, paraphrase
Language Knowledge (Grammar)・Reading	40 min	Grammar forms, sentence building, short and mid-length passages, finding information	grammar form, sentence assembly, text grammar, short reading, mid reading, info search
Listening	30 min	Task, key point, utterances, quick response	task, point, utterance, response

Scoring: the two Language Knowledge sections and Reading share one score of 0 to 120 (minimum 38). Listening is scored 0 to 60 (minimum 19). You pass with 80 out of 180 and both minimums. So the vocabulary section and the grammar and reading section are timed separately, but scored together, and listening has to stand on its own.

There is no speaking or writing section. That is why this plan has no speaking practice: it is good for your Japanese in general, but it does not earn points on this test.

The daily routine

This is the same routine for every schedule. Only the number of new items changes. It takes about 30 to 45 minutes.

Order	Step	Where	Time
1	Clear your due reviews (words and kanji mixed)	/app/review/	10–15 min
2	Learn today’s new items from the current lesson	the Today card in /app/	10–15 min
3	Read one grammar point and tick it	the current lesson page in /n5/lessons/	5–10 min
4	Do one short exam-style set	/n5/practice/	5–10 min

Reviews come first because they are the part that slips. Spaced repetition only works if you see each card on the day it is due. Reviews roll over at your local midnight.

New items come from your current lesson, kanji first. Set the number in Settings (new items per day, 0 to 30, default 10). Each lesson page also lists every word with an example sentence and audio, so read through the lesson before you learn its cards. When you reach the end of a lesson, do the short reading and the listening item at the bottom of its page: they use that lesson’s words and grammar in the exam format.

One grammar point a day is enough: there are 89 of them and you will reach the end of the lessons before you run out of days. Each grammar page has its own practice questions.

One practice set keeps you in contact with the real question types from early on. In the first few lessons you will meet words you have not learned yet, so start with the Today card’s suggested type, and from around lesson 6 do a set every day.

The four phases

Phase 0: kana (1 to 2 weeks)

Start at /n5/kana/. Learn the 46 basic hiragana with the hiragana chart and trainer, then the 46 katakana, then the voiced and combined sounds. The trainer counts a character as learned after three correct answers in a row. Until you have learned the basic kana, the Today card in the app starts with a kana step.

Do not skip katakana. N5 has plenty of loanwords such as テレビ (terebi, television) and コーヒー (koohii, coffee), and they appear in every section.

If you already read both scripts, tap “I can read kana” on the Today card and go straight to Phase 1.

Phase 1: lessons 1 to 25 with daily reviews

This is the longest phase. The 25 lessons move from greetings and “this and that” through numbers, people and family, time and dates, food and drink, places, home, school, directions and colours, counting and the body, clothes, getting around, and finish with nature and weather. Each lesson has about 32 words, up to five kanji and three or four grammar points, and ends with a short reading and a listening item in the exam format.

Work through them in order with the daily routine. A lesson is “done” when its items are in your reviews, its grammar points are ticked and you have tried its reading and listening item, not when every card is mastered. Stages come from your review history: an item is known after two correct answers in a row and mastered once its review interval reaches 21 days, so mastery lags behind on purpose.

Turn romaji off in Settings by about lesson 5. On the test there is no romaji.

Phase 2: exam-format practice by question type

Once the lessons are finished (or nearly), shift your practice time towards the test format. Keep your daily reviews going, but replace new items with two or three practice sets a day.

1. Do at least one set of every type on /n5/practice/, including all four listening types.
2. Note your accuracy for each type. Your weakest two or three types get most of your sets from now on.
3. Words you miss in vocabulary-section questions are added to your reviews automatically, so they keep coming back.

Weak types at N5 are often reading for information (info search), sentence assembly and quick-response listening. Your results will tell you which are yours.

Phase 3: timed mocks, spaced out

The site has five full mock tests in the current format, each with three timed sections and an estimated score. Use them at fixed points, not all at the end:

• Mock 1 when you finish the lessons. This is your baseline.
• Mocks 2, 3 and 4 at intervals of about a week while you practise your weakest types. Each one shows whether the practice is working and what to work on next.
• Mock 5 about two weeks before the test. This is your dress rehearsal, with time left to fix what it shows.

Take each one in a single sitting, at the time of day your test starts if you know it. After each mock, go through every wrong answer and sort it: a word you did not know, a grammar point, a reading or listening slip, or running out of time. Each needs a different fix (reviews, the grammar page, more sets of that type, or timed practice).

Three schedules for July 4, 2027

Pick the schedule that fits the time you really have, not the time you hope to have. Each starts on a Monday and ends on Sunday 4 July 2027, the expected date of the July test (confirm it on jlpt.jp once the 2027 dates are announced). Registration for the July test usually closes months in advance, so check the dates with your local organiser before you start.

6 months: 30 minutes a day (start Monday 4 January 2027)

New items per day: 8. About 1.5 lessons a week.

Weeks	Dates (2027)	Focus
1–2	4–17 Jan	Kana: hiragana, then katakana
3–6	18 Jan–14 Feb	Lessons 1–6
7–10	15 Feb–14 Mar	Lessons 7–12
11–14	15 Mar–11 Apr	Lessons 13–18
15–19	12 Apr–16 May	Lessons 19–25
20	17–23 May	Mock 1, then one set of every practice type
21	24–30 May	Practice: weakest types first
22	31 May–6 Jun	Mock 2, review every mistake
23	7–13 Jun	Mock 3, practice on what it showed
24	14–20 Jun	Mock 4, practice on what it showed
25–26	21 Jun–4 Jul	Mock 5 on 21 or 22 Jun, final two weeks, test

4 months: 45 minutes a day (start Monday 1 March 2027)

New items per day: 12. About 2.3 lessons a week.

Weeks	Dates (2027)	Focus
1–2	1–14 Mar	Kana: hiragana, then katakana
3–5	15 Mar–4 Apr	Lessons 1–7
6–8	5–25 Apr	Lessons 8–14
9–11	26 Apr–16 May	Lessons 15–21
12–13	17–30 May	Lessons 22–25
14	31 May–6 Jun	Mock 1, then one set of every practice type
15	7–13 Jun	Mock 2, practice: weakest types first
16	14–20 Jun	Mock 3 early in the week, mock 4 at the weekend, review every mistake
17–18	21 Jun–4 Jul	Mock 5 on 21 or 22 Jun, final two weeks, test

10 weeks intensive: 60 to 90 minutes a day (start Monday 26 April 2027)

New items per day: 20 to 25. About four lessons a week. This suits learners who already read kana or have some Japanese. Expect reviews alone to take 30 minutes or more by week 5.

Weeks	Dates (2027)	Focus
1	26 Apr–2 May	Kana (or skip if you read both scripts)
2–3	3–16 May	Lessons 1–8
4–5	17–30 May	Lessons 9–16
6–7	31 May–13 Jun	Lessons 17–25
8	14–20 Jun	Mock 1 early in the week, practice by type, mock 2 at the weekend
9	21–27 Jun	Mock 3 early in the week, weakest types, mock 4 at the weekend
10	28 Jun–4 Jul	Mock 5 on 28 or 29 Jun, light review, test

On this plan mock 5 falls one week before the test, not two, so keep the last week for fixing what it shows rather than new material.

If 26 April is too late for you to register where you live, the same 10-week plan works for any sitting: count back ten weeks from your test date.

Too close for December? The December 2026 sitting is on 6 December, about eight weeks after this guide was updated. Unless you already know kana and a good share of the vocabulary, July 2027 is the realistic target for a beginner starting today.

How to use listening practice

Listening has its own minimum (19 out of 60), so it cannot be left until the end. On the test you should not expect to hear a recording twice, so practise answering after a single listen.

The listening practice has two modes:

• Practice mode lets you replay the audio. Use it while you are learning: listen once, answer, then replay and read the transcript to see what you missed.
• Exam mode plays the audio once, which is how you should prepare for the test. Use it from Phase 2 onwards and in every listening set in the last month.

A simple rule: in Phase 1, one listening set every few days in practice mode. In Phases 2 and 3, alternate listening and reading sets daily, always in exam mode. Every word page and lesson page also has audio for each example sentence, so listen to those as you learn new words.

The final two weeks

• Stop new items. Set new items per day to 0 in Settings. New material learned now is unlikely to stick by test day.
• Keep up reviews every day. This is where your remaining gains are.
• Take mock 5 at the start of the fortnight, then spend the rest of it on the mistakes it showed.
• Listen every day in exam mode, one set a day.
• Read through your grammar pages for any point you got wrong in a mock.
• Sort out logistics. Check your admission voucher for the time, place and what to bring, and plan your journey.
• Shift your sleep if your test starts earlier than you usually get up.

Test day

Start times vary by country and test site, so go by your admission voucher, not by what someone online says. Bring exactly what the voucher lists, and arrive early.

In the room, the sections run in order: vocabulary (20 minutes), then grammar and reading (40 minutes), then listening (30 minutes). Pace each one on its own clock:

• Vocabulary: move quickly. If a kanji reading does not come to you, pick your best guess and go on.
• Grammar and reading: do the grammar questions briskly so you have time for the passages. For the information search question, read the question first, then find the part of the notice or table it asks about.
• Listening: read the answer choices before each recording starts if they are printed. If you miss one, choose an answer and let it go so you are ready for the next.

A blank answer cannot score, so mark your best guess for every question.

Common mistakes

Common mistake: skipping reviews to “catch up” on new items. Reviews are what move words into long-term memory. If you only have 15 minutes, do reviews and stop.

Common mistake: setting new items too high. 25 a day sounds fast, but the reviews it creates a month later can take an hour. Raise the number slowly and drop it if reviews pile up.

Common mistake: treating the first two sections as one 60-minute block. Vocabulary (20 minutes) and grammar and reading (40 minutes) are timed separately, so you cannot borrow time from one for the other. Practise each on its own clock.

Common mistake: using all five mocks in the last week. Spread them out (the first after the lessons, then about a week apart, the last two weeks before) so each one changes what you study next.

Common mistake: always replaying listening audio. Practice mode is for learning; exam mode is the real skill. Switch to exam mode by Phase 2.

Common mistake: missing が with すき, 分かる, ある and いる. At N5 these take が, not を:

• ねこがすきです。 (neko ga suki desu) I like cats.
• 日本語が分かります。 (nihongo ga wakarimasu) I understand Japanese.
• つくえの上に本があります。 (tsukue no ue ni hon ga arimasu) There is a book on the desk.
• へやにいぬがいます。 (heya ni inu ga imasu) There is a dog in the room.

For more on particles with nouns, see N5 noun grammar fundamentals.

Common mistake: studying only what feels comfortable. The practice page and mock results show your weakest question types. Those are where the next points are.

Ready to start? Open the kana trainer if you are new to Japanese, or go straight to lesson 1 and the Today card. Sign in with Google if you want your progress synced across devices; guests can study without limits.

Exam details are from the official JLPT website (test sections, scoring). Dates, fees and rules are set by local organisers, so check yours before you register. Vocabulary list based on the Tanos N5 list (tanos.co.uk, CC BY).

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to study for the JLPT N5?

There is no official figure. As an estimate from this site's own structure: N5 has 814 words and 103 kanji (917 items). Learning 10 new items a day takes about 13 weeks, plus 1 to 2 weeks for kana and 3 to 6 weeks of exam practice. That is roughly 4 to 6 months at 30 to 45 minutes a day, 7 to 8 months at 15 to 20 minutes, and about 10 to 12 weeks if you can give 60 to 90 minutes a day.

How many minutes a day should I study for the JLPT N5?

30 to 45 minutes a day is enough for a 4 to 6 month plan: clear your reviews, learn your new items, read one grammar point and do one exam-style practice set. Studying a little every day works better than long weekend sessions, because spaced-repetition reviews are scheduled by day.

Can I pass the JLPT N5 in 10 weeks?

It is possible if you can study 60 to 90 minutes every day and ideally already read hiragana and katakana. You would learn 20 to 25 new items a day, which brings a heavy review load. If you can only manage 30 minutes a day, choose a 4 or 6 month schedule or a later test date.

When should I take mock tests for the JLPT N5?

Spread them out. The site has five. Take mock 1 when you finish the lessons, as a baseline, then mocks 2 to 4 at intervals of about a week while you practise your weakest question types, and mock 5 about two weeks before the test. Taking them all in the last few days leaves no time to fix what they show.

Is the JLPT N5 on a Sunday morning?

The JLPT is held on Sundays (the July 2027 sitting is expected on 4 July; check jlpt.jp for the confirmed date), but start times vary by country and test site. Your admission voucher from your local organiser gives the exact time and place.

Do I need speaking practice for the JLPT N5?

No. The JLPT has no speaking or writing section. All questions are multiple choice. Speaking is useful for learning Japanese in general, but for the test your time is better spent on vocabulary, grammar, reading and listening.