Kanji are hard to understand

Nosyarg · 9 Apr 2006

I once got a book out of the library about writting Japanese and I found it difficult to learn. Speaking Japanese is the easy part even though I don't know all the words it's easy to pronounce.

However I just can't follow Kanji that well. I guess because I'm too use to the English alphabet that Kanji looks like weird symbols to me and I can't tell some symbols from the other.

Is it that hard for anyone else to read?

euske · 9 Apr 2006

Indeed. We spend ten years from elementary school for learning thousands of kanjis, and even now I still hit unknown characters from time to time. And some characters can be easily mixed up. How can it be easy?

Maybe you wonder why Japanese/Chinese people are stuck with such a complex writing system, but probably the same reason applies to why most English speakers don't switch to a simpler lanugage like Esperanto or Ido. We simply feel it's convenient enough so don't have to change. In fact learning and playing with kanji is much fun. As you can imagine, it brings a great depth to the entire culture. Hey, understanding other cultures is always hard and annoying, okay?

That said, there's still a way to write/read Japanese without knowing that many characters. You can start from alphabets (kanas) and gradually expand your vocabulary. There's tons of books that are written in easy Japanese without many kanjis so you don't have to be so afraid. Good luck!

nice gaijin · 9 Apr 2006

Nosyarg said:
Is it that hard for anyone else to read?

In a sense, yes, but the more I study it the easier it becomes. I find reading it to be way easier than writing these days. How are you doing with kana? that's the first step towards literacy in Japanese, so I hope you didn't skip right to the kanji...

Nosyarg · 9 Apr 2006

I'm still learning more about the Japanese writting system. I decided to check Kanji out just for fun but I didn't realise how hard it was. I thought it would be similar to the English alphabet in away. Was I wrong!

euske · 9 Apr 2006

Nosyarg said:
I'm still learning more about the Japanese writting system. I decided to check Kanji out just for fun but I didn't realise how hard it was. I thought it would be similar to the English alphabet in away. Was I wrong!

No, kanji is more like a word in English. Unlike English alphabet, a single kanji character itself has some meaning. It's not alphabet. Linguistically, it is called "ideograph". So roughly speaking we have as many characters as words. But there's an easier way to write Japanese text, using Japanese alphabets called "kana" which has only 80 characters or so
(okay, I admit it still looks like weird symbol though) and that's not so hard to memorize.

Sorry if my previous response looked harsh. I'm kinda tired everyone complains about kanji. But this is something we can't avoid if you're seriously considering learning Japanese.

nice gaijin · 9 Apr 2006

neither kanji or kana is really anything like english; you should drop that idea completely. kana is basically phonetic; each character corresponds to a syllable. You should get kana down completely before you delve into the complicated stuff. kanji is meaning-driven, and about as different from the alphabet as you can get.

Nosyarg · 9 Apr 2006

Yeah, I just recently got into studying Japanese. So it'll take awhile for me to learn it.

The7thSamurai · 9 Apr 2006

Learning kanji is no more difficult than learning to spell in English. In English, different combinations of letters form different sounds, and quite often it's very irregular and just something that you "have to learn". In Japanese, kanji are made up of smaller characters, 'radicals', that form together to get the total meaning of the word, and, like English, often form together irregularly. In the last year I've learned to read and write maybe 500 or so kanji. Hopefully I'll get to over 1000 by the end of this year, and 2000 by the end of next year. Try and give meaning to each radical then, with each kanji, use the meanings of all the radicals to create a story. If you can remember the story you'll remember the kanji.

cheapshot · 10 Apr 2006

yea, i have noticed more and more that the kanji are completely logical and (if was Japanese) easy to understand.

let me explain.

in English we have totally individual words for different things. An easy example is "egg" and "twins"

if we look at the japanese words for these and examine the kanji's involved, I personally feel that the Japanese way is very efficient...

玉子ーー egg
双子ーー twins.

so now lets look at the kanji

玉 -- ball
双 -- pair/set
子 -- child

so we can see that the word for egg is basically a "ball-child"
and the word for twins is "pair/set-child"

this is only a very basic example, but it works equally as well for complex words/ides.

whereas in English, if we see a word that we are not sure of the meaning and/or pronounciation, in Japanese, i am sure they can understand the meaning of the word easier just by looking at the elements (kanji) it contains.

anyone agree/disagree..

y

Sensuikan San · 10 Apr 2006

euske said:
No, kanji is more like a word in English. Unlike English alphabet, a single kanji character itself has some meaning. It's not alphabet. Linguistically, it is called "ideograph". So roughly speaking we have as many characters as words. But there's an easier way to write Japanese text, using Japanese alphabets called "kana" which has only 80 characters or so
(okay, I admit it still looks like weird symbol though) and that's not so hard to memorize.
Sorry if my previous response looked harsh. I'm kinda tired everyone complains about kanji. But this is something we can't avoid if you're seriously considering learning Japanese.

Don't apologise. You are quite correct.
One of the things that speakers of Western languages don't always stop to think about is that we also apply our own equivalent to kanji
..... without thinking about it!
Just look at our signs when you're driving .... and ask yourself .... "which way to the airport?"
What does "our" kanji look like?
It doesn't matter whether you speak English, French, German, Croatian, Greek or ... Japanese .....
That's how kanji works.
ジョン

WHEATTHlNS · 11 Apr 2006

KANJI isnt neccessarily hard to understand, so much as its difficult to memorize.

However, if you learn the different radicals (or come to recognize them) - memorizing the kanji themselves becomes exponentially easier. Instead of thousands of unique confusing shapes - they become thousands of combinations of hundreds (last time I checked - could be wrong) of simple radicals.

This also helps you in looking up Kanji as you will know the stroke count of kanji simply be looking at the radicals.

Nosyarg · 11 Apr 2006

I guess it's hard for anyone from a different country to learn the writting system of a country different from theres. I'll need to learn enough of this if I wish to ever get my ideal career in Japan.

Learning to speak Japanese is easier for me because the words are easier to pronounce then English is.

cheapshot · 11 Apr 2006

Nosyarg said:
Learning to speak Japanese is easier for me because the words are easier to pronounce then English is.

does this mean that you are not a native speaker of English either?

Nosyarg · 11 Apr 2006

No, I speak English perfectly, but when I compare it to speaking Japanese, speaking Japanese seems easier to learn because most of the letters sound the same. So it's easier to pronounce. Not that I meant it's easier to know what all the words mean.

English is very easy to understand cause it's my main langauge.

Jagotaro · 4 May 2006

euske said:
No, kanji is more like a word in English. Unlike English alphabet, a single kanji character itself has some meaning. It's not alphabet. Linguistically, it is called "ideograph". So roughly speaking we have as many characters as words. But there's an easier way to write Japanese text, using Japanese alphabets called "kana" which has only 80 characters or so
(okay, I admit it still looks like weird symbol though) and that's not so hard to memorize.
Sorry if my previous response looked harsh. I'm kinda tired everyone complains about kanji. But this is something we can't avoid if you're seriously considering learning Japanese.

Hey, Euske. Were you raised with an English education? Your English seems to be native or near-native. I'm just curious if you went to 6 years of Japanese elementary school in Japan.

I went to Russian school when i was 18. Then studied Japanese in Japan. Also studied Chinese. Worked 14 years as an S&T translator. During that time I taught Introduction to Chinese Writing for 5 years.

I've heard lots of people say that kanji is so horribly difficult for Japanese and Chinese children--learning all those thousands and thousands of chicken-scratchy characters...

But now let's talk about the real world. Learning kanji is no more difficult for japanese or Chinese kids than for American kids to learn their writing system.

For a westerner to learn kanji, basically it just takes motivation.

I live in Japan, and I enjoy it a lot every day. There is no end to the adventure.

Cheers, Jagotaro

yukio_michael · 5 May 2006

Japan's writing system is actually more difficult than the one that they appropriated... China at least (by and large, I've been told it varies) mostly has a one to one relatioship between the kanji (I'll call them kanji because that's still what they are, Chinese characters), and the phonetic sound.

Japanese for me is a very difficult language for m to read, not the least of which it can not always be automatically recognized in software... It's not just that it can not be translated into poor english, there are un-conventional uses of kanji, katakana, hiragana etc, that automated software can not even decifer...

Through the use of computers etc, people are remembering how to write fewer and fewer kanji--- there are educational televion program on in Japan that teach native Japanese adults to remember different kanji--- words without very complex meanings. This is I think, unique to Japan.

I do think that Japan, the Ministry of Education, actually prefers a difficult language rather than a simple one. They don't appear to ever simplify the language---- Normally you expect a complex idea to become simplified over time, but not with Japanese. They nearly scrapped it after WWII, well, that was a common opinion in some fields--- that the language's ambiguity cost them the war. Someone tossed out dropping Japanese entirely and going to french.

To at least try to integrate into society, you need to learn Japanese. I don't feel that Japan wants people to integrate into their society, so a difficult, sometimes needlessly difficult, language is an excellent deterant for that.

Both China & Japan have languages that I think also provide social control and promote certain thought patterns--- this has been said before of Chinese, and I think it applies even moreso to Japanese.... this is a small undercurrent however, I don't think there is a cabal plotting mind-control.

JimmySeal · 5 May 2006

This doesn't directly relate to the original question, but the last post reminded me. One time I asked a friend why the Japanese language has to have so many darn words. From what I've found, Japanese seems to have a lot more synonyms than English, and in many cases they've come up for words to represent an idea that could have just as easily be expressed in two words. Of course this is a silly question, but the answer I got back? "This way we can quickly determine how intelligent someone is by talking to them." Mother%*($r.

Glenn · 5 May 2006

yukio_michael said:
Japanese for me is a very difficult language for m to read, not the least of which it can not always be automatically recognized in software... It's not just that it can not be translated into poor english, there are un-conventional uses of kanji, katakana, hiragana etc, that automated software can not even decifer...

I'm curious as to what you're talking about here, both in regards to the automated software and the unconventional uses of kanji, katakana, and hiragana.

yukio_michael said:
I do think that Japan, the Ministry of Education, actually prefers a difficult language rather than a simple one. They don't appear to ever simplify the language---- Normally you expect a complex idea to become simplified over time, but not with Japanese.

Who simplifies languages? Can you give examples?

yukio_michael said:
They nearly scrapped it after WWII, well, that was a common opinion in some fields--- that the language's ambiguity cost them the war. Someone tossed out dropping Japanese entirely and going to french.

There was a group of people who wanted to scrap it and move to English in the Meiji Period.

By the way, the Japanese language isn't ambiguous; the people who speak it usually are, though. You'll find very precise language in a business contract or in an instruction manual, for example.

yukio_michael · 5 May 2006

Glenn said:
I'm curious as to what you're talking about here, both in regards to the automated software and the unconventional uses of kanji, katakana, and hiragana.

I use the rikaichan firefox plugin that will translate kanji into kana, give definitions etc. Casual Japanese usage can create some instances where a word or phrase can not be translated. This is, as you say, a usage issue, but I think complexity leads people to mis-use a language moreso that follow propper rules with it.

Glenn said:
Who simplifies languages? Can you give examples?

The Ministry of Education in Japan is directly responsible for what is taught in school, etc... they would be responsible for any changes in the use of the language, how it is taught, its romanization...

Language reform is a type of language planning by massive change to a language. The usual tools of language reform are simplification and purification. Simplification makes the language easier to use by regularizing vocabulary and grammar. Purification makes the language conform to a version of the language perceived as 'purer'.

---link here.

Glenn said:
By the way, the Japanese language isn't ambiguous; the people who speak it usually are, though. You'll find very precise language in a business contract or in an instruction manual, for example.

I think it can be. Take for example the Japanese constitution, in Japanese, it starts We, the Japanese people, acting through our duly elected representatives in the National Diet, determined that we shall secure for ourselves and our posterity the fruits of peaceful cooperation with all nations and the blessings of liberty throughout this land, and resolved that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government, do proclaim that sovereign power resides with the people and do firmly establish this Constitution. Government is a sacred trust of the people, the authority for which is derived from the people, the powers of which are exercised by the representatives of the people, and the benefits of which are enjoyed by the people.

And that is just one sentence. Japanese also had problems with certain military phrases because there were no appropriate ways for subordinates to speak to their superiors. I could give a lot of little examples, but unfortunately the books I have on this are either in transit to me from, or still in Japan.

I don't find casual spoken Japanese to be ambiguous, but it's certainly more ambiguous than a language that stresses that you don't leave out the subject even if it is implied.

yukio_michael · 5 May 2006

^^ Whoops, there is an extra sentence from the constitution up there, but I'll just point that out here. Also, obviously it's been cited as being complex in Japanese, and not because someone could not speak the language--- that was my point.

Glenn · 5 May 2006

yukio_michael said:
I use the rikaichan firefox plugin that will translate kanji into kana, give definitions etc. Casual Japanese usage can create some instances where a word or phrase can not be translated. This is, as you say, a usage issue, but I think complexity leads people to mis-use a language moreso that follow propper rules with it.

I don't know, it seems like the people who use it (and not those who prescribe its rules) actually make it more complex by adding in things like small kana and mixing half-width katakana with kanji. That's going the opposite direction than what you say.

yukio_michael said:
The Ministry of Education in Japan is directly responsible for what is taught in school, etc... they would be responsible for any changes in the use of the language, how it is taught, its romanization...

I doubt they really have that much power. People speak the language like they speak it, and the only thing that could change that would be if they really cared enough to learn to speak it differently or if they were absolutely forced to speak it differently. I don't think many people speak English as it's taught in school. For instance (this may have changed, but) who uses "whom" anymore? How many people actually use proper punctuation? Since when has "lay" been intransitive?

yukio_michael said:
---link here.

The problem with that is that it won't stay "pure" after it's been changed for long. Languages constantly change. Anyway, I would say that in the cases of orthography reform, like changing spelling conventions, it's making the written language closer to the spoken language more than simplifying it. There's a reason things are spelled the way they are in English: they actually used to be pronounced much closer to the spellings (of course there are cases like "debt," where grammarians of the 17th century thought that the spellings of some words should show their Latin roots, even if no one pronounced it that way). But as I said, languages change over time, and pronunciation is part of that. Actually, that's why the ぱ行 in Japanese is the only one that uses the handakuten.

yukio_michael said:
I think it can be. Take for example the Japanese constitution, in Japanese, it starts We, the Japanese people, acting through our duly elected representatives in the National Diet, determined that we shall secure for ourselves and our posterity the fruits of peaceful cooperation with all nations and the blessings of liberty throughout this land, and resolved that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government, do proclaim that sovereign power resides with the people and do firmly establish this Constitution. Government is a sacred trust of the people, the authority for which is derived from the people, the powers of which are exercised by the representatives of the people, and the benefits of which are enjoyed by the people.

There are equally long sentences in legal contracts in English. I didn't find that to be ambiguous, anyway.

yukio_michael said:
And that is just one sentence. Japanese also had problems with certain military phrases because there were no appropriate ways for subordinates to speak to their superiors. I could give a lot of little examples, but unfortunately the books I have on this are either in transit to me from, or still in Japan.

I'd be interested in seeing that.

yukio_michael said:
I don't find casual spoken Japanese to be ambiguous, but it's certainly more ambiguous than a language that stresses that you don't leave out the subject even if it is implied.

I don't know; I think there are enough markers to show who's being talked about in a sentence. But then again, this would have to be addressed more to native speakers than people learning the language. How often do they not know who's being talked about? It's not that English is completely void of this problem, either. We can be just as confused about who "he" is as a Japanese person can be about who the unmentioned person is.

Glenn · 5 May 2006

yukio_michael said:
^^ Whoops, there is an extra sentence from the constitution up there, but I'll just point that out here. Also, obviously it's been cited as being complex in Japanese, and not because someone could not speak the language--- that was my point.

But complex and ambiguous are two different things.

Kanji are hard to understand

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