Im a bit confused... hiragana & katakana

[swiftman]

could someone please tell me how many of each syllabary one is supposed to memorize?

also, do flash cards help with this?

it seems flash cards wouldnt help much for stroke order though.

[annie]

I think this has been covered many times over.

hiragana and katakana are phonetic alphabets. you need to memorize them all.
flash cards help with the visual memory. to memorize stroke order, it helps to write them over and over until you develop the tactile memory. (until it's like writing the abcs)

you can find hiragana/katakana charts in almost any textbook, and on the internet. try wikipedia or about.com

[swiftman]

thanks,

i know i need to memorize them all, and i am clear on what they are.

but i am trying to make sure i know the right numbers... some websites are layed out all weird and so the numbers dont always match, from site to site, or it is difficutl to count them up properly without getting conflicting numbers.

i want to know how many hiragana characters.

and how many katakana characters.

just to make sure i have all the flash cards i need.

[Airth]

Just do as Annie suggested and use this list from Wikipedia -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kana

It has just about everything you could possibly need to know, especially if you click on each character in the table.