Convenience store Japanese: the kanji you need in a conbini

A Japanese convenience store is the cheapest Japanese lesson in the country. You walk in several times a week, the vocabulary repeats every single time, and nobody minds how long you stand in front of the shelf reading. This guide covers the kanji that actually appear in a 7-Eleven, FamilyMart or Lawson — on labels, on price tags, and in the four questions the register staff will ask you — plus what to say back.

TL;DR

Four register questions cover almost every conbini transaction: heat it up, bag, chopsticks, payment method. Learn those four and you can stop nodding blindly.
Two date words decide whether food is safe: 賞味期限 (best before, quality) and 消費期限 (use by, safety). They are not interchangeable.
税込 vs 税抜 tells you whether the number on the tag is the number you pay.

The register script: four questions you will be asked

Conbini staff work from a fixed script. That is good news: the same four questions come up in the same order, so once you can hear them you are done. None of them need a full sentence in reply — はい (yes) or 大丈夫です (I'm fine / no thanks) is what Japanese customers actually say.

1. 温めますか (atatamemasu ka) — "Shall I heat this up?"

Asked for anything from the chilled shelf: bento, pasta, curry, buns. The kanji is 温 (warm), JLPT N2 in our kanji set, and it is worth learning as a character because it comes back on every hot drink and every hot-food sign in the store. Answer はい to have it microwaved, 大丈夫です to take it cold.

2. 袋はご利用ですか (fukuro wa go-riyō desu ka) — "Do you need a bag?"

Plastic shopping bags have been paid by law across Japan since July 2020, so this question is now asked every time and costs a few yen if you say yes. The kanji is 袋 (bag, N2). You will also see it written on the small sign at the register as レジ袋 — "register bag".

3. お箸はおつけしますか (o-hashi wa o-tsuke shimasu ka) — "Would you like chopsticks?"

Also asked as スプーン (spoon) or フォーク (fork) depending on what you bought. This one is usually written in kana rather than kanji, which is exactly why it trips people up who have only studied from a textbook — the spoken form is the form you meet.

4. お支払いは (o-shiharai wa) — "How are you paying?"

Both characters are N3 in our set: 支 (support, branch) and 払 (pay). The usual answers are 現金 (genkin, cash) — 現 N3 plus 金 N5 — or the name of your IC card or code payment app. If you are asked ポイントカードは, that is a loyalty card, and 大丈夫です closes it.

Reading the label: the two date words

This is the single most useful thing to be able to read in a Japanese food shop, and the distinction is legally defined rather than a matter of taste.

賞味期限 (shōmi kigen) — best before. Quality date. Applies to food that keeps: snacks, instant noodles, canned drinks. Past it, the product is usually still safe, just not at its best.
消費期限 (shōhi kigen) — use by. Safety date. Applies to food that spoils quickly: onigiri, sandwiches, bento, fresh salad. Past it, do not eat it.

The shared half is 期限 (kigen, deadline / time limit): 期 (period, N3) plus 限 (limit, N3). What changes is the first half — 賞味 "taste appreciation" versus 消費 "consumption". Both 賞 (N2) and 費 (N3) are worth knowing outside the shop too; 費 shows up in every word about costs.

On fresh items you will also see 本日中にお召し上がりください — "please eat by the end of today". 本 (N5) and 日 (N5) here mean "this day", not "book" and "sun". That pairing is a good early lesson in how much Japanese meaning lives in the combination rather than the individual character.

Reading the label: the price

Since April 2021, shops in Japan have to show the total price including consumption tax, so the big number is normally what you hand over. You will still see both forms printed on the same tag:

税込 (zeikomi) — tax included. 税 (tax, N2) plus 込 (included, N3). This is the number you pay.
税抜 (zeinuki) — tax excluded. The pre-tax number, usually printed smaller.
円 (en, yen) — 円 is N5 and the first kanji most learners can read in the wild, because it is on every tag in the country.

Discount stickers are the other half of price literacy. 割引 (waribiki, discount) uses 割 (proportion, N3) and 引 (pull, N3); 20%引き means 20% off. Late in the evening the sticker often just says 値引 (nebiki, price reduction) with 値 (price, N3). 半額 means half price — 半 is N5.

The hot case and the fried counter

The heated case by the register has its own small vocabulary, and it is almost entirely food kanji you will reuse in restaurants.

中華まん — steamed buns. 肉まん is the pork one (肉, meat, N4), あんまん the sweet bean one, ピザまん the pizza one.
揚げ物 (agemono) — fried food. The character 揚 carries "deep-fry" as one of its meanings and is N1 in our set, so treat it as recognition-only at first.
おでん — simmered items in broth, sold in winter. Written in kana, but the ingredient labels are not.
温かい / 冷たい — hot / cold, the two words on the drink shelves. 冷 is N3.

The drinks fridge is worth one extra minute. 無糖 means unsweetened and 微糖 lightly sweetened — 糖 (sugar) is N1, but the pattern is so common on coffee cans that most people learn it by sight long before they meet it in a textbook. お茶 (tea, 茶 N4) and 水 (water, 水 N5) label themselves.

Onigiri: reading the filling

Rice balls are labelled by 具 (gu, filling) — 具 is N3. The wrapper usually gives the filling in a mix of kanji and kana, and the most common ones repeat endlessly: 鮭 (salmon), 梅 (ume plum), 昆布 (kombu seaweed), ツナマヨ (tuna mayo), 明太子 (spicy pollock roe). Of those, 梅 and 昆 are N1 in our kanji set and 明 is N4 — which tells you something useful about the JLPT: the exam grades characters by general written frequency, not by how often you personally meet them at lunchtime.

That gap is the reason "study the JLPT list in order" and "learn what is in front of you" are two different strategies. The best results come from doing both: work the level lists for structure, and use the shop shelf for repetition. Our per-kanji pages exist for exactly this — you can look up 米 (rice, N3) or any other character you photograph on a label and see its readings and level immediately.

The service counter

Conbini in Japan are also small post offices, banks and copy shops, and the signs above the counter are almost pure kanji.

宅配便 (takuhaibin) — parcel delivery. 宅 (home, N3) plus 配 (distribute, N3).
収納代行 (shūnō daikō) — bill payment service, where you pay utility slips over the counter. 収 is N3.
領収書 (ryōshūsho) — receipt (the formal kind, for expenses). 領 N2, 書 N5. The slip you get automatically is a レシート; 領収書 is the one you ask for.
店内 / 店外 — inside / outside the shop, seen on rubbish bins and seating signs. 店 (shop, N4), 内 (N3), 外 (N5).
手洗い (tearai) — toilet. 手 N4, 洗 N3. Often written as お手洗い.

How to practise this in a week

Reading kanji on a page and reading it on a shelf while somebody waits behind you are different skills. Three things that work:

Pick one shelf per visit. One day the drinks fridge, the next the onigiri rack. Trying to read the whole store at once means reading none of it.
Photograph one label and look it up later. The character you looked up because you wanted to know sticks far better than the one that came up in a list.
Say the register answers out loud before you need them. 大丈夫です and はい, お願いします cover most of the script. Hesitation is a vocabulary problem far less often than it is a rehearsal problem.

FAQ

Do I need kanji at all to shop in a Japanese convenience store?

No — you can point, and staff are used to it. But dates, allergen notes and prices are written in kanji, so reading is the difference between guessing and knowing what you bought.

What is the difference between 賞味期限 and 消費期限?

賞味期限 is a best-before date about quality and applies to shelf-stable food. 消費期限 is a use-by date about safety and applies to fresh food like onigiri and bento. Only the second one is a hard stop.

Is the price on the tag what I pay?

Look for 税込 (tax included) — that is the total. If a tag shows 税抜, consumption tax is added at the register. Total-price display has been required since April 2021, so the tax-included figure is normally the prominent one.

What JLPT level is conbini vocabulary?

Mixed, and that is the point. 円, 本日, 中, 大 and 小 are N5; 税, 袋, 温 and 賞 are N2; 揚 and 糖 are N1. Everyday life does not sort itself by exam level.

How do I say I do not need a bag?

大丈夫です (daijōbu desu) is the normal, polite refusal for all four register questions. いりません is correct but blunter than most customers sound.

Next steps

Once the conbini stops being a wall of characters, the next place to practise is a menu — the vocabulary overlaps heavily, and the portion and cooking-method words carry over. That is covered in reading a Japanese restaurant menu at N4–N5. If you commute, the kanji you see on Tokyo trains is the other high-repetition set. To drill the characters in this article in order, start with the full N5 kanji list or try the quiz to find your level first.