Everything up to N3 is about understanding. N2 is where Japanese starts caring which word you reach for. The salary on your payslip is 給与 and the salary you complain about over drinks is 給料. The signature the city hall clerk wants is 署名 and the one a baseball player gives a kid is サイン. Both members of each pair mean "salary" and "signature," and using the wrong one is not a grammar mistake. It is a register mistake, which is a different and more social kind of wrong.
The other half of N2 is the noun-plus-する machine. Once 検討, 調整, 実施, 申請 and their several hundred relatives are in place, most of written adult Japanese turns out to be built from them.
The web app carries 1,961 items banded N2: 1,602 vocabulary words and 359 kanji. This band is vocabulary and kanji only. The buildable sentences, real-world signs, and reading passages that the N5 through N3 bands carry have not been authored for N2 yet, and are not counted here as though they had.
Banding is strict, so an N2 word advances your N2 numbers and never inflates N3 or below. The JLPT levels guide compares these to the community-estimated targets for each level, which is the only kind of target available: the JLPT stopped publishing official lists in 2010.
N2 vocabulary is dense with nouns that become verbs by adding する, and they carry most of the weight in email, notices, and news copy. A sample of what is in the band, with the example sentences the entries ship with:
Many N2 words are the formal counterpart of something you already know. The notes in the app say which is which, because the distinction is invisible in a translation:
| Formal, on paper | Everyday, out loud | What separates them |
|---|---|---|
| 給与 (きゅうよ) | 給料 (きゅうりょう) | 給与 is the payroll word, as in 給与明細, the pay slip. In conversation people say 給料. |
| 署名 (しょめい) | サイン | 署名 is signing documents. A celebrity autograph, and a casual signature, is サイン. |
| 紙幣 (しへい) | お札 (おさつ) | 紙幣 is the formal word for banknotes. A note in your hand is 千円札. |
| 硬貨 (こうか) | 小銭 (こぜに) | 硬貨 is printed on vending and ticket machines. Loose change in conversation is 小銭. |
| 領収書 (りょうしゅうしょ) | レシート | The register prints a レシート automatically. The 領収書 with your name on it, for expenses, you have to ask for. |
| 職員 (しょくいん) | 社員 (しゃいん) | Schools, hospitals and government offices have 職員. Companies have 社員. |
The same discipline runs through the near-synonyms. 応対 is dealing with people face to face or on the phone, while 対応 is the broader handling of situations and problems. 移転 is a shop or office changing address, while 引っ越し is moving house. 筆者 is the writer of the text in front of you, while 著者 is the author of a book, which matters because JLPT reading sections ask endlessly what the 筆者 thinks.
All 359 of them are in the app, each taught through a word that needs it rather than as a character in isolation, and each carrying a note about where you will actually meet it:
Homophone disambiguation is treated as content rather than trivia, because at this level it is the difference between reading and guessing. 需要 (demand) is one vowel length from 重要 (important). 支給 (provision of an allowance) sounds like 至急 (urgently). 講演 is a lecture, 公演 is a performance, and 公園 is a park.
What N2 does not buy you is the JLPT itself. This is the daily practice layer for vocabulary, kanji, grammar transfer and applied reading. Listening practice, long-form reading, and real mock exams sit alongside it, not inside it.
There is no placement test and no unit order. New material arrives as probes: answer correctly and the item is credited and scheduled far out, miss it and it becomes the lesson, at no penalty. You do not have to finish N3 to be served N2 material, and the reverse is also true, so arriving here from a class or a textbook wastes nothing.
The home screen offers a "Practice a situation" row: Signs & stations, Restaurants & bars, Shopping & the register, Prices, and Errands & paperwork. Choosing one narrows what gets served to that slice of life at whatever level you have reached, which at N2 means the paperwork and register vocabulary above rather than the survival phrases. Scheduling stays global, so a focused session never creates a second backlog.
A read-only WaniKani import carries your kanji and vocabulary across and re-syncs daily. Advanced WaniKani accounts overlap the N2 kanji band heavily, and everything that matches is credited as known rather than re-taught. Yokoso is independent of WaniKani and not endorsed by it.
Every learning feature is free permanently. No ads, no streaks, no locked lessons, no review cap. Optional supporter contributions unlock nothing, because nothing is locked.
Practice N2 free on the web, no signupYokoso runs in a browser, works offline, and can go on your home screen with its own icon in about a minute: here is how, and why the web version is usually ahead. It is also on the App Store, where updates land once App Store review clears.
If the abstract vocabulary is still settling, N3 is the band underneath this one. Past N2 there is N1, which is formal written register and reading depth rather than more daily life. The levels guide puts all five in one table.
Yes, every learning feature, permanently. No ads, no streaks, no locked lessons and no review cap.
No official number exists. The JLPT has not published level lists since 2010, so every count you see anywhere is a community estimate. 359 is the honest count of what is banded N2 inside Yokoso, which is a different claim and a checkable one.
Not yet. The N2 band is vocabulary and kanji today. Sentences, signs, and passages exist for N5 through N3 and are planned for the higher bands.
Yes, and it matters more here than lower down, since advanced WaniKani accounts overlap the N2 kanji band heavily. The import is read-only and re-syncs daily.
Yes. Progress lives on your device, and syncs across your own devices when you choose to turn that on.