Fundamental Vocabulary to Learn Japanese

Are you studying Japanese? OH BOY, do we have a great tool for you! Our optimized and beautiful immersion-focused vocabulary deck will kickstart your Japanese comprehension and get you understanding native Japanese speakers in no time.

What's included

  • 100 days of vocabulary practice

  • Hand-picked example sentences

  • Authentic native audio

  • Downloadable Anki flashcard deck

  • Access on desktop, mobile, or web

USD $29.99

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The most critical vocabulary to learn Japanese

At Refold, we’re focused on teaching you to understand real Japanese. The biggest obstacle to understanding a language is vocabulary. We created this deck so you can learn the most important words and kanji as fast as possible. Before you know it, you’ll be watching anime in Japanese and LOVING it.

Kanji fluency

Japanese is more difficult than other languages because you need to learn both vocabulary AND the kanji that represents that vocabulary. In the past, learners would study kanji and vocabulary separately. They would consciously break down the kanji into its component parts (aka. radicals) as a way to help them remember.

We’ve taken a different approach and combined these two activities into a single process. The goal of this deck is to take advantage of your brain’s pattern recognition so that you can learn to recognize a kanji the same way you’d recognize a human face.

By using this deck, you’ll learn to understand more than 1,000 words in Japanese, and you’ll learn to recognize ~700 unique kanji.

Optimized for your learning

You’ll be happy to know that over 90% of the example sentences used in this deck only introduce one word at a time. This is great because when there’s only one new word, the sentence will be much easier to understand. If the sentence is easy to understand, the word will be a lot easier to remember!

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The hardest part of learning a language is basic comprehension. Once you can understand enough to have fun, you'll never want to stop.

Deck Bundles

Are you a lover of MANY languages? Get a sweet discount on Refold decks by buying them in a neat little bundle.

All Refold Decks English

All 17 English decks from Refold

Features of the deck

Native audio

Learn what Japanese is supposed to sound like with high-quality audio recorded by a native Japanese speaker.

Descriptive images

Reinforce what you learn with concrete high-resolution visuals.

Example sentences

Learn words in context with real example sentences, handwritten by Japanese teachers and sorted by difficulty to optimize your learning.

Learners love the deck

Finished JP1K today, haven’t missed a day since 3rd of July, I also do sentence mining while doing this deck, Proud to say I’m at around 2B – C, I have tried turning off Japanese sub lately and it’s suprising how much I can understand and improve.

Tunglff 2B
Japanese Learner

After seeing 100 words from the JP1K Anki deck I was able to read this short passage. I understood 98% of it without lookups. Nowhere near the level of most people here but I’m happy with my progress so far. This is day 11 of using Refold for Japanese, this stuff works. Can’t wait to finish the 1K deck and start immersing more and understanding what I’m listening to. 😀

Tayo_7
Japanese Learner

I hit 100 cards in JP1K today, after missing yesterday and having quite a bit waiting for me to catch up on today. I am also <50% mature on my hiragana, which feels nice. Immersion has been a little slow lately, but I’m understanding more and more conversational Japanese everyday, which is nice.

Cadey ケイディ
Japanese Learner

Over 100 words on the 1k deck right now and feeling like I’m starting to get a hang of things ! Also feeling very good about my pace as in the past, I have really overdone it with Anki and burned out after a few months. 6 new cards a day in French and Japanese is feeling very doable

anon
Japanese Learner

IDK if this is a win but I’m doing jp1k (half of it) and I understood all kanji from this Instagram story

We love
Japanese Learner

I’m starting to recognize words from the JP1K deck in my immersion and I even remember their meaning, it looks like I’m also able to recognize the topic, subject and object of sentences in some instances

AljonBeest2
Japanese Learner

Man this deck is sooo high quality! I love it

Tender || 2B
Japanese Learner

REALLY digging the new deck. Seems so much easier for me to remember things having the sentences there.

Seb || 2A
Japanese Learner

About 6 weeks into immersion and 70% of the way through the JP1K deck and I’m starting to feel that Kanji fluency, I’ve noticed I have to look at characters way less often to remember the reading.

Shifter || 2B
Japanese Learner

The benefit of the new JP1Kv2 deck for those at Stage 2C+ is so underrated! Periodically listening to the isolated pitch accent for the most common words outside of immersion is chef’s kiss.

Raff 3
Japanese Learner

On my 2nd day of jp1k deck and I’m already recognising words while watching (reading immersion) non non biyori.

mikirejf 1
Japanese Learner

Normally I keep to myself, but nobody gets how progress feels unless they are also going through it. But basically I finished JP1K and now my reviews for the deck take like half the time, which is awesome. I notice a lot of words in my immersion and can occasionally understand an entire sentence. When I read, it’s easier to understand stuff that I otherwise couldn’t. I can just tell I’m making progress and I just wanted to share.

Puff || 2A
Japanese Learner

The new JP1K is soooooooo good guys! It is freaking awesome, love the fact that it tells you which steps to follow for every word and that the sentences are gradually created with the words that appeared before!!! (just started right now haha)

I was mid JP1K V1, but I am totally in for another ride with this on.

クラウド
Japanese Learner

That took a while, but I’ve finally got where I’m consistently immersing, and doing JP1K (which you should check out by the way, it’s amazing so far). I’m currently about 40% of the way through JP1K, should be finished with it by next month at my current pace, maybe sooner since I’m thinking about increasing the number of new cards I learn every day.

Kiroana
Japanese Learner

I’m only 4–5 days into the jp1k v2, but I feel it’s much better than V1.

Something that drags your progress with the v1 deck is how easily the cards are forgotten, even if you saw them 10 seconds ago.

karlinhosmg
Japanese Learner

Wow the V2 deck is insanely better than the V1. I really struggled with the V1 deck and ended up abandoning it after a couple weeks. I just couldn’t recall the meanings of the words no matter how hard I tried. This new deck is completely different. The example sentences make such a huge difference. I love how the sentences incorporate words you have already learned and they really help me retain the meanings of the words. So much work went into this deck and it really shows. Kuddos.

ジェイミー
Japanese Learner

So as to give some feedback for the jp1k sentence deck, I’m not well versed in what makes a good card or what might not, but I have to say, this deck alone has skyrocketed my comprehension. I love it so much, and it’s super fun to come back to every day! I hope that at some point a separate jp2k deck comes out or something where there are 1000 more sentences, because I would really enjoy that. 😀

Hampton Francey || 2B
Japanese Learner

100 words in to jp1k, and I was looking through my jpop playlist and I started recognizing kanji ITS CLICKING

Hacker
Japanese Learner

I think I just experienced my first “snap” moment. I went back to listen to some of Perfume’s songs, whose lyrics I am familiar with, but previously only knew as sounds without meaning. As I’m listening, I start catching that some of the words are ones I know, and I felt this weird shifting feeling in my head. They morphed from being just “sounds” that I know, to actually carrying some meaning.

Clovermite
Japanese Learner

As someone who used Kanji Damage, Tango and eventually settled on Book 1 of RTK and created my own stories/ producing kanji through stories and writing them 50 times each. I can say with full confidence that the JP1k deck is my favourite. I feel like my retention rate (10 new cards a day) has increased significantly. I’m aware that JP1k is quite simple to make. In fact, I could make it myself, but most people just want a straightforward way of learning.

CitrusCrisp
Japanese Learner

100 words into jp1k, and I’m already seeing the words I’ve learned used in a couple places in animes I’m immersing in. Only a few days in, and this feeling is very motivating.

catvation
Japanese Learner

I’ve done Anki for three months now, and in a row on top of that. I started off using a whole bunch of different frequency decks for Japanese but ever since I bought the JP1K anki has just felt smooth.

Ablazed
Japanese Learner

Completed my first 30 days of Refold! I learned 250 words from JP1K deck and did 38 hours of total immersion. I’m recognizing some words during immersion and there were some occasions where I can completely understand a phrase/sentence. I can recognize words that I learned years ago (from college). I can’t wait to watch more shows, complete the JP1K deck, and acquire more Japanese while having fun during the process.

jts436
Japanese Learner

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