Free Kanji Worksheet Generator
Make printable kanji practice sheets with stroke order for any kanji in the JLPT N5 to N1 lists or in your own Japanese text. Each kanji gets its readings and meaning, numbered stroke steps, tracing squares and blank practice grids, up to 30 kanji per worksheet. Print on A4 or US Letter or save as PDF, free and with no signup. Starting with kana? Use the hiragana worksheets or katakana worksheets.
How the kanji worksheet generator works
Pick a JLPT level from N5 to N1 to see every one of its kanji on one page, then click kanji in the order you want them on the worksheet. Numbered badges show your selection order, and you can search within a list by kanji, reading or English meaning to find exactly the characters from this week's lesson. Or paste a passage from your textbook and the generator pulls out each kanji once, in order of first appearance. When you are done, the preview shows the finished pages, where you can switch between A4 and US Letter and choose one or two practice rows per character before printing.
What is on each free worksheet
Every character block shows the character in a practice square with its readings and English meaning, the full stroke sequence as numbered step-by-step diagrams, and practice rows for handwriting: three gray characters to trace, two faint ones to guide you, and blank squares to write from memory. The character's JLPT level and stroke count are printed beside it, and every sheet has a name and date line at the top. Squares can have the dashed center guides used in Japanese practice notebooks or be plain genkō yōshi style boxes.
Why practice stroke order?
Writing a kanji in the correct stroke order is how the shape becomes muscle memory. Characters written in the standard order come out better proportioned, are easier to remember, and match how every dictionary and teacher presents them. Stroke order also matters when you look a kanji up by handwriting on a phone, where recognition often depends on the order of your strokes.
Kanji stroke order rules
Most kanji follow a small set of rules. Learn these and you can usually guess the order of a kanji you have never written; the worksheets then confirm it, stroke by stroke.
- Top to bottom: 三 is written from its top line down.
- Left to right: the three strokes of 川 go from left to right.
- Horizontal before vertical when they cross: 十 starts with the horizontal line.
- Center before the two sides: 小 and 水 start with the middle stroke.
- Outside before inside, close the box last: in 日 and 国 the frame comes first, then what is inside, and the bottom line that closes the box is written last.
- A vertical through the middle comes last: 中 is the box first, then the long vertical.
- Left-falling before right-falling: 人 and 文 write the stroke falling to the left before the one falling to the right.
There are exceptions, and they are worth knowing: 右 (right) starts with the slanted stroke, but 左 (left) starts with the horizontal one. When in doubt, follow the numbered diagram.
Kanji practice sheets by JLPT level
The JLPT does not publish official kanji lists, so this generator uses the community-standard groupings, which together cover every kanji you will meet on the test. Within each level the kanji are ordered by how often they appear in newspapers, so the most useful ones come first, and “Add first 30” gives you a worksheet of a level's 30 most common kanji in one click. Kanji outside the lists, such as names, are still available through the paste-your-own-text option.
| Level | Kanji | The ten most common |
|---|---|---|
| JLPT N5 | 79 | 日 day, 一 one, 国 country, 人 person, 年 year, 大 large, 十 ten, 二 two, 本 book, 中 in |
| JLPT N4 | 166 | 会 meeting, 同 same, 事 matter, 自 oneself, 社 company, 発 departure, 者 someone, 地 ground, 業 business, 方 direction |
| JLPT N3 | 367 | 政 politics, 議 deliberation, 民 people, 連 take along, 対 vis-a-vis, 部 section, 合 fit, 市 market, 内 inside, 相 inter- |
| JLPT N2 | 367 | 党 party, 協 co-, 総 general, 区 ward, 領 jurisdiction, 県 prefecture, 設 establishment, 改 reformation, 府 borough, 査 investigate |
| JLPT N1 | 1,232 | 氏 family name, 統 overall, 保 protect, 第 No., 結 tie, 派 faction, 案 plan, 策 scheme, 基 fundamentals, 価 value |
N5 is the place to start: its 79 kanji are the numbers, days, people and places of first-year Japanese. Each later level builds on the ones before it.
Start with hiragana and katakana
Kanji stroke order uses the same rules as kana, so most learners write hiragana and katakana first. The hiragana worksheets and katakana worksheets use this same generator, open on each chart, with the voiced forms and a button that adds a whole row at a time. The kana charts are also in the list menu above, if you want kana and kanji on one sheet.
Free worksheets for teachers and classrooms
The printable worksheets work as handouts and homework as they are: name and date line, clean black-and-white printing, and your exact character selection in your exact order. Build one worksheet per lesson, per JLPT level or per student, and photocopy freely. Japanese teachers can use the generator for classroom material at no cost. For blank practice squares and genkō yōshi manuscript paper without stroke diagrams, see the free Japanese writing paper. For reading practice to go with the writing, the kanji to hiragana converter prints any text with furigana above only the kanji your students have not learned yet.
Frequently asked questions
Is the kanji worksheet generator really free?
Yes. Build and print as many worksheets as you like, with no account, no signup and no watermark beyond a small footer. It is free for personal study and for classroom use.
Which kanji can I put on a worksheet?
Every kanji in the JLPT N5 to N1 lists (2,211 in all), plus any other kanji in your own pasted text that KanjiVG can draw, about 6,700 characters in all. You can mix levels on one worksheet, up to 30 characters, and search by kanji, reading or English meaning.
Does it make hiragana and katakana practice sheets too?
Yes. The same generator makes kana sheets, and the free hiragana worksheets and katakana worksheets pages open it on each chart, with the voiced forms, a button to add a whole row, and a guide to each script.
How many kanji should I practice at a time?
Five to ten new kanji per worksheet is a common pace for self-study, with yesterday's kanji added back in for review. The generator keeps your exact order, so you can put review kanji first and new ones after.
Are the JLPT levels official?
No JLPT kanji list is official: the test organizers stopped publishing lists in 2010. This generator uses the community-standard groupings compiled by Jonathan Waller and packaged by OpenJLPT, which are what most JLPT study resources follow.
Can I print on A4 as well as US Letter paper?
Yes. The preview has toggles for A4 and US Letter, for one or two practice rows, for plain or center-guided squares, and for showing or hiding the stroke order row. With two practice rows you get 3 characters per page; with one compact row you get 4 on US Letter and 5 on A4.
How do I save a worksheet as a PDF?
Click Print on the preview page, then choose "Save as PDF" as the destination in your browser's print dialog.
Do the worksheets show the correct stroke order?
Yes. Every character is drawn step by step in the standard stroke order, with each new stroke numbered and highlighted, using the KanjiVG stroke order data.
Licenses and credits
The stroke order diagrams are drawn from KanjiVG, copyright Ulrich Apel, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license. Readings, meanings and stroke counts come from the KANJIDIC2 file, which is the property of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group and is used in conformance with the Group's licence. JLPT level groupings come from OpenJLPT (CC BY-SA 4.0), which packages Jonathan Waller's JLPT resources. We are grateful to all of them, without whom this free tool would not be possible. Everything else on the worksheet, including the layout and the NexaProva branding, is our own.