How hard is it....

[Anorectic-Pandas]

To learn the Japanese Kanji?
I really want to learn Japanese, but I really don't want to have to memorize 2,000 completely different symbols just to read and write the language.
Ya see, it's my life's goal to move to Japan and teach English as a second language.

I've heard that it really isn't that hard, but I'm still wondering....

 

[Layra-chan]

Consider it this way: It's not full Chinese, just part of Chinese. Which is to say that it can be difficult, but it's not (quite) as ridiculous as Chinese is. And the Chinese imperial bureaucracy lasted more than two millennia working with Chinese, despite the fact that the Chinese writing system makes very little sense.
So buck up. It's one of the most difficult parts of learning Japanese, but the Japanese themselves avoid it whenever they can. It's just like vocabulary.  

[Anorectic-Pandas]

Layra-chan

Consider it this way: It's not full Chinese, just part of Chinese. Which is to say that it can be difficult, but it's not (quite) as ridiculous as Chinese is. And the Chinese imperial bureaucracy lasted more than two millennia working with Chinese, despite the fact that the Chinese writing system makes very little sense.
So buck up. It's one of the most difficult parts of learning Japanese, but the Japanese themselves avoid it whenever they can. It's just like vocabulary.

Chinese is ridiculous. Over 3000 glyphs for everyday reading and writing?
NO WAY.
But Chinese also has tones, which I would kill my brain trying to learn.
But then again, Mandarin Chinese is soooo pretty.


Well here is my problem.
Between Spanish, French and German, I have taken 5 years of language collectively.
But I never learn the gender/ article when I learn the noun.
I just learn the noun.
I have to go back, chapters later, and learn the gender.
It always works; I always end up knowing the genders.

I'm afraid I'll do the same with Japanese, but it would be impossible to go back and learn it's Kanji.

I need to be less of a procrastinator.

 

[Shen Trey]

Layra-chan

Consider it this way: It's not full Chinese, just part of Chinese. Which is to say that it can be difficult, but it's not (quite) as ridiculous as Chinese is. And the Chinese imperial bureaucracy lasted more than two millennia working with Chinese, despite the fact that the Chinese writing system makes very little sense.
So buck up. It's one of the most difficult parts of learning Japanese, but the Japanese themselves avoid it whenever they can. It's just like vocabulary.

Japanese Writing has few of Chinese Glyphs and actually most of them do not even mean the same thing only a few of them, so it is actually very inaccurate to say that Japanese is part Chinese. and the spoken language has NO similarities at all. Japanese Spoken system and some of its writing is mostly taken from Korean, not Chinese  

[Cechi]

If it's your life's goal to move to Japan and teach English, then you should dedicate yourself to the study of Japanese. I'm not saying you have to become fluent before you even go there, but if you really want to learn more about the country and be involved in its society, you have.to.learn.Japanese.
This includes everything from speaking to reading, and, yes, writing.

I'm learning Japanese and it's honestly not that hard. If anything, it's just tedious because of all the rote memorization you have to do. xD Like, "Let's write this A HUNDRED TIMES! That sounds GREAT."  

[Anorectic-Pandas]

Cechi

If it's your life's goal to move to Japan and teach English, then you should dedicate yourself to the study of Japanese. I'm not saying you have to become fluent before you even go there, but if you really want to learn more about the country and be involved in its society, you have.to.learn.Japanese.
This includes everything from speaking to reading, and, yes, writing.

I'm learning Japanese and it's honestly not that hard. If anything, it's just tedious because of all the rote memorization you have to do. xD Like, "Let's write this A HUNDRED TIMES! That sounds GREAT."

I know, I'm just gonna have to suck it up and do it. I'm just asking if it is really as hard as I am making myself believe.


I bought some books that 'teach you to speak Japanese', but I'm going to use them for basics, like verbs and the particles.

Ha. My brother did that.
"You want to learn Japanese? Kanji for 'Gyaku' 100 times. No stopping. I don't care if your hand hurts. You think the Japanese care if your hand hurts?"

Funny thing it that 'gyaku' means cruelty. xd . He took 3 years of Japanese.

I also purchased the Jooyoo Kanji (the minimum needed to read and write 99% of Japanese) and... dayum. There's like 15 entries for 'Ki', all different Kanji, and all different meanings.

 

[Layra-chan]

Kawazoe Michiyo

Layra-chan

Consider it this way: It's not full Chinese, just part of Chinese. Which is to say that it can be difficult, but it's not (quite) as ridiculous as Chinese is. And the Chinese imperial bureaucracy lasted more than two millennia working with Chinese, despite the fact that the Chinese writing system makes very little sense.
So buck up. It's one of the most difficult parts of learning Japanese, but the Japanese themselves avoid it whenever they can. It's just like vocabulary.

Japanese Writing has few of Chinese Glyphs and actually most of them do not even mean the same thing only a few of them, so it is actually very inaccurate to say that Japanese is part Chinese. and the spoken language has NO similarities at all. Japanese Spoken system and some of its writing is mostly taken from Korean, not Chinese

The kanji is all stolen from Chinese, even though the kana systems are based mainly on Korean. It's pronounced differently from the Chinese, true, but for the most part the kanji has roughly the same meaning in Chinese and in Japanese.  

[Avis-yam]

Kawazoe Michiyo

Layra-chan

Consider it this way: It's not full Chinese, just part of Chinese. Which is to say that it can be difficult, but it's not (quite) as ridiculous as Chinese is. And the Chinese imperial bureaucracy lasted more than two millennia working with Chinese, despite the fact that the Chinese writing system makes very little sense.
So buck up. It's one of the most difficult parts of learning Japanese, but the Japanese themselves avoid it whenever they can. It's just like vocabulary.

Japanese Writing has few of Chinese Glyphs and actually most of them do not even mean the same thing only a few of them, so it is actually very inaccurate to say that Japanese is part Chinese. and the spoken language has NO similarities at all. Japanese Spoken system and some of its writing is mostly taken from Korean, not Chinese

There are only very few kanji that are Japanese-only. The only one I can think of right now is 峠, meaning mountain pass. The others are simply a different variation of simplification (e.g. 気 in Chinese is missing the "x").

The majority of Chinese characters have the same meaning in Japanese as they do in Chinese. Many characters will have multiple meanings/functions, however, and each language may use one meaning more than the other.

I wouldn't say the spoken language has "NO similarities at all". A lot of compound-kanji words sound vaguely similar to the same words in Chinese to a Chinese-speaker like me. For example: 写真 and 電車 are words that are very easy for me to remember in Japanese because they sound so similar to the same words in Chinese.

The kana systems are actually also based on Chinese, not Korean. The Korean writing system developed fairly independantly.

Quote:

Kana is a general term for the syllabic Japanese scripts hiragana (ひらがな) and katakana (カタカナ) as well as the old system known as man'yōgana. These were developed from the logographic characters of Chinese origin known in Japan as Kanji (Japanese: 漢字; Chinese pronunciation "hànzì"), as an alternative and adjunct to these latter.

How hiragana and katakana developed from kanji: (note that hiragana was based off Chinese cursive script)



I don't think much of spoken Japanese has been "taken from Korean", either, except for loanwords.  

[Nanoq]

Anorectic-Pandas

Chinese is ridiculous. Over 3000 glyphs for everyday reading and writing?
NO WAY.
But Chinese also has tones, which I would kill my brain trying to learn.
But then again, Mandarin Chinese is soooo pretty.

It's quite unfair to say that Chinese is ridiculous though. Chinese (or Mandarin?) has over 1'000'000'000 speakers who speak various dialects of the language. A number of them are considered separate languages (Cantonese, Xiang, Hakka etc.) and blablabla, this you already know. Speakers of Cantonese can't understand speakers of Mandarin very easily, but since the written language is the same for everyone, they're still able to communicate without having to learn another language. You probably already know this too, but my point is, it might be easier for the natives to learn to read and write seventytwelve billion extremely small pictures, rather than learning seven new languages just to communicate with their neighbours. I dunno, this is just my guess.  

[Anorectic-Pandas]

Navook

Anorectic-Pandas

Chinese is ridiculous. Over 3000 glyphs for everyday reading and writing?
NO WAY.
But Chinese also has tones, which I would kill my brain trying to learn.
But then again, Mandarin Chinese is soooo pretty.

It's quite unfair to say that Chinese is ridiculous though. Chinese (or Mandarin?) has over 1'000'000'000 speakers who speak various dialects of the language. A number of them are considered separate languages (Cantonese, Xiang, Hakka etc.) and blablabla, this you already know. Speakers of Cantonese can't understand speakers of Mandarin very easily, but since the written language is the same for everyone, they're still able to communicate without having to learn another language. You probably already know this too, but my point is, it might be easier for the natives to learn to read and write seventytwelve billion extremely small pictures, rather than learning seven new languages just to communicate with their neighbours. I dunno, this is just my guess.

This is true.
The same way in English. If you learn English as a natural language, you grow up learning the differences in 'like', 'get', 'through/ threw', and other things that can go different ways depending on context.

 

[Xeigrich]

I've got a few points to make here...

1. This really belongs in the Foreign Language Guild.

2. Spoken Japanese was not taken from Korean, and if you ever examine the two languages side-by-side you'll see that Korean is nothing like Japanese. Korean is more like Cantonese Chinese actually.

3. In Chinese, and Mandarin specifically, you generally only have to learn ONE sound (syllable) and ONE meaning for each character. From there, you would learn maybe an alternate sound for special situations. You would also learn the different ways the character can be used, such as how it is interpreted when used as part of a word, and what kinds of words you can use it with. Chinese is backwards from English. In English, the sounds are the most meaningful part, and the letters are repetitive, but in Chinese, the sounds are pretty redundant and the characters are the most meaningful part.

4. With Japanese, each Kanji can have several different meanings AND several different pronunciations. Most Kanji have a "Chinese reading" and a "Japanese reading" which are often very different. And while Japanese did take kanji directly from the Chinese a long time ago, the Chinese languages have evolved significantly since then (well, so has Japanese). Thus, you will rarely see a Kanji that has the exact same meaning in Chinese.

5. A native Mandarin speaker cannot pick up a Cantonese book and instantly be able to read it with perfect clarity. The different Chinese languages often have different grammar, different slang, different interpretations, etc. The perfect analogy is that Chinese is a language family like "Romance." Sure, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Romanian all use the same alphabet, but in each one the the letters can be very different, and just because you're fluent in French does not mean you can pick up a book of Italian and understand it without at least a decent primer in Italian.

6. When comparing Chinese and Japanese in the context of the Chinese-style characters (hanzi/kanji), Japanese is MUCH HARDER, except for the sole fact that you do not HAVE to know every single character and you can often use hiragana instead while you learn more characters. Japanese children even have "furigana" or tiny hiragana along the top of Kanji so that they can read the harder characters without having to stop and look up each one. But if you plan to live in Japan for an extended period of time (ie several years) especially in the education business, you should strive to learn every single Kanji you come across, even if it's 2,500 plus in the end.


7. ROTE MEMORIZATION is a terrible thing to use. Awful! Stay away from it! Sure, you might burn something into your mind after many grueling hours of repetition, but the best way to learn things is Meaningful Association! Don't tell yourself "Neko means cat" and write the kanji for neko 1000 times... Break the character down into parts that you can remember and give each one a unique association that ties the whole together.



TL;DR SUMMARY: No, Japanese kanji are not ridiculously hard to learn, but then again neither are Chinese hanzi. If you really want to learn Japanese and live in Japan, the best way to find out is to just start studying Japanese and see for yourself if kanji are hard.  

[Anorectic-Pandas]

Xeigrich

I've got a few points to make here...

1. This really belongs in the Foreign Language Guild.

2. Spoken Japanese was not taken from Korean, and if you ever examine the two languages side-by-side you'll see that Korean is nothing like Japanese. Korean is more like Cantonese Chinese actually.

3. In Chinese, and Mandarin specifically, you generally only have to learn ONE sound (syllable) and ONE meaning for each character. From there, you would learn maybe an alternate sound for special situations. You would also learn the different ways the character can be used, such as how it is interpreted when used as part of a word, and what kinds of words you can use it with. Chinese is backwards from English. In English, the sounds are the most meaningful part, and the letters are repetitive, but in Chinese, the sounds are pretty redundant and the characters are the most meaningful part.

4. With Japanese, each Kanji can have several different meanings AND several different pronunciations. Most Kanji have a "Chinese reading" and a "Japanese reading" which are often very different. And while Japanese did take kanji directly from the Chinese a long time ago, the Chinese languages have evolved significantly since then (well, so has Japanese). Thus, you will rarely see a Kanji that has the exact same meaning in Chinese.

5. A native Mandarin speaker cannot pick up a Cantonese book and instantly be able to read it with perfect clarity. The different Chinese languages often have different grammar, different slang, different interpretations, etc. The perfect analogy is that Chinese is a language family like "Romance." Sure, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Romanian all use the same alphabet, but in each one the the letters can be very different, and just because you're fluent in French does not mean you can pick up a book of Italian and understand it without at least a decent primer in Italian.

6. When comparing Chinese and Japanese in the context of the Chinese-style characters (hanzi/kanji), Japanese is MUCH HARDER, except for the sole fact that you do not HAVE to know every single character and you can often use hiragana instead while you learn more characters. Japanese children even have "furigana" or tiny hiragana along the top of Kanji so that they can read the harder characters without having to stop and look up each one. But if you plan to live in Japan for an extended period of time (ie several years) especially in the education business, you should strive to learn every single Kanji you come across, even if it's 2,500 plus in the end.


7. ROTE MEMORIZATION is a terrible thing to use. Awful! Stay away from it! Sure, you might burn something into your mind after many grueling hours of repetition, but the best way to learn things is Meaningful Association! Don't tell yourself "Neko means cat" and write the kanji for neko 1000 times... Break the character down into parts that you can remember and give each one a unique association that ties the whole together.



TL;DR SUMMARY: No, Japanese kanji are not ridiculously hard to learn, but then again neither are Chinese hanzi. If you really want to learn Japanese and live in Japan, the best way to find out is to just start studying Japanese and see for yourself if kanji are hard.

I have studied Kanji.
I am just asking opinions of those who have learned/ tried to learn Kanji.

I have a friend, Mimi, whose father is a businessman who relocated here when Mimi was like 13.

I actually discovered Japanese through her (she would speak it to her family).

A long while ago, I asked her to write some sentences down in Japanese.
HLYJESUS.
They looked so complicated and difficult.

I know that I can and will have to learn the highest amount of Kanji that is possible.

I just reaaaaaaaly don't want to do it.


I've heard about Furigana.
Ha. That might be the way I have to leanr Kanji.

But think of it like this-
The natural- speaking Japanese spend what, 12-14 years at school learning Kanji? Doesn't that seem to be too much trouble?

I don't see why they cant just use Hiragana or Katakana, but adding spaces to keep words seperate from another.

 

[Avis-yam]

Xeigrich

I've got a few points to make here...

1. This really belongs in the Foreign Language Guild.

2. Spoken Japanese was not taken from Korean, and if you ever examine the two languages side-by-side you'll see that Korean is nothing like Japanese. Korean is more like Cantonese Chinese actually.

3. In Chinese, and Mandarin specifically, you generally only have to learn ONE sound (syllable) and ONE meaning for each character. From there, you would learn maybe an alternate sound for special situations. You would also learn the different ways the character can be used, such as how it is interpreted when used as part of a word, and what kinds of words you can use it with. Chinese is backwards from English. In English, the sounds are the most meaningful part, and the letters are repetitive, but in Chinese, the sounds are pretty redundant and the characters are the most meaningful part.

4. With Japanese, each Kanji can have several different meanings AND several different pronunciations. Most Kanji have a "Chinese reading" and a "Japanese reading" which are often very different. And while Japanese did take kanji directly from the Chinese a long time ago, the Chinese languages have evolved significantly since then (well, so has Japanese). Thus, you will rarely see a Kanji that has the exact same meaning in Chinese.

5. A native Mandarin speaker cannot pick up a Cantonese book and instantly be able to read it with perfect clarity. The different Chinese languages often have different grammar, different slang, different interpretations, etc. The perfect analogy is that Chinese is a language family like "Romance." Sure, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Romanian all use the same alphabet, but in each one the the letters can be very different, and just because you're fluent in French does not mean you can pick up a book of Italian and understand it without at least a decent primer in Italian.

6. When comparing Chinese and Japanese in the context of the Chinese-style characters (hanzi/kanji), Japanese is MUCH HARDER, except for the sole fact that you do not HAVE to know every single character and you can often use hiragana instead while you learn more characters. Japanese children even have "furigana" or tiny hiragana along the top of Kanji so that they can read the harder characters without having to stop and look up each one. But if you plan to live in Japan for an extended period of time (ie several years) especially in the education business, you should strive to learn every single Kanji you come across, even if it's 2,500 plus in the end.


7. ROTE MEMORIZATION is a terrible thing to use. Awful! Stay away from it! Sure, you might burn something into your mind after many grueling hours of repetition, but the best way to learn things is Meaningful Association! Don't tell yourself "Neko means cat" and write the kanji for neko 1000 times... Break the character down into parts that you can remember and give each one a unique association that ties the whole together.



TL;DR SUMMARY: No, Japanese kanji are not ridiculously hard to learn, but then again neither are Chinese hanzi. If you really want to learn Japanese and live in Japan, the best way to find out is to just start studying Japanese and see for yourself if kanji are hard.

I disagree on some points. Although it's true a Mandarin speaker would not understand Cantonese text with "perfect clarity", in general, the meaning will be quite clear and simple to figure out. My parents often read the news in Chinese published by a Hong Kong company and thus in "Cantonese" with relative ease. Cantonese is quite famous for its informal speech, so for more informal texts, I could see it can be a hindrance.

I find it really hard to believe that Korean is closer to Cantonese than Japanese. A lot of Korean words sound a lot more similar to Japanese ones than they do to Cantonese ones, not to mention the sentence order (SOV). Also, Korean particles. However, I don't really know too much about Korean to provide valid input. This would be better suited to the Foreign Languages Guild for Lawrencew to comment on since he's actually Cantonese and is learning Korean. smile

"Rarely see kanji that has the exact same meaning in Chinese"? I don't know; I'm not even sure we can dare to make a guess at that. Many characters already have many meanings; one might just be used more in Chinese than Japanese, but frequently both meanings still exist in both languages. When my family was in Japan, we were with an American Mandarin-speaking tour group, and my parents would often remark on how the Japanese used the Chinese characters. For the most part, they could read it just fine, and they could usually deduce the meaning. They said that to them, the kanji that the Japanese use seem archaic, like old Chinese (which is reasonable, considering that Japan took these Chinese characters ages ago and by now modern Chinese has evolved past that). Sooo, it's hard to say. It really depends what you mean by "exact same meaning", because both languages use Chinese characters so differently.

I also don't know if you can fairly say learning Japanese kanji is MUCH HARDER than learning Chinese hanzi. Your example is not really valid because you use an example of Japanese children having helping furigana over the kanji. It is easier for Chinese children because for them, Chinese characters are their only written method of communication. They're probably going to know more Chinese characters at the age of five than a Japanese child. For a foreigner just learning either of the languages, the majority I know find learning written Chinese harder than written Japanese.

I agree you should keep the rote memorisation to a minimum. It'll only get you so far. :3

In short, I think it really depends on the person. It's very subjective. Most people I know prefer learning the multiple readings for fewer Chinese characters of Japanese, but it depends.  

[Xeigrich]

Anorectic-Pandas

I have studied Kanji.
I am just asking opinions of those who have learned/ tried to learn Kanji.

I have a friend, Mimi, whose father is a businessman who relocated here when Mimi was like 13.

I actually discovered Japanese through her (she would speak it to her family).

A long while ago, I asked her to write some sentences down in Japanese.
HLYJESUS.
They looked so complicated and difficult.

I know that I can and will have to learn the highest amount of Kanji that is possible.

I just reaaaaaaaly don't want to do it.


I've heard about Furigana.
Ha. That might be the way I have to leanr Kanji.

But think of it like this-
The natural- speaking Japanese spend what, 12-14 years at school learning Kanji? Doesn't that seem to be too much trouble?

I don't see why they cant just use Hiragana or Katakana, but adding spaces to keep words seperate from another.

You say in the first post "How hard is it to learn Japanese Kanji?... I've heard that it really isn't that hard, but I'm still wondering." That to me sounds like you've never really studied Japanese. And I mean STUDIED, not sat down a few times and tried memorizing some random words from a language book. I'm not saying you haven't done this, but the way you worded your post makes it sound like you have don't have enough real experience with the Japanese language to make a judgment for yourself.

Furigana is EXTREMELY useful, but should only be used as a stepping stool to actually learning the kanji, just like using PinYin in Chinese to learn the tones and syllables. Try not to depend on furigana, because you won't see it except in places where younger audiences are expected. Once you get used to learning kanji, you shouldn't even need furigana, as by then you should have developed a system that works well for you.

Japanese school systems are intense and put heavy strain and stress on students in every aspect, so learning a few thousand kanji is just one more task. And it's not like they spend 12 years learning NOTHING but kanji, it's thrown in along with everything else. Just like how native English speakers learn vocabulary (and words we'll never have to use) all through out our 12 required years.

Every Japanese person I've mentioned this to (the thing about dropping Kanji and adding spaces) has said that the reason they still use kanji is that since Japanese is a syllable-based language with a lot of redundant sounds, having kanji takes a lot of the guesswork out of homonyms. Apparently, some Japanese speakers even draw the shape of a kanji in the air with their finger when someone doesn't understand what they mean. That, and older Japanese would never allow such a thing.



ALSO: I'd like to say that, for me and most of my friends learning Chinese or Japanese or Korean, the hardest part about Chinese characters regardless of what language they're being used in, is learning to use a freaking Chinese-character Dictionary. I've personally studied Japanese for about 6 or 7 years now, as well as having taken two Mandarin classes over the last year... And I STILL can't look up a single character in less than 10 minutes if I can't use "stroke recognition" software or if I don't already know the reading or pinyin for the character.

To make things worse, many characters can look completely different in different fonts or handwriting styles, so you'll have to learn what character parts are commonly interchanged.  

[Homurakitsune]

Okay, this has to do with the side-topic of this topic. (Wow, lots of t's.)

I saw something about memorization not working? But I memorize all the time. (Even in my conlangs. xD) What I do is take, say five words a day and say them out loud with the translations, then the next day I add five more to the list and repeat it again. The next day I take the second five and add another five and repeat. Then after a certain amount of time, I go over all the words. (I have this mini-whiteboard on my fridge where I write the list, so I see it every day. But I don't write the translations on it 'cause that would be cheating. xD It really helps! ^_^) Usually, I review after I've used up all the space on the board...

That's always helped me! I thought it was a good idea! And besides, any language requires at least a little memorization, right?