do Japanese use hiragana, katakana, or kanji?

We use all of them.

We learn Hiragana and Katakana first when we are in the first grade. And then we start to learn Kanji which is also taught in the first grade.

Anyway, as we learn Kanji, we are taught not to use Hiragana so much. But of course there are words that can't be changed to Kanji so those words will be always Hiragana or Katakana. Anyways, if you are a beginner, learn to use Hiragana and Katakana first, then learn Kanji a little by little.

In Japan, it's very important to know a lot of Kanji because that's how we know how educated people are. If people use only Hiragana or Katakana, we treat them like kids because they can't use Kanji as well as adults do. Anyway, learning all of them is very important if you want people to know you are very educated.

http://www.oct-net.ne.jp/~mkk/kanji-q1.htm

The Japanese use all three forms. If you are just a beginner then Hiragana and Katakana you should learn first. Both are based on phonetics, so minus some various rules (like in english) you spell the words like they sound using hiragana or katakana. Hiragana is used for most things, while Katakana is usually for imported things, such as foreign names. If you were to write your name in Japanese it would be in Katakana.

Kanji is a little more difficult to learn and takes more time to learn then hiragana or katakana, it takes the Japanese years to learn all the required kanji, and not everyone knows or remembers all the Kanji all the time!

i really have no idea what you're talking about.. if you just want make 'random' 'cool' ones, then just change the keyboard input to japanese and press away. it will give you hiragana.. kanji is complicated, even on keyboard if you want to actually learn.. start with hiragana, then katakana.. you can learn a few kanji as you go, but that stuff is really a few years into it.. for that other question, after you activate thee special keyboard it's shift+right alt+ 4 is pound right alt + 5 for euro

You forgot to mention romaji and arabic numbers.

All five are used in normal Japanese writing.

I'll give you an example:

マイク先生は２番目のオーストラリアからのALTです。

(Mike is the second ALT from Australia.)

マイク - Mike - katakana for a name that doesn't have kanji

先生 - sensei - teacher - kanji because it's a basic Japanese word

は - wa - hiragana - just a grammatical marker like at, in, to, from, etc.

２番目 - nibanme - second - arabic number and kanji - sometimes numbers are written in this style, sometimes in kanji.

の - no - grammatical marker

オーストラリア - Australia - katakana for the name of something (in this case a country) from outside of Japan, which doesn't have kanji.

から - kara - hiragana - grammatical marker

の - no - hiragana - same

ALT - Assistant Language Teacher - romaji - just an acroynm left as is, in the "alphabet" (romaji)

です - hiragana - grammatical marker

When you're just starting, it's best to learn hiragana and katakana. Kanji can be difficult, but if you're serious about learning Japanese, you'll learn at least the basic kanji (there are about 2000 daily-use kanji).

Japanese kids learn the kana (hiragana and katakana) first, then basic kanji such as the numbers, and things like tree, river, mountain, city, etc.

At least knowing the kana, you can write down what you hear, as it's completely phonetic. Sometimes written Japanese has "rubi" or "furigana" above words, so that anyone who knows kana can read it. If you look at some childrens' books, you'll see that above some of the kanji which could otherwise to unreadable to some kids. Sometimes it's used in material for adults as well, when particularly difficult kanji are used.

Have fun.

Like what the above people before me said:

Katakana = borrowed words

Kanji = the most complex, but it's good to master a number of them to shorten some time and effort (like if you're writing a letter)

Hiragana = Not only the basic alphabet, but this can be used if you don't know the kanji symbol(s) for certain words.

Well i studied japanese in school and you first start of learning hiragana which is like the basic japanese script. Katakana is used for borrowed or foreign words so for eg chocolate in japanese is chokoreto. Chokoreto is expressed using katakana. Kanji is the most complex japanese script and it expresses words or a mixture of hiragana not letters of the alphabet like hiragana.

The most important is Hiragana. It is their main alphabet. Either Katakana or Kanji should be the next thing you learn.

Yes.

You have to be or study Japanese.

They are all important.

They use all three, and it depends on what word you're using.

they use all the three.