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Lol. Flashback to me having this exact conversation with a new Gaijin-kun アメリカの人 at about his second or third month in Tohoku...32 years ago. "They could just d

Lol. Flashback to me having this exact conversation with a new Gaijin-kun アメリカの人 at about his second or third month in Tohoku...32 years ago. "They could just do it all in Romaji and save so much work." and even today some of my Japanese friends joke with me about how hard 漢字 can be, they laugh because they know its hard for them and admit they wouldnt do it if they had been born anywhere else. So, it is absolutely baked in and kanji first. without kanji the following tongue twister is indecipherable. Niwaniwaniwatori ga, uraniwanimoniwaniwatoriga iru. 庭には二羽鶏が、裏庭にも二羽鶏がいる。

kazinator 21d ago
I made a variant of this one myself: 中庭の中には、鶏の二羽がワニにお世話になりました。〜と、誰かに岩の上で言われた。
- notrustincloud 21d ago
  Thank you, thats a fun one. I particularly like the play on niwa and wani. As for the other premise that modifying the phonetics to accomplish a simplification is based on a narrow view of the reason for retaining kanji literacy... there are important and substantive records for business, legal, and actively functional culture which exist in kanji and require kanji literacy to maintain agreement in society that is one of the differences between Japan and most other places. Who else still operates on contractual obligations from written records of the 17th century? Many current farming leases for large parts of the country are backed with the actual stamped, brush stroke written land records from then, stored at the prefecture on the original papers. Losing the ability to read and write kanji would be detrimental to ongoing cultural stability, and so it will not and should not be entertained by anyone living in that system. People living in a 'for now' mindset are irrelevant to actuality.

kazinator 21d ago

I made a variant of this one myself: 中庭の中には、鶏の二羽がワニにお世話になりました。〜と、誰かに岩の上で言われた。

notrustincloud 21d ago
Thank you, thats a fun one. I particularly like the play on niwa and wani. As for the other premise that modifying the phonetics to accomplish a simplification is based on a narrow view of the reason for retaining kanji literacy... there are important and substantive records for business, legal, and actively functional culture which exist in kanji and require kanji literacy to maintain agreement in society that is one of the differences between Japan and most other places. Who else still operates on contractual obligations from written records of the 17th century? Many current farming leases for large parts of the country are backed with the actual stamped, brush stroke written land records from then, stored at the prefecture on the original papers. Losing the ability to read and write kanji would be detrimental to ongoing cultural stability, and so it will not and should not be entertained by anyone living in that system. People living in a 'for now' mindset are irrelevant to actuality.