Simple question about learning kanji

[Elizabeth]

Hmm, it seems we have a little problem here. Is WWWJDIC assigning too many meanings to the kanji? Also, it doesn't seem to indicate it's a characters primary meaning...

None of the WWWJDIC files have the entries in any particular order, never mind the definitions.

 

[nice gaijin]

I think the reason Chinese was suggested instead of Japanese is that it's grammatically similar to English, and it uses hanzi exclusively. What's the point of picking Japanese for its use of hiragana and katakana when you don't really understand the function they serve, and you don't intend to use them anyways. And you're basically not interested in actually learning a real language before you highjack their writing system, which (as your example leads us to believe) won't be useful for anyone because the results are illegible. "far-speak" for telephone? Even the dictionaries aren't very good at explaining all the meanings and their contexts. Kanji's meanings can CHANGE depending on their context, but you have no idea how or when because you refuse to learn the language.

Interest in ideograms is fine, but you should maybe think about what you intend to do with this. Or you might as well come up with your own "language independent" ideograms.

 

[Thorham]

None of the WWWJDIC files have the entries in any particular order, never mind the definitions.

It's the definitions that are the problem, seems unsolvable. They can at least be organized by their grade, which is nice and all if that was the most important thing. Quite problematic.

I think the reason Chinese was suggested instead of Japanese is that it's grammatically similar to English, and it uses hanzi exclusively.

Ok, but the kanji don't have suitable English readings assigned. Aren't they needed? I guess I'll take a look at written Chinese, can't hurt

What's the point of picking Japanese for its use of hiragana and katakana when you don't really understand the function they serve, and you don't intend to use them anyways.

None if the kana definitions for kanji aren't all meanings. Now you're not telling me that some of the readings are meanings and some are just sounds, are you? If so, that would be a major problem for me. This may sound blunt, and I'm sorry to say it, but what's the point in learning thousands of characters if they're used based on both meaning and sounds? I was under the impression that in written Japanese this is not done, except for names (where kanji are used for their reading alone, might be wrong)? Using characters just for their meaning is what got me interested in the Japanese writing system in the first place.

And you're basically not interested in actually learning a real language before you highjack their writing system, which (as your example leads us to believe) won't be useful for anyone because the results are illegible.

Hey, I've already said it's an experiment and that I might fail. It seems that this is going to fail, and that's fine with me As for hijacking a writing system, I'm not, I'm borrowing the Chinese characters which are used in written Japanese, nothing more.

As for learning Japanese, sounds nice to me, but being able to read it, is the most important aspect to me. If I have to memorize the multiple meanings and readings for thousands of kanji, then the writing system has lost the main part of what made it seem interesting: characters that are used exclusively for their meaning.

"far-speak" for telephone?

Tele: is a Greek prefix meaning "distant." – From wikipedia

Phone: a speech sound considered as a physical event without regard to its place in the sound system of a language. - From Merriam-Webster

Now 'far speak' starts to make sense. Same with television: 'far seeing'.

Even the dictionaries aren't very good at explaining all the meanings and their contexts. Kanji's meanings can CHANGE depending on their context, but you have no idea how or when because you refuse to learn the language.

No, I don't refuse to, I just haven't made up my mind about learning it yet, that's something else. As for context changes, they happen in English, too. I wouldn't be surprised if it happens in all languages.

Interest in ideograms is fine, but you should maybe think about what you intend to do with this.

When I first started reading about Chinese characters, I thought it might be a good way for people who speak different languages to communicate with each other, and this is what seemed so interesting about them.

Or you might as well come up with your own "language independent" ideograms.

Guess what, it has actually crossed my mind. Now I doubt that I could do it properly, I'm a computer nerd and not a linguist, but I think it would be a serious possibility if enough effort would be put into it. It's just that I was hoping that Chinese characters could be used instead, because they're already used.

 

[nice gaijin]

Ok, but the kanji don't have suitable English readings assigned. Aren't they needed? I guess I'll take a look at written Chinese, can't hurt

What? Are you asking if there are English readings for Japanese characters? Since you like this example so much, 水槽 is "read" as "suisou," it MEANS "fish tank" in Japanese. It's not read "fish tank," because 水槽 is not an English word.

None if the kana definitions for kanji aren't all meanings. Now you're not telling me that some of the readings are meanings and some are just sounds, are you? If so, that would be a major problem for me. What's the point in learning thousands of characters if they're used based on both meaning and sounds? I was under the impression that in written Japanese this is not done, except for names (where kanji are used for their reading alone, might be wrong)? Using characters just for their meaning is what got me interested in the Japanese writing system in the first place.

words written in kana have meaning, and sometimes kanji don't just represent their meanings. Kanji for names still have meaning, and they're often chosen for that, as well as the way they sound, or even the number of strokes in the characters.

As for learning Japanese, sounds nice to me, but being able to read it, is the most important aspect to me. If I have to memorize the multiple meanings and readings for thousands of kanji, then the writing system has lost the main part of what made it seem interesting: characters that are used exclusively for their meaning.

Language is more than just a series of concepts string together. Chinese is the closest thing to what you are talking about, as the rules of grammar are much looser. Being able to read kanji for just its meaning will give you nothing more than a vague notion of what the sentence is about, which is pretty much how my Taiwanese friends feel about looking at a Japanese sentence.

Tele: is a Greek prefix meaning "distant." – From wikipedia

Phone: a speech sound considered as a physical event without regard to its place in the sound system of a language. - From Merriam-Webster

Now 'far speak' starts to make sense. Same with television: 'far seeing'.

So you're talking about using kanji to replace greek roots? The reason "telephone" and "television" have meaning in English is because they've been incorporated into the accepted lexicon. "Hey Billy, John is on the far-speak for you, he says to turn the far-seeing to channel 10" Now replace half of those words with abstract imagery. This is supposed to make communication easier? And You're STILL relying on English structure and etymology, so where is the language independence?

When I first started reading about Chinese characters I thought it might be a good way for people who speak different languages to communicate with each other, and this is what seemed so interesting about them.

People already do that, through written Chinese.

 

[Elizabeth]

It looks like what I want to do mostly, but this example I made by hand apparently didn't turn out quite as nicely as I would've wanted...
Yes, I've seen that. Compounds don't always seem to be logical. A good example is 'silver river' for galaxy, the English compound 'star system' is much clearer. Yup, it's a problem.
After making this example, I'm not surprised...
List made by undrentide:
良日 : this is a possible combination but never ever used as a greeting. - I came up with this one myself...
驚 : means "surprise". To wonder in this context is translated as ～かと思う. - WWWJDIC says: wonder; be surprised; frightened; amazed
華字 : does not exist - should it be 漢字? - WWWJDIC says: Chinese character. Picked the wrong compound...
義 : is used in the word 定義 (definition) but when used on its own, it means justice. - WWWJDIC says: righteousness; justice; morality; honor; loyalty; meaning
満 : means full. Sufficient is 十分／充分. - Error on my part.
成 : assume it is meant to "become" but it is commonly written in hiragana なる. Yes, become. For what I want to do, hiragana shouldn't be used, only kanji or Latin characters.
勘能: does not make sense to me. Maybe 堪能? which does mean proficient. - WWWJDIC says: (adj-na) (1) proficient; skillful; (n,vs) (2) satisfaction; (n,vs) (3) {Buddh} fortitude; (P)

Hmm, it seems we have a little problem here. Is WWWJDIC assigning too many meanings to the kanji? Also, it doesn't seem to indicate it's a characters primary meaning...

How can this possibly be considered to be a fault of the dictionary as a whole when the blame clearly lies with one unfortunate individual.
Quite obviously no one who hasn't made an effort to learn the language is in a position to recognize 1). when there are non-standard items in the vocabulary of a lot of Japanese speakers, such as rarely used variations on a kanji compound (勘能 for 堪能), which ARE duly listed by in order of priority by WWWJDIC just not picked up on by any random interloper not even pretending to have the most rudimentary interpretive skills.

2). How the "contraction" of a compound or the shaving off of a few base kana here and there will hinder the (your) intended meaning. Enough of that above.

But make a finding one way or the other. Is this an effort directed towards English speakers looking to exercise their kanji skills (in which case you'll need to partner with a native Japanese/Chinese speaker with adequate search/dictionary skills) ? Making sure first, of course, there is anyone available and willing to study kanji interspersed an English text.

Or, conversely, is it a programming challenge game marketed to an Asian audience trying to learn English (precise kanji therefore becomes a little less crucial and maybe even part of the 'play' with direct English equivalents, run with the "day book" example...) ?

In other words, first Decide what business you are in, THEN Let the pieces fall together into a whole.

 

[Toritoribe]

what's the point in learning thousands of characters if they're used based on both meaning and sounds?

A good example: 得

When reading as とく, 得 can never mean "can, may, able to." The reading should be え or う if you want to imply "can, may, able to" (as an auxiliary verb 得[え]る/得[う]る).

Is this an answer to your original question?

I was wondering if learning the kanji with just their meanings is enough to become proficient in their use. The point is, that learning their readings seems to be a waste of time if you're learning Japanese, because you should be able to connect the vocabulary to the kanji based on their meaning.
Is this the case, or is it better to also learn the kanji readings? If so, why?

 

[nice gaijin]

ahaa, is it the reading that determines the meaning, or is it the other way around? It's the 'ol chicken and the egg

 

[Toritoribe]

Yeah, more accurately to say, the kanji 得 was applied to the auxiliary verb える/うる.
First, the auxiliary verb う(the ancient form of える/うる, kana didn't exist at the time, though)
Second, 得 that was borrowed from Chinese.

The most appropriate single kanji for "can, able to" would be 能(あた-う). That's Chinese rather than Japanese, as already pointed out.

 

[Putrefaction]

I thought that the kanji was no, ability (which then can be translated into can, able to).

 

[Thorham]

What? Are you asking if there are English readings for Japanese characters? Since you like this example so much, 水槽 is "read" as "suisou," it MEANS "fish tank" in Japanese. It's not read "fish tank," because 水槽 is not an English word.

No, I'm not asking that, and I think I'm starting to see the problem here.

Being able to read kanji for just its meaning will give you nothing more than a vague notion of what the sentence is about

That's not exactly what I wanted to hear. I used to think that if you know the meaning of kanji, that you'd be able to have more than just a vague understanding of text. Basically I thought that the kanji readings were simply their meanings in a different language.

So you're talking about using kanji to replace greek roots?

If appropriate, yes. It seems to me that for telephone and television it might be a good way.

The reason "telephone" and "television" have meaning in English is because they've been incorporated into the accepted lexicon.

Of course, but that doesn't mean that the parts 'tele', 'phone' and 'vision' don't have meanings that describe the whole words, which is a little obvious in the case of 'vision', but still applies to 'tele' and 'phone' as well.

"Hey Billy, John is on the far-speak for you, he says to turn the far-seeing to channel 10" Now replace half of those words with abstract imagery.

In the case of telephone and television that is actually what it says if taken literally. They're actually quite reasonable examples of compounds where the new word gets it's meaning from the combined meaning of the words used to make the new word. I see no big problem with that.

This is supposed to make communication easier?

In the case of two people who don't share a language, trying to communicate with characters used for their meaning is a whole lot better then using hand signs, etc. So it would probably make communication easier in such a case.

And You're STILL relying on English structure and etymology, so where is the language independence?

You have to start somewhere. Seeing how I only know know English and Dutch, I'm going to start with one of those two. It can be applied to any language, and English is just a starting point. It's, of course, perfectly possible for language independence to be impossible.

People already do that, through written Chinese.

Yes, people in China do this. It would be nice to not have to learn a language to be able to use kanji. I simply assumed that it might be possible.

Just remember that I wrote that I know I can fail at this, and that that's fine with me, I'm not trying to win the Nobel prize (would be the wrong field for me anyway)

How can this possibly be considered to be a fault of the dictionary as a whole when the blame clearly lies with one unfortunate individual.

It would've been nice to see some pointers about the most often used meaning for the kanji, that would already make things a little easier. Perhaps I just missed something in the manual for kanjidic.

Quite obviously no one who hasn't made an effort to learn the language is in a position to recognize 1). when there are non-standard items in the vocabulary of a lot of Japanese speakers, such as rarely used variations on a kanji compound (勘能 for 堪能), which ARE duly listed by in order of priority by WWWJDIC just not picked up on by any random interloper not even pretending to have the most rudimentary interpretive skills.

Yes, the edict file used does use such ordering, and this is also said in the manual, so it's entirely my mistake.

2). How the "contraction" of a compound or the shaving off of a few base kana here and there will hinder the (your) intended meaning. Enough of that above.

Again, my mistake.

But make a finding one way or the other. Is this an effort directed towards English speakers looking to exercise their kanji skills (in which case you'll need to partner with a native Japanese/Chinese speaker with adequate search/dictionary skills) ? Making sure first, of course, there is anyone available and willing to study kanji interspersed an English text.

Or, conversely, is it a programming challenge game marketed to an Asian audience trying to learn English (precise kanji therefore becomes a little less crucial and maybe even part of the 'play' with direct English equivalents, run with the "day book" example...) ?

The effort is purely experimental. It's simply based on an idea I had. I was thinking that it could be nice if some sort of text filter could be applied to text in a web browser, which would change English words to kanji and kanji compounds, seeing how much I read online. In other words, it's nothing more than an experiment. If it would turn out useful, then perhaps others might show interest, but that is not my first intention.

A good example: 得
When reading as とく, 得 can never mean "can, may, able to." The reading should be え or う if you want to imply "can, may, able to" (as an auxiliary verb 得[え]る/得[う]る).
Is this an answer to your original question?

Yes, this makes it quite clear, thanks

 

[nice gaijin]

In the case of telephone and television that is actually what it says if taken literally. They're actually quite reasonable examples of compounds where the new word gets it's meaning from the combined meaning of the words used to make the new word. I see no big problem with that.

And again, you're back to making up new words when perfectly good ones exist within established languages.

English is an interesting conglomeration of greek, latin and germanic influences. "Kanji" is the set of Chinese characters adopted into Japanese. Hanzi are the characters used in Chinese itself, and consist of both traditional (to which kanji is mostly, but not completely similar, and is still used in places like Taiwan) and simplified (which sees widespread use in mainland China. You're already mixing and matching characters regardless of their real-world use.

Either way, your approach requires people to be familiar with English structure and vocabulary, in addition to the set (or sets) of ideograms you're trying to use. Then you said that it should be language-independant

In the case of two people who don't share a language, trying to communicate with characters used for their meaning is a whole lot better then using hand signs, etc. So it would probably make communication easier in such a case.

And since you're using English etymology to decide which characters to use, how is one supposed to understand what the other is writing if they don't understand the English structure or the roots of character compounds? The end-result is, at best, a vague idea of what's being discussed.

You have to start somewhere. Seeing how I only know know English and Dutch, I'm going to start with one of those two. It can be applied to any language, and English is just a starting point. It's, of course, perfectly possible for language independence to be impossible.

OK, new situation. So someone who speaks Russian does this, using Russian sentence structure with cyrillic characters, and Russian etymology to decide which characters get put together. Is the end-result going to look anything like the same approach to English, or Arabic, or Korean? At best, you're going to have to basically guess what is being said, because you don't understand Russian characters or etymology. Instead of "far-speak," telephone is more like "electric conversation" in Kanji (電話), if one person is saying 電話 and the other says 遠話 or 遠言, how is one supposed to understand the other?

This approach isn't language-independent. In fact, it increases your dependence. How do you expect people to communicate across a language barrier when they still rely on their native languages and can't agree on a common vocabulary.

Yes, people in China do this. It would be nice to not have to learn a language to be able to use kanji. I simply assumed that it might be possible.

The way that ideograms are combined is an important part of the languages that use them, and part of the reason I think kanji are fun and interesting to learn. You're talking about taking away that framework that makes it easy for me to look at a word in Japanese I've never seen before and have at least a good idea of what it means and how it's pronounced.

 

[Thorham]

And again, you're back to making up new words when perfectly good ones exist within established languages.

I'm not making up new words, I'm just looking at the meaning for parts of existing words.

You're already mixing and matching characters regardless of their real-world use.

That's because they're not used in English. You can't just take something, apply it to something that normally doesn't use it, and expect the result to be useful immediately. It doesn't mean it can't be made useful, but it just wont be out of the box.

Either way, your approach requires people to be familiar with English structure and vocabulary, in addition to the set (or sets) of ideograms you're trying to use. Then you said that it should be language-independant

Language independence would be very nice, yes. It's a lot easier to simply start by replacing words with kanji and compounds directly.

And since you're using English etymology to decide which characters to use, how is one supposed to understand what the other is writing if they don't understand the English structure or the roots of character compounds? The end-result is, at best, a vague idea of what's being discussed.

That's the second step, to see if it would make any kind of sense. Nothing more.

OK, new situation. So someone who speaks Russian does this, using Russian sentence structure with cyrillic characters, and Russian etymology to decide which characters get put together. Is the end-result going to look anything like the same approach to English, or Arabic, or Korean? At best, you're going to have to basically guess what is being said, because you don't understand Russian characters or etymology.

Yes, but people without a common language would simply only write kanji. I know it's not going to be perfect, but ir would still be much better than trying to explain things with pictures and hand signs. The point is that everyone who has good knowledge of kanji knows that 火 means fire, and 山 means mountain. I'm assuming that anyone who knows these two will easily guess the intended meaning of 火山 if they know you're not writing Japanese or Chinese.

Edited: When I searched for 火山, it turned out to be an existing compound. It's still a perfectly logical compound, and easy to guess if you don't know it.

Instead of "far-speak," telephone is more like "electric conversation" in Kanji (電話), if one person is saying 電話 and the other says 遠話 or 遠言, how is one supposed to understand the other?

I don't think everyone is going to find it difficult to guess the meaning of those. To have an electric conversation you need a telephone, and to speak far you also need a telephone. Seems easy enough to guess to me.

This approach isn't language-independent. In fact, it increases your dependence. How do you expect people to communicate across a language barrier when they still rely on their native languages and can't agree on a common vocabulary.

I think you might be underestimating peoples ability to properly guess the meaning of compounds, although in some cases it obviously wont be easy. Further more, it might be an idea to combine kanji by their main meaning in a logical way to indicate the meaning of the intended word. Perhaps none of this is easy, but who says it has to be easy? It's just going to be much easier than communicating with hand signs.

The way that ideograms are combined is an important part of the languages that use them, and part of the reason I think kanji are fun and interesting to learn. You're talking about taking away that framework that makes it easy for me to look at a word in Japanese I've never seen before and have at least a good idea of what it means and how it's pronounced.

Yes, I am, just not for Japanese. When reading or writing Japanese, you can't get rid of that framework, while if you want to use kanji in languages that don't use them, then you have to get rid of that frame work.

 

[nice gaijin]

I don't think everyone is going to find it difficult to guess the meaning of those. To have an electric conversation you need a telephone, and to speak far you also need a telephone. Seems easy enough to guess to me.
I think you might be underestimating peoples ability to properly guess the meaning of compounds, although in some cases it obviously wont be easy. Further more, it might be an idea to combine kanji by their main meaning in a logical way to indicate the meaning of the intended word. Perhaps none of this is easy, but who says it has to be easy? It's just going to be much easier than communicating with hand signs.

Yeah, it's way easier to learn Chinese characters and use them to represent the Greek roots of English words.

Yes, I am, just not for Japanese. When reading or writing Japanese, you can't get rid of that framework, while if you want to use kanji in languages that don't use them, then you have to get rid of that frame work.

Then you are removing the thing that makes learning kanji intuitive. Without learning ideograms within the context of a language, how do you expect people to learn them in the first place?

 

[Thorham]

Yeah, it's way easier to learn Chinese characters and use them to represent the Greek roots of English words.

You know full well that hand signs that aren't related to sign language can't possibly cover everything kanji and compounds can, and that this is a bad example.

Then you are removing the thing that makes learning kanji intuitive. Without learning ideograms within the context of a language, how do you expect people to learn them in the first place?

Perhaps by simply memorizing them?

Well, it seems that my initial question has been answered, and since this side tracked discussion is going no where, I'll stop it here. All this is just because I wrote this after my initial question:

Thanks guys, good explenations.
That's what I was afraid of... It's such a pity that the Chinese characters aren't used for just their meaning everywhere, damned readings. Then again, because of cultural differences you'd get this problem:
Aquarium -> Fish tank -> 魚槽 (English)
Aquarium -> Water tribe building -> 水族館 (Japanese)
The problem here is that water tribe building doesn't make much sense in English, and fish tank might only make sense in Japanes because of English influences.

Then I wrote this as a correction:

Didn't know that, cool
Modified:
Big aquarium -> Big fish tank/Fish tank building -> 大魚槽/魚槽館 (English)
Big aquarium -> Water tribe building -> 水族館 (Japanese)
Aquarium -> Fish tank -> 魚槽 (English)
Aquarium -> Water tank -> 水槽 (Japanese)

I know I'm guilty of keeping this going, but I have to say: I'm not going to stop this just because someone doesn't like the idea and is trying to convince me it's pointless. This is something I will have to find out for myself. It's just an experiment any way.

 

[nice gaijin]

I'm not telling you it's pointless, I'm saying your approach is flawed, and that you should perhaps learn more about the languages you're borrowing from so you have a better idea of how ideographic writing systems actually work. But you'll have to do it yourself before you'll realize it, so go ahead.

 

[Thorham]

Characters which have meanings attached to them can be used in any language, you don't need to know Japanese or Chinese to use kanji in English, Dutch, French or whatever. Why would I want to look at the Chinese or Japanese languages to use kanji in English? Their use is obviously going to be different from how they're used in China and Japan.

Also, there are several ideas I want to explore.

- Use kanji and Japanese compounds to directly replace English words with.
- Use kanji to generate English compounds with.
- Try to use kanji to commicate with people who don't know the two languages I know.

It's the first idea requires looking at the Japanese language. The second and third ones require looking at the kanji for their meaning alone.

 

[nice gaijin]

and in all three cases, if anyone wants to understand the output, they have to be familiar with the meanings of the characters you're using, on top of the language you use for grammatical structure. How are people supposed to learn kanji just for their meanings without some sort of pedagogical approach? In the meantime, the only people that could possibly understand the output are people who have studied the languages that already use kanji or hanzi (ie Japanese or Chinese dialects). BUT they then have to do the extra guesswork because the compound vocabulary is different from the ones they're already familiar with.

If your interest lies in ideograms alone, even if you were to become "proficient in their use," that's a lot of work to learn a language's writing system and still end up being almost completely illiterate and unable to speak or understand the language. It doesn't make sense to learn the language first in order to familiarize yourself with the characters?

Learning kanji solely for its meaning makes it exponentially more difficult to study, because the readings actually help people retain the characters. Does that answer your initial question?

 

[Thorham]

and in all three cases, if anyone wants to understand the output, they have to be familiar with the meanings of the characters you're using, on top of the language you use for grammatical structure. How are people supposed to learn kanji just for their meanings without some sort of pedagogical approach? In the meantime, the only people that could possibly understand the output are people who have studied the languages that already use kanji or hanzi (ie Japanese or Chinese dialects). BUT they then have to do the extra guesswork because the compound vocabulary is different from the ones they're already familiar with.

Can't say I disagree with this actually. All this may just be a bad idea, unfortunately. Well, in the end it doesn't matter much, it's just an idea, and not all ideas are good

If your interest lies in ideograms alone, even if you were to become "proficient in their use," that's a lot of work to learn a language's writing system and still end up being almost completely illiterate and unable to speak or understand the language. It doesn't make sense to learn the language first in order to familiarize yourself with the characters?

The kanji are what seemed most interesting, yes, although I admit having developed an interest in the Japanese language. It's not a bad idea to just learn the language and it's writing system properly.

Learning kanji solely for its meaning makes it exponentially more difficult to study, because the readings actually help people retain the characters. Does that answer your initial question?

I've actually studied (over a year ago now) a bunch of them for their meaning alone, and of course by writing them down as well, and it didn't seem to be that difficult. It never occurred to me that learning the readings as well might make it easier rather than harder. Guess it can't hurt to do it that way.

Well, so much for my idea Perhaps it's a better idea to replace letters and letter combinations with hiragana and katakana, much easier to write a program for, and probably makes more sense, because it's basically changing sound characters for sound characters. Seems this can't go wrong, and might be a good aid to learn kana.

 

[nice gaijin]

At first, learning kanji with the readings and everything may seem overwhelming, but later on, the readings become very helpful; they make it easy to recognize new combinations both for their meanings and their pronunciation. When you only have a meaning assigned to each character, it makes it much more difficult to sort all of that data in your head as your vocabulary expands. This is very helpful, but doesn't necessarily make it easy, because most kanji are not limited to just one reading, or even one meaning.

I don't mean to discourage you from trying to do something with kanji, but there's an awful lot of information, and if you don't learn Japanese (or Chinese), your knowledge of kanji will be a lot of effort for limited rewards. Studying one of them will not only help you learn the characters, it will give you a better idea of how they are used in the context of a real language, and you'll be bettering yourself by learning a new language!

kana would be much easier to learn, especially if you don't intend to continue your language study beyond the writing system. One thing to consider is that English spelling is not good at following rules, so the sound for "oooh" is present in multiple settings; even sounds that are spelled completely different sound identical, or sounds that are spelled the same produce different sounds. For example: through, threw, you, too, to, two, thou, though, toe, sew, so, mow, bough, beau, etc. It's this non-conformity to a single set of rules that is the reason that English is the only language that has spelling contests.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that Japanese has far fewer vowels and consonant sounds than English (depending on the dialect and accent), so a whole lot of English sounds get pronounced the same in Japanese, but the lack of standardized spelling makes this harder for a computer to convert. Something like Spanish is a little closer to Japanese phonetics; I used to write Spanish phrases in katakana to help practice reading and writing them. On the other hand, Japanese kana pronunciation is standard, so to convert a line of text from kana to romaji (Japanese in English characters) would be pretty simple. Maybe that's a good place to start?

If you're looking for a study aid, however, I'd recommend just practicing reading things in Japanese.

 

[Thorham]

At first, learning kanji with the readings and everything may seem overwhelming, but later on, the readings become very helpful;

It's actually the sheer number of kanji that made it seem like a good idea to get rid of as much unneeded information as possible, simply to save time.

they make it easy to recognize new combinations both for their meanings and their pronunciation.

Okey, that's clear, and I suppose most kanji don't have ten meanings and readings each anyway. The guy who made this site might disagree, however: All Japanese All The Time. I've provided this link just for the sake of argument.

When you only have a meaning assigned to each character, it makes it much more difficult to sort all of that data in your head as your vocabulary expands.

Since I've only studied about 70 for meanings alone, and can still recall about 40 to 50 over a year later, it didn't occur to me. I can see it will be different when you've learned hundreds, to thousands.

This is very helpful, but doesn't necessarily make it easy, because most kanji are not limited to just one reading, or even one meaning.

It doesn't have to be easy, hehe, few things in life are truly easy. Not a problem.

I don't mean to discourage you from trying to do something with kanji, but there's an awful lot of information, and if you don't learn Japanese (or Chinese), your knowledge of kanji will be a lot of effort for limited rewards. Studying one of them will not only help you learn the characters, it will give you a better idea of how they are used in the context of a real language, and you'll be bettering yourself by learning a new language!

Don't worry about it, you're not discouraging me at all, you're just saying how it is.

kana would be much easier to learn, especially if you don't intend to continue your language study beyond the writing system. One thing to consider is that English spelling is not good at following rules, so the sound for "oooh" is present in multiple settings; even sounds that are spelled completely different sound identical, or sounds that are spelled the same produce different sounds. For example: through, threw, you, too, to, two, thou, though, toe, sew, so, mow, bough, beau, etc. It's this non-conformity to a single set of rules that is the reason that English is the only language that has spelling contests.

I probably am going to learn Japanese. You've convinced me that it's better to learn kanji in combination with a language. As for English, you're right, English spelling is no fun at all.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that Japanese has far fewer vowels and consonant sounds than English (depending on the dialect and accent), so a whole lot of English sounds get pronounced the same in Japanese, but the lack of standardized spelling makes this harder for a computer to convert.

Actually, a program that converts Latin to kana, isn't that hard to write at all. All it really has to do is convert individual characters and character combinations that exist in kana. Basically the sound is ignored, that would make writing the program much harder, without much benefit. It would simply convert, say, all 'te's in the text to て or all the separately convertible 'e's to え. This is then done for all such replaceable characters.

Something like Spanish is a little closer to Japanese phonetics; I used to write Spanish phrases in katakana to help practice reading and writing them. On the other hand, Japanese kana pronunciation is standard, so to convert a line of text from kana to romaji (Japanese in English characters) would be pretty simple. Maybe that's a good place to start?

While I'm not familiar with Spanish, Dutch, which is my native language, is quite similar in pronunciation to Japanese, or let's just say much closer than English. Perhaps that's useful?

If you're looking for a study aid, however, I'd recommend just practicing reading things in Japanese.

You're right, that's always the best way, of course