/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

Why does Kanji exist? I can understand why kana exists, but why is kanji still used? It's an archaic system that could be abolished completely. It's just a hindrance to learning Japanese, but enables filthy Chinese to learn quickly.

[Anonymous No.]

Chinese are dildos

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

>>4330615
Don't worry, it's being abolished by the British.

[Anonymous No.]

>white people learning Japanese

[Anonymous No.]

When you actually start learning japanese you'll thank god they exist.

[Anonymous No.]

Agreed. Phonetic alphabets are far more practical.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4330631

[Anonymous No.]

>>4330633

Why? I know a shitload of kanji, but that shit is hard to memorize and learn new ones. Japan is heading in the right direction with furigana, but why not remove kanji completely? It seems like I learned kana, and then I had to replace words I already knew with kanji. I guess it makes sentences shorter, but who cares?

[Anonymous No.]

Because once you learn kanji, you'll be able to read a lot faster (and differentiate between homonyms better), plus an understanding of radicals will help you guess the meanings of kanji (words) you haven't seen before.

[Anonymous No.]

Kanji is used to strengthen the already long-standing relationship with China.

[Anonymous No.]

kanji is probably the best thing ever when it comes to reading

[Anonymous No.]

>helps Chinese learn quickly
>white population: under 1 billion
>chinese population: like 50 billion

[Anonymous No.]

>>4330615
>>4330615
Pretty much my thoughts exactly bro.

[Anonymous No.]

>see a kanji with 50 different onyomi pronounciations
>the word I want is three kana long

SURE CAN READ FASTER!

[Anonymous No.]

>>4330669

>>chinese population: like 50 billion

Suddenly, chinks every square inch of landmass.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4330715
They're building a submarine base in the middle of the Pacific.

[Anonymous No.]

http://www.furiganizer.com/

now gtfo and realize that it's going to be there foreveverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrerrererrr

[Anonymous No.]

>>4330615
>>4330926
Were have you been all my life?

[Anonymous No.]

>>4330926
I was about to post something like "why would you need a program like this when you can just select the text and turn it back into hiragana" when I realized that maybe there's no way to do this with an English keyboard. With a Japanese keyboard you can just select text and hit the 変換 key and it will turn it into hiragana or katakana or whatever. Can you do this without a Japanese keyboard?

[Anonymous No.]

>>4330615
Because then you'd have way, way too much words with the same "spellings" - every other sentence would end up being ambiguous to various degrees. If you want them to abolish Kanji, you might as well scrap the entire Japanese language altogether and start from scratch.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4330953
There are also a few firefox addons that inject furigana into Kanji.

[Anonymous No.]

If you can master English with all of its inconsistent spellings and pronunciations, you can easily master Kanji. Memorizing kanji is just the Japanese equivalent of memorizing all those English words that don't obey any sane phonetic/grammatical rules. And unlike those English words, using kanji has the added benefit of saving space and speeding up reading.

[None !8FuIlcirno No.]

>>4330974
Well the Chinese developed pinyin alphabetizes their language just perfectly using only 4+1 tone symbols above vowels. Taking into account that japanese speech is easier to pick up than chinese I see no reason why japanese wouldn't be easy to even latinalize as well.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331019
> Taking into account that japanese speech is easier to pick up than chinese

The simpler the spoken language, the more homophones there will be, and thus the written language must be more complex to compensate for the higher potential for confusion.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331019
Protip: There is really no intentional accentuation accenting/intoning of vowels in Japanese. You would then be basically relying on the context clues all the time and sometimes it can really be indecipherable if the phrase isn't formed with thought.

[Anonymous No.]

Kanji are awesome. They save text space, allow you to recognize meanings instantly (even if you wouldn't know how to read the word it replaces) and are one of the reasons why Japanese can afford to not use spaces to separate words.

The only people who complain about them are those who are learning Japanese as a 2nd+ language and can't manage to memorize them.

[Anonymous No.]

Sometimes I wonder how much easier it would be if everything was written in kana and spaces were added between words. Either way, kanji make reading faster once you know them, it's just the hundreds with multiple meanings/readings or extreme stroke counts that are no fun

[None !8FuIlcirno No.]

>>4331037
chinese is practically nothing else than one-syllable words with different tones. shit, you could actually call your mother a horse by accident. pinyin deals with it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331066
>>4331019
Protip: There is really no intentional accentuation accenting/intoning of vowels in Japanese - which makes it even harder (there's like 8 distinct meanings for "shin", for example). You would then be basically relying on the context clues all the time and sometimes it can really be indecipherable if the phrase isn't formed in fitting manner - and definitely would make it quite a pain to learn formally.

[Anonymous No.]

>helps Chinks learn easier

wat

The only thing that kanji aids Chinese with are word meanings, and even then it's not always true (less than 20%). You gotta learn the onyomi and kunyomi readings which can be hard for a baka gaijin like yourself.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331079

The first statement I learned in Japanese (korewa nan desuka), if put in kana only, could mean a shitload of things.

[None !8FuIlcirno No.]

>>4331079
and how's that different from any given language? I do recall many english words having different meanings depending on context.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331101
8 different meanings for ONE word? I highly doubt it.

[Anonymous No.]

Kanji makes reading easy as fuck. Maybe when you grow out of the childrens book you'll realize how useful they are.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331101
I agree with this. English has a lot of words that need context to be interpreted correctly. The only reason to hate Kanji is because you have a hard time getting a grasp on it.

Also, how can you be Fullcirno when your tripcode is !8FuIlcirno. You need it to be !9Fullcirno.

[Anonymous No.]

I love Japanese because words are simple to pronounce. The hardest part is when to have a silenced "u" sound like in "desu", and even then it's child's play. There's no intricate letter combinations like "kn" that can be pronounced in a fuckton of ways.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331101
True, but English has far fewer homonyms and most of are written out distinctly. If we were to rely on kana only, then every word in a written sentence could potentially be a homonym. And basically that issue is what Kanji is used to address.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331118
If you have a hard time with "kn" then I'd like to introduce you to German.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331064
>Sometimes I wonder how much easier it would be if everything was written in kana and spaces were added between words.
If I remember correctly, Pokemon, and possibly other computer games for children, actually does that.
I'm not much of a loser though, and hence mostly concentrated on learning 漢字 when I started with Japanese, making those games basically unreadable for me back then. I read programming tutorials, manga and mathematics books instead, much easier.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331124

I'm Bulgarian and when I first started learning English, words like "knight", "lynch" fucked me over because the literal pronunciation isn't how it's spelled. And words like "prey/pray", "grey/gray", etc were tough as fuck.

[Anonymous No.]

So guys, I'm wondering, should I try to read VNs and such, and look up words I don't know?
I'm using Anki, and I've heard that I'm probably memorizing obsolete kanji.
Also, I really don't know about grammar, so I don't think I'd have any idea how I'd pull meaning from the sentences...

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331105
Again, it's not really one "word" so to speak - it's only one word if we are too look at it purely from a kana point of view. 新 or 芯 would be analogous to something writing "aero" and "arrow" - and by disregarding Kanji, it we be as if both would be written out as "aero."

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331101
>implying that English doesn't have the shittiest orthography ever
As much as I like English, learning this language was a lot harder for me than learning Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331143

Fucking learn grammar first then, what are you a retarded manbaby?

[Anonymous No.]

I was born in Japan and moved to Canada almost 12 years ago. When I learned English, the spaces between words really confused me. Some magazines and books in Japan use spaces, but these are meant so children can train their brain to read properly and utilize particles easier. When I started in grade 6 I thought I was given children books but I realized it was standard in English everywhere.

Japanese is not so hard to learn, but learning English in second language is very hard.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331154

Don't worry, you're correct; English is a child's language.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331154

And also lack of particles confused me. Some Japanese words can only be used as a subject, where English words can be used as subject, verb, noun, etc. English sentences especially longer ones confuse me because things like subject, verb, noun as in word order become irrelevant. Seldom does English follow word order.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331157
And even then, so very few seem to be able to use it properly. Huh.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331160
Japanese grammar is definitely more sensible than English grammar, no argument about that; it's certainly one of the strengths of the language.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331178
SVO here, SOV is a faggot.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4330926
rikaichan > furiganizer

[None !8FuIlcirno No.]

>>4331121
Just look up a few english words from Oxford dictionary and see what all kinds of different meanings you get. It's only hard to realize for someone that is already proficient in that given language. Take a look at this mess:

mean·ing (mnng)
n.
1. Something that is conveyed or signified; sense or significance.
2. Something that one wishes to convey, especially by language: The writer's meaning was obscured by his convoluted prose.
3. An interpreted goal, intent, or end: "The central meaning of his pontificate is to restore papal authority" (Conor Cruise O'Brien).
4. Inner significance: "But who can comprehend the meaning of the voice of the city?" (O. Henry).
adj.
1. Full of meaning; expressive.
2. Disposed or intended in a specified manner. Often used in combination: a well-meaning fellow; ill-meaning intentions.

Both noun and an adjective?! Give me a break here.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331124
I'm fluent in German, and its writing system is a lot more logical than the English one. The main exceptions are all those loan words they take from French etc. but for some reason don't write using their own orthography.

[Anonymous No.]

Too bad Japanese is a boring language.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331197
That's also true of English; it's just that we have so many loanwords, many of which were imported long ago, that the whole language is basically one big, fucked-up mongrel.

Things would be so much better if we just spelled foreign words according to English phonetics, rather than adopting foreign spellings. That's why I kind of envy Japanese for having its own syllabary, so they can't import foreign spellings.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331259

On the other hand, it enables English-speakers to notto saundo laikku ziisu wen atemptingu tuu rurun ozaa ranguwijezu.

[Anonymous No.]

ohlookitsthatthreadagain.jpg

[Anonymous No.]

Lojban is the superior language.
If everyone used it, all conversations would be completly unambiguous and logical.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331191
Yes, there are multiple definitions so to speak, but most of them are closely related. And you definitely can have both a kana-word be a noun or adjective - something like "gi" can mean righteousness, duty, job, clothing, false, fake, etc. And actually it's easier to figure if it used in a different part of speech in Japanese, due to the strict grammar syntax.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331273
I take it you haven't heard people unfamiliar with French pronunciations attempting to pronounce French words. Or Japanese words, for that example.

Your point has to do with the fact that Japanese has a syllabary, which is less flexible than an alphabet. My point would still apply if Japanese did have an alphabet, as long as it was unique to Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331147

This. I'm a native English speaker, and it's not hard to see the advantages Japanese offer. Jap is more logical and has a simpler and easier to use sentence structure. I especially appreciate the consistency of their syllables; if you read a word, you know exactly how it's pronounced, and vice versa. Well, until you get into Kanji, but that's not too difficult to get around with enough practice

I'm just glad English was my native language, because looking at it in comparison to some other languages, it looks like a complete bitch to learn

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331307
Actually, English is one of the easiest languages ever, try learning some romance language or russian, that's a bitch, English doesn't even have nouns with genres.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331331 Actually, English is one of the easiest languages ever,

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331331

>genres.

[Hong Meiling 門門 !!XzNn/qDPbir No.]

>>4331331
It's called gender.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331344
I think he was trying to say genders...

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331336
>English is my first language

[Anonymous No.]

Japanese cannot be read without kanji.
This is because there are no spaces between words.
Particles and Kanji allow for this.
Sentences made completely out of hiragana are often ambiguous and can be interpreted in a number of ways.

If kanji were to be abolished, the only way to then read Japanese would be to include spaces in the language. And it still wouldn't stop the problem of homonyms.

tl;dr - Whiny white people who don't want to learn EFFICIENCY. For everybody who whines it takes a ton of strokes to write 恋愛, how long does it take to write "relationship" in english? And then in kanji? I'm just sayin.

[Anonymous No.]

English is a retard-proof language. Take this how you will.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331331
>genres.
Well that certainly is ironic.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331154
I thought I was given children books but I realized it was standard in English everywhere.
IwasborninJapanandmovedtoCanadaalmost12yearsago.WhenIlearnedEnglish,thespacesbetweenwordsreallyc
onfusedme.SomemagazinesandbooksinJapanusespaces,butthesearemeantsochildrencantraintheirbraintore
adproperlyandutilizeparticleseasier.WhenIstartedingrade6IthoughtIwasgivenchildrenbooksbutIrealizedit
wasstandardinEnglisheverywhere.Japaneseisnotsohardtolearn,butlearningEnglishinsecondlanguageisve
ryhard.

There,we'realladultsnotchildrenright?

[Anonymous No.]

What prevents the ambiguity of hononyms in spoken Japanese?

[Anonymous No.]

Why do white people get flamed automatically by other white people and asians, fuck you niggers.

Seriously though, learning japanese just takes time, learn the radicals, study a few kanji at a time (by radical imo), do it every day, read a little bit, just keep at it, eventually you'll have a hundred+ kanji like me and be well on your way to reading shit that actually matters like pornographic computer games.

tl;dr: kanji is nescessary for japanese, niggers.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331378
Who the fuck writes by hand anyway?

When people who are fluent in English read words in English, I think most of them see the "shape" of the word as a single unit, i.e. similar to the way one reads a kanji. For example, pelope can siltl mkae out msot msplelied wrods farliy qlukicy as lnog as the frsit and lsat ltetres are the smae. Thus, the reading method isn't that different I think. Yeah having a small set of letters makes it easier to memorize words, but as many have pointed out spelling is a bitch since the same letters aren't always pronounced the same way.

The ideal language would probably use a fixed syllabary, not have a lot of homonyms, and also use spaces or some kind of delimiter mark that would separate words. But languages aren't designed to be easy to learn, so fuck.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331406
>other white people and asians
>niggers.
I have some bad news for you.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331405
Accent and context.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331416
>msplelied
Couldn't get this one.

[Anonymous No.]

How do you make new words in Japanese, anyway?
In German, you condense the description into a single word, in English you just steal it from another language or add yet another meaning to an existing word, but how does it work in Japanese?

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331378
>Japanese cannot be read without kanji.
>This is because there are no spaces between words.
Oh great, another genius.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331439
That's what katakana is for.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331439

Non-German speaker here, please elaborate; it sounds interesting.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331443
So, Kanji can't actually improved/adapt?

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331378
>how long does it take to write "relationship" in english
About 2 seconds for any native speaker who actually went to school, the word can be written in one stroke then you need only dot the i and cross the t.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331457
It's the same as English. They steal words from other languages and pronounce them in funny manners.

[Hong Meiling 門門 !!XzNn/qDPbir No.]

>>4331457
Those are just really long compound words. English has them as well. Screwdriver, asshole etc.

Here's an example of a really long German compound.

Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsmütze

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331494
>Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsmütze
Very funny.
You usually start to set hyphens way before you reach that length.
Can you name an example of such a ridiculously long word in everyday use?

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331472
>implying that most native English speakers can write cursive.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331459
It can.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331513
The native speakers who aren't drooling retards can. I hope that's most of them.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331512

German is famous for words like that. They have this annoying habit of linking loads of words together into one word.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331494
llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch was here, you're small-time.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331560
Goddamn Welsh.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331544
Fuck, I can't write cursive... I learned it when I was in elementary school, but I never used it past 2nd grade or so. Do they even teach cursive to kids anymore?

How many of you guys can write cursive?

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331570
I can, but when I do it very quickly my r's and s's look the same. Also have a bit of trouble with G's when writing quickly.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331570
I can partially. Still, after not having used it since elementary school it starts to fade, like you said. What point is there to it these days, anyway?

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331570
Not I. The only people I ever see using cursive is women, and that shit is hard as fuck to read sometimes.

[Hong Meiling 門門 !!XzNn/qDPbir No.]

>>4331560
Einhandmotorkettensägenführerlehrgangsteilnahmebestätigung

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331570
Well I'm 25 and was rigorously taught cursive in Primary School (Britfag here), then teachers expected cursive writing throughout the rest of my school years. So yeah I still write that way instinctively.

It wouldn't surprise me if they've phased it out in recent years though.

[Anonymous No.]

Even for people who can write cursive well, is it faster than writing by hand normally for you? Even my normal handwriting is slow as fuck, easily slower than typing, plus I make tons of spelling errors. I don't really see the need for writing by hand these days, except to maybe make quick memos to yourself or something, but even then it's usually faster to punch a memo into a cellphone or something than fool with carrying around a notepad and a pencil.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331570

Cursive is completely pointless except for signatures. I write faster and more legibly with standard print. No one wants to figure out how to read your goddamn chicken scratches if you write a note to someone, or something like that. Print is pretty much all that's used these days

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331649

Handwriting especially cursive writing is an art. It's always slower than typing but you will be respected more for handwriting.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331402
That was actually not too hard to read.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331472
It takes about 2 seconds to write 恋愛 by hand as well, if you're not doing calligraphy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331691
OK, how about I repost it with all the capital letters turned lower-case?

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331714

Hyw abymt we toy sqrgytrng evne?

Amozoning iswt it?

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331730
>sqrgytrng
scrambling?
Other than that, easy enough.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331730
How about we try something else?

Amazing isn't it?

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331649
I carry around a notepad and pencil and use them often. I also get black-out drunk most nights, so I have a pressing need to take notes.

[Anonymous No.]

>>4331604
It does seem like it's disappearing. I can do it perfectly still and enjoy its fluidity (I'm 26), but in my TA job at my university, assignments that are handwritten never have cursive on them.