How many words are there in the Japanese language?

Answer 1

5,0000
Hiragana = 71 characters
That's hard to answer, since there are many catagories that the characters are organized into, like Kanji (漢字), or hiragana (ひらがな, 平仮名). And in each category the ammounts of characters range from 50- 2,000. So I can't give you the exact number.

Answer 2

There are about 2000 Japanese characters. (and boy, is Hiroshi-kun one of them!)To answer with more precision you would need to be more specific about whatyou mean by "Japanese characters." Do you mean Chinese characters (kanji) incommon use? Do you mean the kana (phoenetic characters adapted from kanji)?Do you mean the kanji "made in Japan" which have no Chinese origin?

The ministry of education recognizes 1945 basic characters (Joyo Kanji) as of 1981.However, you will encounter plenty of non-official characters especially in placenames and people's names. Any educated Japanese will know thousands more than these and, in the proper setting such as a bar, will gladly provide elucidation.

There are 46 kana (or 92 if you want to count katakana and hiragana) and these arewhat I would consider the true "Japanese characters" since although they descendedfrom Chinese kanji they are pretty unique to Japanese language.

Answer 3

According to the authoritative Daikanwa Jiten, about 50,000 kanji in total have been created most of them by the second century AD. Most of these however are highly obscure, many refer to specific place names or names of insects or plants, and most are go unused even in China.

It is believed that knowledge of about 3,300 characters is needed in order to be a literate Japanese adult.

Only about 2000 are officially recognized by the government.

Answer 4

There are 46 characters in Katakana. Additionally, adding a "dakuten" marker ( ゛), certain characters can be changed into other sounds (k→g, s→z, t→d, and h→b). Katakana beginning with an h can use a "handakuten" marker ( ゜) which would change the h sound so a p.

Answer 5

There is no "alphabet" in Japanese, rather a syllabary of 100 symbols representing 50 syllables. On top of that, the Japanese written language also make the use of Kanji (Chinese characters) which will up the total count to thousands or more.

Answer 6

It is not possible to count the exact number of words in any language because there is no universally accepted definition of what a word is.

But by most definitions, Japanese has between 80,000 and 160,000 words.

Answer 7

Japanese writing is a mixture of 3 different systems used all together. Here is a breakdown of the number of symbols in each system:

1. Katakana (used to spell foreign words) = 46 basic letters plus various modifiers making it 71
   
2. Hiragana (used for native Japanese words) = 46 basic letters plus various modifiers making it 71
   
3. Kanji (chinese characters) = 2,136 officially, but in practice, thousands of others are also used. There may be as many as 50,000 or more, but the typical literate Japanese person knows about 2,500-3,500.
   

Answer 8

Officially, there are 2,136 kanji used in Japanese. In practice, thousands more are used. There are about 50,000 in inexistence, but the literate average Japanese person uses about 3,500 to 5,000.

Answer 9

It is not possible to count the words in any language, because there is no universal definition of what a word is. But many estimates say that Japanese has between 60,000 and 160,000 words.