Japanese hiragana, katakana, kanji?

If you're going to spend your time learning it, you might as well spend your time learning it right and learning it thoroughly. Japanese people learn hiragana, katakana, and kanji in school by writing them down repeatedly MANY times, in the same way that when you first learn the alphabet you practice it repeatedly many times.

Learning to write it can help you to memorize it and understand it more in depth than just looking at it and being able to recognize it. Same with stroke order, why not learn it right? Why spend your time teaching yourself wrong? Especially for kanji, learning how to write it can help you to sort of understand its meaning and its many different ways of saying it (thus it can help you to read it).

Well, I think there's going to come a day when you want to write something in Japanese, and you'll kick yourself for not learning to do it.

Also, writing is a great way to help commit kanji to memory -- you'll be dealing with a lot of little strokes, and sometimes just one stroke is the difference between "words".

That said, there's no reason why you can't move on to katakana now that you've mastered reading hiragana. There are many similarities, and they can re-inforce each other. I would keep practicing writing the hiragana, but there's no reason why you have to do only one thing.

BTW, katakana is used a lot like we use italics. Foreign words and emphasized words are in katakana. Sometimes, the hiragana and katakana come from the same root (different parts of the same kanji, for example). So, it's fun to dig into the histories as you are studying.

I would advise learning to write your name in katakana at the very least. The best thing is to find someone who can critique you (on line or in person) and show you how to write nicely.

Writing supports reading, reading supports writing. You can do one without the other, but you make fewer brain connections.

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

Hiragana, katakana, and especially kanji are not alphabets.

As to your goals, it is up to you. If your goal is just reading some Japanese, then move on until you can read as much as you want. But if you want to be able to write them also like everyone else, then learn each thoroughly.