Yukigo
The Japanese alphabet: why there isn't one
"How many letters does the Japanese alphabet have" has no answer, because Japanese doesn't have an alphabet: it has three writing systems living in the same sentence, each with a job of its own.
Put that way it sounds like three times the work. It is the opposite: the division of labour is exactly what makes a language readable when it is written without spaces between words. Here is how they split an ordinary sentence.
私はコーヒーを飲みます
"I drink coffee." All three are needed: 私 and 飲 carry the meaning, コーヒー is in katakana because it came from outside, and the hiragana holds the rest together.
明日テストがあります
"There's a test tomorrow." Same division of labour, different words: meaning in the kanji, the loanword in katakana, the grammar in hiragana.
Why three and not one
Kanji arrived from China around the fifth century, carried in with Buddhist texts. The trouble is that Chinese and Japanese have different grammars: Japanese needed signs for endings and particles, which kanji didn't cover. The two syllabaries grew out of that need, by simplifying existing kanji — and over time katakana specialized in what comes from abroad.
Where a word ends
Japanese puts no spaces between words, and readers don't miss them because the change of script does the spacing: a block of kanji marks the start of a content word, the hiragana that follows marks the grammar attached to it. That is precisely why a text written entirely in hiragana is harder to read, not easier.
Rōmaji is not the fourth system
Rōmaji is Japanese transcribed into our alphabet: it exists for us, not for them, and in Japan you mostly see it on signs for foreigners and in acronyms. It is how you type — you write "ka" and the keyboard gives you か — but leaning on rōmaji is the fastest way never to learn to read.
The order to learn them in
Hiragana first: you need it from day one for the grammar. Katakana next, and it pays off immediately because it unlocks half the menus and shop signs. Kanji last, and never on their own — they are learned inside words, not as a list of symbols.
The three systems side by side
Each system's name leads to its own guide, with the full chart and audio for every character.
Start with the kana, in two weeks
Yukigo teaches both syllabaries with audio, handwriting and spaced repetition, then walks you into kanji inside real words all the way to the JLPT. Free and ad-free.
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Frequently asked questions
None, because it isn't an alphabet. If you need a number: 46 hiragana and 46 katakana cover every sound of the language, plus the 2,136 common-use kanji taught in Japanese schools.
Technically yes, and Japanese children do at first. But without kanji and without spaces the text becomes hard work: きしゃのきしゃがきしゃできしゃした is a real sentence, and only the kanji tell you which "kisha" is which.
For your first holiday phrases, yes. For learning, no: people who stay on rōmaji keep reading Japanese as if it were a European language, and the longer you wait the more the switch to kana costs.
One or two weeks at twenty minutes a day to recognize them all. A few weeks more to read them without hesitating — and what makes the difference is spaced repetition, not long sittings.
It was seriously considered after the war. The problem is that Japanese has a great many homophones: きかい can be 機械 "machine" or 機会 "opportunity". Spoken, context separates them; written without kanji, they would stay ambiguous.