KanjiSchool
🌐EN
What Japanese reading level
are you?
One question. Pick the hardest line you can still read — no dictionary, no guessing. Every line uses only the kanji taught up to one Japanese school grade, so your answer maps to a level you can check against a real list.
Which line can you still read?
All six say the same news story — rewritten for six school grades.
Tap a line to see your level. Nothing is sent anywhere.
What each grade covers
| Grade | Difficulty | New kanji | Total known | of 1,026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 1 | Easiest | +80 | 80 | 8% | Practice → |
| Grade 2 | Easy | +160 | 240 | 23% | Practice → |
| Grade 3 | Medium | +200 | 440 | 43% | Practice → |
| Grade 4 | Upper | +213 | 653 | 64% | Practice → |
| Grade 5 | Hard | +186 | 839 | 82% | Practice → |
| Grade 6 | Hardest | +187 | 1,026 | 100% | Practice → |
Counts follow the Ministry of Education Kyōiku list — 1,026 kanji taught across the six primary school years.
Why school grades instead of JLPT?
Japan's Ministry of Education publishes the Kyōiku kanji list — exactly which characters are taught in which school year. That makes a grade something you can check against a real list. JLPT publishes no official kanji list of that kind, which is why "N4 kanji" means slightly different things depending on who you ask.
Questions
How can I tell what Japanese reading level I am?
Read sentences of increasing kanji difficulty and find the hardest one you can still read without lookups. Because Japan assigns each kanji to a specific school grade, that sentence tells you which grade of kanji you have covered.
Is this the same as a JLPT level test?
No. This measures kanji coverage against the official Kyōiku school-grade list, which is a published, verifiable set. JLPT has no official kanji list of that kind, so grade level and JLPT level do not map one to one.
How long does the test take?
About twenty seconds. There is one question: pick the hardest line you can still read. There is no sign-up, no email and no timer.
How many kanji are there in each school grade?
Japanese primary school teaches 1,026 Kyōiku kanji across six grades: Grade 1 reaches 80, Grade 2 reaches 240, Grade 3 reaches 440, Grade 4 reaches 653, Grade 5 reaches 839, Grade 6 reaches 1,026.