N5 · UNIT 1 FREE

Meeting People

Introduce yourself, ask who someone is, state occupation and nationality, count 1–10.

About this unit

Welcome to the road. This unit gets you talking on day one: introduce yourself, ask who someone is, and count to ten. You'll meet Maria, just arrived in Japan, and the people who will walk the whole path with her. Every sentence in the course builds on the patterns you learn here.

語彙 · Vocabulary 41 words · 10 kanji

1

Read the words

Read straight down the list once, out loud if you can. Don't grind them here, the Anki deck at the bottom does the memorizing. Right now you only want the shapes and sounds to feel familiar.

WordReadingMeaning
I; me
you
that person
teacher
student
company employee
doctor
university
Japan
Japanese language
America; the U.S.
American (person)
Japanese (person)
who
name
friend
Mr./Ms. (polite name suffix)
-ese/-an (nationality suffix)
language (suffix)
yes
no
that's right
that's wrong; it's different
good morning (polite)
hello; good afternoon
good evening
goodbye
thank you (polite)
excuse me; I'm sorry
nice to meet you (said first)
pleased to meet you (lit. please treat me well)
one
two
three
four (also し)
five
six
seven (also しち)
eight
nine (also く)
ten
2

Learn the kanji

The 10 kanji for this unit. Tap any card to flip between its meaning and its readings, and say the reading aloud as it flips.

one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
3

Read it in context

Everything above, working together. Read the conversation top to bottom, out loud. Every line is built only from words and kanji you have already met, so resist the English, tap a word only if you are truly stuck.

Show English

Maria, an American exchange student, arrives at her Japanese university and meets Mr. Tanaka.

マリア
Nice to meet you. I'm Maria. I'm American. Pleased to meet you.
たなか
Nice to meet you. I'm Tanaka. Maria, are you a student?
マリア
Yes, that's right. I'm a university student. Are you a teacher?
たなか
No, I'm not. I'm a company employee.
マリア
Who is that person?
たなか
That's Ms. Yamada. She's a Japanese teacher.
Notice: every sentence ends in です or ですか, statements and questions share identical word order. Only the final か differs.
Stop, learn the vocabulary before the grammar

These units are short on purpose. The grammar only clicks when the words are already automatic, so front-load the deck here, and let spaced repetition do the memorizing while the lesson does the teaching.

  1. Import this unit's deck. Generate it with npm run content:deck, then import n5-unit1-deck.apkg into Anki or Migaku. (SRS connection status lives on your dashboard.)
  2. Learn all 41 words as new cards. Get through the whole deck in a sitting or two, you're aiming for recognition, not mastery yet.
  3. Review daily until every card reaches a 3–5 day interval. When the whole deck has settled at that spacing, the words are holding on their own and won't fight you during the grammar.
  4. Then come back. You'll read the patterns instead of decoding the words, and that's when a "small" unit actually soaks in.
Anki open with AnkiConnect? I can confirm the deck for you.

Tick the box above once the deck is soaking in, then the grammar unlocks.

文法 · Grammar 4 patterns

Take one pattern at a time. Read the rule, then read each example out loud until the shape feels obvious. The words should already be automatic from your deck, so all you are learning here is how they lock together.

Quick suggestion: write these patterns down by hand as you read them. It is the one habit that textbook learners and self-taught immersion learners both swear by, and a notebook is the cheapest memory upgrade there is. Not required, just recommended.
"X is Y", the polite copula. は is pronounced wa as a particle.
I am a student.
Mr. Tanaka is a teacher.
Note: The most Japanese thing you'll learn today: when the topic is obvious, drop it. Nobody says わたしは in a self-introduction, マリアです is complete and natural.
"is not", polite negative of です.
(I) am not a teacher.
That person is not Japanese.
Question marker. Add か to any statement, no word-order change.
Is Mr. Tanaka a teacher?
Who is that person?
"also / too", replaces は (never stacks with it).
Maria is also a student.
Note: Common mistake: ～はも ✗, も replaces は entirely.

文化 · Culture note

A short read on the world these words live in. Nothing to drill here, just the context that makes the grammar feel like something people actually say.

Bowing, Names & さん

Japanese introductions come with a bow (おじぎ), not a handshake. A small nod of about 15° works between classmates; a deeper 30° bow suits meeting a teacher or a business contact. When in doubt, mirror the other person and go slightly deeper, deference never offends.

Names run family-name-first: たなか ひろし is Mr. Tanaka. Adults default to family name + さん, and さん works for everyone, man or woman, married or not. The one iron rule from this unit: never attach さん to your own name.

どうぞよろしくおねがいします has no clean English translation, literally, 'please treat me favorably.' It closes every self-introduction, and later you'll hear it seal requests, first work meetings, even emails. Ending your intro with it signals you know how the social contract works.

Try it: Safe first-meeting formula: small bow → family name＋です → どうぞよろしくおねがいします → small bow. You'll look like you've done this before.

練習 · Worksheet 8 exercises

Type each missing word in hiragana, then check your answers. Nothing is graded, this is where mistakes are supposed to happen.

Check your answers to continue, it doesn't matter how many you miss.

Unit Quiz JLPT FORMAT

Pass mark 80% · instant explanations · passing unlocks the next unit