The Japanese characters that are used daily in Japan are Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. In addition, Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, …), the alphabet (a, b, c, …) and Roman numerals (Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ, …) are also used.
The Japanese language has a huge number of characters, which is one of the reasons why it is difficult to learn.
In particular, there are a large number of Kanji, so it is impossible even for Japanese people to remember all the Kanji.
You can learn Hiragana, Katakana and some Kanji on this page.
Hiragana
Hiragana has voiceless sounds, voiced sounds, semi-voiced sounds, contracted sounds, syllabic nasal, double consonant and long sound.
Voiceless sounds are the most basic characters such as “あ”, “い” and “う”, and there are 45 characters. Most Japanese Hiragana words are composed of voiceless sounds.
Voiced sounds are characters such as “が”, “ぎ” and “ぐ” that have a ” ゛” on the upper right, and there are 20 characters.
Semi-voiced sounds are characters such as “ぱ”, “ぴ” and “ぷ” that have a ” ゜” on the upper right, and there are 5 characters.
Contracted sounds are characters such as “きゃ”, “きゅ” and “きょ” that include the small “ゃ”, “ゅ” and “ょ,” and there are 36 characters.
Syllabic nasal is “ん”. In Japanese, there are no words that start with “ん”, and the character “ん” always appears as the second or subsequent character in a word.
Double consonant is “っ”. It is a character that is placed between characters and is pronounced as a short, compressed sound between the pronunciation of the previous character and the pronunciation of the next character. In Japanese, there are no words that start with “っ” or that end with “っ”.
Long sound is “ー”. It extends the sound of the previous character.
Hiragana characters have no meaning by themselves but represent sounds. For example, the character “あ” has no meaning but represents the sound “a.”
Words are formed by combining multiple Hiragana characters and have meaning. For example, the combination of “あ” and “か” forms the word “赤（あか）” and has a meaning.
List of Hiragana is here → ＜Hiragana List＞
Katakana
Like Hiragana, Katakana has voiceless sounds, voiced sounds, semi-voiced sounds, contracted sounds, syllabic nasal, double consonant and long sound.
Voiceless sounds are the most basic characters such as “ア”, “イ” and “ウ”, and there are 45 characters. Most Japanese Katakana words are composed of voiceless sounds.
Voiced sounds are characters such as “ガ”, “ギ” and “グ” that have a ” ゛” on the upper right, and there are 20 characters.
Semi-voiced sounds are characters such as “パ”, “ピ” and “プ” that have a ” ゜” on the upper right, and there are 5 characters.
Contracted sounds are characters such as “キャ”, “キュ” and “キョ” that include the small “ャ”, “ュ” and “ョ,” and there are 36 characters.
Syllabic nasal is “ン”. In Japanese, there are no words that start with “ン”, and the character “ン” always appears as the second or subsequent character in a word.
Double consonant is “ッ”. It is a character that is placed between characters and is pronounced as a short, compressed sound between the pronunciation of the previous character and the pronunciation of the next character. In Japanese, there are no words that start with “ッ” or that end with “ッ”.
Long sound is “ー”. It extends the sound of the previous character.
Unlike Hiragana, Katakana also has characters such as “ファ”, “フィ” and “フェ” that are used to express sounds that are closer to pronunciations in foreign languages.
Like Hiragana, Katakana characters have no meaning by themselves but represent sounds. For example, the character “ア” has no meaning but represents the sound “a”.
Words are formed by combining multiple Katakana characters and have meaning. For example, the combination of “ア”, “メ”, “リ” and “カ” forms the word “アメリカ” and has a meaning.
List of Katakana is here → ＜Katakana List＞
Kanji
Many Hiragana words and Katakana words can be expressed in Kanji. Because sentences written only in Hiragana and Katakana are difficult to understand, Kanji is used when writing sentences in Japanese.
There are various opinions on the number of Kanji, but it is said to be over 100,000 characters.
In Japanese elementary schools, students learn about 1,000 characters. In addition, Kanji that we need to memorize to read books and newspapers are called common-use Kanji “常用漢字（じょうようかんじ）” and there are about 2,000 characters.
Unlike Hiragana and Katakana, Kanji has a meaning with just one character. For example, the Kanji “一（いち）” represents one of something.
List of common-use Kanji is here → ＜Kanji List＞