/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Wait, what.

Why do literary prize winners use so little kanji?

[citation needed]

compare a novel to a broadsheet newspaper or textbook

not rocket surgery fag

Sauce on that graph?

What would they use otherwise? Straight kana + tons of homophones and no delineation between words makes for a messy writing system.

>>162869
I know next to nothing about Japanese writing, would you kindly elaborate?

>>162870
I can't find the sauce, it's from a random page I found when I googled "abolish kanji".

>>162889
It doesn't matter if it's Japanese or not

typical novel writing is less complex than academic and newspaper writing in english too. more kanji = more complex.

sage

>>162902
Really? It seems more like the opposite. Newspaper articles in N. America are typically written for a grade 6 reading level.

>>162908
I guess you're reading the wrong newspapers.

Compare the Washington Post with Harry Potter, and you'll get an idea of what I mean.

Actually in Japan you won't even know enough kanji to even read a newspaper until high school, so only adults read newspapers.

>>162902

I knew some Japanese foreign exchange students in college; even they, at their 20-something ages, needed to carry around kanji dictionaries with them because they couldn't remember all of them.

>>162913
So I'm guessing there's adult-newspapers and child-newspapers?

>>162929
No

>>162913
I guess you're cherry picking the wrong publications.

Compare Star Magazine and Ulysses, and you'll get an idea of what I mean.

Can't they just abolish kanji and start using spaces?

Japanese newspapers are very different from american ones (well, except for the actual content). The level of writing is much higher and formal.

>>162868
2nd'd. Where did you get your graph OP?

>>162942
Spaces were an innovation when non-Latin church workers in early AD Europe needed a way to read Latin easily.
Voila! Spaces!

>>162942
Fuck you, kanji are awesome. 秋葉 is a really beautiful name.

The koreans did away with chinese characters now, and look at them. They've been living in mud huts ever since.

>>162950
I found it.
http://mmtaylor.net/Literacy_Book/DOCS/21.html

Personally, I am of the opinion that the Roman alphabet is the most complete and perfectly balanced alphabet in the world today. Every other alphabet is inferior.

>>162963
Thank, Anon. I love my new book.

>>162974
Too bad the English Language butchers it with it's pronunciation.

>>162974
Bitches don't know about futhark.

>>162963
/r/ whole book

>>162995
The alphabet is fine. It's used better in Dutch or German than in English or French.
I think Finnish is the closest to perfection, where even little kids never ask "how do you spell that"? Essentially, if you can speak it, you can write it. (I wonder about loan words though.)

>>163025
lol extra vowels

bitches don't know bout mah context

>>162942
Japanese syllables are limited, even with spaces, abolishing kanji means the need to read in context and further thinking to understand words with same reading but different meanings as well as words with multiple readings. In all, it takes less time and effort to learn the kanji instead of spending the rest of your life figuring out messy sentences everytime you read something.

>>163041
If spoken Japanese uses no symbols, then you could write it the same way with an alphabet. You don't hear people saying: "Wait, which radical are you talking about?" when people speak Japanese. This is a weak argument that gets circulated endlessly and it has to stop.

>>163054
Just what I was thinking. If there's no confusion when it's spoken, there doesn't have to be any when it's written either.

>>163054
Speaking the same way you write a language is a very stupid thing to do.

look, when kanji is no longer relevant it will die out

there doesn't need to be an "official" movement to abolish it. language change is inevitable. Japs themselves suck at kanji more with each generation, and more and more loan words are being gobbled into the language.

If kanji wants to disappear, it will just fade out of use. Obviously it will be acceptible to write entirely in kanji or romaji long before kanji dies out completely, but yea, kanji dying out is probably inevitable.,

don't expect it in our lifetime.

>>163089
訳が解らない

>>163107

>>163074
Spoken language is far simpler and limited in the range of vocabulary used compared with those for academic usage or even written material. This is especially true for East Asian languages, where no one talks like how they write in newspapers.

Keep Kanji, dump Kana.

>>163092
The Americans tried to convince the Japanese to just use Kana after WWII but they faced opposition too. I don't know why.

>>163133
no

>>163146
Then we'd just have Chinese. (har har)

>>163149
Not quite, the people in China use simplified Chinese, quite different from kanji.

>>163133
>become china

fixed

>>163133
>>163146
>>163149
Additionally, use our alphabet. It's just better than syllables.

>>163134
Whoever suggested Kanji be abolished clearly does not know it's significance in academia.

>>163172
How it stifles innovation as you can never have a new thought?

>>163183
What?

They could solve a lot of problems if they would just make the pronunciation of every Kanji a bit longer. I.e. 3 or 4 syllables, instead of 1 or 2.

>>163025
>>even little kids never ask "how do you spell that"

same thing happens in Italian.. actually, I once read that Finnish, Italian and Japanese languages share very similar sounds. Don't know if there's any specific reason explaining why, though

>>163183
Did someone say INNOVATON?

>>163190
The same can be said about any language...We're all humans after all.

>>163195
ever heard a Chinese prounonce "r"?

>>163183
You would need to make a new language or replace all but the fundamental Japanese words with English equivalent loanword for that to work.

>>163189
I dare you to invent a new Kanji and get everyone to use it. Go ahead. I wait here.

>>163134
If they give up kanji, Japanese people will be stupid like Korean. In fact, Koreans give up kanji once and they write only their hungul. But Japanese, Korean, Chinese have so many "same sound different meaning words". So if you give up kanji, you have to tell these words, without kanji. It is so difficult. Some Korean come to Japan to study and they find the true meaning of some words, because of kanji. Without kanji Koreans master their words like English or some Western language.

>>163219
If not copypasta, it reads like it.
¯\(º_o)/¯

>>163206
Ever hear an English speaker pronounce "r" in French or German?

>>163233
Ever heard a Scotsman who German in Switzerland speak? It brings a tear to the eye.

>>163219
If you give me two minutes, I can give you the minute details behind English homophones too, they're not as hard as their complexity may seem at first, as long as you pay attention to what's written there.

>>163219
Koreans still write in Chinese characters. Rarely but they do.

>>163233
Yes, but you should add Spanish to that list as well. What's usually wrong is most speakers don't care to listen and distinguish that the syllable is not the same, but only go by what is written and read it off as if it were the same pronunciation.

When I took French classes, there was a lot of time spent on how the French r differs from the English.

>>163219

Writing Kanji = sux
Reading Kanji = easier.. faster than kana

>>163248
for instance. japanese word こうしょう（koushou）
the same sound different meanings.
http://www.excite.co.jp/dictionary/japanese/?search=%E3%81%93%E3%81%86%E3%81%97%E3%82%87%E3%81%86&am
p;submit=+%E6%A4%9C+%E7%B4%A2+&match=beginswith

kanji is kept in use to keep japan stratified and isolated

>>163293
No shit. Somehow people have gotten around it in other languages without having to fuck up their written language. Generally it's through context, or in the worst case, people just ask for clarification. Before you go off and say "BUT WHY SHOULD WE.." realize that people do it all the time anyway, so it's not like asking what someone meant is anything of a big deal.

>>163248
Probably you think something like cite and sight. I mean one same sound and too many different meanings in Japanese, Korean, Chinese.

this is why japan doesnt like foreigners. if it was left up to us we would grab what is left of their awesome integration of modern age and old world culture and toss it out the window. they arent complaining about kanji. if it is too hard for you to learn a few thousand characters just do you can fap to the latest hentai the just fuck it and wait for a fansub.

Abolishing Kanji and replacing them with Hiragana makes no sense.
Hiragana and Katakana are utterly superflous, everything they represent can be put into the roman alphabet without any loss.
Kanji can be useful to distinguish identically pronounced words in written language, though it does not help in your spoken language.

Switching to Romaji would be the easiest step, since every Japanese can read those, but you still had to deal with older scripts in the abolished writing system.

The Japanese should have switched under Meiji. Now they have adapted their computers and everything.

The Roman system is not without problems, some letters are superflous while others look to similar, but it is the best existing and circulated scripture.

>>163293
Exactly, drop the long vowels and we'd get more homophones.

>>163320
But there was just now a post how Japanese sentences have no structure, so it'd be harder to find the context of a word in that case.

>>163325
Weeaboo alert.

Go suck a Jap's businessman's cock more.

>>163324
Cite, sight, and site. One sound (like you said), and many different meanings. I fail to see how you are not exaggerating the difference.

English is full of homophones and homographs.
How do we get around it? It's called context.

pero pero pero pero pero pero pero!!!!

i haet japs coz i can't memorize 2,000 kanji to pass their JLPT exam

pero pero peroo pero sage pero perooo pero!!

>>163333
Are you crazy? Koreans give up kanji so they can not use many "same sound different meaning words".

>>163343

Weeaboo's? On MY /jp/?

>>163347
Do some research then come back and tell us Japanese homophones isn't a pain in the ass.

>>163347
koushou has 63 meanings, can you tell them by romaji?

>>163369
>koushou has 63 meanings
That sounds like a problem of itself.

>>163369
The point is you don't NEED to. It's entirely superfluous.

>>163369
That's the fault of whoever made the language, not the writing system.

>>163351
If English homophones is one, Japanese homophones would be a million. It's futile to compare Japanese homophones with English or any other non-East Asian language.

>>163377
>>163379
But it is true and reality. You stupid gaijins are really stupid. Japanese people do not want to be stupid like Korean. So they do not give up kanji.

>>163396
Shut your troll mouth.

>>163395
Japanese doesn't _have_ a million words. Nothing close. Actually Japanese has very few words for a modern language. And the problem with Japanese is it has 5 vowel sounds (6 if you count n as a vowel. I don't but some other linguists would) which obviously creates a relatively restricted phonetic pool from which to draw words, particularly new words.

However you're silly and wrong claiming Japanese has more homophones than English. It may have relatively more, but English has and deals with numerically more homophones and it does it with a 26 character alphabet and something called 'context', which Japs (as speakers of a pro-drop language that doesn't even encode the subject onto the verb-phrase) should be familiar with.

Faggot.

>>163369
koushou has 63 meanings, can you tell them by sound?

>>163377
Many gaijins say speaking Japanese is easy. Another words, Japanese does not have many vowels and consonants. But it makes many "same sound different meanig words". It is inevitable. They need kanji.

>>163446
Fag, why don't you answer >>163444

THERE ARE NO VOWELS OR CONSONANTS IN THE FUCKING JAPANESE LANGUAGE YOU FUCKTARDS! JAPANESE =/ LATIN FUCKING BASED SHIT!

>>163444
You can. Native speakers can tell the difference between slight variations in duration and pitch of a particular word to grasp different meanings. Take 橋 and 箸 for example. Making arguments with your lack of knowledge just proves how much of an idiot gaijin you are.

>>163464
Hi, welcome to the realisation that vowels are consonants are any sound made by a human being in an act of communication.

Vowels are not a, e, i, o or u, those are merely representations of them. English has over 20 vowel sounds. Japanese has 5/6.

Have a nice day.

>>163446
>Another words
Did you just mess up "in other words"?
Get the fuck out.

>>163473
lol gaijin

you do realise that all languages have nuance, homophony and homography right?

it's not the sacred preserve of precious japan.

>>163369

sound poor language is poor

>>163473
Anyone who uses "gaijin" in a serious manner is a total retard.

>>163473
橋 or 箸 is rare case. "Koushou" can not tell by sound. And if you do not understand, Japanese people ask each other like "what kanji?". Just like English, "how to spell " or something like that. Koreans can not do this. Because they do not know kanji. So koreans can not use "same sound different meaning words". LOL KOREANS ARE STUPID.

>>163482
Try reading different nuances with just Kana. Sure go by context, but enjoy spending five minutes figuring out something you can briskly glance through. Native speakers can't do so, I doubt non natives can.

>>163520
You seriously have no idea what you're talking about, but that's ok, you're not an EXPERT LINGUIST so I'll let you off.

I have never spend 5 minutes trying to determine whether 'read' is past or present tense in a sentence, even though it is spelled identically. You know why? Because of context. Yea bitches.

>>163517

Something's decidedly wrong with your language if you have to explain what symbols you'd use to write it in speech to be understood on a regular basis. Asking about spelling so as not to write it down wrong is one thing, asking about spelling to understand what's being said at all verbally is another thing entirely.

>>163534
Do it in Japanese. Going by context doesn't work as easily in Japanese without Kanji.

>>163559
You're wrong and you should feel bad

>>163572
Troll victim

>>163552
I really do not understand what you want to say. Are you crazy? or you just want to say that you are intelligent? I'm not native English speaker. You should know it very well.

>>163559
Then your language fucking sucks balls. By the way, I'm a native English speaker, and English sucks balls too, so when I say that your language sucks balls, it must really.

>>163552
No one does it on a regular basis. No one speaks likes how they would write a thesis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3W7B_VvFp8

>>163473
I've seen Hashi used as an example for the disambiguity of japanese language multiple times (Digimon Savers or Trick for example).

>>163635
It's the single most cited example of disambiguity of spoken Japanese.

Why do people say disambiguity when they mean ambiguity?

>>163678
hahaha, oh wow

>>163683
Actually I'm being serious

'hashi' is used to describe ambiguity

[various kanji] are used FOR disambiguity

what happened to all the smart people?

>>163688
No one is actually smart in 4chan. We just pretend we do.

>>163534
Read up on some research on cognitive kanji and kana processing. Kess and Miyamoto (1999) "The Japanese Mental Lexicon — 日本語の心的辞書" is particularly nice if you cannot read Japanese academic resources.

tl;dr:
>>163520 is right. Kanji make you read a lot faster in the case of Japanese.

>>163633
You hit the nail on the head there. In spoken language ambiguity is automatically avoided, and if present usually cleared up by context or by summarising the said later on (e.g. つまり、…). We do the same thing in Western languages too.

>>163706
It used to be the other way around: nobody was really stupid, we just pretended we were.

NOT ANYMORE LOL

Kanji are great for reading, but too slow to write. Obvious solution is to switch to Simplified Chinese characters.

>>163517
>And if you do not understand, Japanese people ask each other like "what kanji?". Just like English, "how to spell " or something like that.

actually in spoken english we never do this, it is always understood by context. however, many people when writing will use the wrong spelling for words that sound the same...IN AMERICA

>>163751
iuno, what is you're point?

>>163751
So do idiots in Japan ever write the wrong Kanji for the same sound?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Japanese-Mental-Lexicon-Psycholinguistic-Processing/dp/1556197616

Expensive

Luckily MOST of it is on google books. I shall read when I have the time (lol, I really am a linguist)

But yea, Kanji is part of the language, so they rely on it more. Taking it away takes away something that, in english, we never had. However to say that the Japanese cannot communicate effectively without it is wrong. I think it's only fair to say their current methods for communicating would need to be revised. And they are being. Kanji use is declining. The emergent forms would be less dependent on kanji obviously.

tl;dr: Japs are too lazy with language to get rid of kanji just like that. It adds an extra layer of meaning. But kanji will die off slowly. This is inevitable, since all language wears down to its simplest form over time.

>>163774
Yes

>>163742
I hope China takes over East Asia and gives them all the gift of Simplified Chinese writing.

>>163793
>all language wears down to its simplest form over time.

except French.

>>163742
The simplified characters are slightly retarded, and many of the simplified phonetic components does not have the same "reading scheme" in chinese and japanese.

>>163812
Well no, french wears down too. They just have rigid "protection" institutions in place that pretend to keep french from 'deteriorating' (lol l'academie) but it still has rich slang systems that are in constant flux. French is in itself a very young language, and major change can take a very long time.

>>163751
REALLY? I heard some English name of a diseases are difficult. They do not know how to spell.

>>163828
only sandniggers wear down french.
normal people speak as elaborate a language as the one you read in the books from the past.

>>163852
>normal people speak as elaborate a language as the one you read in the books from the past
lol

>>163842
Difficult medical terms are never homophones
How they are spelt is irrelivant in spoken speech, and even in written english, you are PROBABLY going to know.

e.g. siffilis <- what's that?

It sure doesn't sound like anything other than 'syphilis'

>>163828
I hate written french verbs...so many useless endings.

>>163854
I watched some kind of English spelling contest or stuff like that. Many Americans fail to spell. So I think that "how to spell?" is like "what kanji?".

>>163054
>>163074
In writing you lose intonation, facial expressions, body language, and other non-verbal hints that help you figure out the context of the word. If any of you in the anti-kanji camp had ever tried to read a paragraph in Japanese written entirely in kana, you'd have an idea of how much difference that makes.

Another thing that people fail to understand is that spoken and written Japanese are NOT independent of each other. While it is possible to learn to speak Japanese without learning kanji, it is much more difficult to get past six-year-old-kid speak without it. Much of the phonological structure- i.e. the way words are made and the way they change with different grammatical functions- are based on the kanji compounds with which they are written. Without a knowledge of the kanji, spoken Japanese just looks like a random assortment of rules and exceptions.

>>163879
Yea, pretty much since Japanese is entirely phonetic, the closest you have to 'spelling' is selecting the right kanji.

>>163879
Many Amerikans can't spell because they're fucking stupid.

Who's on first.

>>163842
Disease names in English use Latin or Greek words.

>>163889
No, most Americans can't spell because they're immigrants that don't care about knowing how to read/write, but merely speak/understand.

>>163880
Lol no.
Japanese written is based on spoken. Period. You learn to speak, then you learn to write it. And you don't need a writing system to have full adult fluency, I have no idea where you got "six year old kid" speech from. It's ludicrous.

Unless you mean it's _easier_ to learn Japanese as a _second_ language (as an adult) by learning the rules of written, then that is an argument you can make.

>>163475
I'd double that at least. I also thought Japanese only have five vowels, but they hold them for different lengths. You'd write those differently too.

>>163879

sure, in a spelling bee. but in every speech this is not a concern, only in writing. i just pointed it out because i thought it was an interesting difference between the two languages; in english you will see the incorrect homophone written often but you will almost never misunderstand a homophone in speech, whereas in japanese the opposite seems to be the case. unlike *some* people, however, i don't find this to be a good reason to say that one type of language is better than another.

Did anyone tell you failures that languages are organic things? They were not designed by committee.

>>163952
Read >>163880's argument in context, faggot.

>Without a knowledge of the kanji, spoken Japanese just looks like a random assortment of rules and exceptions.

>>163963
English can double vowels too (/a/ for example in 'ah', or /I/ in team) so the ratio remains. But sure, knock yourself out. Japanese has 10, english has 46 by that logic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology#Vowels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Vowels

>>163986
I could not disagree more strongly. Languages are SPOKEN. The written crap is completely unnecessary. How we choose to write a language has no bearing on the language itself. If you think so, you need some serious help.

>>163977
Language is a social construction. You won't be speaking anything without social action. It's not something ascribed.

>>163986
Seems like he is of the opinion that:
>it's _easier_ to learn Japanese as a _second_ language (as an adult) by learning the rules of written
But that doesn't take away the FACT that Japanese speak to full native competence without learning a single fucking kanji. And so do non-Japanese.

>>162974

lolwut? Cyrillic can reproduce more sounds without relying on language-specific digraphs.

>>164015
The point isn't "WHO CAN REPRESENT THE MOST SOUNDS???" it's who has the most balanced amount of symbols for sounds. Roman alphabet does, IMO.

This thread is made of weaboos who want Japan to remake their language so weaboos can read it with less effort. Hahaha.

>>164015
If you must know, all alphabets (except for Korean, which was developed by committee in 14xx AD) come from the same traders/slaves of the Egyptians. They just picked some hieroglyphics and associated one sound with each one.

The alphabets stemming from this first one broke into two groups: Of one group, only Egyptian remains. The other group includes Cryllic and Latin. They're on the same tree.

The only exception to the alphabet are those crazy Chinese characters and the other asian societies that decided to adopt them. The ONLY exception. Everyone else has gone for the alphabet.

>>164034

Soooo... 26 is a more balanced number than 33? Well, 26 IS an even number, but come on now :D

>>164056
Don't forget that until recently English only has 24 letters. J was considered a variant of I and V was just a variant of U.

>>164064
>recently
bitches don't know bout mah grog and mead

>>164004
Achieving fluency through speech is possible with all languages, but without understanding the grammatical rules and meanings of the Kanji behind it, it will be "like a random assortment of rules and exceptions."

but I like kanji...

>>164050

>>If you must know, all alphabets (except for >>Korean, which was developed by committee in >>14xx AD) come from the same traders/slaves of >>the Egyptians.

I fukken lol'd. I don't even know how to start replying to this shit, that's just how wrong it is. Perhaps a link is in order here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Alphabetic_writing_systems

GO AND READ

>>164074

>>164074
Oh, so like English is now?

ITT:

people who know nothing about language but think they're experts.

>>164056
Okay, the difference is small, but I'm of the opinion (just a gut feeling) that the fewer characters we use to represent sounds, the better. 26 characters is probably even a little on the gratuitous side, we could probably even do with less.

>>164050
Therefore everyone non East Asian is sand nigger in origin of written language.

>>164073
Nope, more the 1800s and 1900s. That Dictionary dude in England lumped I/J together. It was only that upstart colonialist Webster that split them, declaring J an official letter.

>>164097
Actually, I do know a lot. Quiz me.

>>164086
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet

Your stupidity is the worst of the thread so far.

>>164095

Depends on the language. The 26 letters of the Roman alphabet are clearly not enough for English with its total mess of a spelling system.

>>164108
PRO (a variation of the pronoum) in control structures can be interpreted in different ways. Sometimes PRO is coindexed with another NP (noun phrase), sometimes it is not. What are the main patterns? Give examples. What are the main differences between raising and control structures?

>>164132

Structuralist grammar? On my 4chan!?

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

>>164140
actually it's generative grammar, structuralism kinda obsolete.

deleted because, well, it requires too much explaining on my part.

>>164126
English spelling has been a mess since about the 1600s. Everyone knows this yet nothing is done.
Now that my own personal pain learning this nonsense is decades behind me, I can't see the fuss. All the crappy rules (if from French spell it this way; if from German it's probably blah blah blah) are internalized at this point.

My problem with Japanese is that just learning the stupid Kanji waste a DECADE of time in school. If a western kid needed a DECADE to learn to read, he'd be the biggest dunce in the class.

Maybe that's why westerners can slack off. They don't have to memorize the order of radials to write "lavender".

woah woah who said kanji takes 10 years to learn

>>164161
Japs don't accomplish shit anyway, so it really doesn't matter what they waste their time doing.

>>164161
Kanji is easy after you get the basic stroke orders and patterns down. Every other character is a composite of the basic characters.

>>164126

not having enough letters has nothing to do with it, it's the fact that english imported over 9000 words from every other language. again, it wasn't designed by committee

>>164174

0/10

>>164185
>the basic characters
all 300 of them

>>164171
Takes more than 10 years to learn kanji (first language) to a degree of realistic fluency (able to read a book written by an adult who isn't holding back on kanji)

>>164161

>>My problem with Japanese is that just learning the stupid Kanji waste a DECADE of time in school.

Japanese schools don't enforce attendance. If you like to read and\or are smart, you'll learn all the kanji you need by high school. If you're dumb, you can just slack off and learn just barely enough and misread people's names all the time.

>>164179
Language is designed by a committee- Society. Unless you believe in Babel bullshit that is.

Yeah, to be a true master, you never stop learning the Kanji. But can't you people see how stupid that is? Like it matters that I know that obscure little squiggle means something? Oi oi.

>>164179

I studied the history of English in university, lol.
Doesn't change the fact that the roman alphabet cannot reliably express all the sound rules of English.

>>164219
Well, in any other language, you never stop learning words...

>>164240
I stopped long ago when I realized I was smarter than everyone else I knew and probably would know. Why be lonlier?

>>164240
learning words and learning kanji isn't quite the same thing, though i suppose you could liken it to learning a word and learning how to spell it, though at a much more complex level.

>>164245
Don't enjoy reading books?

I recall a study showing Finnish kids mastering their language an average two years before English ones.

The letter to sound consistency is very fucked up in English. It's a beautiful language to write and read, forget speaking. It's also messy in Danish, somewhat consistent in Swedish before getting decent in Finnish.

The one quirk Finnish has (like most other languages) is that a vowel is affected by the letter after it, if it's another vowel. Causing a diphtong or a long vowel.

Swedish quirks are mostly that vowels are affected by consonants after them, one or less makes a long vowel. Two or more makes a short. The 50+ combinations that cause a hushing ch-like sound is a fabulous quirk.

English is pretty much fucked as vowels are severely affected by consonants. Continental "e" = English "a".

>>164219

Oh, come the fuck ON. Kanji are no big deal in normal texts - there aren't that many of them used in everyday speech and writing. The real trick with kanji is writing scientific terms etc. - and there, believe me, kanji work much better than the obsolete latin roots used in indo-european languages.

>>164200
Take 談, it's made up of 言 and 火. To really break it down, 言 is made up of seven very basic strokes. You can get 300 kanji in in a month with little effort.

>>164264
I doubt this very much.

>>164264
scientific terms, eh?

>>164257
Oh come on, vowels are fun in English because you can just replace all of them with a schwa and it usually still makes sense!

>>164306
Oh, I lol'd.
THIS MAKES PERFECT SENSE

>>164317
Funny how you can't pronounce schwa with the schwa.

>>164306

Actually, it does make sense, unless you take the least appropriate individual meanings of the kanji and replace them with their closest English counterparts. Oh wait! That's exactly what happens in the screencapped thread!

I don't know about other people, but it does make sense to me. And I'm not even completely fluent in Japanese.

>>164306

>>164348
Seems like a lot of work to say 'particle physics' though. And if you are going to use mega-compound Kanji structures like this, why not just spell it out?

>>164353
I think he was stuck on that line, our translator friend he was.

Words that sound the same but have different meanings are called homophobes.

>>164369
homophones

>>164306
could someone kindly transliterate that kanji

>>164369
They're not homophobes unless the words are touching.

>>164348

>>why not just spell it out?

What do you mean "spell it out"? Why don't you spell out the meanings of the words "physics" and "particle" instead of saying "particle physics"? No, wait, I know what you're going to answer - because everyone knows what "particle" and "physics" are! Well, it may hard to imagine, but everyone in Japan knows what "ryuushi" and "rigaku" are.

>>164306
lol that compound reads "elementary-particle-physics"
HOLY FUCK

>>164371
素粒子物理学
そりゅうし ぶつりがく

>>164395
four hundred and seventy five lines to give across the same meaning that can be expressed in english in...well shit...in 30 lines? less? i mean you can use cursive and whatnot...

>>164371

"particle physics"

>>164405
>そりゅうし ぶつりがく
Wanted it in Roman letters, but thanks.

The only fucking reason pictograms are still used is tradition. They have no advantage.

But Kanji makes you awesome!

>>164441
soryuushibutsugku

>>164441
soryuushibutsugaku

>>164371
素粒子物理学
そりゅうしぶつりがく
soryūshi butsurigaku

>>164418

Oh wow. Now you're really grasping as straws there.

>>164469
Nah, I'm making an entirely different argument from before. One that has nothing to do with usefulness of kanji, just about efficiency. So many strokes for so little gain.

>>164473
Thank you!

Using Google translator on various segments of that Kanji compound brings up various related terms, I can make neither head nor tail of how they logically connect to the symbols :)

>>164485
Who writes with ink any more, anyway? It's all about the pixels, baby.

>>164506
baby pixels are sexy

So it is agreed then, we abolish Kanji and tell the Japs to start writing normally, like us, from now on. Or else we nuke them again.

>>164306
Suddenly, "even electronic brain pancake crystal elderly" makes sense.

>>162960
What's funny is I'm not a type-moon faggot but I still think 秋葉 is a pretty name.

You people are idiots. You have absolutely no idea how many homophones there are in Japanese. Using pure kana-only text would make 60-70% of everything written literally unintelligible.

>>164764
Don't be silly, just say it out loud and everything will make sense.

homophones

>>164441
Soryūshibutsurigaku