Section 1: Rookie - Unit 1

Kanji

None. Kanjis get introduced in Unit 5.

This poses a few problems, although it's understandable to not want to throw too many kanjis at once at people who are new to the language. Unfortunately, Duolingo does so by using words that have homophones, which will make things super confusing as soon as you'll start using your growing vocabulary. In consequence, I'll still give the kanjis.

Vocabulary

おちゃ (お茶) : tea (usually this is green tea). This word can also be used as a shortcut to mean "tea break" (at work) or "tea ceremony". The actual word to mean tea is just 茶 but this is always written with the honorific お at the beginning.

かっこういい (usually written in kana, sometimes 格好いい) : attractive; good-looking; stylish; cool; smooth; neat; with-it; groovy.

がくせい (学生) : student, usually university student.

ごはん (ご飯) : cooked rice, and by extension any meal. Similar to お茶, this word is always written with honorific ご at the beginning.

せんせい (先生) : teacher, instructor, master. This is used both to describe the professional and to adress them. This is an honorific term and is not really used to refer to yourself.

べんごし (弁護士) : lawyer, attorney.

みず (水) : water, fluid, flood.

やさしい (優しい) : tender; kind; gentle; graceful; affectionate; amiable. Duolingo uses "nice".
Not be confused with やさしい (易しい, but usually written in kana alone) that means easy, simple, plain. Give me kanjis, Duolingo!

Grammar

ください (usually written only with kana, but you can also find 下さい) :

• please (give me): honorific language, you use this after the thing you want someone to give you.
• please (do for me): honorific language, you use this after the te-form of a verb that you want someone to do for you (or a noun in honorific form itself).

です : polite language, to be. This goes at the end of a sentence (as verbs do in Japanese) to indicate that something is a certain way. If used with only a noun, it can mean "there is [noun]". With your name, it means "I'm [your name]", literally "there is [me]".
Note that the subject is often omitted in Japanese sentences and is made obvious by the context.
The form doesn't change with the subject (singular or plural).

と : the first of many particles to come! Those are especially important to recognize the different parts of a sentence. Here, と is used between two nouns to mean "and".

Progression

• N5: 下先学水生 > 5/80 (6%)
• N4: 茶飯 > 2/167 (1%)
• N3: 優 > 1/370 (0%)
• N2: 0/374 (0%)
• N1: 弁士護 3/1200 (0%)