You read my conversation with T-R and your takeaway is I think teaching kanji to beginners is a bad idea because "I run into a kanji I don't know"? Please. > E

You read my conversation with T-R and your takeaway is I think teaching kanji to beginners is a bad idea because "I run into a kanji I don't know"? Please. > English spelling is just as complicated, in my opinion That's a separate issue, but I agree with you to some extent. Here's a Feynman quote (which I agree with 100%): If the professors of English will complain to me that the students who come to the universities, after all those years of study, still cannot spell "friend," I say to them that something's the matter with the way you spell friend. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman > "stop teaching kanji in public schools" is pretty much the same as abolishing kanji I don't think so. There are many things that aren't taught in public schools but taught in private classes (calligraphy/ikebana/yoga/etc). It's good that people who care about these cultures enjoy them in their own time and other people are left alone and not being forced to learn something they think has a low ROI. If kanji is such a good idea as you claim, it will survive and thrive without government coercion, don't you think?