Japanese English Frequency Dictionary - Total Vocabulary - 10000 Most Used Japanese Words

Konnichiwa, my dear reader.

Thank you for your interest in the Japanese English Frequency Dictionary - Total Vocabulary - The 10.000 Most Used Japanese Words.

Here’s a fact for you : In any given language, you only use about 1000 different words a day in day-to-day spoken language. When it comes to reading, the 2000 most used words account for about 85% of all that is written. 

Keeping this in mind, the value of a frequency dictionary is immense. At least, if you want to speak a language fast. Study the most frequent words, build your vocabulary and progress naturally. Sounds logical, right? 

But how many words do you need to know for fluency?

While it’s important to note it’s impossible to pin down these numbers and statistics with 100% accuracy, these are a global average of multiple sources. According to research, this is the amount of vocabulary needed for varying levels of fluency.

1.    250 words: the essential core of a language. Without these words, you cannot construct any sentence.

2.    750 words: those that are used every single day by every person who speaks the language.

3.    2500 words: those that should enable you to express everything you could possibly want to say, alltough some creativity might be required.


4.    5000 words: the active vocabulary of native speakers without higher education. You will understand 95% of all written texts.

5.    10,000 words: the active vocabulary of native speakers with higher education.

6.    20,000 words: what you need to recognize passively in order to read, understand, and enjoy a work of literature such as a novel by a notable author.

Our frequency dictionary of Japanese is the first in the series to include 10.000 entries. It’s is also the first to be based entirely on a modern web corpora.

For beginners, we added Romaji entries. Romaji is Japanese written with the Western alphabet.

Because this is a learners dictionary, we chose to display only the most common definitions  of Japanese words. This makes for easier learning.

In short: build your vocabulary, learn basic grammar and go out there and speak. Make mistakes, have a laugh and learn from them.

We hope you to enjoy this frequency dictionary, and that it helps you in your quest of becoming fluent in Japanese.