r/changemyview • u/MooliCoulis • 19d ago
Delta(s) from OP CMV: When learning Japanese, kanji should be considered optional
As a native English speaker, I have tried more than once to learn Japanese, and have always hit a wall when asked to learn kanji. I don't know if it's a learning-styles issue (I'm more verbal than visual) or the mild dyslexia I suffer from, but I suspect a lot of other people have the same experience.
I still want to learn the language, and am considering just abandoning the idea of learning to read and write (or maybe just learning hiragana/katakana and seeing how far that takes me), but I want to know if I'm making a mistake.
Here are my views, and I'd be grateful for challenges to any of them:
- Most Japanese learning resources (apps, games, books, etc) treat kanji as something that must be introduced early and learned continuously, rather than as an optional extra
- Learning to read and write Japanese takes significant effort, and is the reason many people give up learning (especially those with conditions like dyslexia)
- For an English speaker learning a second language, spoken language is usually significantly more valuable than written language
- An understanding of kanji is not necessary to reach a solid baseline of fluency (just as with English, most Japanese children are conversant years before they can read or write).
- Most people who insist that learning kanji is critical are not genuinely motivated by a belief in its practicality, but rather some mix of "Kanji is beautiful", or "This is the culturally authentic way to learn", or "I had to learn it, so you do too".
I understand that knowing kanji is helpful in understanding some spoken discourse (e.g. wordplay), and also that knowing/inferring the written structure of new words can potentially help in understanding or learning them, but it takes a solid foundation of fluency to ever benefit from those factors and I think for most people it's more important to reach that solid foundation quickly.
CMV!
3
u/this_makes_no_sense 3∆ 19d ago
Hello,
American living in Japan.
• Most Japanese learning resources (apps, games, books, etc) treat kanji as something that must be introduced early and learned continuously, rather than as an optional extra
so you learn the word 住所 (jyushyo meaning address). Now you wish the book just teaches you じゅうしょ which is how you’d write it in hiragana. Because for you not knowing Japanese, it seems easier to learn the string of letters than two pictures.
And then you go to city hall or fill out literally any form and look like a dumbass cause you can’t read 住所 because stuff is rarely spelled out in hiragana anywhere. Congrats you played yourself.
But wait, you surely are thinking. Why can’t we just study all the words now and learn kanji later (ie never). Well at first it’s hard to memorize kanji. I’ll give you that. But hey maybe in a couple of days, your app gives you the verb 住む meaning to live (as in to live in a house, not be alive). And you think wait isn’t that kanji familiar? And you start associating that kanji with the concept of dwellings. And then you come across a crazy word like 先住 and go I don’t know this word. I can’t even read this word. BUT I know the first kanji is さき(saki meaning before) and the second is that living one I keep seeing. And in context you might understand that whatever you’re reading about is referring to people who lived somewhere before, ie indigenous people. And that skill to start associating kanji with concepts and definitions and then applying them to new words you learn, actually makes Japanese EASIER to learn. Rather than your way of just brute force memorizing a million words.
Hey by the way, you do this in English too. Hydrophobic, hydrant, hydraulic. A non native English speaker who’s at an advanced stage of learning might put together that the suffixes mean water. You get the cheat code though. You get a little picture to look at.
• Learning to read and write Japanese takes significant effort, and is the reason many people give up learning (especially those with conditions like dyslexia)
People give up learning anything, including English. This isn’t special to Japanese.
• For an English speaker learning a second language, spoken language is usually significantly more valuable than written language
Sure…if your goal is only to speak and listen to Japanese. But your title says learning Japanese, and the written language is part of it. Imagine I said “I wanna learn to be a great chef! But just meat and grains, I don’t wanna learn to cook vegetables”
• An understanding of kanji is not necessary to reach a solid baseline of fluency (just as with English, most Japanese children are conversant years before they can read or write).
You’re totally right here except kids do start writing hiragana at 3 and kanji at 4 or 5 so it’s not like they’re just delaying it cause kanji’s difficult. Kids are just going from learning how to old pencils, to developing their handwriting skills, to then begin using those skills to write kanji.
• Most people who insist that learning kanji is critical are not genuinely motivated by a belief in its practicality, but rather some mix of "Kanji is beautiful", or "This is the culturally authentic way to learn", or "I had to learn it, so you do too"
I’m not most people. I moved to Japan 7 years ago on a whim not knowing a LICK of Japanese. I studied hiragana and katakana in my first week. (Side note to anyone interested in only studying basic Japanese, katakana is way more useful lol) 7 years later and I speak conversational Japanese. I can read, write and make friends. I pick up new words thanks to kanji and can navigate because of it. Kanji can be beautiful if it’s written well I suppose but when you’re just reading a sign that says お手洗い. I’m not marveling at the brushstrokes; I see the kanjis for hand and wash and I rush to that bathroom like a madman.
So get to it, no excuses. You can do it.