Looking for free Japanese worksheets for beginners? You’re in the right place!
Whether you’re just starting out with hiragana and katakana, or beginning to learn basic vocabulary and kanji, these printable worksheets are a great way to practise. Best of all, they’re totally free!
Scroll down to download a selection of beginner-friendly Japanese worksheets to help you build a solid foundation in reading, writing and vocabulary.
Free printable kana workbook
If you’re a beginner learning Japanese, your first task absolutely has to be learning the kana!
By ‘kana’ I mean hiragana and katakana: Japan’s two syllabaries or phonetic writing systems that are the building blocks of the language.
This free workbook introduces all the hiragana and katakana characters and has spaces for you to trace, and then copy them out.
I recommend you print out several copies and work through it as many times as you need to. There’s nothing like repetition to really make something stick in your brain!
The workbook also contains flashcards to practise your recognition.
Note: you need to create a free account to access the workbook, but it’s completely free – no card details required.
Happy Lilac – loads of free Japanese printables
Happy Lilac is an amazing site for FREE printable Japanese resources. It has worksheets, games, printable crafts, posters, colouring pages and more.
The resources are designed for native Japanese children. If you’re a beginner, the preschool section will be great for you as it has simple worksheets for those just beginning to master hiragana and katakana.
But the site has resources all the way up through elementary and junior high school, so you can continue using it as your Japanese improves!
The down side is that the site is only in Japanese, which can make it a little tricky to navigate for beginners. But access it via Google Translate, and you should be fine.
Handily, each link has a thumbnail with a preview of the worksheet, so you can easily find worksheets that look appropriate for you before downloading.
Here are some shortcuts to find useful resources for beginners:
- Free hiragana printables for beginners
- Katakana printables
- Vocabulary (posters, simple games and puzzles, etc)
Free kanji worksheets
Looking for kanji writing practice worksheets? This site lets you print your own! You can select kanji by JLPT grade, school grade, frequency and more, and print out just the kanji you are working on.
So useful, and all for free!
Free Japanese vocabulary + writing practice workbooks
This page has a handy collection of 12+ Japanese worksheets and workbooks on essential topics such as Japanese greetings, family, questions, common adjectives and nouns!
These worksheets do tend to use kanji rather than kana. So, I wouldn’t recommend them for complete beginners, but those who have started learning kanji and want to practise writing out new vocabulary.
Kakikata free worksheet generator
This website is amazing! You can create your own Japanese writing worksheets for free, using single characters or words that you wish to practise.
It has lots of option features so you can make your worksheets look exactly how you like. For example, you can choose optional stroke order prompts and shaded characters to trace.
Works with all kana and the most common kanji.
Simply choose the style you like and type/paste your text into the box, and it will create a personalised printable worksheet for you. Have fun!
Free blank Japanese writing paper
Japanese students practise their handwriting using special paper with squares on, to help them keep the characters even and well-spaced. I’ve created some printable blank Japanese writing sheets which you can download here.
Ideal for when you just need blank squared paper for practicing your kana/kanji drills or writing out simple sentences.
Japanese vocab + kanji worksheets
I’ve started creating a few of my own worksheets to go with our most popular vocabulary posts on Team Japanese.
Here’s what we have so far. I will keep adding to this list as we add more!
- Numbers in Japanese
- Days of the week in Japanese
- Hardest Japanese kanji
Let me know in the comments if there are any more worksheets that would be useful to you.
Keep learning Japanese for free
I hope these free Japanese worksheets help you feel more confident as you begin your language journey. Just a little bit of practice each day really adds up!
If you’re looking for more beginner-friendly resources, I highly recommend checking out JapanesePod101. They offer thousands of free audio and video lessons, which is perfect for building your listening and speaking skills alongside your writing practice.
Happy studying!
JapanesePod101 is our top recommendation to learn Japanese online. We love the fun, current audio lessons and interactive online tools. Sign up for your free lifetime account and see for yourself!
Related posts
- Japanese Writing Practice: Ultimate List Of Resources For Every Level
- The Best Way to Learn Kanji
- How to Learn Japanese on Your Own – the Effective Way!
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Rebecca is the founder of Team Japanese. She spent two years teaching English in Ehime, Japan. Now back in the UK, she spends her time blogging, self-studying Japanese and wrangling a very genki toddler.