hiragana or katakana

[vapor]

The type fonts that are often used lend to that hardcare feeling!

vapor

[orisha66]

very true amigo

[koji112091]

Yeah. thanks for the info.
I believe the averge kanji list is about 2000 but many Nihonjin know much more. Sounds pretty long to learn. OSU!

[smoothsake]

The Chinese language uses approximately 5000 characters but the Beijing government did simplify them so that literacy rates would improve. By comparison, 2000 characters in Japan doesn't sound all that bad. If you want to learn Japanese you should definitely spend some time with kanji. It is amazing the thought that the Chinese went into why a character is written the way it is.

[smoothsake]

Originally Posted by Bruce

okay I'm somewhat confused - where is the rest of the alphabet (english) or do a lot of letters not have comparable sounds in Japanese? Surely these (relatively) few sounds can't be used to make an entire language? I'm probably asking totally dumb questions here.......I think I mght slink off and try and find an explanation of Japanese elsewhere on the web. Can anyone reccomend a good website?

Japanese is composed of the following vowels (and if you know Spanish it is pronounced the very same way) a, i, u, e, and o. These vowels are combined with the following k, s, t, n, h, m, and r. There are the exceptions with y, w and n, but save that for another day.

So like for karate, it is broken down into three phonetic sounds ka-ra-te. Get it? If you understand that you are one step closer to understanding Japanese.

If you want to learn more I suggest going to a bookstore and picking up a book like "Yosohiku" or "Genki." These are serious college textbooks I used to study from back in the day.