Basic Japanese Language Course
The 2,135 most-used characters have a ranking; those characters that lack this field are not ranked. The frequency is a number from 1 to 2,135 that expresses the relative frequency of occurrence of a character in modern Japanese. The data is based on statistics published by The National Language Research Institute (Tokyo), interpreted and adapted by Jack Halpern in a manner to make it useful to the learner. The data is derived from the New Japanese-English Character Dictionary (Kenkyusha, Tokyo 1990; NTC, Chicago 1993).
The commercial utilization of the frequency numbers is prohibited without written permission from Jack Halpern. Use by individuals and small groups for reference and research purposes is permitted, on condition that acknowledgement of the source and this notice are included.