Why does japanese hate kanji

What about children who haven't learned the kanji? Do they need it to be read to them? I'd love some answers, I'm rather fascinated by this subject! Edit: I should make it clear that I mean reading kanji, haha. See a translation. Report copyright infringement. The owner of it will not be notified.

Only the user who asked this question will see who disagreed with this answer. Read more comments. Oh we do!! Well, at least I do.. There's a system maybe only in Japanese computers? Portuguese Portugal.

Nanami That's pretty interesting! What happens if you're not there to learn a specific one at school? I'm assuming you learn a few a day? Do you just have to go on without knowing it?

First of all, as you may know one kanji has so many ways to be read. Sometimes, especially the place name like towns or cities or person's name were read uniquely not in a typical way. So if you can't read place names or person's name, there is nothing to be embarrassed. However, you should be able to read kanjis in papers or books. Genji Monogatari was written entirely in Kana. The use of Kanji is a relatively modern innovation - and Roy Andrew Miller suggests that this was partly because life at court was so boring that a needlessly complicated writing system was seen as desirable.

Kanji are not and never have been necessary: it was a cultural choice to introduce them, and continues to be a cultural choice to retain them. Colin That seems a bit backwards to me. It wasn't really a cultural choice to introduce Kanji in particular—it was a cultural choice to introduce writing , and the Chinese system happened to be the one available to the borrowers at the time. Kana are a later invention, based on calligraphically simplified Kanji.

Neither is really a necessity: Japanese can be, and has been, written exclusively in both Kana and Kanji at different times in history. The difference is that writing in Kana alone makes readable text; Kanji alone makes a horrible mess that's nigh impossible to decipher. Show 3 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. This is a good answer that covers the linguistic aspects. In particular, it makes it clear that linguistic factors are not the primary motivation behind the two countries' different policies.

The "matter of preference and choice" that you mentioned can be traced to Korean nationalism, not linguistics. The question is quite valid and probably something that every non-native Japanese student considers.

In summary, flow seems to say that yes, it is possible that kanji could be removed, but the Japanese will not change their system. The answer is good, but your answer seems a little biased in favor of preserving kanji. Add a comment.

Sjiveru Sjiveru 1, 8 8 silver badges 12 12 bronze badges. I was going to mention the word-break factor too spaces between words. Korean of course has them and Japanese and Chinese do not. I wonder if Korean formerly eschewed spaces when it was more hanja-heavy and only took them up when it moved to hangul-only orthography. Reading kana-only text with spaces is definitely harder, but it's because of this, not homophones - your brain gets used to using kanji to mark word breaks and if you aren't used to spaces it all runs together without kanji.

Then again I'm pretty sure Thai is full of homophones and it doesn't use spaces. Vietnamese is definitely full of homophones and though it uses spaces, it uses them between syllables rather than between words which leaves word breaking to the reader. Your example brings up a salient point that it's harder to transition from one system to another when you are accustomed to the former system.

This is different to one system being better or worse. Take Hindi and Urdu as an example. Two very different writing systems, most people know only one or the other, yet both flourish and have reasonably high degrees of literacy.

Therefore we can assume that though transitioning from the script you are familiar with to the other may not be easy, both seem to be good at their job. As for the edit about news subtitles , I'm still completely sure kanji could be removed. Any ambiguous homophones would just naturally be replaced with less-ambiguous words either synonyms or new coinages. Probably it would result in a reducing of the formality level of broadcast speech - clearly people get by just fine without subtitles when they're normally speaking :P It's just that news broadcasts are written in a higher register which uses more Chinese loanwords, which are the source of the homophony problems.

Show 1 more comment. Rick Rick 41 2 2 bronze badges. SunkiOh SunkiOh 41 1 1 bronze badge. People do not point out the obvious difference that, with the 2D layout of hangul it becomes possible to visually identify sound and word shapes.

In that sense hangul is easier to read than linear kana, so even though it is purely phonetic just like kana, it renders a more natural replacement for characters.

This answer strikes me as a good reason to learn english, we will all replace the native language with english or some kind of global "uglish" in the future — nodws. Koreans were able to remove kanji because; Hangul can make so many different looking blocks of consonant s and vowel s combinations in its hangul only sentences that it makes good visibility and discrimination at a glance, far easier to grasp meaning of each syllables or combinations of syllables than the case of kana only Japanese, no matter they are representing native or Chinese borrowed words.

Korean language has much more sounds, consonants and vowels stock than Japanese. Like English, phonetic hangul only Korean can manage to avoid excessive homonyms or monotonous looking or sounding words like kana only Japanese. Both Korean and Japanese borrowed many Chinese words from ancient times. Old Chinese has more sounds and final consonants like some southern dialects of Chinese spoken these days.

The sounds of Sino-Korean words represent these old Chinese sounds fairly well, though tones are gone and sounds were adjusted to Korean phonetics. That's why hangul only sentences with Sino-Korean words in it still makes fairly good discrimination in most of the cases. On the contrast, Japanese language tend to reduce its already relatively smaller phonetic stock historically.

So many Chinese borrowed words with originally different sounds became homonyms in Japan and as time went on, such tendency progressed further resulting in tons of homonyms in its dictionary. Many Chinese origin words in Korean dictionary are very rarely used or never used, dead words. Native words are essential and core words like the case of English.

So in most cases, Koreans do communicate well without kanji in their written forms without serious misunderstanding. Homonyms can be rendered per the context almost like in the case of English. And not like Japanese, Koreans read Chinese borrowed words only by its sound read Chinese characters phonetically , not by its meaning rendering Chinese characters into Korean native words.

It's very efficient and space economic transcription than the case of kana rendering. It's same space as Chinese and simpler looking. So it's easier to pronounce to read hangul only sentences than Chinese mixed hangul sentences. Meanwhile, kana only sentence usually becomes longer, not easy to identify core words and grasp meaning quickly. If it allows space between words like hangul, readability will be improved a little, but it will need more page space.

As mentioned above, like English, hangul writing has space between words promoting readability. And its block making method of writing per syllable reduces more writing space compared to linear, European writing system, though we accept its complexity in handwriting and some demerit in spelling regulations.

One of the merit of this block writing is that, like Chinese, we can write it either horizontally or vertically, easy to install for example shop signs. Won I. Lee Won I. Lee 41 1 1 bronze badge. Just a few notes: Japanese can be spoken and understood, but Japanese people quite often draw kanji in the air to remove ambiguities. Oh dear, I do have a proper account here but I can't seem to find it. Cure Dolly Cure Dolly 31 1 1 bronze badge. I believe there's also a prestige element. Kana alone is seen as something akin to childish or at least uneducated.

Kanji is so hard to learn that well that there's also a feeling like "if we had to learn it to get to our position then you will have to learn it. MGN is right. Consider the following English sentence with a homophone. Of course it can be a reason. It is not an edict that the written and spoken languages have to be exactly the same.

As someone pointed out earlier, written languages in some societies tend to be in a formal register. People with purely phonetic languages don't even grasp this concept so of course argue uselessly about why something like kanji isn't necessary. Narktor Narktor 11 1 1 bronze badge. Although your answer is interesting as a kind of mini-essay, it contains an admission that you can't answer the OP's question, to wit: "I'm not qualified to say anything about the necessity of kanji. The writer is only qualifying their expertise.

There is an answer in there and it has not been expressed by any of the other posts. I suggest keeping it. The "cost" of learning the kanji, hanja, or hanzi is of utmost relevance to whether or should a historic system be changed. Often times, two or three characters will be condensed into one kanji. At least there is hiragana. For example, Mandarin Chinese is only kanji. I remember trying to learn that. Feel fortunate that you are learning Japanese, because really, it could be a lot harder.

So there you have it. Learn your kanji and learn it well. Tofugu Japanese current View All Japanese. View All Japan. Once you start writing sentences, hiragana is no longer readable. Kanji gives meaning to words. It looks nicer when you write in kanji. Kanji is easier to read. Kanji Takes up less space. It could be worse.