How many letters(or signs) are in the Japanese alphabet?

Answer 1

♡Modern Japanese uses three main "scripts":♡
Kanji, characters of Chinese origin,
☆ There are several ten thousands of characters, at least 50,000of which 2000 to 3000 are required to understand newspapers. A set of 1945 characters has been officially declared as the "kanji for everyday use".
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2046.html
Hiragana, a syllabary, and
Katakana, a syllabary.
☆Hiragana and katakana each consist of 46 signs which originally were kanji but were strongly simplified over the centuries. When looking at a Japanese text, one can clearly distinguish the two kinds of signs: the complicated kanji and the simpler kana signs.
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2047.html
☆It is also possible to write Japanese in Roman letters. In Japanese, this is called rōmaji. The Japanese rarely use this system to write their own language, except for abbreviations (often of a technical nature) where it is becoming increasingly common (e.g., CD and DVD).
Hope this helps! (*^o^*)I live in Japan and after nine years I am still trying to learn all the kanji characters I can.♡

Answer 2

There are actually 3 "alphabets" - Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji (you shouldn't go by my spelling!). Hiragana & Katakana are more what we traditionally think of as an alphabet - pneumonics that are put together to form words - and they have a limited number of characters (something similar to our alphabet). One alphabet is used to "spell" out words of Japanese origin (I believe that's Hiragana) and one is used to "spell" foreign words.

Kanji is the "symbol alphabet" made up of characters representing words. This actually comes from the Chinese alphabet and has thousands of symbols. Someone else may be able to answer EXACTLY how many.

Answer 3

There are actually three "alphabets" in Japanese.

The first two, Hiragana and Katakana, both have 46 basic characters. You can alter the pronunciation of several of them, as well.

The third, Kanji, has thousands of characters (I've read there are up to 50,000 in the Japanese language) but only around 2,000 are actually used on a regular basis.

So combined, there are around 3,000 characters you need to know to get around the written language.

Answer 4

Their culture and letters are very interesting. Their are many ways to express yourself in Japanese writings. It is to be said there are roughly 5,000 letters in an alphabet. As you see the Chinese and the Japanese have a similarity in their letters. As history is taught the Chinese introduced their letters to the Japanese. There might even be more letters in the alphabet. Of course everyone's culture is different. Our alphabet is an ant to theirs. They have complex symbols and only 1,800 letters are taught to students in America. There are indeed lots of letters. Though it does not stop a person from learning their vast culture. People who actually study their language said there might be hundreds of thousands to letters. Very amazing, I think it would be interesting to learn about their culture.

Answer 5

there 1800 major ones but alot of them get put together to form other word and theres about 5000 at least of those.

Answer 6

they're called characters i think
oh and i read its more than 25000 for the whole language
i could be wrong though