How many letters are in the Japanese alphabet?

Answer 1

Japanese does not have an alphabet. It has 2 syllabaries and it also uses Chinese characters.

There are 204 "Letters" in the Hiragana and Katakana, which are syllabaries, not alphabets. (Each character in the syllabary respresents a whole syllable, not a letter).

The number of Kanji, or Chinese Characters is debatable, as upwards of 70,000 characters. But only 2136 are officially used as of 2017.

Also the Arabic Numerals are used ( 0-9 in symbol form), and Latin letters are sometimes used.
Japanese has three alphabets, hiragana, katakana, and kanji.

hiragana and katakana are groups of symbols that represent sounds.

Kanji are symbols that represent words and thiere are over 2000 of them that Japanese people use every day.

Answer 2

There are a total of 2,364 official symbols, but Japanese has no alphabet. The writing uses a combination of symbols representing whole syllables, plus Chinese characters representing phonemes.

Katakana

In modern Japanese, there are 46 basic Katakana letters. In addition to these 46 basic letters called gojūon, there are modified forms to describe more sounds - 20 dakuon, 5 handakuon, 36 yōon, 1 sokuon and 6 additional letters.

Hirigana

In modern Japanese, there are 46 basic Hiragana letters. In addition to these 46 basic letters called gojūon, there are modified forms to describe more sounds - 20 dakuon, 5 handakuon, 36 yōon, 1 sokuon and 6 additional letters.

Kanji

There are over 85,000 Chinese characters, but In Japan, there are only 2,136 official Jōyō kanji (lit. commonly-used kanji), which are the ones taught in school, though literate people usually know more.

Answer 3

none Chinese use symbols for each word they don't combine letters in to words

Answer 4

I think Japanese uses a character system like Chinese so doesn't have specific letters- but I'm not certain.

Answer 5

Go to the related link (Japanese alphabet, including Kana, Hiragana, and Katakana,) below for information on the Japanese alphabet.

Answer 6

There is no such thing as an Asian alphabet. There are different alphabets in many of the Asian countries. In India alone, there are probably a dozen alphabets.

Answer 7

Japanese has no alphabet. It uses two syllabaries (Katakana, Hiragana), and about 2000 Chinese characters (Kanji).

Answer 8

there is no such thing as a Japanese alphabet. The Japanese writing system is quite different from our idea of "alphabets".