What are the most essential Japanese words for B1 learners to focus on

For B1 learners of Japanese, the most essential words to focus on are those that enable effective communication, including vocabulary that supports everyday conversation, socio-pragmatic skills like politeness, and functional usage of verbs and particles. Key points are:

• Words related to Japanese politeness and conversational roles (“Tachiba”) are important for B1 learners to master natural communication in social contexts. ¹

• Common collocations and lexical bundles are crucial as they help with natural speech fluency and comprehension. Vocabulary involving collocations with varying semantic transparency and meaning congruency also matters. ^{2, 5}

• Basic verb usage, especially compound verbs (Fukugoudoushi), which form a large part of daily communication, should be understood well along with their nuances. ¹⁶

• Case particles, which often cause difficulty, are fundamental because they define the grammatical relationships in sentences and thus are essential for B1 learners to use Japanese correctly. ¹⁸

• Pronunciation and accent accuracy remain important to convey meaning adequately, and attention to native phonological features such as affricates might still be necessary at this stage. ⁶

• Beyond just learning word meanings, learners should also develop a range of word knowledge aspects including morphological, grammatical, collocational, connotative, and pragmatic uses to deepen vocabulary competence. ¹¹

Thus, for B1 learners, essential vocabulary includes:

• Politeness-related expressions and social markers
• Functional verbs including compound verbs
• Core case particles and grammatical connectors
• Frequent collocations and set phrases
• Words that support understanding and producing fluent natural speech

This focus aligns with helping learners communicate effectively and fit into real-life conversations with native speakers, not just vocabulary size. ^{1, 2, 16, 18}

If you want, I can suggest specific word lists or resources tailored for B1 learners.

References

• Probing Socio-Pragmatic Skills of L2 Learners of Indonesian on Japanese Politeness

• The lexical processing of Japanese collocations by Chinese Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language learners: An experimental study by manipulating the presentation modality, semantic transparency, and translational congruency

• Turkish EFL learners’ knowledge, perception, and production of suprafixes as part of lexical competence

• Native Speakers’ Redundant Acoustic Cue may be Learners’ Treasure: Can Pitch be Repurposed?

• Developing a CEFR-based diagnostic test to assess Japanese university students’ productive knowledge of lexical bundles

• Phonological Process of Japanese Affricates [dz] and [ts] of Javanese Native Speakers

• Teaching Words in Context: Code-Switching Method for English and Japanese Vocabulary Acquisition Systems

• Reading and Gender Effect on Writing Style: Case of Hungarian Learners of English

• Creating E-Learning Material to Teach Essential Vocabulary for Young EFL Learners

• Using confidence intervals to determine adequate item sample sizes for vocabulary tests: An essential but overlooked practice

• The learner as lexicographer: using monolingual and bilingual corpora to deepen vocabulary knowledge

• LIKARI (Five Words in A Day) Application to Improve Vocabulary Mastery in Japanese Language Learning

• Sustanaible Methods of Improving Kanji Learning Skills for Japanese Language Learners at Basic Level at FPT University

• Typology Lexical Verb ‘To Use’ in Japan: Natural Semantics Metalanguage Study

• Reading Tutor, A Reading Support System for Japanese Language Learners

• Difficulties in Comprehending Japanese Fukugoudoushi of the Japanese Language Learners from Indonesia

• JAPANESE ONOMATOPOEIC SEMANTIC STRUCTURES A NATURAL SEMANTIC METALANGUAGE APPROACH

• The semantic roles of ‘kaku-joshi’ in Japanese textbooks