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Ok this might be the most stupidest question in the world to someone with basic knowledge of Japanese but here goes anyways. What is the useage of each part of the Japanese language? What I mean is Hiragana- what is it mainly used for in Japanese? What is Kanji mostly used for?(naming places, people?) What is Katakana mostly used for? (I mean is used for nouns or something?) Also do you combine these three to make other words? I know for a fact that combing characters in Kanji will give you a different word (like combing the symbol rain and water to get "rainwater" and so on).(I'm guessing this how your spell words.) I hope this makes sense....anyways help would always be nice! This has been a major probelm for me when I was trying to learn Japanese and sorry if this is a repeat or something... sweatdrop
~Arra

@Kittymutt- that helped a lot! now i understand it a bit better. It was really confusing when i read it online. so just to make sure i got this right
Hiragana- used if people don't know the word in Kanji
Katakana- mostly used for forigen words. (is that names too? or forigen in general?)
Kanji- has more than one meaning sometimes but you know the meaning depending on the context?
thanks again! ^____^

I hate to add to the confusion, but sometimes you do see katakana replacing normal words (i.e. words normally written in hiragana) when someone is making a particular emphasis in Japanese. In that case, it would be like how we use italics in English.

Chinese names are usually written in Kanji and are pronounced with the Japanese reading of those kanji. Korean names are usually written in katakana unless the name has kanji, then it is the same as Chinese names.

In grammar, particles are ALWAYS written in hiragana. It is just easier that way (a cool thing is that most particles have kanji for them, as it is a left over mechanism when Japan borrowed Chinese characters, but for the last several hundred years, they have been dropped out of standard usage by most fields).

An interesting comparison: There have been times in Japanese history where either Japanese nationals announced using only English in Japan during the Meiji period and there was a suggestion during the occupation of Japan after WWII that Japan abandon using Kanji. This was recommended by one of the supervisors to (what would be) the Ministry of Education. They sent out a survey/test to see what level people could read and write kanji and an overwhelming majority were able to read/write kanji. The idea was quickly dropped.

However, in Korea, for the longest time they used a combination of Hangul and Hansi (chinese characters). However, in modern times they have switched to only writing in media and publications in Hangul (the Korean Alphabet). Japanese uses three writing systems and many Japanese claim that because of that Japanese is hard to learn. However, if Japanese dropped using kanji and only used hiragana and katakana, it would be pretty difficult to read context from some sentences as there are many words that have the same spelling, but mean different things. Kanji (as coming from China) all have some meaning and therefore when used would clarify what meaning they mean in a sentence.

As you mentioned, combining some kanji with others makes new meanings. Sometimes, it is awesome because the characters have their own meaning and when put together makes a meaning that is quite literal. For example:

Rickshaw = 人　力　車　＝人　＝person, 力　＝　power, 車　＝　vehicle. A rickshaw is indeed a person powered vehicle.

Ok thanks for your helps guys that cleared things up a whole lot!!!! now i understand it better ^___^

I'm practically an expert on Japanese cultures and languages, becuase i've taken japanese language since i was 6 and i've taken japanese dance called kabuki since i was 6 1/2.So just read below and hopefully it will help!

Hiragana: Is just used for writing out normal/everyday words and sometimes people's names.

Katakana: Pretty much the same as hiragana, but used less often unless if necessary and usually used for names.

Kanji: More complicated and the same letters used as the Chinese, but Hiragana and Katakana are not used by the chinese. Kanji is used when there is one word to be spelled such as "Love" or "Hope" or something like that.

hiragana is used for words that can be said and spelled in Japanese (food=tabemono, speak=hanasu). katakana is used for words that are not japanese (hamburger=HANBAAGAA, basketball=BASUKETTO BOORU). kanji is a complex form of hiragana that is used only for hiragana (tabemono=たべもの＝食べ物, hanasu=はなす＝話す。kanji is actually picked up from the Chinese, and would replace most or all of the hiragana in a word (いち：一、たべます：食べます、いたい：痛い). the list goes on and on.
i hope this has been helpful.

There are only about 2000 officially-recognized characters. The 80,000 number takes into account all of the characters that have ever been used, including those that are only used in names or in highly technical contexts.