I have never understood Japanese symbols. Do they represent sounds like our Latin letters or do they resemble Chinese in the fact that they mean words?
Or is it like sign language where there is a mixture of both?
Also, if they represent sounds, what kind of sounds? Is it like 'k' or something like 'ka'? How many "letters" are there?
I know I ask a lot of questions. If someone could answer them that would be fantastic.
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we have 2 types of letters and one type of characters.
hiragana (46 letters)
http://japanese.about.com/library/blhiragana.htm
katakana (46 letterss)
http://japanese.about.com/blkatakana1.htm
kanji (more than 50,000 characters)
http://japanese.about.com/library/blkanji3.htm
we use all letters and characters in one sentence.
japanese letters sound chart
http://www.saiga-jp.com/pronunciation_voice.html