JLPT N5 Grammar: All 57 Patterns, in the Order You'll Actually Use Them

Here's the whole answer in one sentence: N5 grammar is about 57 patterns, they're listed below with a reviewed example each, and they're arranged in the order you'll actually need them — not the order a test index happens to sort them.

One honest note first, because almost no grammar list tells you this: there is no official JLPT grammar list. The JLPT stopped publishing its content specification years ago, so every N5 list you'll find — including this one — is a reconstruction of what the test consistently draws on. The core is stable and everyone's lists agree on the bulk of it; the exact count varies a little by source. Ours has 57 entries because that's how we actually teach it, one lesson per pattern.

The more useful difference is the ordering. Alphabetical lists and test-section lists are for looking things up. This list is sequenced for building: each stage uses the last one, so you can study it top to bottom as a curriculum, not just skim it as a reference.

The order, explained in five stages

Stage one (patterns 1–13) makes you dangerous with nouns before a single verb conjugation appears: the です frame for naming things, questions with か, the pointing words, and the existence verbs あります・います with the location particles. You can already ask what things are, where they are, and how much they cost — that's half of tourist Japanese.

Stage two (14–22) turns on the verbs: the polite ます forms, the object marker を, time and range particles, and the everyday transactional patterns — をください, ましょう, ませんか. Stage three (23–32) adds description and comparison: both adjective families, degree words, counters, and “more than / the most”.

Stage four (33–44) is the engine room. Wanting and liking (たい, がほしい, が好きがすき) — and then the て form, one of the most load-bearing pieces in all of Japanese grammar: requests, permission, prohibition, ongoing states and chained actions all run on it. Stage five (45–57) connects and shades: reasons, time clauses, “I think”, obligation, giving and receiving, conditionals — and finally plain form, your gateway to casual speech and to everything at N4.

The complete list

Every example below comes from the corresponding lesson in our app, where it has been through review. Read the table top to bottom and you'll feel the staircase: by the time a pattern appears, you'll usually own the pieces inside its example — and because these are natural sentences rather than lab specimens, a later pattern occasionally peeks in early. That's real Japanese, not a mistake.

How to study a list without drowning in it

Don't memorize the list — walk it. A comfortable pace is two or three patterns a day: read the lesson, meet a handful of examples, then produce two sentences of your own out loud. At that pace the whole staircase takes about a month, which lines up with the grammar phase of a sensible beginner roadmap.

Two habits make it stick. First, respect the order: if pattern 40 feels hard, the missing piece is usually a shaky pattern 38, not more effort on 40. Second, treat the て form as the boss level it is — once it's automatic, half a dozen other patterns on this list become almost free.

In our app, this exact sequence is the Grammar shelf: every pattern above is a full lesson with reviewed examples, and the set links out to hundreds of practice questions and speaking drills. The shelf keeps everything in this exact order, so you always know what comes next. The list is free to browse — start at です and climb.