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Why JLPT N5 learners mix up 切手 (きって, “postage stamp”) and 手紙 (てがみ, “letter”).
Both relate to mail and share the kanji 手 (hand), which can lead learners to mistake the specific postal item (stamp) for the entire correspondence (letter).
On JLPT N5, this pair shows up as a vocabulary meaning question. You see one word and pick its English equivalent from four options — one of which will be the other word in this pair, chosen as a distractor precisely because of the overlap.
Reading the explanation is step one. Targeted practice is what actually moves a confusion pair out of your weak list. Free, no signup needed to try.
Practice N5 confusion pairsSpot a mistake in this explanation? Email us. Explanations are AI-generated and human-reviewed; corrections welcome.