Which language would you learn?

[Johann]

...Japanese…sounds cool, not as many letters and symbols as the Chinese alphabet

It's OK, but strictly speaking, Chinese doesn't really have an "alphabet." The pictograms aren't really letters. They're mostly whole words and don't serve the same purpose as letters.

You're right, though. Japanese can be easier to learn to write -- but it's not all that easy!

Japanese does have a "near-alphabet" - well, two syllabaries actually, pretty close to an alphabet, I guess. Katakana and Hiragana (for handwriting.)

But I think you might be forgetting about the 2,200 or so Kanji characters (pictograms originally derived from Chinese, long ago) that all Japanese students have to master by the time they finish high school.

Johann