Why Do Japanese Still Use Kanji? Complicated Writing System...

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Why Do Japanese Use Kanji? Japanese is known for its complicated writing system, but why do we use kanji? Can't we just use hiragana and katakana? Is it possible to abolish kanji?
- Hiragana and Katakana are phonetic characters.
- Kanji (literally meaning Chinese letters) is like a symbol.
- Japanese has a lot of homophones and homographs and kanji helps to distinguish them.
- We have a set of official kanji on the joyo kanji list.
- There has been a number of attempts to abolish kanji in Japanese history.
- Once, John Pelzel from the Allied occupation of Japan tried to completely romanise Japanese after WWII.
[Here's a bit of history of people who tried to abolish kanji]
1866 - Hisoka Maejima, a Japanese statesman, was said to send a proposal to the shogun, insisting on abolishing kanji.
1872 - Yukichi Fukuzawa, Japan's prominent figure featured in the current 10,000 yen bill, wrote about his idea of abolishing kanji.
1881 - A group of people started a movement to promote the use of kana letters in place of kanji.
1946 - Naoya Shiga, a famous Japanese novelist, suggested that Japan should adopt French as the official language.
1946 - The Yomiuri Shimbun, one of the most popular Japanese newspapers, published an editorial arguing that adopting Roman alphabet would be key to democratise the country.

[@ThatJapaneseManYuta]

I know kanji can be intimidating if you want to learn Japanese. But don't be discouraged! Spoken Japanse isn't as difficult as many people may think. In fact, basic Japanese grammar can be pretty easy because Japanse verbs are pretty regular, unlike English. (If you are a native English speaker, consider this: see, saw seen, do did done, speak spoke spoken, give gave given, sit sat sat, hit hit hit--English verbs are pretty irregular!) In fact, you can start making Japanese sentences TODAY and I offer some free Japanese lessons. Interested? Subscribe here bit.ly/2MZRlzS

[@furball_vixie]

#yutaisawesome

[@WOEEW]

No, Japanese people must never abandoned Pictograms and Logograms... Languages like these are more logical than pure phonetics-semantics languages..

[@phoenix_1723]

I think kanji is an important part of culture. If Japanese abandon kanji Japan will lost tons of culture and a big gap between young and old generation. Korea and Vietnam are both a good example, even the modern generation can't be able to read or understand what the writing of their ancestors. For the 'racist honor' to abandon kanji, which is an important part of culture, it's not worthy.

[@davidtang2549]

Kanji is the best part for Chinese people who learn Japanese...

[@zilongwang2881]

That Japanese Man Yuta As a Chinese people, I think English is very easy to learn and its grammar is much easier than that of Japanese. Emm...Kanji is of course the easiest part to learn for me.

[@marcoruiz3108]

Now imagine a language that is completely kanji... Welcome to Chinese.

[@user-vg7mo6kc9c]

请来一碗味增汤，一份牛丼，生鱼片三拼，炸豆腐，抹茶大福，再来杯乌龙茶

[@marcoruiz3108]

@@user-vg7mo6kc9c 我想我不是餐厅 😂😂😂

[@user-rd7ep3rg7q]

이거 뭐?

[@aarynfrfr]

In"sone'mnia STAN DREAMCATCHER AND SNSD! Wrong language, bud

[@user-rd7ep3rg7q]

@@aarynfrfr LOL SORRY 😂

[@WingedBagels]

Korean: easy to write, hard to pronounce Japanese: easy to pronounce, hard to write

[@yitingzhao3997]

Chinese: hard to write, hard to pronounce

[@user-gp9rz9xz5s]

Yiting Zhao hahaha

[@thumbsontines]

Bananarama hahaha agree!!

[@IBeatheScore]

@@yitingzhao3997 so true haha!

[@jezzaboi2168]

@@yitingzhao3997 chinese, easy to distinguish words, hard to pronounce medium to remember

[@emresirmen28]

Pretty much rest of the world: "lets put space in between words as a divider" Japanese people: "you know what imma use 3 different alphabets as a word divider" Chinese: "word divider? what's that?"

[@569223535]

所以“现代汉语”也将标点符号引入了进来，以此弥补readability。

[@emresirmen28]

@@569223535 是，但readability还是不如西方语言。没有字母本身就是最大的问题。没有空间还是习惯了，但读汉字，写字，学了这么多年以后还是觉得很吓人。

[@569223535]

@@emresirmen28 我觉得”偏旁“和”部首“就是汉字的字母， 或者说morpheme。作为一个母语者，我们也经常通过”偏旁“和”部首“来”猜“生僻字的读音和含义。但对于非母语者还是多读多看才能提高自己的阅读水平。

[@emresirmen28]

@@569223535 没错。我也是靠偏旁猜不认识的字的意思和读法，%70-80能猜出来大概的意思和读音。但习惯读汉字是对外国人来说还是很不容易。读是可以读，但取得这个习惯需要很长时间。

[@kelic5035]

@@emresirmen28 给你大大的赞👍

[@jzeng2022]

As a Chinese, walking on the streets of Japan can read almost all road signs and guide signs, because they are almost all kanji

[@ximon1052]

确实 不过还是有许多部分和我们所理解的不同

[@seanreason9486]

@@user-yt5yc4mn8u fake news

[@ximon1052]

@@user-yt5yc4mn8u you know what, people all over the world except Korean know that 汉字(kanji) was derived from ancient China.

[@dl8935]

​@@user-yt5yc4mn8u yea yea yea.... you Korean invent the earth, kimchi simida.,

[@jlltom92]

@@user-yt5yc4mn8u China has a history of five thousand years How many years of history does South Korea have The whole world knows that Chinese characters originate from China

[@ProtagonistOfficial]

Japanese makes me appreciate the fact that English has spaces.

[@Shinobi_sac]

+Protagonist The lack of spaces is what really slows me down when reading Japanese. I know hiragana, katakana, and some kanji, but when I see it all in one block, it really screws with my eyes and i start to have difficulty recognising the differences

[@ProtagonistOfficial]

***** Ya I am pretty much on that same boat, lol.

[@Shinobi_sac]

Protagonist It's a wierd situation to be in. My native language is English, and my strongest way of understanding is visual, so I pick up written information really quickly - in Japanese it gets reversed, visually I slow down due to trying to work out where the word breaks are, but I recognise a lot better when hearing it...

[@ProtagonistOfficial]

***** ditto. a lot of the time I will incorrectly assume where a word breaks then be left with a very confusing sentence. In english it would probably look something like this.... Actual sentence: "Can you please pass the salt?. My interpretation: "Canyo uplea sepass thesalt?

[@RedHairdo]

+Protagonist With kanji or not, we need SPACE! Time to protest! :p lol

[@wi11ow8]

Me: Yes! I just finished learning Hiragana and Katakana! kanji: imma bout to end this mans whole carreer

[@jakestaines1725]

do you really need to study kanji to learn to speak and write in Japanese?

[@wi11ow8]

Jake Staines, no but good luck staying in japan

[@user-wb4dm4gu3g]

kanji: 今 bout end this mans whole carrier

[@wi11ow8]

Anon ????,dang this is pretty funny man... sadly I don’t have a metal to give you...

[@kitther]

Haha, sorry seems you also need to learn English. :P

[@raandomplayer8589]

Japan: Creates hiragana and katakana from simplifying kanjis so they can spell. Also Japan: Continues to use kanji anyway.

[@farfetchleek9821]

Actually the real reason was because only men were allowed to read kanji. Women just needed to stay in the house, that's why they're called okusan\kanai or "house person" while men are shuujin "master"

[@raandomplayer8589]

@@farfetchleek9821 I thought it was because of homophones? Never heard of your story but ok.

[@farfetchleek9821]

@@raandomplayer8589 yeah check it out. Katakana was actually invented first

[@defaultset]

This is like people nowadays speak in ye old english after making modern english

[@farfetchleek9821]

@FichDich InDemArsch no not before kanji, before hiragana

[@stevenvictoria9568]

"Cool, I'm learning Japanese and it's going well" *sees list of kanji* "Oh God, what have I done"

[@tonipellengaire325]

literally my life right now lol

[@charlottesmom]

Same!

[@aichpvee]

Wanikani, my dude

[@dor00012]

Learned hiragana and katakana, also a lot of words and grammer is starting to sink in. Because of kanji i'm giving up learning japanese.

[@eogabs_]

@@dor00012 don't give up just because its hard mate. You got this

[@elliott.8212]

“1946 - Naoya Shiga, a famous Japanese novelist, suggested that Japan should adopt French as the official language.” I laughed way too hard at that...

[@Xavio354]

Same, that caught me off guard lol

[@SPGM1903]

I know that some Japanese see France as cultural center of Roman Culture but adopting this god damn language is a really bad bad idea. After max 5 years there would be protests "give back kanji" written in... Kanji.

[@justinj_00]

Because nothing says "efficient language" like French -__-

[@lepassant478]

As a French person it caught me by surprise too... why tf would Japan give up its entire language for French ? It might be closer on a grammatical / phonetical pov to Japanese than English or any other, still giving up an entire language seems pretty insane to me.

[@alexfriedman2047]

@@KyoMidori ur welcome. I try educate those.

[@emilianocardano4336]

A guy: How do we make Japanese more readable? Another guy: Let's just add spaces between words! Third guy: I have better idea! Lets use 3 different scripts instead! All: GREAT IDEA!

[@hallaf3140]

I think they don't use spaces so the text looks more beautiful, especially that their letters are big and complicated it will also make the sentence so much longer... that's what i think

[@javierslytherin9898]

@@hallaf3140 Beaty is pretty subjetive

[@qwertyuiop.lkjhgfdsa]

@@javierslytherin9898 but spelling aint

[@qwertyuiop.lkjhgfdsa]

@@hallaf3140 の

[@momjiminisaftermebecauseis2680]

@@hallaf3140 I think this too💜

[@wimbusbert1249]

"Wow, it must be hard to remember all those kanji words." *Realizes I don't know most english words*

[@wyldeman7]

Good point! Im 39 and still learn new words each week. Probably forget a few as well

[@1WonderingApe]

Yeah word but not letters

[@muhdhazim7150]

Yeah same here🤣🤣

[@alpacamale2909]

English is a bit of an exception because of its spelling shenanigans but in most language if you remember how it sounds you can write it, Japanese doesn't have this feature so even if I knew how something sounded and wanted to transmit this idea to other people you'd have to know an almost arbitrary symbol. this is hugely ineffective and basically cements the idea that form should follow function, which the japanese language does not, it follows idiotic tradition.

[@wimbusbert1249]

@@alpacamale2909 damn boi u rite

[@szeltovivarsydroxan9944]

"One reason: readability. Japanese don't use spaces." Introducing spaces would've been too simple a solution, right? ;-)

[@tonipellengaire325]

my thought too, would make it a lot easier

[@TylerClow]

Thank you.

[@dontshootmedic]

That's not the only problem. And kanji are easy to understand once you memorize them, there is almost any ambiguity that a only hiraga/katakana text would have when reading

[@domino6490]

@@dontshootmedic You'd still understand the sounds as their spoken though, right? Never quite got this lol

[@dontshootmedic]

@@domino6490 Sorry lol I don't want to be rude, but could you please explain what you meant? Haha sorry, I'm not a native english speaker. If there's a kanji I have never seen before, there's a way to kinda know the pronounce, but that's only for nouns. So, yeah, unless you already know the word, you can't know the pronounce.

[@hazelyi8839]

Me: haha l’m Chinese I don’t need to learn Kanji. Him: Saying a thousand different pronunciations of 生

[@cueiyo6906]

I’m also Chinese :O, ppl in the comments are saying japanese is hard with 2,000+ kanji’s _Shed tears in Chinese_

[@siegbraud4658]

至少看得懂大概意思吧😂

[@david_ga8490]

@@cueiyo6906 50,000+

[@cueiyo6906]

@@david_ga8490 Japanese doesn't have 50K, its Chinese 😂 Infact we have 80K lol

[@smashexentertainment676]

@@cueiyo6906 but it's not like you got 50 readings for every kanji. I got no problem with memorizing characters, but unless you already know the word, every time I meet kanji in a text I'm like.. ee.. how do I read it?

[@ThatJapaneseManYuta]

People occasionally criticise my English, but they are never specific. So, can you guys help me out a little bit? Is there any word I pronounce that sounds weird to you? Is there any consistent mistake I make?

[@takuya473]

Even if you have a bit of a japanese accent what you say is still fully understandable. I think it's the rhythm or the tempo of your speaking that's strange. You tend to add these short pauses between phrases of a sentence as if you needed time to build up one. I wouldn't consider it annoying, let's say it's buffer time. Maybe it comes from japanese but since I don't speak the language, I can't tell

[@CorrosiveSubstances]

+That Japanese Man Yuta In general, I think your English is very good. I've never had any trouble understanding anything you say. The most common pronunciation slip-ups happen with "d", "r", and "l" sounds at the end of a word: 5:14, 5:18 "words" -- the 'd' isn't hard enough, which makes it sound like "whirs" 5:44 "couple" -- the 'l' is glossed over, making it sound a bit like "a cup of" There's a few other things, though, like: 5:11 "large" -- sounds a bit more like "lurge." Occasionally there's an extra "s" thrown in at the end of a word, making it plural when it should be singular: 5:45 "a couple hundreds" instead of "a couple hundred" -- the word "hundred" is being used as an adjective here. This is more apparent if you take the implied "of kanji" into consideration: "a couple hundred (of kanji)" vs "a couple hundreds (of kanji)" 8:08 "meanings of new words" -- implies that each new word has multiple meanings Words in which there are 3 consecutive consonants: 8:17 "scripts" -- the "t" was dropped entirely here, which makes it sound like "scrips." I would imagine that this is not an easy one. It has a beatbox hi hat quality to it.

[@ThatJapaneseManYuta]

+CorrosiveSubstances Thanks a lot! That's exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for!

[@jayback4660]

+That Japanese Man Yuta Your English is fine.Don't worry about it.

[@ledzepplinkid12321]

+That Japanese Man Yuta The rhythm when you speak sounds off. I can't quite describe it, but if you listen to recordings of your own voice against those of native speakers, you'll notice something just isn't quite right. You tend to drop vowels and consonants in places that sound odd. On occasion you're adding vowels or dropping consonants at the ends of words which is fairly common for native Japanese speakers. You're also slurring letters together where an English speaker wouldn't. Honestly you don't have to worry about it, it comes off as an accent and nothing more. It's not as though you're incomprehensible or hard to understand.

[@sgrcheiron1998]

7:07 8:10 As a Japanese, I want to add No.4. The fourth reason is our kanji names. Kanjis are used for quite a lot of Japanese names. Let's suppose if I have a son and decide to name him "Yuta". There are a lot of possible ways/combinations for spelling "Yuta" in Japanese since there are so many kanjis that can be read "Yu" or "Ta". For example, ・Yuta 優太 ... 優(Yu = "gentle", "excellent", "Superior" etc.) ＋ 太(ta = "thick", "grand" etc.) ・Yuta 勇大 ... 勇(Yu = "courage", "bravery" etc. ) ＋ 大(ta = "large","big", "great" etc. ) ・Yuta 雄多 ... 雄(Yu = "male", "masculine" etc. ) ＋ 多(ta = "many", "much" etc. ) ・Yuta 結詩 ... 結(Yu= "tie", "bind", '"join' etc.) ＋詩(uta ="poem", "poetry") (By the way, "-ta" is a typical pattern for boy's names. e.g. Yuta, Kenta, Ryota, Shota, etc.) So, which kanji should I give him for "Yu" and "Ta"? If I wanted him to be a gentle child, I might name his "Yu" part as "優"(Yu ="gentle"), not the others. If I want him to be braver, I might choose "勇"(Yu = "courage") instead of other "Yu"s. Parents often name their children with their own special hope, and the kanji(s) they chose is(are) like the symbol of it. In that sense, when there are two men named "Yuta", their names are different even though the pronunciation is the same. If we abandon Kanji, that means we throw away this culture, too.

[@ChessCat1500]

Thick gentle.... Gotcha

[@19divide53]

@@azirmandias4191 I don't think very often, because the use of kanji itself makes it obvious at first glance. A kanji can often be part of a common phrase, for instance 勇 brings to mind naturally 「勇気」(courage). Just like how English speakers might think of a phrase with a certain word in it when they hear that word alone devoid of any context.

[@xixil801]

I like your answer best

[@ADeeSHUPA]

@@19divide53 勇氣

[@19divide53]

@@ADeeSHUPA 「氣」is not a common Japanese kanji.

[@winnixi2130]

As a Chinese learner of Japanese, I really think kanji is the best part in the reading test. Even though I have no idea what pronunciation of these kanji I can guess the meaning of them which helped me a lot in the reading test.

[@larryjane06]

This is me with my limited Kanji while studying beginner Chinese. 😂 Although, remembering the Chinese readings for every day Chinese is so much easier than Japanese for me. I started learning Mandarin Chinese last year and the teacher was so impressed that I'd handwritten the first homework assignment (a self-introduction) we were given, all in Chinese characters. And by the second week, I had memorised the readings for the next dialogue on the worksheet. I felt so powerful. I finally knew how Chinese people felt when they encounter kanji in Japan. 😂

[@leonardcohenfan69]

I feel this but in the opposite direction, bc I'm learning Japanese I can vaguely guess the meaning when I see Chinese but have no idea how to actually say it lol

[@larryjane06]

@@leonardcohenfan69 Please learn some Chinese when you have time. I think you would enjoy it and pick it up so easily.

[@leonardcohenfan69]

@@larryjane06 Honestly I've been considering it lately, I know very little about it rn but from what I do know it seems like a beautiful language!! :D

[@itsbosco1025]

I find it more annoying because sometimes the kanji have completely different meanings in Chinese and Japanese which is confusing

[@tvman099099]

This sounds like if English speakers were to randomly switch back and forth between Latin and Greek script and occasionally throw in some old runes just for the fuck of it.

[@mourgos1234]

jh099 FYI turkish also changed from arabic script to alphabet around 200 years ago

[@Aurinkohirvi]

Oh, no, upper (capital) and lower case is only one system. The upper and lower case both represent the same letter, and most often they are very much alike in form: it's a lot a font issue, for example hand written is often very different from printed letters. Capitals are used for stylish reasons, to emphasize. The lower case obviously developped for faster writing and better readability. You can even have fonts where there is only one case, or you could use another font for capitals to make the writing appear more stylish: for example old handwritten books used decorated capital letters in the start of a page or a paragraph.

[@mancavestudios8955]

Don't forget to omit all spaces!

[@mrmarmolerox]

yeah, its not a font issue, they have rules in it, bue still, they have the same meaning/pronunciation, as you showed, "c is the same as C", example "I'm going to buy a case","Buy a case!", the meaning of "buy" is the same, the "b-B" is just for formal reason, if you mispell the word in informal cases no one would remark that

[@FFKING1140]

Ifyouomitallspaces,thenyouwouldhavethisissue.It'salsoapaintotypeoutorwritesentenceslikethis.

[@lululipes4382]

"Hiragana characters always sound the same" は、を、and へ laugh in disorder

[@liyoung03]

Cries in konnichiha

[@tarov_v]

Liam Young konnitiha

[@ragingtomato04]

noob me: "watashi ha"

[@syane.769]

@@liyoung03 konbanha

[@mousefire777]

The only people who pronounce を different are singers though. Other than that it's always always o. は stays pretty annoying though. へ is kinda uncommon to see outside of it's particle usage, but for は it's sometimes it's hard to parse when it's a particle or a hiragana part of another word

[@ShiruSama1]

漢字 is so useful to learn new words. If you see a new word written in kanji you know, you can guess the language better than with only the reading. It's amazing and I love it although I only know around 300 kanji Also, I've noticed that for some Japanese streamers I know it takes longer to read a hiragana only phrase than a kanji one. I didn't understand until I started learning myself

[@MLVY2023]

Have you ever thought of being able to recognize a word instead of gussing it's meaning?!!

[@angelong7498]

@@MLVY2023 ｙｏｕ　ｌｏｇｉｃ　ｉｓ　ｔｈａｔ　ｐｅｏｐｌｅ　ｏｎｌｙ　ｇｕｅｓｓ　ｂｕｔ　ｄｏｎ＇ｔ　ｈａｖｅ　ａｂｉｌｉｔｙ　ｔｏ　ｒｅｃｏｇｎｉｚｅ　ｔｈｅ　ｗｏｒｄ？

[@dontshootmedic]

@@MLVY2023 Wtf are you talking about

[@rizkiramadhan1197]

300 is a big deal for me, i cant even remember 10

[@r6857]

@@rizkiramadhan1197 Gua suka kanji setelah ngefans sama JKT48 😂😂😂😂

[@rat7963]

The abolition of kanji in Vietnam for roman letters were actually due to evangelical motives by various missionaries from European nations to Indochina. Roman characters were originally only used by Vietnamese Catholics, but the French colonial government were sucessful killing off kanji by mandating it in the early 20th century. They had the upper-hand however since Vietnam's writing system lacked standarisation at the time

[@facopse]

The most important reason for Kanji: they look freaking cool.

[@a_mc1569]

Some of them do, I must agree Even though I’m planning to use Hiragana in all my sentences, I cannot prefer “わたし” over “私”, or “かみ” over “神”

[@ZhangKaiwen2004]

then you might as well learn chinese lmao

[@roommessy4121]

They were first invented/adopted from China by aristocratic men in Japan for that exact reason lol

[@jbgra2566]

And then you have this little friend: 凸

[@L4JP]

@@jbgra2566 Which goes nicely with this little friend: 凹 Together they make 凸凹 (dekoboko) which really means uneven/jagged/bumpy, but looks like it could mean Tetris.

[@Amar-ib6yh]

The question instead should be: Why the heck doesn't Japanese have spaces.

[@jion3795]

The space issue is actually not the main factor why Japanese has to use Kanji. The second reason mentioned in the video, which is the homophones issue is the main reason why Japanese has to use Kanji

[@mehegama]

jion Je then japanese is a problematic language if they could not think of concepts like: spaces between words and not calling 20 different things with the same sound. Modern day Japanese people seem to waste a lot of time of their education learning this complicated system that carries loads of problems just for tradition purposes.

[@carlociarrocchi2793]

@@jion3795 actually, many languages have homophones or words with slightly different pronunciations. "Perfect" homophones are generally not a problem because they can be guessed from the context (or a careful writer can clarify), for words that are written using the same letters there are generally special notations like umlaut in many germanic languages or accents in many roman languages. (by the way, English is an exception, if native English speakers are confused about why Japanese still use kanji I am personally also confused about how uselessly complex are vowels in English -e.g. some "a" pronunciations "overlapping" with "e" and "o"-. In the end the answer is that written languages are usually highly conservative, there is no solid reason to avoid a gradual shift to a simplified system but it won't happen easily.

[@Amar-ib6yh]

@@mehegama Yeah exactly. I have heard that they spend quite a lot of time learning kanji in cram schools and during their vacations. That is a lot of effort to put in when you can just learn the concept of spaces instead.

[@zb333zb4]

@@jion3795 say that to Koreans who have the same problems with homophones

[@Ellie17544]

I’m learning Japanese and I’ve not started kanji but I’d been dreading it a little bit because of what everybody has been saying but hearing about everything in this I’m actually a little excited 😊 edit: I’ve started learning kanji and am actually enjoying it a lot :))

[@electricdreamer]

You should get a brush and try calligraphy. These Kanji will look beautiful. You will love them as an art.

[@appleitree]

​@@electricdreamerI know! Kanji is a huge part of japanese culture and it's calligraphy is one of its specialities

[@matt.w9220]

Man, I remember when I was first learning Japanese and thought learning kanji was going to make Japanese much harder. Now I can't read Japanese without the kanji.

[@e_burg3ss287]

Any tips? It’s so hard I’ve lost sm motivation recently

[@arthurvc79]

Use Anki, add sentences containing words in kanji you don't know and review them regularly. Immerse a lot in Japanese through tv shows, movies, anime, manga, podcasts, books... That's pretty much what you need to do.

[@DiscoFlye]

Imagine why English (or any other language) uses numbers - also just to make it more readable: I was born in nineteen ninety-nine, and I have learned one thousand, two hundred and fifty-six kanjis since twenty seventeen. I was born in 1998, and I have learned 1,256 kanjis since 2017. Sometimes kanji is like numbers to me, easier to read.

[@nah_.]

Interesting way to look at it

[@user-ot3tu1yb2j]

Yeah, that’s actually a pretty interesting perspective

[@Private.R]

@@user-mj3ex9mn8qor nineteen ninety-eight

[@howardroark4227]

Good point. That’s what I also thought!

[@matthewblasch2154]

Japanese also does this with numbers and uses the same system in writing.

[@joser8463]

😂 Everyone wants to learn Japanese until they realize that Kanjis exist.

[@windlike3270]

so it is necessary to ban it

[@kangzhilou4207]

@@windlike3270 Yes, you suggest it to Japanese government, I believe they will do it. After all, they dare not to not obey their US masters, aren't they?

[@Artist_of_Imagination]

@@kangzhilou4207 US masters? Lol

[@zdh4834]

Wind Like 啥b，你在KZbin搜索”废除汉字”，看看日本人怎么想的。日本韩国越南就是中华附属国，所谓‘蛮夷之邦，文化不昌’，只好借用大国的文字。

[@joser8463]

@@iXallace I do not know Korean at all, but I have seem their Kanjis(not sure if they have a different name for it), and it is even worse, at least for me😂

[@GameCyborgCh]

Japanese: *don't have a writing system* Japanese: *start trading with the Chinese* Japanese: "oh crap we need a writing system" *shoehorn in a writing system designed for a completely different language*

[@cadiganwang7274]

i'm deeply touched by the last part. we shared such a long memory for thousands of years, once we loved each other, once we fought each other, once we tried to help each other, once we walked away with each other. But still there's something deeply in our mind, that we can't help to think, hey is that guy ok now?

[@koreboredom4302]

#yutaisawesome

[@razi_man]

#engrish

[@aqimjulayhi8798]

#yutaisawesome

[@ddanenel]

#no

[@walkthrougherandhelper1695]

#hellnah

[@umbigbry]

666 likes :/

[@Sycokay]

I just realized how awesome the latin alphabet and script is...

[@firefly618]

You're welcome. (Cheers from Italy.)

[@Sycokay]

@@firefly618 You guys rock! Greets from Germany.

[@firefly618]

@@Sycokay Thanks a lot! Not that I personally had anything to do with it, of course ;-) But trying to learn Japanese and spending some time in Asia made me appreciate what we have in Europe so much more than before. I'll keep trying though! Japan was really cool.

[@marin34]

@@firefly618 what are the odds of seeing another unOrdinary fan? Though we differ when it comes to other interests haha, if I had to pick from learning either Korean or Japanese, I'd probably pick Korean since I have a knack for different pronunciations and hate the idea of memorizing so many characters.

[@VVayVVard]

If you ever master Japanese or Chinese, I guarantee you'll end up finding the Latin alphabet lacking. It's easy to learn and easy to write, but Japanese and Chinese are on a whole other level. They're so informative, deep and colorful, it's quite difficult to describe in words. Simple letters seem dry and boring by comparison.

[@mib6345]

Lol im japanese living in us and my son has asked me this very question before, because he struggled learn kanji! It is hard to learn kanji even for japanese ( oh all the tests for kanji as we had while growing up .. agh) ,

[@rreagan007]

Whether or not to keep kanji in Japanese writing reminds me of the debate about whether or not to do spelling reform in English to make written English more phonetic and thus easier to learn how to read and write English.

[@quach8quach907]

That's called Ebonics, cuz (cousin). Jokes aside, you do not know history. English started out AS Ebonics. Then later, the spellings were corrected to their etymological roots. I have the 2nd printed book in English: The Game and Play of Chess.

[@eclypsaqueen7013]

"there are 2, 136 kanji in Japanese." me:* starts silently sobbing in corner because I am trying to learn Japanese*

[@TheDoRoBouNeko]

Eclypsa Queen You’ll survive lol. XD

[@benpfeiffer821]

Actually there are much more, but they're not used frequently

[@Min-Taro]

You are lucky you are not learning Chinese.

[@987621223]

Same here, sadly. On the other hand, it's obvious that I can't possibly fly to Japan in the foreseeable future. So, I'm not in a rush.

[@lesterramos6468]

I have learned thousands of words in the English language. I think learning Kanji would be worth the perseverance given the chance

[@navidpey194]

Actually, I have been studying Chinese, and when I went to Japan the first time, I was able to recognize and understand kanji even when I never studied Japanese

[@haoranhuang283]

kanji it means 汉字 Chinese

[@theTHwa3tes11]

@@haoranhuang283 yes

[@alexanderzheng4806]

In ancient times, the elites of East Asia used Chinese characters to communicate, even though they spoke different languages

[@voyzorneeden4453]

Yeah, if you have learned Chinese Characters, it is so convenient when you travelling in Japan. Because it's very easy for you to read and remember place names.

[@theTHwa3tes11]

@@voyzorneeden4453 Better than the other way around.

[@Vladimir-nc7nb]

4:38 I like how descriptive the word for inertia is: two kanji, 慣 (get used to) + 性 (nature of, quality of), so it means 'the quality of getting used to', which inertia actually is In my experience, the more you learn kanji, the more you notice how it sometimes becomes easier to understand the meaning of technical terms in Japanese as compared to English The latest example I have is 糖尿病, which is 'diabetes'; now, it is not easy to understand just from the word 'diabetes' what it means, but the kanji give the meaning of "sugary urine disease", so you immediately get the idea of this disease being related to sugar, and then to how sugar is ineffectively processed by the body

[@bleedofcherries]

Exactly! 👏

[@asiancookrice9006]

oh yea to add on to the fact about diabetes is that it made urine taste sweet (dont ask what the ancient people were doing with dried urine)

[@Nicholas3412]

Interestingly enough it used to work the same way in English back when people learned Greek and Latin. The full term "diabetes mellitus," diabetes coming from greek "to pass through" and mellitus coming from latin "sweet" so combining it to mean along the lines of "[something] sweet to pass through" as in a "sugary urine" which would've made sense to educated people of the past but now are just fancy words to us that makes scientific concepts hard to understand for everyday English speakers.

[@xudapao]

你理解不够，惯是一个形容词，也是一个动词，你要好好理解，贯彻，贯穿，这个动作感

[@dakai.liu1992]

This video is absolutely amazing. Last part with the comparison of an unperfect marriage to the usage of kanji really impressed me and...it just makes sense! Thanks Yuta for the contribution you are giving with your videos to the worldwide netizens community!!!

[@reloadpsi]

"A limited number of kanji" (Screen is flooded with countless tiny kanji) (Pauses video for laugh break)

[@shangjiangren]

As a chinese, i'm sure it's true! we have more than 6000 commonly used chinese characters. But there are more then 11200 in our dictionary which is used in primary school. In totally, maybe a number bigger than 120000.

[@shangjiangren]

@@japaneserequired6314 agree, good work!

[@lepiegeamericain8915]

These chinese characters are not isolated. Many of them are composed of other characters.So actually the project is much smaller

[@gregoryspersonalbodyguard]

How the fuck do Chinese write on keyboards ffs

[@TARS..]

@@gregoryspersonalbodyguard easy, just have 5000 keys

[@Tuxon86]

So you're telling us, basically, that japanese has created three different scripts instead of just invent a space character? 😜😜

[@adrher1999]

If only they knew how to put a space between words... or a dash

[@ue_hololive]

Actually, in terms of "creating", the answer is NO. This video analyze the usage of Kanji in modern Japanese writing system, and see that it's great without Kanji if there's a space character. However, historically, Kanji is first added (I'm not using the word "created" cause they're from Chinese) to the Japanese writing system. Hiragana and Katakana are created after that.

[@gabrielweissenbach4048]

Kanjij is the oldest of theese three languages and it is also called Chinese. Maybe you have heard of this language before 😜. The other two languages were created of a long time.

[@asahel980]

Kanji wasnt created by japanese at best today its modified.

[@Luc0711]

@B3ro1080 simplifying characters started 1000 years ago. IIRC made it official.

[@juliocandia4934]

Discover this youtube channel is one of the best things I ever find on the internet. I'm a Spanish speaker, and I am learning Japanese. Thank you:3

[@benevbright]

This video is one of greatest videos in any categories I've seen in KZbin. Thanks very much. I was also quite surprised that you mentioned Korea and Vietnam's cases.

[@contavazia9635]

When you click on a video to improve language skills but end up reflecting on the importance of tradition and commitment.

[@archieroiscruzata2405]

Exactly my realisation

[@saimalishahid1406]

You deserve respect for speaking what usually would not be spoken.

[@kuma-kun9777]

"2000+ is still quite alot" Me: *laughs in being chinese*

[@TheClinchMagazine]

F

[@tori4770]

F

[@sussertod9832]

F

[@ericnator3067]

F

[@blankaccount8433]

F

[@Raeswizzy]

The analogy to the # is truly so so helpful

[@wxkat]

One thing I noticed when I studied Japanese in high school was that when we did review games before tests, writing words and phrases using kanji was faster than using all hiragana (for example, you’d be writing 1-2 individual characters instead of 5-6). I also see it as a way of abbreviating words and especially names, which can be useful if you don’t have much space in which to write.

[@sheeprain]

I'm a Chinese, recently learning Japanese, I'm really happy to see our culture relationship based on Kanji, I love the structure of Japanese, hiragana for creation, katakana for western, Kanji for our common ancestor. Love your Channel!

[@hedgehogthesonic3181]

That cool haha How many kanji characters did you know ?

[@AionShanks]

I'm curious about this, so I don't speak Japanese or Chinese, but i do know that Kanji is basically chinese characters. So in a way you can speak some japanese right?

[@hedgehogthesonic3181]

Yeah

[@AionShanks]

Damn that is cool.

[@lilithshopping7904]

+Kinshira, to some extent, people from the two countries can "talk" by writing.

[@geoffk777]

Japanese use a LOT less kanji now than they did 50 or 60 years ago. Look at a Japanese movie poster from the 1950's and it almost looks like Chinese, with Kanji for everything. Nowadays, many of those words would be in kana. Unless someone is trying to be "old-fashioned", you would never write coffee as 珈琲, you just use コーヒー. There are many similar examples. But Japanese will probably never give up Kanji. I remember how much time we spent choosing the right Kanji for our daughter's name and what a big deal it was. And, if you know the kanji, it's a lot easier to read 東京 than とうきょう (Tokyo), even with spaces.

[@MidnightZX7]

lol mate tokyo is one word, why would you add spaces there. no shit it doesnt make reading easier if you dont know where to put the spaces.

[@geoffk777]

I was talking about spaces between words. For example: 私は東京に住んでいます。 わたしはとうきょうにすんでいます。 If you can read kanji, the first one is much easier to read. If Japanese wrote like this: わたし　は　とうきょう　に　すんで　います。 than maybe the kana-only sentence would be easier to read. But, except in children's books, they don't do that.

[@Cryoyunjin]

MidnightZ7 well 東京 東 is eastern and 京 is capital , so they are technically two separated words

[@JIGGAO]

come on , learn Chinese. 中国欢迎你！

[@tinjazhang4099]

geoffk777 hahah. I can guess the meaning from the “私” “东京” “住” in this sentence

[@ZaneWipfli]

Holy moly, you made learning really fun and I learned a lot, a lot more than I would normally learn.

[@wildanfatihg]

"...it would be very hard to read." Me who can't read Japanese: "I agree"

[@Akuryoutaisan21]

There is no need to abolish Kanji, they're both functional and beautiful.

[@RedHairdo]

+Heath2171 There are lots of reasons to abolish kanji, but there are also lots of reasons to keep kanji.

[@Dojan5]

I don't see any effective way of abolishing kanji. Ignoring the fact that it's part of the cultural heritage, it simply wouldn't be practical. We'd have to redesign significant parts of the Japanese language itself in order to pull that off, at which point I'm not sure we could call it Japanese any more.

[@Baka_Oppai]

+Dojan5 at some point world Lang will all be the same, may as well start now.

[@Akuryoutaisan21]

Baka Oppai I disagree. Humans are notoriously bad at predicting the future. What you've suggested will probably never happen, even if something like a solar flare which would disrupt our electronics or some other natural disaster such as a meteor strike don't occur, there's no reason to believe that in the future we will all speak one language. Even if that was the aim of the majority of humans on the planet, which it definitely is not, it would be almost impossible to implement. There have even been (unsuccesful) attempts to make such languages in the past.

[@Baka_Oppai]

+Heath2171 almost every first world country has added English even Japan and there is more pressure everyday. it will happen.

[@Jack_lBlack]

Foreign otaku: I learned how to speak Japanese!! Now it's time to move on to reading and writing!! Kanji: Omae wa mou shindeiru

[@SidheKnight]

*NANI !* Sorry, couldn't resist.

[@oliviuskehzawokaso]

お前はもう死んでる

[@DacLMK]

@@oliviuskehzawokaso 何？

[@david_ga8490]

Me: Kanji no baka

[@mohamedsamir6852]

Haha nani

[@Blinkisageek]

This video is actually amazing, thank you.

[@mdzl70]

Japanese language: imagine using space to separate wordings.

[@sreekargunda3915]

I guess it’s because it’s traditionally written top to bottom? Not sure

[@weililim6444]

look at what they do to mimic a fraction of our powers

[@resolvanlemmy]

@@sreekargunda3915 they could incorporate spaces when writing vertically, ain't it?

[@sonnysun1720]

不是一个空格的问题。 汉字的优美是西洋不懂汉字的人所不能理解的。中国也有汉语拼音，但是没有人想用拼音代替汉字，太丑陋了。

[@juanlu3958]

@@sonnysun1720 yep you are right mainland commie Chinese

[@TheBimp92]

Internet: *Talks about use of antiquated systems* USA: *Still uses Imperial system of measurements* Japan: Hold my sake

[@Halo3ninja28]

While we probably should move to a universal measuring system, you can't even compare it to Kanji. Our measurements are easily understood by the 300 million people here, and at a rate far higher than 78% I'd wager. And nobody on a daily basis even measures that often. People do read and write/type on a daily basis however. It's extremely important to have a writing system that is functional and easy to grasp. I can't remember the last time someone said waah the imperial measurements are hard waaa.

[@Pranci]

@@Halo3ninja28 meters are waaay better (and grams, celsius, liters, etc.)

[@Xgil2Play]

@@Halo3ninja28 It's not hard, it's inconsistent. You're using a measure system that relies purely on guess. You can never get accurate results because you don't have submultiples and multiples like the metric system. If you don't want to use feet on a smaller number, you use inches. But what if the number is smaller than inches? You can't do it. But with metric, if you don't want to use metres, you can render it down to centimetres. If it's still too high, millimetres and so on. Metric is arguably better and I don't see an instance where imperial would be useful apart from exaggeration.

[@Halo3ninja28]

@@Xgil2Play I'm not saying our measurement system is better. It's not.

[@VegetaRabbit]

I'll give you 1776 guesses as to why the US didn't adopt the Imperial System (standards) that England adopted around 1824. The US customary system got its start based on the older Winchester Standards not the Imperial System. It's OK to say the US customary system uses many English units, it is incorrect to say the US uses the Imperial System. That is why an Imperial gallon is about 4.546 liters while a US customary gallon is about 3.785 liters. We are attached to that system just like the Japanese are attached to kanji. We are slowly changing to SI (metric).

[@Fulllife3.2]

6:28 Someone straight up thought Japan should just speak French? That seems odd.

[@VitalMusic217]

It's crazy, but if you think about it, they are just progressively speaking english, so at the end of this century the results will be the same. (Not that is different in any other country though)

[@arnavbibra4958]

Vital Mendoza not really. More people speak English in India than in America but still they prefer to speak Hindi or their mother tongue rather than English. English is mostly spoken as formality and in businesses

[@anthonyj9299]

that was so random lmao

[@VitalMusic217]

@@arnavbibra4958 Of course they don't speak english as their fist language yet, but we all speak english all around the world. Even in Spain people is forgetting about their own words and just saying "timing" instead of "sincronización". It's the same everywhere.

[@alexfrank5331]

Francophiles think the whole world should speak French, even when it doesn't make sense to. lol

[@alsetalokin88]

kanji is fluid, flexible and accurate. it can make new words by combining sound and visual and meaning to arrive at the closest accuracy. the visual part gives depth in meaning.

[@ifechukwuejiofor8479]

Nice one, Yuta. Love how you ended emotionally😊😊😍😍. Kanji is the major reason why I'm interested in learning Japanese. I like the fact that it is a drastically different concept of writing than what I have always known as a native English speaker. If Japanese people stopped using Kanji, I would loose interest in the Japanese language because neither Hiragana, Katakana, or Romaji gives me the kind of joy that Kanji gives me. 漢字がすきいです。

[@containternet9290]

If Kanji is the aspect you most like then you should learn Chinese, the Chinese were the ones who created them. Lol

[@yanliew4027]

Japanese use kanji bec one can grasp the meaning of the word immediately !

[@mysryuza]

""There are so many Kanji!" Me: *Laughs in spaced out English* Youhavenoideawhatyou'regettinginto

[@tldoesntlikebread]

Kanji would be more like camelcasing which is easier to read.

[@Jalae]

@Debasish Nandi now imagine a whole damn book like that. It'd get so exausting.

[@rafaelferrin9897]

@@Jalae nah, you would get use quite fast. Just take any text in your native language, delete all the spaces in Word or LibreOffice or any text editor and try. After few lines you will get use and your brain will just ignore the lack f spaces most of the times

[@SyrianSoaper]

Is it bc I am native English or because I study Japanese that this is as readable as if it were spaced?

[@Jalae]

@@SyrianSoaper for the people who for some reason are oblivious to the reason why this is exausting is apparent in this example. It is called PATTERN MATCHING. it's how you read. when all the letters are jumbled you need to add an extra process to find and split up the words for comprehension. You can't skip to symbolic chunking of the word data directly. The results in extra work on your brain, for instance to see it's not "regetting into" but "re getting into" over the course of a sentance, who cares. a page or 2 no big deal. over the course of a book however? not so insignificant anymore. i expect a 7% decrease, maybe more.

[@tomlimusic]

I watched this video for the second time. I really love your metaphor at the end of the video. It's cool!

[@Mikael_Puusaari]

Very good video :) The easy thing with Kanji is that it is conceptual, so when you learn the radicals you shouldn´t take their meaning literally but try to understand the big picture The hard thing with Kanji is also that it is conceptual, so if you don´t know the concept of radicals put together with other characters, you might have to guess the meaning in the context, until you memorized them Personally as a beginner in japanese, for me hiragana + katakana with spaces is the absolutely easiest way to read it, maybe because I am so used to spaces in the other languages :)

[@huangxiao8943]

wait, does it mean the Japanese looks like "somethingWITHOUTspacesBUTstillSOMEHOWreadble"?

[@TariqNavabiGaming]

wellitisntimpossibletoreadenglishwithoutspaces

[@forsenE]

Tariq,whataboutpeoplewithdyslexia?

[@lloydpl]

camelCaseIsAlsoNiceItDoesntUseSpacesAndItsStillReadablePrettyEasily

[@kacperwoch4368]

Idon'tthinkthosewhoinventwritingsystemscareaboutpeoplewithdyslexia Niewydajemisiężebycicowymyślająsystemypismamyślelioludziachzdysleksją IchglaubenichtdassdieMenschedieSchriftsystemeerfindendenkenanLegastheniker Actually, German does the best job at being redable without spaces

[@04liverydesign7]

apenaslesentiendoloqueestandiciendoperoaunasiselograentender nowtrywithspanishguysifanyofyoucanuderstand

[@shannonhsin9613]

Using kanji can make the japanese characters looks beautiful and cultural, which is conforrmed with japanese culture and tradition. In fact, katakana and hiragana are also inspired from kanji. Another reason I considered kanji using by japanese is to keep in touch with and connect with Chinese helping japanese easier to access Chinese and traditional Japan. Korea waived kanji in 70s around. This policy resulted in Korean almost cannot read and write kanji today even though in 1970 the kanji was still essential and normally , widely used by korean people. Vietnam is also quite incredible, where you can see culture is very similar to China but characters in spelling. Vietnam also cannot read and identify kanji written in their historic books and carved on the pillars of temples they visits and pray every day.

[@angelabby2379]

korean about to introduced hanja xD again. but the vietnamese king in the north are somewhat sputhern chinese.

[@lagrangewei]

china also attempted a phonetic script but it never really caught on for the same reason outline in the video (too many word has same sound). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo#History

[@muqsithramadhan5688]

I think vietnamese written in alphabet is a bad idea, their words looks weird and soo complicated, and it looks like they lost their culture

[@Randy7777]

Haha, thanks god Vietnamese leaders chose the alphabet!!! Good lords!!!

[@quach8quach907]

@Abū ʿUnwān al-Mahdawī That is an adaptation of Chinese.

[@ehe5669]

The analogy in the end was just so touching

[@leonardcohenfan69]

I'm very much a beginner when it comes to Japanese so I'm sure I don't even know how hard it gets yet lol but honestly I love kanji, I think it's really cool that each character has a specific meaning as opposed to English and many other languages where the letters don't really have one individually and only gain meaning when combined with each other!

[@sepulcrumsumus8909]

Its hard to read, because there is no spaces between words... Space bar: I feel ignored.

[@ysink]

The spacebar is used by the IME (input tool) to switch between romaji => japanese conversion, IE switching between different versions of those homophones

[@r.a.8618]

If everything is in Hiragara or Katakana, then you need space. But the Japanese language is a combination of Hiragara, Katakana and Kanji. It's easy enough to read. Space is not needed. It would look very weird if space is added between every single vocabulary.

[@yasseralhablags]

In Japanese language keyboard space if for converting hiragana into kanji... kanji to space bar: Ashi o hirogete

[@taknaknak4957]

China : No space please

[@baqikenny]

@@taknaknak4957 luckily there are all sorts of pausing marks in chinese, otherwise everyone is done.

[@robertryan3571]

Yuta, before I give the opinion you requested on the quality of your spoken English, I must first say that your kanji video is excellent, in my opinion (you could clearly be a university instructor, if you wished). As for the matter of your English language diction and vocabulary, I think that both are equally good (indeed, based on this fact alone, I'd hire you to work alongside me as a researcher and policy analyst in Canada without hesitation--seriously!). Yes, you do have a Japanese accent, but this does not impair your clarity or linguistic competence. Indeed, as is often the case, you--as a foreigner who has clearly made great effort to study the English language--speak it much better than many native English speakers do (unfortunately, the internet gives idiots with stupid or misinformed opinions the ability to unnecessarily criticize your English when there is, in fact, no real basis for doing so). Furthermore, one of the nice things about the English language is that, as a global language, it affords people from all around the world an opportunity to diversely express themselves in their own, slightly unique ways; something that actually promotes better understanding between persons from different countries. So, please, Yuta: by all means, continue to speak English in your preferred, natural way! :)

[@ThatJapaneseManYuta]

+Robert Ryan Thanks for your encouraging comment!

[@xproflipscarab]

+That Japanese Man Yuta i agree, my personal opinion is well your English is perfectly fine i understand every word its only the accent that morphs certain words but nothing that makes your hard to hear, that being said there's not much wrong with that and even if it was there's not much to do about it, its the same with me learning japanese i can learn every word in the book and yet my british accent would make words sound different but there's no fixing how you grow up to speak is there. thanks for video by the way it was very insightful :) Brandon

[@robertryan3571]

Thanks, LaHannita96! :)

[@QUABLEDISTOCFICKLEPO]

+Robert Ryan , This man want to improve his English speaking ability. Why can't anyone try to help him? Your toadying helps no one. It's embarassing.

[@robertryan3571]

No, ill will like yours is embarrassing, and before you think about criticizing or 'improving' Yuta's English, you may want to improve the caveman-like quality of your own English first: you should have used the word 'wants' in your first sentence. By the way, buddy, newsflash: English is, indeed, a very fluid and widely spoken language, meaning that there really is no universally correct way to speak it--my encouragement of Yuta was based on genuine admiration and respect and therefore in no way 'toadying' in nature.

[@Atheeralmerry]

That’s actually very helpful 😍 thanks

[@user-iw2yj2gd8j]

Amazing 😻! Your explanations are so much better to understand why we use Kanji. Ive been so confused of why we use kanji at all as it’s easy to memorise Hiragana and Katakana but Kanji is a whole different level. Thousands of characters I need to memorise that’s why I’ve been lazy learning kanji but I still have to. Anyways, I love your video and explanations. Looking forward to watch your other videos. Arigato Guzaimasu Sensei 🐯😁

[@baboon500]

I started learned Korean and Japanese at the same time. I dropped Korean and continued Japanese mainly because I love kanji. I even started to learn shodo (Japanese calligraphy). Kana shodo is fun too and has its own appeal, but writing kanji is my favorite.

[@Evan8787]

NEVER learn two languages at the same time XD Both are beautiful, but I prefer Korean a little more

[@kennethh7881]

+걸왜 에반 I'm learning 2 languages at the same time I know korean and Japanese and it was so much easier to learn korean

[@joewulf7378]

+Kenneth Harvey After all, Korean is just reinvent the alphabet.

[@frgging]

+子強 I guess you must like Chinese very much, because it's full of kanji, 100%.

[@Animemus]

Well learn Chinese if you prefer kanji and only kanji.

[@chiriko7335]

"ugh japanese kanji so hard let's learn Chinese instead." Hanzi: So you've chosen death.

[@yuvrajkumar2083]

😂 Lol

[@11_sohamvaidya53]

Kanji & Hanzi are one...

[@yuvrajkumar2083]

They are one but for learning common Japanese you just need to remember 2136 Kanjis whereas learning Chinese you need to memorize around 5000 hanzi to become fluent in Conversation.

[@jikliop7295]

no, 3000 hanzi is enough for reading Chinese books. Most Chinese only know 3000 hanzi .

[@yunyao3182]

well, at least you only need to learn one written system 😂

[@TingBie]

Thanks for your teaching! I enjoyed it.

[@user-tf7ct1tq8g]

absolutely amazing explanation about how people tend to keep old culture around.

[@xwatson3431]

With Kanji，you can know the meaning of sentences at a glance.

[@AionShanks]

is 1 kanji character many other characters combined? Because it looks packed. I am learning kana now but even before starting that I could always see how much more packed Kanji was in comparison.

[@user-ld4jc9je3o]

X Watson I'm a Chinese and that have always been a problem for me when I'm reading English... U can never just glance the text block and know what it's mainly talking about... I thought it's because my English level isn't high enough, but now it seems like there's no such thing in English? 😂😂 I always thought my English was lame because I glanced and saw literally nothing... Now I'm more proud of Chinese lol

[@user-eb6mh5dh4l]

Yeah! I have the same feeling!

[@user-bj5xx7lk2h]

I think KANJI is like English.

[@withastickangrywhiteman2822]

@安荣 glance and know is possible in Russian, But you must be trained for this, need to be highly concentrated. In English it called skim or quick skim but you should abandon a lot of contents during quick skim.

[@Ls-ky3gg]

Chose JAPN100 last term, and now I know why all my western classmates dropped the course after two weeks And why my Chinese classmates said it was a GPA booster

[@danshakuimo]

most schools don't go super deep into Kanji in a 100 level class I would think?

[@Ls-ky3gg]

Alex Young yeah that’s why it’s 100 level. but I would say for us generally the kanji part wouldn’t be a problem even in upper level JAPN courses, at least compared with people with non-kanji background.

[@hankwilliams150]

EXCELLENT video! Makes much more sense now.

[@fannybirot2362]

Nice video, thabk you. I'm Chinese, and I find it beautiful to see for the eyes when you mix the three ways of writing together. 汉字 are not easy to learn at the beginning, but when you start to know it, Chinese is so beautiful language to learn.

[@HarvinderSandhuEsq]

I love chinese script/kanji. the characters are so beautiful, diverse, and have interesting etymologies. It's also very efficient.

[@jimmych6131]

然也

[@Kradrice]

How is it efficient? LMAO

[@isleep5835]

Kradrice 你看不懂所以不觉得efficient

[@Kradrice]

@@isleep5835 你会说英语吗

[@user-zi4eb5fo7b]

@@jimmych6131 呵呵

[@ahnonime9763]

3:57 汉字混书现代日本语特征--Yeah as a Chinese I think I definitely get the meaning

[@_Forsaker]

This is the advantage of hieroglyphs

[@taba9958]

カコン

[@muhsinsazali7845]

I love the analogy at the end💯

[@nanamiharuka3269]

My first exposure to the potential of kanji was the animes Another and Tokyo Ghoul. In the former Mei Misaki described how the kanji characters for her name were the ones from scream/cry which added to the scary atmosphere. In the latter Kankei teaches Hinami how to read certain kanji and how poetic the use of the kanji is. As someone who had never studied Japanese prior to this but had a huge interest in linguistics, my world was opened up to the possibilities of the Japanese writing system compared to English.

[@towada1066]

one other reason for kanji use,... beauty of calligraphy

[@yujie.ho123]

No, as a Chinese person who can read signs and newspapers in anime without needing to learn Japanese, this is fine you guys. Don't change a thing. :)

[@erickblaw6708]

So, it´s recomendable to learn Chinese before Japanese? I also like Chinese culture but It´s too much to manage both of them

[@yujie.ho123]

I don't think it's recommendable to learn Chinese just to learn japanese. Chinese and Japanese don't share a lot beyond the characters and some minor cognates. If u really want to learn Japanese, I think you should just go for it.

[@butter5144]

@@erickblaw6708 😂

[@yukisuzu7496]

@@erickblaw6708 To put it directly, no. Chinese and Japanese do share the usage of Kanji characters and slight similarities in certain pronunciations of them, but that's about it. It really is an advantage only for native Chinese speakers (or readers in this context), because only native readers would have association of meanings seeing the characters rapid enough to be helpful. On top of this, the grammar is actually quite different between the two languages, so nah don't learn Chinese as a bridge to learn Japanese. Wish you luck though!

[@m.m.2341]

@@yukisuzu7496 And I might add, the Chinese pronounciation is really hard. Japanese pronounciation is ... okay. Pitch accent is definitely hard, so it's really really difficult to sound native or near native, but overall it's a lot easier.

[@mrahzzz]

Hey, thanks for comparing kanji to symbols like the # Obviously we don't really have that particularly often in English, but that was a really thoughtful comparison to make kanji feel more accessible - knowing that I already do the things (albeit with very few symbols) that make kanji feel daunting helps reduce that mental barrier for me. Awesome video (as always)! Language changes as people's usage of it changes (much to the chagrin of "grammar nazis" in English); that's kind of how kanji came about in the first place, even! But, if it works, and people still use it, I definitely understand hesitance to change a historically rich aspect of one's language. Really interesting to hear that there have been multiple attempts to remove kanji as an official writing system... I'm *so* glad you bring up Latin/Greek roots/prefixes and suffixes in English!! We had to memorize a ton in an module in my middle school that was kind of infamous in the school lol. In spite of frustrations in the midst of learning it (which were certainly overblown, imo) that's one part of my education that I sometimes forget I formally had, but which I find to be incredibly useful in my life/in introducing to me a new way to think about English way back when.

[@Rubycon99]

I always try to make those comparisons to make it feel less daunting. Like, I've seen people say that there are so many ways to say "goodbye" and different situations for them in Japanese, that they'll never be able to remember them all. What about English? Goodbye, bye, bye bye, see ya, see ya later, later, take care, farewell, good day... happy trails, Godspeed, "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out" :P

[@mrahzzz]

@@Rubycon99 Exactly! I'm totally with you. Sometimes it's helpful to not stress so much about having to memorize so many different things, and remember that we *are* prepared for, and used to, variety and nuance in language in our native speech!

[@JafoTHEgreat]

I find it cool that people can understand Latin even though we were never taught Latin, its just because English is close its latin descriptor. i.e: Solaris = Solis = Sol = Sun Stella = stellar = steorra = star In a way, English has it's own "hidden kanji"

[@qaywsxedcrfvful]

you are onto something here. We still use latin words but think its "english" like "solar"system

[@yanliew4027]

Which makes English an appealing language !

[@anjelika1356]

Korean: easier to write hard to pronounce and hard grammar Japanese: hard to write easier to pronounce hard grammar Chinese: hard to write hard to pronounce easier grammar

[@monokuma2673]

i thought i would find to easy's in one language..but no...fok

[@Alex23087]

Japanese doesn't have a hard grammar though

[@compashinpei]

@@Alex23087 Trust me, Chinese grammar is way easier

[@vino-k5650]

Vietnamese: easy to write hard to pronounce and hard grammar

[@davidding6741]

English word order is similar to Chinese 😀

[@MrIcecolddd]

With Kanji it shouldn’t be frowned at, but rather respected for its complexity and beauty.

[@victorrzhang]

its crazy how much kanji helps me when I am learning Japanese as someone who understands Mandarin. Not sure if its a good thing tho since it makes me less perceptive to the Hiragana hahaha

[@wittatjan541]

Thank you Yuta, this is one of the most beautiful video's I have ever encountered on youtube. I hope the Japanese will always keep their kanji. Who are we without our history?🙏

[@carlstevenwilletts]

When you start to write in Japanese you realise how time-saving kanji is. It would be a tremendous pain to write everything in hiragana. As you said Yuta, it also makes reading much, much quicker.

[@jiechen1374]

Just wondering how kanji save your time in terms of writing .. I am about to learn Japanese and want to know why.

[@marcelfernandezromero8905]

@@jiechen1374 it doesn't lol, romaji is better, you actually don't need kanji if you have context and spaces, but the japanese are knuckleheaded.

[@RR-uc1wb]

Marcel FR Lecturing Japanese of their own language? Lol you’re funny.

[@marcelfernandezromero8905]

@@RR-uc1wb not just Japanese, any language that uses ideagrams.

[@Min-Taro]

When you start writing in Chinese, you realize how time-saving katakana and hiragana are

[@pavelvltchek1612]

As a Chinese guy I must say that Chinese Character (kanji) is amazing. Might be hard to learn at the first sight, but once you master it... welcome to a whole new world😂. Believe me. We all love it

[@x-creator4460]

Can you elaborate/explain some of the advantages of Kanji over other languages then ?

[@AwardQueue]

​@@x-creator4460 Chinese characters are easy to read. less span to show the message. Take advantage of permutations and combinations . the English words increase are the explosion now.

[@howardxie3412]

@@x-creator4460 words contains culture and history

[@Morjoey]

@@x-creator4460 Chinese characteristics are more like symbols or drawings. It can be read much much faster than English, which is especially important in some emergencies.

[@x-creator4460]

@@Morjoey But there are so many characters to remember and I always wonder how it can be an efficient language in this internet age. There is no basic alphabet letters to make up a word so would it not be difficult to learn Chinese ? BTW, I am actually planning to learn Chinese when I retire and travel China.

[@calmpeace9726]

I'm Chinese, Yuta's last explanation of why not abolish kanji...makes me deeply touched... I love Japanese.

[@ShubhamSharma-py1hu]

stupid question , but do you still live in china?

[@skkotbtw]

@@ShubhamSharma-py1hu how do you know he lives in china? there are chinese people everywhere, he said he’s chinese and not that he lives in china

[@Neyobe]

@@ShubhamSharma-py1hu … people can be Chinese and live somewhere else

[@ItsFinigan]

Cool video! I've been watching your videos for years but only recently started Japanese

[@xuyingken]

Hey just to point out. As a Chinese I used to be very proud of the Chinese writing system. But ask yourself, if you are task to create a writing system right now, will you choose to use a very systematic way to do it? I will, because it is easier to create and pickup by others. Like Korean it is so systematic, you can learnt it in a day if you know how to speak the language. This is why young writing systems always prefer phonetics, and follows a very straight pattern. Then why Chinese don’t just Romanise? Because too many Chinese words sounds the same. And also ancient writing system has the ability to present hidden meanings, history, subtle feelings in just one or two characters, due to its rich history. So both types of writing systems has pros and cons. We should not feel superior of our writing system as compare to others.

[@xenia4241]

@@gpodjoe9179 总体无论是注音还是拼音都是一个辅助工具，为了让人好念。也没见 生活中吃饱了撑着用注音或者拼音做书面写作，其实也就无所谓了。如果没有拼音我都不知道自己该怎么在电脑键盘上敲字了。能问一下你们不学拼音，那用注音输入要怎么在26字母键盘上敲字啊？

[@Musouka3]

Language isn't math. It evolves and breathe. With the exception of Hangul, which was systematically created (recommended watch: How Korea crafted a better alphabet - History of Writing Systems #11) and had the good fortune of it been accepted by the masses (with some modifications), writing systems usually evolve slowly over a long time. In the beginning, everything was written as symbols because people sought to recreate the world they've experienced. It took time before alphabets evolved from these symbols. China, on the other hand, continued using the symbols to represent their world (albeit with great modifications). It is what it is. Attempts to modify languages rarely stick (see: movements to simplify English spelling). Such is life.

[@heywingliu9085]

對大陸人說的話︰ 知道殘體字怎樣誕生嗎？共產黨最初定立簡體字的目的就是漢字羅馬化，如果不是當時的領導人死了，你們現在連我這段字都看不懂。 支持殘體字的人，對殘體有優越感，甚至想強迫其他地區使用殘體字的人，真他媽不知道你們有沒有羞恥之心。 我承認簡化文字的確有用，的確會寫得更快，但這些都只是微小的優點，正體/傳統字同樣都有很多優點，楷書甚至是老祖宗在過去千年都保存下來的字體。 如果要將越南文韓文日文等完全改造，我表示無任歡迎，就和內外蒙古都用不同字母一樣，起碼還叫有特色、有改變。 但共產黨推行的簡體字，很大程度上違背了傳統六書的造字規則，其優點在訊息化的時代也變得可有可無，我真搞不懂你們的優越感從那裏來。 中文打字有幾十種方法，中文「方言」(姑且先叫作方言) 也有很多種，我作為倉頡打字法的使用者，是極度反對學習和使用所謂「國語拼音」打字的。 漢字的原意就不是用來代表語音，而是一個概念，只用一種的拼音方法，分明就是歧視和矮化其他方言。 書面語中文，改自文言文，原意是「我手寫我口」。但這種只優待官話語系的文字，又何嘗不是令其他地區的人不能傳神逹意？ 我雖然自豪於一個中文母語者，但對於這類強加於人的文字卻之不恭。 一個以廣東語為母語的香港人上

[@user-bs4yk3bd8s]

三观超正！！！！

[@yaohuiding2310]

@@heywingliu9085 您好，亲爱的香港同胞，可以看出您也是中国至少是中华文化的热爱者，我对我能与您拥有相同的热爱感到十分荣幸。我觉得您的观点非常棒，但是有部分观点不是十分认同，鉴于我是理科生，可能了解并不是非常全面到位，也欢迎您指正共同探讨，将中华文化进一步发扬光大。 首先，残体字是明显带有侮辱性的词汇，还是希望您可以尽量少使用，虽然我明白您是因为一些激进的声音才会这么说，但您应该理解，因为中国大陆庞大的人口基数才导致了大量的不理性人群。我相信恶劣的人始终是少数，而您这么说会伤到更多使用简体字的友好同胞的。 第二，根据我浅薄的历史知识，简体字的推动最早源于太平天国，在新文化运动时达到高潮，最早的政府正式文件是1935年8月21日中华民国国民政府的《推行简体字办法》，虽然当时并没有全面采纳，但是依旧执行了多地的试点。推行简体字本质意义上是为了推翻封建主义文化，初衷并没有您说的那么狭隘。 第三，简体字其实最大的好处是便于学习与传播。不得不承认，中国大陆的人民平均文化素养相比中国香港是有一定差距的。相信您也有所了解，新中国成立初期国民文盲率达到80%，有四亿多人一字不识。如果国人都看不懂文字，谈什么国家建设与发展？为了降低文盲率，降低中文的学习门槛，才不得以有了简体字的推行。事实证明简体字确实相对繁体字更容易学习，中国的文盲率也在简体字的大规模推广后大幅度下降。拼音一定程度上同理，也是为了普及与便利所作出的妥协，但事实上我认为拼音在设计上也有很多闪光点。 第四，繁体字是中华文化的瑰宝，确实包含部分简体字没有的含义与美感，这一点在中国大陆是被普遍承认的，也是在大陆义务制教育中被多次提及的。在中国大陆也有很多场合保留使用繁体字，甚至从09年的人大起断断续续都有恢复繁体字的提议，虽然以目前大陆普遍的教育水平来说确实仍不适宜恢复，但是未来有可能形成简繁体进一步混杂的局面。您说的“优越感”“歧视”“矮化”等现象，相信您也应该理解只是少部分大陆网民对于部分“分裂人士”的“激进”的措辞，希望您不要误会。文化本没有也不应该有高低贵贱之分。 最后，我本人也非常自豪能够作为中文母语者，热爱包括广东语在内的所有汉语与各种字体的书法。也正是中华文化博大的包容性让我最为喜欢，简体字可以极大地加快我们理科生之间的思想交流，而繁体字生动形象的构成与背后精彩的故事也让我心旷神怡。希望两岸三地乃至所有华语文化圈的同胞们可以进一步交流合作，让中华文化更上一层楼。而不要被可笑的政治谎言迷惑了双眼，反而将最锐利的矛头指向自己的同胞。

[@FrancescoInfurna]

The example of kanji as an old partner was quite beautiful, after all kanji is a big part of the reason why written japanese is so fascinating. The beauty of drawn words

[@minutekanji7082]

eeexactly .｡.:*♡✧*。

[@VitorMiguell]

Fun fact: In many languages, such as Portuguese, we have slashes on top of letters which changes the pitch of each word and defines where the emphasis is, so árigato, is different from arígato or arigatô. It is very difficult for me to find a word nobody would know how to pronounce or write instantly. Maybe "fur"? we don't have a way of writing the emphasis on the R or silables with unnecessary emphasis like "lâ" is hard to read.

[@austinwager3741]

Excellent vid. I feel like I know the real reason behind kanji now. Thanks. Also, to add: I find Japanese accents/dialects very interesting too... Particularly Kyoto-Osaka is my favorite, I just love the way it sounds.

[@thomasi.4981]

I'm happy that he called the symbol a "hash" and not a "hash tag", I can see that Yuta is in fact educated and smart.

[@nostalgic-wb3js]

Oh why not hash tag?

[@MrVinnysWorld]

the tag part of "hashtag" is whatever comes after #. # is tagging/linking to a group of similar things in the internet.

[@ROCKSTAR3291]

Chinese is becoming more popular so Kanji will be very useful. Vietnam completely removed Chinese characters, or Hán Tự (Kanji in Japanese or Hanja in Korean) so now we can't read old books or signs. It's not a big problem though, all ancient books are available in Vietnamese Alphabet, but the original form is very beautiful and easier to understand (if you can read Chinese).

[@Art1611]

As an English-speaker (technically bilingual, with Spanish), I must say that Vietnamese looks so daunting. Is it difficult to keep up with good orthography?

[@ROCKSTAR3291]

I don't know since I speak the language and i think it's simple. Our Alphabet system is actually very good, you can spell every single word easily. I guess it's the little rules that you need to remember which make Vietnamese seem difficult.

[@hkrelax]

+Thang Nguyen What's the historical reason of Vietnam removing Chinese Characters (aka Kanji/ Hanzi)?

[@ROCKSTAR3291]

We were invaded by France, they introduced the Alphabet system in schools and forced the government to remove Chinese writing system. The teaching of Chinese characters was strongly discouraged or simply banned in schools and students were taught French and Latin based writing system instead. Basically, young generations back then couldn't read Chinese characters at all. Emperor Khải Định (啓定帝) eventually had to declare that classical Chinese no longer held official status. However, we have very few French words and most are not used anymore. I personally can't name more than 10 -15 words. Half of the vocabulary still have Chinese root and are used often.

[@hkrelax]

Thang Nguyen I see. But do the Vietnam people nowadays mostly think they should keep using Latin alphabet? Or do any Vietnam people or scholars think they should reintroduce Chinese character?

[@lonewolffff12]

This is really helpful, thanks 👍👍👍👍

[@vidright]

Nearly perfect explanation. Many thanks for that.