Every Genki I student hits the kanji wall around chapter 7. Genki I’s reading and writing section introduces 14–16 characters per chapter and then expects you to recognize them — in compounds, in mixed kana/kanji sentences, on the JLPT N5 reading section — by chapter 12. By chapter 9 you’re behind. By chapter 11 you’re skipping the kanji exercises.
The wall isn’t really about stroke order or radical decomposition (those help, but they’re not the bottleneck). The wall is review intervals. Genki teaches kanji once and then assumes the next chapter’s exposure will reinforce it. That assumption breaks down for self-studiers who don’t have classroom drilling between chapters.
This deck is the 50 characters that show up across both Genki I and JLPT N5 — the union, not the intersection — sequenced so that radicals you’ve already learned compose into the next character.
The 50 characters by exposure week
The JLPT does not publish an official kanji list per level; community estimates for N5 typically land in the 80–100 character range. Genki I covers 145 kanji by the end of the volume. The 50 in this deck are the high-frequency overlap.
Week 1 (10 chars). 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十 — the digit kanji. Trivial in isolation but they show up constantly in compounds (時間 has 時, 二, 間 in just three characters of timing vocabulary).
Week 2 (10 chars). 日 月 火 水 木 金 土 年 何 人 — days of the week kanji + year + person + the 何 (what) interrogative. Each composes into 5+ N5 vocabulary words.
Week 3 (10 chars). 山 川 田 上 下 中 大 小 高 安 — geography (山 mountain, 川 river, 田 rice field) and size/value (大 big, 小 small, 高 expensive/tall, 安 cheap/safe). The geography kanji are pure pictographs and should stick on second exposure.
Week 4 (10 chars). 子 女 男 母 父 兄 姉 弟 妹 友 — family members and the friend kanji. Family vocabulary recurs across early Genki I dialogues — it’s one of the first conversational topics the textbook drills.
Week 5 (10 chars). 校 学 生 先 行 来 食 飲 見 聞 — school + go/come + eat/drink + see/hear. These are the verb stems that compose into Genki’s first 50 verb conjugations.
That’s 50. By week 5 of consistent review, the JLPT N5 reading section becomes legible (most words use these characters or N5 hiragana-only words).
What the cards look like — cloze with on-yomi / kun-yomi splits
Kanji cards are notoriously hard to design. Q&A format collapses meaning, on-yomi, and kun-yomi into one back-side answer — but those are three independent facts that should age separately. The deck uses cloze deletion with multiple clusters per kanji so each reading and the meaning get their own schedule:
The kanji {{c1::月}} means {{c2::moon::also "month"}} and reads as
{{c3::つき::kun-yomi, alone}} or {{c4::げつ::on-yomi, in compounds
like 月曜日 (Monday)}}.Four cards from one note. Card 1 forces character recall from the readings + meaning. Card 2 forces meaning recall from the character. Cards 3 and 4 force the on/kun readings independently — which matters because students typically internalize one reading before the other and the algorithm needs to push the slower-sticking reading.
For pictograph kanji that share a radical, the overlapping pattern reinforces the family:
The four "natural element" kanji: {{c1::山::mountain, やま}},
{{c2::川::river, かわ}}, {{c3::田::rice field, た}}, and
{{c4::木::tree, き}}. All are pure pictographs — the shape resembles
the thing.Four cards, one note. Reviewing card 2 (川 hidden) shows the other three pictographs as a visual anchor cluster, which reinforces the “these are pictographs” mental model.
The character 安 — combines 宀 (roof radical) + 女 (woman radical), means cheap/safe — gets a radical-decomposition cloze:
The kanji {{c1::安::cheap, safe — combines roof + woman}} is built
from radicals {{c2::宀::roof}} and {{c3::女::woman}}; the mnemonic is
"a woman under a roof is safe and cheap to keep." Common compounds:
{{c4::安い::cheap, やすい}}, {{c5::安心::peace of mind, あんしん}}.Five cards. By week 4 the radical decomposition has been reviewed enough times that the next roof-radical kanji you encounter (家 home, 宮 palace, 室 room) slots into a frame you already have.
Why mnemonics + spaced repetition beats brute-force drilling
Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji taught a generation that mnemonics work. They do — but mnemonics decay without review. RTK alone is famously weak on retention because Heisig’s review-schedule appendix is just “review weekly indefinitely,” which neither matches how memory works nor what you have time for.
Avorio uses FSRS-5, which schedules each card based on the difficulty/stability of the specific card for you. The character 火 (fire — easy pictograph) will stretch to 30+ day intervals quickly. The character 安 (combines 宀 roof + 女 woman; means cheap/safe) is harder and will stay at 3-7 day intervals until you’ve internalized the radical decomposition.
The mnemonic + the algorithm + the radical-aware sequencing is the combination that turns 50 kanji from a wall into a foundation.
The pace
Week 1: Add 10 characters. Review takes 5-8 minutes a day.
Weeks 2-5: Add 10 characters per week, review takes 10-15 minutes a day.
Week 6 onwards: Pure review, 5-8 minutes a day. The algorithm decides what you see.
Try the first 10 below
The digit kanji — 一 through 十. They’re the cheapest cards in the deck and they unlock counters, prices, dates, and times. If you can read all 10 instantly, you don’t need this deck. If 3+ are slow, install Avorio and load the full 50.