I'm learning Japanese but do I have to learn kanji, because I don't want to
learn 50,000 letters.
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kanji help
Do I need to learn kanji to speak/write japanese?
You don't need kanji to speak Japanese, but I would suggest that not learning
kanji would make learning the vocabulary harder.

You don't strictly need to know kanji to write understandable Japanese.
However, if you do write entirely in kana it will make your writing incredibly
difficult for other people to read.

50,000 is a big exaggeration. The standard list is a little over 2000 kanji.

You didn't ask, but if you want to **read** Japanese you will make almost no
progress without learning kanji.

In short, learn kanji. It's hard but it can be fun and very rewarding.
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2021-07-13T21:28:08.720
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If you only want to speak Japanese, writing will be less important. I think
that you will eventually reach a ceiling on how well you can speak it,
though-- to reach a reasonably natural degree of speaking ability eventually
you'll have to interact with written material which assumes you can read at
least some kanji.

If you want to _write_ Japanese then kanji is pretty important. You don't need
to learn anywhere near 50,000, but writing only in hiragana and katakana will
come across as juvenile and not truly literate. You will also have trouble
reading Japanese, as not all material has a phonetic version available.
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2021-07-13T21:28:30.487
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From first to sixth grade, Japanese children in school currently (since 2020)
learn 1026 characters.

Source: Wikipedia

According to some sources, children in Japan learn approximately the following
numbers of kanji in the first six years of school:

  * First school year (80 kanji)
  * Second school year (160 kanji)
  * Third grade (200 kanji)
  * Fourth school year (202 kanji)
  * Fifth school year (193 kanji)
  * Sixth school year (191 kanji)

In the course of compulsory schooling, a Japanese student should have learned
about 2136 characters.

The figures given by the sources vary somewhat, as the number of characters on
the curriculum has changed slightly several times over the course of time.

See how many kanji and by the way as a additional information, how much
vocabulary you need to learn as foreigner for the different levels of the JLPT
Test:

  * JLPT Test, N5, 120 Kanji, 800 vocabulary
  * JLPT Test, N4, 320 Kanji, 1.500 vocabulary
  * JLPT Test, N3, 650 Kanji, 3.000 vocabulary
  * JLPT Test, N2, 1000 Kanji, 6.000 vocabulary
  * JLPT Test, N1, 2000 Kanji, 10.000 vocabulary

Source: <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese-
Language_Proficiency_Test#Pr%C3%BCfungsinhalt>

I hope this helps to estimate the effort required to learn Japanese.
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I do not think that you need to learn **all** the kanji to write Japanese. You
could just learn the most simple ones, like the kanji for "Japanese", or
"sun", or "moon".

These days, not many people are able to remember and recognize the 50,000
kanji. Most people are only able to read 2,000 kanji. Still, you do not need
to learn all 2,000 just to be able to speak and write Japanese. Like I said,
just learn the most basic one.

Kanji will no doubt take some time to learn, but it will certainly be worth
it.

Have fun!
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2021-07-15T02:24:06.840
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The short answer is 'Yes'. But it's not as simple as that, obviously.
Proficiency is a spectrum. And knowledge of kanji is integral for an all-round
development of Japanese ability in other areas. It's a misnomer that you don't
need kanji. The better your kanji knowledge is, the richer your vocabulary
will be, the deeper your understanding of grammar will be, and the sooner you
will be able integrate new information into your interlanguage skills.

It's not about knowing kanji or not knowing kanji. Just treat it as another
part of expanding your Japanese language skills. Practise your receptive
skills (listening and reading) and practise your productive skills (speaking
and writing). Kanji will help you develop as a learner. Don't see it as an
obstacle. See it as an opportunity.

And by the way, knowledge of even around 1000 kanji will allow you to read and
understand a lot of authentic Japanese materials like blogs, novels, newspaper
articles, manga, etc.
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