Your first 100 Japanese words

How did we pick these 100 words?

Most "first words" lists are someone's guess at what a beginner needs. This one is measured. We took the text of the 48 free chapters at A1 and A2 in the Contos library, two chapters from each of 24 series, and counted which words a beginner actually meets. Counting Japanese words needs a few decisions, because ordinary Japanese has no spaces and the library's series don't all space their text the same way. Here is what we did:

1. Split the text at spaces and punctuation. Where a series joins a particle to the word before it (名前は), we split it off (名前 + は), so every series counts the same way.
2. Grouped forms under the dictionary form. 言います, 言った and 言わない all count as 言う; 小さくて counts as 小さい. A verb in the -ている form counts as the verb plus いる, however it was spaced.
3. Took honorifics off names (田中さん becomes 田中 + さん), then left out character names and interjections such as あ and え.
4. Ranked by how many chapters use the word, then by total uses. That stops one series from pushing its favourite word up the list: 写真 (photo) appears 31 times, but in only 8 chapters.

Words are shown the way the stories write them, in kanji where the stories use kanji. The last column is the number of the 48 chapters each word appears in.

Which particles and grammar words come first?

Fifteen of the 100 are particles and other small grammar words. They are the glue of every sentence, and the first five are in every chapter we counted.

Japan's official spelling rules keep the old spellings は, を and へ for these particles even though they are said wa, o and e, which is why the romaji looks different from the kana. The Japanese writing system guide explains the rule.

Which verbs should you learn first?

Twenty-seven verbs make the list. Learn each one in its dictionary form and its polite -masu form (言う, 言います), because A1 stories narrate in -masu and A2 stories switch to the plain form.

言う shows why grouping matters: across the 48 chapters it appears 111 times, as 言います (32), 言いました (18), 言った (16), 言う (15) and a handful of rarer forms. Counted by spelling, no single form would make the top 20.

Which nouns, pronouns and question words make the list?

Stories are about people looking at things and asking questions, and the nouns show it: faces, eyes, hands, voices, doors and letters.

Which adjectives and adverbs are most common?

A few more words appear in eight chapters too and only just miss the cut: あなた (anata, you), 息 (iki, breath), 答える (kotaeru, to answer) and 静かに (shizuka ni, quietly).

Adjectives change form as well: 赤い also counts 赤く, as in 顔 が 赤く なる (to go red in the face). And one sound word makes the list: ドキドキ, the pounding heart that keeps turning up as the tension rises. It is in 11 chapters, most often as 胸 が ドキドキ する (my heart is pounding).

What do these words look like in a real sentence?

Most beginner sentences are built almost entirely from the list. Each of these comes from a free chapter, and every word in them is on the list apart from the names and one verb.

Measured over whole chapters, the share holds up: in the free chapters of Letters Every Week, 69% of the words are on the list, and in The Mystery Wallet, 62%.

How should you learn your first 100 words?

1. Learn the particles by their job. は marks what the sentence is about, が the subject, を the object. Translations like "of" or "to" only take you part of the way.
2. Learn verbs in pairs of forms. Dictionary form plus -masu form: 見る and 見ます, 来る and 来ます. Note that 来る changes its reading: くる, but きます.
3. Learn kanji words with their kana. 何 is nani on its own but nan in 何ですか; 開く is aku or hiraku. A reading learned with the word is easier than one learned with the character.
4. Meet them in stories, not only on cards. The vocabulary researcher Paul Nation calls word learning from reading "very fragile": a word you don't meet again soon is lost. Read a chapter, notice the list words, and review the ones you tap.
5. Then go further. For the next few hundred words and the kanji that come with them, see how many Japanese words you need.

Which everyday words are missing from the list?

A list measured from stories reflects what stories do. Narration is full of looking, saying and asking, and short on small talk, so some words you will want early barely appear: おはよう (good morning) is in 5 of the 48 chapters, すみません in 6, ありがとう in 2 and こんにちは in 1.

Learn those as phrases instead: how to say hello, thank you and excuse me in Japanese. For themed lists, the common Japanese verbs and common nouns pages cover everyday ground the stories skip.