i tell about kanji. our govrrment say the number of "general use kanji" is 2136letters. but we read more kanji in daily. more than 5000 letters exist. elementary school student learn anout 1000 letters. junior high-about 2000 letters.

There are 46 letters in Hiragana. <Hiragana> あいうえお かきくけこ さしすせそ たちつてと なにぬねの はひふへほ まみむめも やゆよ らりるれろ わを ん In addition, there are also katakana and Kanji(Chinese character).

The basic units of the Japanese writing system are syllables. Standard Japanese uses 100 distinct syllables. Of these, 5 are single vowels, 62 are consonants combined with a vowel, and 53 are consonants combined with 'y' plus a vowel. Above are only in hiragana and katakana. We use thousands of kanji (chinese characters) in Japanese as well. Check out the link below, I think it is very helpful. http://www.linguanaut.com/japanese_alphabet.htm

There are 50 letters.it is about twice of English letters. "kanji" are maybe 1000 or more.so, some one told you about kanji, I think.