'Why Not Use Hiragana Instead of Kanji?' #learnjapanese

[Keeby.]

Yea, kanji is hard to learn, but at a certain point in learning japanese you realize thr language would be way more difficult without it

[mortadasaleh]

For those asking, "Why not add spaces?"
If we use just hiragana, it would increase sentence sizes, and adding spaces would increase the size even more. For example 母は花が好き would become はは は はな が すき, notice how the sentence has become almost 2 times longer with removal of kanji and adding spaces.

[KaoruMzk]

There's the clasic meme of mom, flower, nose (I don't remember the sentence exactly) that when written in hiragana is just hahahahanahanaha, or somethin along those lines.

[taiwanisacountry]

I also read and speak Chinese.

施氏食狮史
It reads: the history of Mr Shi eating lions (freeform translation)
This is a famous example to counter Mao Zedong's idea to use the Latin alphabet, since it would read, Shi, Shi, Shi, Shi, Shi.
It is a whole poem only using the phonetic sound of Shi.


A Japanese example could be:

子子子子子子子子子子

猫の子子猫、獅子の子子獅子

ねこのこ こねこ, ししのこ こじし

To me this is a fine example of why Japan use both kanji and phonetics.

[drkblu]

I'm pretty new to japanese, but as a dyslectic person, I find kanji to be pretty helpful. I can recognize a word with kanji (if i know it lol) faster than I can read all the hiragana/katakana characters. So in a sense, it feels faster to get the general idea when glancing over something. I've already come across several words that have the same reading, but different meanings. With kanji, there is zero confusion over what word/meaning is being said. Unlike if it was all in Kana, where it would have to be spelled the same. Which is honestly great. One of my friends who is much futher into japanese than I am, is also dyslectic and feels the exact same way. So maybe that's a not horribly uncommon opinion.

[dreamcatcherstan-wv]

I am so tried of people who are constantly trying to find a way to avoid kanji. If you hate kanji so much then Japanese isn't for you and you should go learn another language. Or the people who want to give up on writing systems all together and just use romaji are the most embarrassing. If you like latin letters so much learn German or French not Japanese

[Verbalaesthet]

I agree. There are too many homophones in Japanese when it comes to difficult vocabulary. Without kanji you read it and be like: whats this word again? whats that word?

[DopamineSage]

I think kanji is beneficial. As it differentiates words from particles and other words. 😊


…………


かたたたき


…………


肩叩き


…………


Shoulder tapping.

[chlowaiiblowaii]

every time I see this question get asked, it reminds me of someone saying that written Japanese without kanji is like written English without spaces. like, yeah, I could probably eventually read this, but it'd take ages and so much of the confusion could've easily been avoided if the spaces were just added

[TheNewGreenIsBlue]

Thnaks for tihs video. I tnihk it's fsacinaitng taht the hmaun brian deson't tipyclaly "read" letters... but looks at word forms like a shape or picture and then deciphers them. Your brain stores a "picture" of a word shape and compares shapes, as opposed to actually looking at each letter and putting it together.

This is why you were able to read the first sentence above. It's the same with Kanji. In other words, English words are effectively the same as Japanese Kanji to your brain.

The brain is an extremely flexible organ... and if you "put yuor midn to it", you'll fgirue it out.

[weeost]

Kanji is part of what makes reading Japanese fun
Also would be way harder without it

[GREATbanana]

As a Chinese speaker, Kanji is what makes the Japanese language a million times easier to learn for me, since Japanese is already a very hard language. I don't know how I will learn Japanese vocabulary without Kanji.

[animesensei]

Wouldnt it be easier if one separated the words instead of having a huge sentence without any gaps?

[angelhurtado]

the reason is simple, japan doesn't want to do it. they can do it, korea did it, vietnam did it, they don't want to and take any excuse they can to avoid simplicity. thay flaw is a feature, not a bug, if you wanna learn Japanese, learn しょがない
it is what it is, don't ask "why is it?"

[nyankers]

i like that sometimes kids in manga don't use kanji to emphasize how childish they are

[jennsuicune]

The advantage with kanji, is that you can understand what it means even if you have forgotten its pronunciation 😄

[maybebored]

I actually had to stop using duolingo because i couldn't read it when they took the kanji away!

[TheHandleOnYoutube]

Dont forget about healthcare people are saying.

[DarkBlade]

Will already knowing Chinese help me with kanji?

[LunaR]

How you can understand in conversation but not in writing? There's always context right?