Jame,
It ain't easy. I lived in Japan for five years and can only recognize about 200 symbols. The real difficulty is that Japanese has three, count them, three forms of written language.
You have:
Katakana - Japanese symbols for Japanese words (an alphabet of syllables i.e. a, e, u, i, o; ka, ki, ku, ke, ko; etc. spoken with latin vowel pronunciation)
Hiragana - a different set of symbols for foreign words (helps identify the word immediately as non-Japanese)
Kanji - Chinese characters for Japanese words/concepts (literally thousands of symbols)
Most written Japanese is a combination of predominately Kanji (because complex ideas can be written with fewer characters) and Katakana to imply verb tense or other nuances. The fun begins when foreign words are included, bring the Hiragana symbols into the mix too.
I've heard it stated that to read a Japanese newspaper requires knowledge of some 3000 Kanji symbols alone. To graduate high school in Japan requires a student to be able to replicate some 6000 kanji symbols and penmanship counts! Unless the Kanji is written with each stroke made in the proper order and length, it is not correct.
Please, any Nisei or students of Japanese language correct my gross generalizations if they're wrong. I was not a student there, just a long term tourist.
When I was living there, I was happy being able to find the right train station or highway on my own! Thank heavens most menus included pictures!
