This is a relatively comprehensive list of academic subjects in Japanese. Most people learn words for the basic school subjects like math and history at some point, but I’ve never found a good complete list anywhere, so I decided to make one.
The character 学 (gaku), which means “learn” or “study”, appears in many subject names. (In this use, it’s equivalent to the suffix “-logy” in English.) Longer subject names are often abbreviated by leaving off the gaku.
人文学 / Humanities (i.e. Non-sciences)
| Kanji | Kana | Romaji | English | |
| 哲学 | てつがく | tetsugaku | philosophy | |
| 歴史 | れきし | rekishi | history | |
| 文学 | ぶんがく | bungaku | literature | |
| 1 | 語学 | ごがく | gogaku | language study |
1 Not to be confused with 言語学 (gengogaku) “linguistics” (the study of language in general).
社会科学 / Social Sciences
| 心理学 | しんりがく | shinrigaku | psychology | |
| 社会学 | しゃかいがく | shakaigaku | sociology | |
| 1 | 言語学 | げんごがく | gengogaku | linguistics |
| 2 | 人類学 | じんるいがく | jinruigaku | anthropology |
| 地理（学） | ちり（がく） | chiri(gaku) | geography | |
| 3 | 経済（学） | けいざい（がく） | keizai(gaku) | economics |
| 4 | 政治学 | せいじがく | seijigaku | political science |
1 Not to be confused with 語学 (gogaku) “language study” (learning a particular language).
2 人類 (jinrui) = mankind
3 経済 (keizai) = economy
4 政治 (seiji) = government/politics
自然科学 / Natural Sciences
| 1 | 生物（学） | せいぶつ（がく） | seibutsu(gaku) | biology |
| 2 | 化学 | かがく | kagaku | chemistry |
| 物理（学） | ぶつり（がく） | butsuri(gaku) | physics | |
| 天文（学） | てんもん（がく） | tenmon(gaku) | astronomy | |
| 地質（学） | ちしつ（がく） | chishitsu(gaku) | geology | |
| 3 | 環境科学 | かんきょうかがく | kankyou kagaku | environmental science |
1 生物 (seibutsu) = living things
2 科学, also pronounced kagaku, means “science”
3 環境 (kankyou) = environment
その他 / Other Subjects
| 数学 | すうがく | suugaku | mathematics | |
| 1 | 統計（学） | とうけい（がく） | toukei(gaku) | statistics |
| 工学 | こうがく | kougaku | engineering | |
| 医学 | いがく | igaku | medical science |
1 統計 (toukei) = statistics (the actual numbers, rather than the subject)
See Also
- Talking About School Subjects – practice with suki and kirai, comparatives, and conjunctions
Thank you so much for the effort you have put into making ths guide ,in hope for your continuing succes.