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As English speakers, we're very lucky to have one alphabet with only 26 letters. In Japanese, there is not just one "alphabet," but three! Now before you go hide under a desk in fear, let me tell you a little about these "alphabets" (and why I'm using quotation marks).
Hiragana and Katakana
Two of these "alphabets" are actually syllabaries known as Hiragana and Katakana. In a syllabary, each letter represents one (and only one) sound, and each letter is one syllable. Compare this to the English alphabet where the dipthong "ou" has at least four different pronunciations: cough, tough, bough, and louise (technically a french name). English syllables are also different: "cough" is one syllable itself.
Since English has a narrow set of letters, these letters end up having to represet multiple sounds. The Japanese language has a narrow set of sounds that can be represented in one syllabary or the other. Pick your poison. :p
Hiragana is a very curvy syllabary, and used to only be used by women maaaaany years ago. Katakana is the polar opposite, looking very stick-like and used to only be used by (scholarly) men. This isn't the case anymore, though. Since the whole equal rights movement, they are now used by both genders.
They might be seperate scripts, but the catch is each set has the same sounds (and they represent all of the sounds available in Japanese). There are 46 individual characters in both. It helps to think of Hiragana and Katakana as twins. They're very similar, have the same amount of characters, but they do different things. This'll be explained later on, but for now keep it in mind that the characters are practically interchangeable.
Kanji
The third "alphabet" is neither an alphabet nor a syllabary. Originating from Chinese, Kanji is a pictographic script that is more than 6,000 years old. Rather than using abstract shapes to represent sounds, each character is composed of parts (called radicals) that function as pictures with meaning. Some of these parts also lend pronunciation.
The Japanese imported (like everything else these days) the Chinese Kanji during a time when Japanese did not have a writing system. The Japanese people communicated and shared teachings with the Chinese, so it's natural that they picked up their writing.
For a time, Kanji were used for a phonetic value rather than their meaning. Hiragana and Katakana arose from this usage: Hiragana evolved from writing Kanji in cursive script, while Katakana were basically parts picked out of (usually) the same Kanji. In the case below, the Kanji were different, but the pronunciation is the same.
In modern Japanese, a Kanji is used to represent meaning (like in Chinese). Each has two types of pronunciations. The first, called onyomi, are tied to the original Chinese pronunciation of the character. These are used in compound Kanji words 90% of the time. The second is kunyomi, which are native Japanese words with the same meaning as the Chinese character. Kunyomi tend to have trailing Hiragana after them that are a part of the word.
The picture demonstrates how Japanese Kanji work. Keep in mind, there could be more than one Kunyomi, and more than one Onyomi. It's not so important to remember this now, but it will matter a lot later on.
Kanji are going to be the most intimidating part of the Japanese language due to the large amount of them. The designated number by the Ministry of Education is set to about 2,100, along with 900 or so Kanji for use in names (these include variations of the same kanji as well). This factor alone drives many people away from studying the language. Personally, I like the challenge.
With a systematic approach (which you'll learn in the first Kanji lesson), I promise Kanji won't be as bad as they seem. You can read a more in-depth introduction to Kanji here, and on their composition here (I suggest waiting until you've completed the next two lessons). First we need to learn the two syllabaries mentioned earlier — Hiragana and Katakana.
Lessons
The Writing Systems
- Understanding the Japanese Writing Systems
- Hiragana
- Katakana
- Romaji & Why It Sucks
- Introduction to Kanji