Should Japan Abolish Kanji?

[maushan3]

it also makes japanese a lot eaier to understand.
if there werent any kanji, it would be hard for people learning the language to distinguish verb, noun, particle, etc.
i thnk it should stay.

I agree. I wouldn't imagine reading something in simple katakana and hiragana. It would just be a complete headache.

It is a big problem learning them, and requires a lot of time studying them, but I think that's what makes Asian languages beautiful and the Japanese are so reluctant to clear away from their traditions (like whale hunting..., ok, back to topic). It just won't happen. IT WON'T

Plus, it is a HUGE part of their culture. I wouldn't ever imagine it abolished.

They are fun to learn and fun to write. you can impress people when they ask

As I said, they are very hard and many times I get desperated by trying to remember them but being able to use them in your everyday life is the best reward. And, yes, I must say it doesn't feel bad to impress a few people by ones Kanji skills.

Mauricio

 

[shintemaster]

Well, my Japanese is pretty bad... but I can understand twice as much if kanji are used. For me there are just too many homophones in Japanese to do away with Kanji.

 

[ハダカ]

何で貴方は日本の上手いでしょう＾＾' U mean that? ^^'

 

[Chidoriashi]

No, he is talking about words like かんしょう、。。。。干渉、鑑賞、緩衝、感傷、完勝、観賞,

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I don't think Kanji should be abolished because kanji is a part of Japan's culture and heritage. Just because kanji is complicated and not used that often doesn't mean that it doesn't have its place in society- abolishing Kanji would be like us English abolishing Latin because many people view it as the "dead language".

 

[Haruspex]

Lol, abolish latin letters and you'll have a world of illiterates, as we don't have another alphabet or syllabary. Haha, the idea fascinates me.

 

[uchimizu]

Hi,

I think it is up to Japanese people to decide if they want to keep Kanjis or not. A language is not geared towards the expats living in the country, but towards the native speaker.

We in French have very complex grammar that is a hell for foreign students, and probably as complex to learn as kanjis. I cannot make my mind about if I wished it to be removed or not. I believe that anyways, I would continue using the full grammar because I find it more stylish.

I believe most Japanese want to keep the Kanjis, as it is part of Japanese culture, and also Japanese language needs them (too many different words with same pronunciation else).

What will change is that mostly japanese people will not be able to write them anymore, just to read and type them on the computer. I believe it is already the case with young people, not just with exotic kanjis (a friend of mine was unable to write 窶愿?.

 

[suz135]

no, kanji is an integral part of the language. In addition, the Japanese language has so many words, kanji is needed to differentiate between identical pronounciations that have different meanings.

 

[MMM]

じょうきいがいにとくしゅきょういくのがっこう・きょ ういんようせいところ・せんしゅうがっこうがあり、さ らにもんぶかがくしょうしょかんそとにしょくぎょうく んれんこうやかくしゅがっこうがある

Imagine reading a newspaper written like this. It would take weeks (and it would be bigger than a phonebook). Even if you could understand it, you would be 100% sure of what you read, because so many kanji are pronounced the same way.

 

[Kirakira1232]

Beginning with Japanese I can understand the feeling "OMG I cant remember this kanji ><" because if your not a visually minded person it can be difficult. But saying that its by no means impossible. It takes some time to find a learning style that suits your needs but once you find it, stick with it like glue.

Beginners in Japanese will may find the issue of kanji overwhelming or they just cant do it...but as you progress from intermediate to advanced reading...I think you realise just how vital kanji is to understanding and interpreting writing. The main issue I think is remembering how to write kanji and learning the various readings.

Removing kanji from Japanese would also be kinda like telling the Chinese that we'll take away all your characters and you will use Pinyin only. I think a lot of the history will be lost if you abolish kanji. Yes the characters were derived from the Chinese, but because they were borrowed doesnt mean Japanese isnt a unique language of its own. Its the same reason that English is descended primarily from Germanic languages doesnt mean its a copy cat of German.

 

[esra]

I think it's something that Japan need to decide although it would be easier for me to learn Japanese in Romaji with latin letters (I want to add I am not very familiar with Japanese Language so forgive me if I sound stupid) .
But I think it can be done. For example a language reform is done for Turkish. The language of Ottoman Turkish was a mixture of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic that differed considerably from the period's everyday spoken Turkish and written with the script of Arabic alphabet as the administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire. It was hard and took years to learn it. In 1928 the language which had been used for centuries, changed to a phonetic variant of the Latin alphabet we use today and many Persian and Arabic origin loanwords in the language were replaced with their Turkish equivalents.
I am telling this to say it can be done but it's something Japan know if it's needed or not.

 

[Prizm]

It's not gonna happen. Yes, Kanji is a pain and its archaic, but it's not gonna change Guess I'll have to keep studying.

 

[uchimizu]

The Turkish alphabet reform was going from an alphabet to another. I am afraid it is a bigger change to go from ideograms to alphabet.
It would be interesting to see how the Koreans managed their change from Kanjis (which they used at one point) to the Hangul alphabet. As the transition happened ages ago, I believe there were less people involved, and it was easier to do...

But I think it can be done. For example a language reform is done for Turkish. The language of Ottoman Turkish was a mixture of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic that differed considerably from the period's everyday spoken Turkish and written with the script of Arabic alphabet as the administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire.

 

[tokapi]

how the Koreans managed their change from Kanji (which they used at one point) to the Hangul alphabet. As the transition happened ages ago, I believe there were less people involved, and it was easier to do...

I have no information on literacy rate pre-1950,do know it ( 漢字 ) was a very sensitive subject over there for a few decades.By chance in 2005 as I was watching their language TV news program aired on international channel,there was a story of a middle-aged woman attending a class at some local city high school to learn Hangul proficiency based on her Kanji acknowledge.The assignment was to write native phonetics in Hangul ( left ) column for Kanji printed in ( right ) column.

前 ( meaning: former or previous or ex ) is one of very few Kanji they still couldn't replace with indigenous Hangul phonetics,because I've read & seen it in their language newspapers and TV news onscreen subtitle.

 

[Jitenchakun]

Never gonna happen. What is happening (& has been happening for decades,) is the gradual atrophy of kanji usage in Japanese language. Unless I am mistaken, there is an increasing occurrence of using hiragana even when there is appropriate kanji available. (Perhaps this was covered already?)

I think kanji will always have it's place, but will likely become ever more often accompanied by furigana alongside. This way, everyone's happy: noone needs kanji to read, & japanese retains it's traditional beauty afforded by the inclusion of chinese characters.

I love the look of kanji, & will happily endeavor to learn them. (& relearn them after I forget. Again.)

 

[tada]

No way. Ever tried reading sentences fully in hiragana/katakana or even worse, romaji? It's a nightmare.

 

[alantin]

The kanji carry unmeasurable cultural value, many things in the language would be all but impossible to understand with out them (the most basic stuff excluded), and the Japanese think in kanji.

Not to mention that reading anything in kana solo gives me a major headache..

I'm strongly against abolishing the kanji and frankly, all things considered, the difficulty in learning them seems to be the pettiest reason for doing so.
Fortunately I don't see it happening anytime soon..

 

[Ray Senyu]

Hi,
We in French have very complex grammar that is a hell for foreign students, and probably as complex to learn as kanjis.

I have been studying french for about 5-6 years and i can say that the french grammar is as easy to learn as the english (which means that it is kinda easy).
You should see the greek grammar and you will understand what is hard.

 

[tada]

Factoid: Kanji were almost abolished during the Occupation after WW2 and they almost forced everything to be in romaji. Eww.

 

[alantin]

You should see the greek grammar and you will understand what is hard.

You should try Finnish conjugations!

From the base word "vielä" (still), "Vieläkinköhän" would roughly translate to English as "I wonder if it still holds true".

[/off-topic]


The kanji are easy! And useful and fun to learn!

 

[Astroboy]

China = Simplified Kanji
Taiwan = Traditional Kanji
Japan = Japanese Kanji
Korea = They abolished Kanji in the past 50 years because of nationalism.

Although I can see some similarity of Kanji among China, Taiwan and Japan, mostly I cannot understand Chinese/Taiwanese Kanji and those meanings. But Kanji is inevitable for the Japanese tradition & education.

 

[Roboto-sama]

It's like wanting to take the accent ('), the tilde and the diaeresis out of spanish orthography, amirite?

 

[Sukotto]

Factoid: Kanji were almost abolished during the Occupation after WW2 and they almost forced everything to be in romaji. Eww.

Really?!? Holy cow pies.
That would suck.
There was a lot or racism back then, and especially against Japanese people.
If you can find old Superman comic book covers it is very illuminating.

So it wouldn't surprise me if they (the occupiers) thought hiragana, etc was an uncivilized script.

漢字が好きです。

 

[kireikoori]

I personally think everyone in the world should learn Kanji.

Perhaps instead of thinking Japan should romanize or kana-ize their language, we should look at Sinizing our own.

(Did I say this before? I now notice I have three posts in this thread.)

 

[tada]

I personally think everyone in the world should learn Kanji.

Perhaps instead of thinking Japan should romanize or kana-ize their language, we should look at Sinizing our own.

(Did I say this before? I now notice I have three posts in this thread.)

No way. Then every language would eventually be the same. Soon, that would spread to every culture being the same. And then all of humanity would be one big blob of sameness.