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"In Japanese for example, it is basically completely impossible to even begin to predict how to write a word if all you know is its pronunciation" Do you mean
by smcl 9y ago
"In Japanese for example, it is basically completely impossible to even begin to predict how to write a word if all you know is its pronunciation"
Do you mean using the Kanji characters, or is there something else (other than the silent "u" that hides) that would trip you up when trying to write something in the hiragana or katakana letters?
- umanwizard 9y agoI'm referring to kanji, which is what most words are written with.
- smcl 9y agoKanji you are right, but I’m not sure most words are written with it (happy to be corrected, I only did a tiny bit of Japanese study and was only in Japan for a week or so). Plus it is possible to write a word using either of the other two alphabets even if you don’t know the kanji. Mandarin, Cantonese and likely other Chinese languages are maybe a better example. I don’t think they have a phonetic system that you could fall back on
- umanwizard 9y agoYou could in principle write anything you want in any script you want. But if you write a word that is typically written in kanji in hiragana instead, you are not writing according to standard Japanese writing conventions. This is a non sequitur, it is like saying "Chinese writing is not irregular because you could always just write everything in Cyrillic"
- smcl 9y agoWell not really - if a Japanese speaker write a word to another Japanese speaker they could conceivably write the word out through either of these alphabets - they're mutually understood and they are able to perfectly (iirc) represent all of the words used in the language. I don't think anyone would suggest that it's possible to do this with Chinese and Cyrillic characters. I actually think you'd be the first to suggest this is the same thing. I'm really confused why you'd say this.