JLPT N3 Vocabulary List With Audio

JLPT N3 vocabulary is where Japanese stops being classroom Japanese: the words for society and situations (環境, 影響, 制度, 事件), the nouns of effort and result that take する (努力, 成功, 我慢), the adverbs that carry nuance (やはり, 結局, 相変わらず), and the first layer of news and workplace words. The JLPT does not publish an official list, so every N3 list is an estimate; this one has 1,908 words, each with its kana reading, an English meaning and audio. Where it fits in the whole test: the JLPT N3 study guide. The JLPT N4 vocabulary list (621 words) and the N5 list (614 words) come first. It is the same list the N3 puzzles in our daily Japanese crossword draw from.

The JLPT N3 word list

Audio is Google Cloud text-to-speech (a Japanese neural voice), not a recording of a person. A word that fits two topics is listed once, under its first topic.

How should you study the N3 vocabulary?

1. One topic at a time, concrete topics first. People, time, daily life, food and travel are the smallest groups here and the easiest to keep; the business and abstract groups are the largest, so split them over weeks.
2. About 15 new words a day. Play each one, say it out loud twice, and read the meaning. That is about four months for the whole list.
3. Learn the する nouns as verbs. Many N3 nouns are used with する (努力する, 我慢する, 遠慮する, 確認する); say them with する from the start, and notice which ones the N3 grammar patterns attach to.
4. Test with the meanings hidden. Go down yesterday’s topic, say each meaning, then tap to check.
5. Meet the words in sentences. At N3 the test asks for the word that fits a context, not a translation, so read short passages and fill the words into a puzzle rather than drilling the list alone.

For the last step, the daily Japanese crossword turns these words into a grid: each clue is an English meaning and you type the reading in romaji. Crossword’s N3 puzzles draw from this same list of 1,908 words. For grammar at the same level, see the JLPT N3 grammar list; for reading them in context, the JLPT N3 reading practice; for keeping words over months, the Leitner system.

Where does this list come from?

The words are the N3 entries of the word list behind My Senpai Crossword, as shipped in the Crossword release of November 5, 2026. Every row was checked against JMdict, the open Japanese dictionary, for its word form, reading and meaning, and for this page we corrected 47 entries at build time: 13 readings where the source held a part-of-speech marker or corrupted text instead of kana (with the glosses that had come from the wrong homograph: はい is yes, not “put on a sword”), 8 word forms (rare kanji forms such as 唯 and 偶々 shown in kana, よると completed to によると), and 26 glosses taken from the wrong reading or sense (札 read さつ is a banknote, not a label; 塵 is read ちり, so ごみ is shown in kana). About a hundred words that JMdict marks as usually written in kana (貰う, 頂く, 全く, 等) keep the source’s kanji form; the reading column shows the kana. Small source topics are folded into the same 18 groups the N5 and N4 lists use, and meanings start in lower case. Some words appear twice with different readings (生 as なま and せい, 後 as ご and のち), as in the source list.

Frequently asked questions

How many words do you need for JLPT N3?

The JLPT does not publish an official number. Most estimates put N3 at about 3,000 to 3,750 words in total. This list has 1,908 N3 words; with the 614 N5 and 621 N4 words on this site that comes to about 3,100, which is the lower end of that range.

Is there an official JLPT N3 vocabulary list?

No. N3 was added in 2010, between the old level 3 and level 2, and the JLPT stopped publishing vocabulary and kanji lists at the same time. Every N3 list is reconstructed from the gap between the two old lists and from past tests, so N3 lists differ more between publishers than N5 and N4 lists do.

How long does it take to learn the N3 vocabulary?

At 15 new words a day, 1,908 words take about four months, plus reviews; at 10 a day, about six months. Learn them in topic groups, say each one aloud with the audio, and come back to the ones you miss with the meanings hidden.

What is different about N3 words compared with N4?

N4 words describe your own life: reasons, feelings, plans, places. N3 adds the words for talking about society and situations (環境, 影響, 制度, 事件), the nouns of effort and result that take する (努力, 成功, 我慢, 遠慮), adverbs that carry nuance (やはり, 結局, 相変わらず, 必ずしも), and the first words you meet in news and at work rather than in a textbook.

Can I download the JLPT N3 vocabulary list?

Yes. The Download CSV link above the list gives a file with every word, its reading, meaning and topic. It opens in any spreadsheet and imports into Anki and most flashcard apps.

Is the audio recorded by a person?

No. Each clip is generated with Google Cloud text-to-speech using a Japanese neural voice, the same kind of voice our apps use. It reads each word from its kana reading, so kanji are never misread, but the pitch of some words that share a reading can differ from what a person would say.

Last reviewed November 6, 2026. Readings and meanings follow the source list with the corrections above. Found a mistake? Email fluencytool@my-senpai.com.