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If Japanese people just used kana (like Korean people use hangul today), kids in Japan don't have to spend countless hours learning this complex (and often irra

If Japanese people just used kana (like Korean people use hangul today), kids in Japan don't have to spend countless hours learning this complex (and often irrational) writing system. http://kanamozi.org/hikari959-04.html http://kanamozi.org/hikari959-04.html > If you really want to be native-level Japanese, kanji are essential There are visually impaired people who have difficulty learning kanji but speak Japanese fluently. Language is not just for people who can read and write, let alone reading and writing complex characters, or spell things "correctly". Richard Feynman: 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

bgee 7y ago
The English language is also quite irregular both in spelling and grammer[sic]. Maybe we should start with it given that children around the world "spend countless hours learning this complex (and often irrational) writing system". Disclaimer: native Chinese speaker, non-fluent Japanese speaker, English sufferer edit: disclaimer and grammar...
- redthrow 7y ago
  I'm a native Japanese speaker but as far as the writing system goes, I fully agree with the linguist Geoffrey Pullum's following statement about Chinese characters / kanji: In consequence, this horror-show of a writing system, with its crippling memorization burden for students and malign impediment to progress in science and industry, is the focus of so much intellectual investment and cultural pride that getting rid of it is out of the question. Intolerable though it is, it will continue to be tolerated – leaving English, with a spelling system that positively stinks, smelling almost like a rose. https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2016/01/20/the-awful-chinese-writing-system/ https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2016/01/20/the-... Don't get me wrong, I'm generally in favor of made-in-China products, but those characters to me were the worst made-in-China product I wasted so much time on (and unlike video games, I wasn't even having fun with them.)
  - bgee 7y ago
    > with its crippling memorization burden for students I always wonder about something that might sound anecdotal: why isn't there any equivalence of "spelling bee" in Hanzi? Or maybe there is? > malign impediment to progress in science and industry What? Do we have any evidence for this?
    - solarmist 7y ago
      There is. Kanji Kentei is what it's called. Knowing the archaic meaning and stroke orders of kanji, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_Kentei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_Kentei
- Anon1096 7y ago
  Difference is your written English can be riddled with errors and people will still get it. As long as you have some knowledge of spoken English you can get your point across fine. The same is not true for character languages like Mandarin or Japanese.
  - bgee 7y ago
    Not sure what you mean, both missing strokes or having another character that looks or sounds similar should not impair the meaning of a sentence to most Hanzi user.
  - antisemiotic 7y ago
    I can't compare it to Mandarin or Chinese, but as a non-native English speaker, I'd say it depends. Mixing up their/they're, lose/loose, fair/fare, cue/queue, etc, is understandable for me just fine. Having to know that "parody" sometimes means "parity" is when things start getting surreal.
- mlinksva 7y ago
  I hav to agree, demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_refo...
asutekku 7y ago
Have you read japanese written only with hiragana? The language has so many homonyms it is hard to distinguish them from a text as it is a heavily context based language. I’d argue abolishing kanji and using only hiragana/katakana or roman alphabet makes learning the language harder after the very beginning when your vocab starts to increase.
- adrianN 7y ago
  It works perfectly fine in older computer games that don't have the resolution to display Kanji.
  - csa 7y ago
    It’s functional, but definitely not optimal. Even as a non-native reader, reading 100% kana makes my eyes bleed — I wouldn’t wish that on anyone who actually knows kanji.
    - solarmist 7y ago
      I want to agree with you (having spent many hours learning kanji and feeling like after I've learned the kanji, they're valuable to my comprehension), but having learned Korean I can see how you can eventually get along without them and in the end I feel like it's equivalent to Latin and English. Knowing the Latin makes things easier, but I didn't have trouble with English before I knew the roots of words. My understanding now is just richer nowadays.
- redthrow 7y ago
  I'd recommend playing the excellent SNES game Mother 2 (マザー２）, a huge hit in Japan and nobody complained about the text being difficult to read. Or you can watch one of the let's play videos with narration here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UrqsO2JQ0&list=PLC4EWNG6GsuY5SExvHdnN9l9nP_ghz5vo&index=2&t=0s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UrqsO2JQ0&list=PLC4EWNG6GsuY...
  - edflsafoiewq 7y ago
oska 7y ago
Here we have a native speaker of Japanese being downvoted for giving an opinion on their own writing system that HN readers don't want them to have.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
  HN is full of the dilettante type who consider themselves an authority on any field based on a few days of wiki-hopping. I notice this every time I see comments on HN about a topic I actually understand in depth. Quite a few comments are just outright incorrect, most are misguided, but all are confident.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    Just because someone posts a comment with their understanding of an issue doesn't mean they consider themselves an authority.
    - kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
      Yes, but a lot of people who are aware of their lack of understanding (or reduced understanding) actually choose to stay silent, or offer opinions with a lot of riders. On the other hand, the most confident pronouncements usually come from people unaware of their lack of understanding.
Tharkun 7y ago
The good news is that this is a problem that's solving itself. Kanji, especially complex kanji, are dying out in favour of katakana. An anecdotal example, as little as 20 years ago, all the fish markets had signs for each fish, in kanji. Now all of those signs are in katakana. Many young people can't read the kanji for specific fish anymore. They can probably manage tuna, but hake? Pollock? Most written communication is typed. Which involves typing each word phonetically (and then picking the correct kanji from a list). This is orders of magnitude easier than writing a kanji by hand. You can get by without knowing stroke order or without knowing exactly how to write it. As long as you're even vaguely familiar with a kanji, you'll be able to pick the right one from the list. Give this another generation or so, and I expect the coverage of those "777" will increase to ~100%, and the number of kana-only words will increase dramatically. National pride and linguists be damned, convenience always wins out in the end.
- redthrow 7y ago
  I think it's good that more private businesses are using kana-based writing (including more widespread furigana usage), but I don't consider the problem being fixed until the mandatory teaching of kanji in compulsory education stops, and maybe I just don't know but there's no sign of that happening.
  - Tharkun 7y ago
    Give it time. Compulsory Latin education was very common for a very long time in large parts of Europe. In parts because the catholic church had a lot of influence. Now people barely even remember it. Many schools now offer Latin as an elective subject, and those who are into that sort of thing can study it to their hears contents, without wasting everyone else's time [1]. Something similar will probably happen to Kanji. They'll become more and more useless. And, eventually, education will adapt. Give it another generation or so. [1] I realize that whether or not studying Latin (or Kanji) is a waste of time is a contentious point. If it's your cup of tea, go for it, but don't force it on others. Force them to learn maths instead.

bgee 7y ago

The English language is also quite irregular both in spelling and grammer[sic]. Maybe we should start with it given that children around the world "spend countless hours learning this complex (and often irrational) writing system". Disclaimer: native Chinese speaker, non-fluent Japanese speaker, English sufferer edit: disclaimer and grammar...

redthrow 7y ago
I'm a native Japanese speaker but as far as the writing system goes, I fully agree with the linguist Geoffrey Pullum's following statement about Chinese characters / kanji: In consequence, this horror-show of a writing system, with its crippling memorization burden for students and malign impediment to progress in science and industry, is the focus of so much intellectual investment and cultural pride that getting rid of it is out of the question. Intolerable though it is, it will continue to be tolerated – leaving English, with a spelling system that positively stinks, smelling almost like a rose. https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2016/01/20/the-awful-chinese-writing-system/ https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2016/01/20/the-... Don't get me wrong, I'm generally in favor of made-in-China products, but those characters to me were the worst made-in-China product I wasted so much time on (and unlike video games, I wasn't even having fun with them.)
- bgee 7y ago
  > with its crippling memorization burden for students I always wonder about something that might sound anecdotal: why isn't there any equivalence of "spelling bee" in Hanzi? Or maybe there is? > malign impediment to progress in science and industry What? Do we have any evidence for this?
  - solarmist 7y ago
    There is. Kanji Kentei is what it's called. Knowing the archaic meaning and stroke orders of kanji, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_Kentei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_Kentei
Anon1096 7y ago
Difference is your written English can be riddled with errors and people will still get it. As long as you have some knowledge of spoken English you can get your point across fine. The same is not true for character languages like Mandarin or Japanese.
- bgee 7y ago
  Not sure what you mean, both missing strokes or having another character that looks or sounds similar should not impair the meaning of a sentence to most Hanzi user.
- antisemiotic 7y ago
  I can't compare it to Mandarin or Chinese, but as a non-native English speaker, I'd say it depends. Mixing up their/they're, lose/loose, fair/fare, cue/queue, etc, is understandable for me just fine. Having to know that "parody" sometimes means "parity" is when things start getting surreal.
mlinksva 7y ago
I hav to agree, demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_refo...

asutekku 7y ago

Have you read japanese written only with hiragana? The language has so many homonyms it is hard to distinguish them from a text as it is a heavily context based language. I’d argue abolishing kanji and using only hiragana/katakana or roman alphabet makes learning the language harder after the very beginning when your vocab starts to increase.

adrianN 7y ago
It works perfectly fine in older computer games that don't have the resolution to display Kanji.
- csa 7y ago
  It’s functional, but definitely not optimal. Even as a non-native reader, reading 100% kana makes my eyes bleed — I wouldn’t wish that on anyone who actually knows kanji.
  - solarmist 7y ago
    I want to agree with you (having spent many hours learning kanji and feeling like after I've learned the kanji, they're valuable to my comprehension), but having learned Korean I can see how you can eventually get along without them and in the end I feel like it's equivalent to Latin and English. Knowing the Latin makes things easier, but I didn't have trouble with English before I knew the roots of words. My understanding now is just richer nowadays.
redthrow 7y ago
I'd recommend playing the excellent SNES game Mother 2 (マザー２）, a huge hit in Japan and nobody complained about the text being difficult to read. Or you can watch one of the let's play videos with narration here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UrqsO2JQ0&list=PLC4EWNG6GsuY5SExvHdnN9l9nP_ghz5vo&index=2&t=0s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UrqsO2JQ0&list=PLC4EWNG6GsuY...
- edflsafoiewq 7y ago

oska 7y ago

Here we have a native speaker of Japanese being downvoted for giving an opinion on their own writing system that HN readers don't want them to have.

kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
HN is full of the dilettante type who consider themselves an authority on any field based on a few days of wiki-hopping. I notice this every time I see comments on HN about a topic I actually understand in depth. Quite a few comments are just outright incorrect, most are misguided, but all are confident.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  Just because someone posts a comment with their understanding of an issue doesn't mean they consider themselves an authority.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
    Yes, but a lot of people who are aware of their lack of understanding (or reduced understanding) actually choose to stay silent, or offer opinions with a lot of riders. On the other hand, the most confident pronouncements usually come from people unaware of their lack of understanding.

Tharkun 7y ago

The good news is that this is a problem that's solving itself. Kanji, especially complex kanji, are dying out in favour of katakana. An anecdotal example, as little as 20 years ago, all the fish markets had signs for each fish, in kanji. Now all of those signs are in katakana. Many young people can't read the kanji for specific fish anymore. They can probably manage tuna, but hake? Pollock? Most written communication is typed. Which involves typing each word phonetically (and then picking the correct kanji from a list). This is orders of magnitude easier than writing a kanji by hand. You can get by without knowing stroke order or without knowing exactly how to write it. As long as you're even vaguely familiar with a kanji, you'll be able to pick the right one from the list. Give this another generation or so, and I expect the coverage of those "777" will increase to ~100%, and the number of kana-only words will increase dramatically. National pride and linguists be damned, convenience always wins out in the end.

redthrow 7y ago
I think it's good that more private businesses are using kana-based writing (including more widespread furigana usage), but I don't consider the problem being fixed until the mandatory teaching of kanji in compulsory education stops, and maybe I just don't know but there's no sign of that happening.
- Tharkun 7y ago
  Give it time. Compulsory Latin education was very common for a very long time in large parts of Europe. In parts because the catholic church had a lot of influence. Now people barely even remember it. Many schools now offer Latin as an elective subject, and those who are into that sort of thing can study it to their hears contents, without wasting everyone else's time [1]. Something similar will probably happen to Kanji. They'll become more and more useless. And, eventually, education will adapt. Give it another generation or so. [1] I realize that whether or not studying Latin (or Kanji) is a waste of time is a contentious point. If it's your cup of tea, go for it, but don't force it on others. Force them to learn maths instead.