The Complexity of Kanji

This video is all about Japanese Kanji and some of their features and complexities that make them both mystifying and fascinating.
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Credits for this video:
Paul Jorgensen: Producer, host, video editor, and co-writer
Willow Groundwater: Writer
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Special thanks to my awesome Patreon supporters:
Brandon Gonzalez, Zhiyuan Shi, Vincent David,
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Atsushi Yoshida, Paul Boychuk, Nicholas Gauci,
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Music:
Intro: “Sax Attack” by Dougie Wood.
Main: "Covert Affair - Film Noire" by Kevin Macleod.
Outro: “Rollin' Through Osaka” by MK2.

[@Langfocus]

Hi everyone! Are you learning Japanese? Click the link to visit JapanesePod101: bit.ly/japanese-pod-101. A free account gives you access to lots of great content, then you can upgrade if you want ALL OF IT :) If you're studying a different language, check out my page on all the Pod101 programs in general: langfocus.com/innovative-language-podcasts/. (Full disclosure: if you upgrade to a paid plan, Langfocus receives a small referral fee. But if I didn't like it, I wouldn't recommend it!) :)

[@Bellasie1]

Answers as native: kanji are the backbone of the Japanese text. It is harder to read Japanese without kanji. Also, speaking Japanese without kanji would mean there would be much less vocabulary than is available now.

[@toffeekun1717]

Are you the CEO of the channels with "Pod101"?

[@Anonymous-cn6zl]

@@toffeekun1717 Yes, he owns the Pod101/Innovative languages company.

[@hirofan]

I can’t believe how many pronunciations there are for the kanji 生. 😣

[@gabaanakov]

あなたの英語はとても聞き取りやすいです！

[@morbidmistress5602]

Japanese class... Foreign students: Kanji is the only thing I can’t read Chinese students: Kanji is the only thing I can read

[@pritheebecareful7070]

All the foreign students should team up with the Chinese students

[@alanconde1974]

Scopami they can’t because the Chinese people have different sounds than in Japanese... 😑

[@megancress1384]

@@alanconde1974 as a chinese student learning japanese, the kanji are the only words that i *understand* whereas all the other stuff i can only *pronounce* so if we all teamed up it'd make everything so much easier

[@triggeredravioli]

@@pritheebecareful7070 "Scopami"

[@Demiurge155]

Hahahaah

[@Pining_for_the_fjords]

So if I'm ever in Japan and I need to warn somebody that a bunch of dragons on the move are about to destroy the town, and they want me to write down the warning, I'll know how to do it.

[@clairee4939]

Does Japanese also have this expression for "heavy traffic" I wonder; “车水马龙” ? The individual characters are “car water horse dragon”!!! ("che shui ma long" in Mandarin ). Now that is some noteworthy traffic to report! haha!

[@1love10]

In Chinese it would be something like this 龘準備要毀滅城鎮。

[@JayBowen]

But by the time you finish writing it, it would probably be too late

[@1love10]

jaybow1982 well in fact it only took me about 1minute to write it all out, but yea........ in that case I would probably just say it not write it.

[@trien30]

一愛 en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%AA%9A%A5 with 4 dragons look more balanced

[@hcmichele]

i wish i knew how the necessity for the kanji "dragons on the move" arose. the curiosity is killing me.

[@VenomBurger]

It was used in the name of one guy. It was never important, but people think it looks cool, so it's used very rarely in like Shop Names.

[@rzeka]

Wikipedia calls it a "dictionary ghost word". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taito_(kanji) There are a couple in English, like "dord" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dord

[@chicoti3]

I mean, how else are you going to signalize to your fellow neighbor that dragons are coming?

[@aman-hl9re]

@@chicoti3 just say danger danger

[@aman-hl9re]

@@VenomBurger cool name

[@SteveSilverActor]

So if you are thinking about starting a band in Japan called "Verbose Dragons on the Move", be aware that it would take a really long time to write it by hand.

[@smugmedievalman6909]

The kanji for verbose is quite ironic XD.

[@angsern8455]

Makes it more interesting, plus, the go around with a wooden stamp.

[@mattfield3371]

My question...is this a sort of an example of Onomatopoeia?

[@thejevjeff19]

"Can I have your signature?" "Alright wait me 5 minutes"

[@mcmerry2846]

Just read in latinised form

[@bakehe3494]

Personally...As a native speaker of Mandarin, when im learning Japanese it feels like they use the Chinese character in a unbelievably complicated way......

[@igorspie8241]

I may be wrong, but isn't that because there was a writing reform in China?

[@somatia350]

It might be because Japan borrowed kanji and Chinese words during middle chinese

[@user-bz3tf7sl8y]

一個字兩個音三個音，又分音訓讀，音讀唐音吳音……入聲占一個音位……還搞出煙草讀tabaco這種玩意……韓語對漢字的適應比日本人好多了，結果還不是為了交美國投名狀去漢字……其實早期漢語並不是單音節的，有兩個音三個音，有前元音和結尾輔音，後來都剝落掉轉化為聲調，就是為了適應漢字，其實研究下去發覺很多很有意思的點，例如漢字漢語也有屈折，正、政、整，漢語也有英語那種一個新事物一個新讀音詞彙爆炸的問題，例如馬配不同的聲旁，不過祖先不這麼玩了而已

[@DannyCho325]

@@igorspie8241 I don't think this person means that the kanji are more complicated in terms of strokes

[@yiumyoumsan6997]

To be fair, Traditional Chinese is also freaking harder than kanji so yea

[@wanyinleung912]

As a Chinese speaking Japanese learner, kanji was the easiest part to learn😂

[@jiaxuanliu]

Wan Yin Leung So true.

[@Hussainalmajed]

Don't you find some of them obsolete,not used in Chinese at all or found any difficulty with the pronunciation?.

[@AverageJoe-gi1ur]

Hussain Al-Majed Yes, some of the Japanese kanji is obsolete for mandarin native speaker but only to a limited amount, it won't cause much trouble.

[@fleursdelilas9487]

Stop bragging. you're just lucky. lol

[@essennagerry]

Ohoho... bragging, I see... welp, I've got nothing to say, you have your bragging rights. :D I kinda wish I grew up with one of the Chinese languages, learning the characters as well... :'(

[@zzzz_020]

As a Chinese native speaker and I also learned Japanese before, I can say that in the beginning Kanji can be really the easiest part for us to understand but when I’m not a beginner anymore kanji can be the hardest part because I need to memorize their pronunciations while fighting against its Chinese pronunciations

[@blackcat_wing4115]

Their pronounce is like "Chinese with Japanese accents" 🤣 听上去有点像有口音的中文或者方言

[@chouetteboi3826]

I have this same problem tooo, I've been learning chinese for a while and I really want to pronounce a character a certain way, like 日本, then I say to myself noooo it's nihon

[@blackcat_wing4115]

@@chouetteboi3826 and that's why sometimes we Chinese call Japan “霓虹”,which pronounces "nihong",similar to 日本‘s Japanese pronounce😂😂😂

[@linderoes7832]

@DaGamerGuy Much different.

[@linderoes7832]

@DaGamerGuy English and Spanish are both a part of Indo-European language.They have similar grammer,but Chinese grammer and Japanese one are much different.

[@farrelathaillah3450]

Me : i must remember this kanji My brain : の Me : pls My brain : ノ

[@sevven777]

はハはハはハはハはハはハ

[@farrelathaillah3450]

@Shuriken Master umm what ノ(No) katakana ?

[@gutstheberserker4378]

Lol, i get it

[@luminaletten9999]

More like いいえ

[@luminaletten9999]

@@goldkpae3830 oh i see thx

[@tk-qg5mm]

I'm native Japanese. Eventually you'd appreciate the existence of kanji as you learn, I promise :)

[@wingsgamingfans5850]

303tk4 of course. Id prefer reading in kanji than in kana with spaces

[@sericsson1996]

I'm learning Japanese and the Kanji are the cool part. Last time I learned a new language was English and I already spoke 2 languages before it. Mother tongue and the language where I grew up. Learning Japanese has been fun because... I already watch anime. I also listen to music. And whenever I pick up a new word from my lessons, it feels so cool being able to finally understand what is being said. And it's cool that sometimes new words I learn I remember them from the anime I've watched :P I got much to learn... but I don't mind. It took me since grade school to High School to learn to speak properly in English. Reading & Writing Japanese will take for me around the same time... Years. But speaking won't be easy. I'm much better at listening and reading than speaking.

[@laurel5432]

@@sericsson1996 It is quite cool indeed. I'm taking it very slow and easy as I'm trying to learn the basics on my own, and only then probably look for classes, and it is fun. It's become a nice everyday routine to read on concepts, words, or rehearse the radicals (also try and read any Japanese that I come across Cx ). I've seen people saying radicals are not 100% necessary, but I'm glad I picked them up as even entirely new kanji that I come across are much easier to remember/write, with just rare eventual one stroke mistakes. When I listen to music I will often hear a word or phrase and look it up online. Based on what I understand (let's say a core word in a sentence) I will try to use the autofill feature in microsoft keyboard and look for the phrase with the kanji that I'm sure is there. And even when I guess wrong, I can use that mistake to remember it from now on. I don't expect to get fluent quick and expecting that is probably the mistake that people make. I've wanted to try and learn a new language for some time now and I realised that an asian language might be the best. They're naturally more difficult, be it because of the writing systems alone. Then choosing Japanese out of them was easy since I already find their media appealing. Just as the video said it's not just a language but a huge part of their culture and history as well, and it's incredible how you can learn so much just reading about some kanji. edit: forgot to mention but it all started with learning kana to understand the sfx in manga but I don't know where in the comment do I put it now so I'll just leave it here :p

[@user-lh4ir1sp9y]

@@sericsson1996 based on how you spoke and how talkative you are...I bet you're a Filipino.

[@sericsson1996]

@@user-lh4ir1sp9y How much do you bet? xD Because it is a lost bet already :) Think further... away from Asia.

[@billyk8397]

Who else gets a nerdy jolt of excitement when Paul uploads a new video?

[@keychain9589]

Billy K Lol me

[@allureebene5111]

Lol I always do

[@victorcmoreira]

Me too!

[@ahuitzotlacoyotl3355]

Mee 3!

[@narata1541]

I do! It feels like I want to learn whatever language he is talking about in the video.

[@LeonardoCaida]

funny thing is that 驚 actually means “omg, what the heck is that” （suprised）

[@marcusbian2851]

惊？

[@estebangutierrez160]

Nani?

[@niubi3923]

@@marcusbian2851 yes same character

[@muffintray994]

なに？

[@chadlin9260]

惊and驚have same meaning is surprised

[@Ruminations09]

When I first started learning Japanese, I dreaded the prospect of learning kanji, but now that I've been studying them for a while, it drastically improves sentence readability. It's certainly a time investment, but one that's well worth it. When I come across a word I've never seen before in French, I just look at it and think "yep... that's definitively a series of sounds all right..." and have to look it up. With Japanese though, when I encounter a word I've never seen, it usually goes something like this: "I don't know this word, but I do know these kanji. That first one means "ash" and that second one means "color". Ash tends to be a grey color, so maybe this word means grey?" And 9 times out of 10, I end up being correct. Sure, I may not be sure how to pronounce 灰色 but I got the important information out of it: what it means.

[@Ruminations09]

@@wildfire7268 The fact that you say that makes me thinks you don't know how to type in Japanese, because Japanese 3x4 flick keyboards are super easy to use. And they are much more intuitive than English QWERTY keyboards. Despite being a native English, I'm actually faster at typing in Japanese than I am at typing in English - that's how much more intuitive Japanese flick keyboards are. What you're suggesting is basically that Japanese be written purely in hiragana, which - as anyone who can read Japanese will attest to - is genuinely an horrible idea. You tried comparing it to Korean, but there is a very important difference: Korean has a much larger phonemic library. The Japanese phonology is *remarkably* small - there's a very tiny number of possible sounds you can make in Japanese. The means that many words sound fairly similar to many other words. If you tried writing Japanese purely based on pronunciation, it would be damn near impossible to read. You'd constantly be mistaking one word for another word that sounds the same. Kanji is a vital part of understanding the written language, and virtually all speakers of Japanese agree that trying to read pure hiragana is significantly harder.

[@jhh113]

Absolutely correct. Not a native speaker by any means, but i can often read things i cant pronounce.

[@yungboy4216]

@@Ruminations09 jsyk, QWERTY keyboards are intentionally unintuitive. They were organized the way they are because the format was made for typewriters, so that writers wouldn't type too fast and jam the typewriter.

[@Ruminations09]

@@yungboy4216 That's actually just a myth.

[@carmcam1]

just started learning kanji and i am thinking that i will enjoy and detest it at the same time. Thanks for the encouragement.

[@Fr33mx]

Lol that last part of video where he types "お前はもう死んでる!!" (omae wa mou shinderu/ you are already dead (a very wide-known meme nowadays)) made my day thanks dude,that was hilarious

[@Rolando_Cueva]

NANI!

[@MrYedige]

Николай Каледин лол, я тоже ржал как конь когда прочитал это. Paul, i was laughing my ass off like 10 mins in a raw. That was indeed hilarious

[@Kalvinism]

That was amazing xD I'm glad someone else noticed!

[@BiglerSakura]

Ну а чего ещё ответить, если собеседник первый начал и обозвал "скотиной" :)

[@hasancan1643]

made my day lol

[@Richard_is_cool]

They have a kanji for "dragons on the move." ... ... ...

[@user-je3qf1kp3b]

I am Japanese. Don't worry, almost all of Japanese people never and ever use this kanji 🙂

[@4aridmax]

As a one piece fan, that kanji come pretty handy in wano to warn that Kaido is coming again.

[@dzli8284]

龙腾？

[@ken7796]

I am Polish. Japan saved 765 Polish orphans in 1920 and 1922. Around 1920, there were about 200,000 Polish in Siberia. Most of them died. Poland has asked various countries to save Polish orphans in Siberia. But all countries refused to rescue. Poland finally commissioned Japan to rescue Polish orphans. The Japanese emperor and empress at the time immediately ordered the Japanese to save the Polish orphans.Japan soon began rescue Polish orphans.The orphan was in Siberia. Japanese continued to rescue Polish orphans in Siberia. The smallest orphan that Japan saved was a two-year-old child.The orphan was crying near her dead mother. The Japanese immediately rescued the orphan. Polish orphans were sent to Japan for treatment. Japan fed the Polish orphans a hot meal every day. All Polish orphans have recovered. Japan continued to love Polish orphans very much. All Japanese donated money to save Polish orphans. Polish orphans were always smiling. Japan has successfully returned 765 Polish orphans to Poland. I will not forget this story. Thanks to Japan. God bless Japan.

[@wearealreadydeadfam8214]

We have dumb ultra specific words no one actually uses too. Murder of crows.

[@Rudolphhhhhh]

I am learning Japanese for almost 3 years and I noticed interesting facts : the most difficult kanji are not those with many strokes. Actually, the more a kanji has strokes, the less there are kanji that are alike and the less is has different meanings and pronounciations. Some of the most difficult kanji to learn are those with "only" a dozen strokes (or less), because there are many kanji that are alike them. Nevertheless, the kanji are intimidating only when we begin to learn Japanese (the learner must read Japanese very often, each day, especially texts that are written for native Japanese people : articles, video games, manga, books, etc.). But the more time passes, the more they seem "easy" and the more we understand why they are so practical in Japanese. Their different "components" or "radicals" become second nature, so it is just a question of "puzzle" composed with different "pieces" that we know very well. So, when we discover Japanese language, we learn the "strokes" that compose a kanji, but later we learn the "components" that compose kanji instead of strokes, which makes the learning much easier. And even the handwriting becomes very easy (not easy to remember how to writh ALL kanji, but easy to understand how to write a kanji when we read it). The handwriting helps me a lot to memorize kanji, thanks to "kinesthetic memory".

[@crocodileman94]

Definitely agree on the first part. I have an easier time remembering kanji like 歳 than I have with basic katakana.

[@youknowkbbaby]

I don't think everyone's mind can learn kanji.

[@theyoshi202]

I just realized “emoji” is Japanese, e+moji

[@VenomBurger]

絵文字・えもじ it's fun eh?

[@user-sn9bc6hd6r]

Hollow Inside いもじ？

[@despressso]

@@user-sn9bc6hd6r its not imoji

[@otanix]

In the late 80s up to early 90s, it used to be called smileys. In the mid-90s up to early 00's, they expanded the smileys to include numerous emotions and started to be called "emoticons" from words emote+icons. But then they expanded those emotive icons to things that don't convey emotions, like a hat 🧢 or a hospital building 🏥 or money 💵 and was called emoji. Emoji used to be popular in online forums and chat rooms but it is actually the Android OS that made emoji adopted by the whole world. Source: my 40 years of living alone and lonely by being a true Netizen since the time of tape and floppy disks and dial up internet. And oh, yes emoji originated from Japan.

[@despressso]

Otan Er no, that’s wrong lmao. the first phones to use emojis were japanese only phones hence why they’re called 絵文字 meaning 絵 (picture) 文字(writing system). they were popularized by phone usage in japan, leading to apple being the first to add an official emoji keyboard in japan. the first to come abroad officially WAS android, but people made apps to unlock it on foreign iphones long before that.

[@kekeke8988]

峠 is not actually a Chinese character. It's a kokuji, or Japanese original. Yes, the 50,000+ characters China already had were not enough for Japan. They had to go and invent MORE.

[@leewan1472]

Kekeke88 Japanese doesn’t use all of Chinese characters. It is not enough. You use part of it and invent part of it. You Japanese doesn’t have more characters than us.

[@essennagerry]

Ahahahaha, fo real tho. :D

[@jadeemperor59]

Nope.山 is a kanji,上 下 are kanji too

[@kyoumalee2675]

When English speakers talk about kanji, it's Chinese characters adopted and in use in Japanese.Chinese characters means all the characters systems.when Japanese talk about kanji or Chinese talk about hanzi ,they all mean the whole system (characters)

[@bobohv4313]

Kekeke88 you maybe right.

[@Voltanaut]

I love the fact a kanji with 64 means verbose. Literally too perfect.

[@angelolaurenzaMJJ]

You should look the Italian word for "fear of long words"

[@REVOLUTIONS51]

@@angelolaurenzaMJJ Hipopotomonstrosesquipedaliofobia Credo sia la mia parola preferita d'ora in poi....

[@angelolaurenzaMJJ]

@RFT yeah it derives from ancient Greek

[@simon39wang43]

REVOLUTIONS51 something phobia😂

[@JoseAguirre-ri8tg]

@@REVOLUTIONS51 It's in spanish too.

[@user-wb4dm4gu3g]

im learning japanese, and writting kanji by hand feels so relaxing

[@speaknowstan.13]

Until you have to take notes fast when your professor is speaking 😂

[@user-wb7ez9ud4p]

I know! I write caligraphy sometimes when I relax

[@rauntche]

Feels great

[@velocityraptor2890]

it can be relaxing, fun, and/or challenging, truly an enjoyable experience

[@barelu2562]

I've been learning japanese for almost a year now; I'm able to read hiragana and katakana clearly and know enought vocabulary to have small talks, but kanji scares me so much that I haven't even started. This video was very good to show how there's a meaning behind what we see in kanji and that it's not just random drawings that means things, so I feel a bit more motivated to start on it!

[@phen-themoogle7651]

Learn Kanji the same way Japanese do, start with kanji grade 1 ( can see a list on Wikipedia), it'll save you a lot of time in the end because they are the most basic and consist of a lot of radicals. If you just master those 80 kanji it'll take you a long way in recognizing shapes. Radicals help so much. I've studied Japanese for 20 years, and most textbooks don't teach kanji in a practical order. Generally grade 1 kanji have less strokes too. And with just up to Grade 6 kanji, about 1006 you can read like 80% or more of Japanese, which is very nice. In the Chinese language I think you need like 2000 or 3000 kanji to read 80% even which is brutal lol

[@barelu2562]

@@phen-themoogle7651 thanks for the tip, I was actually trying to learn from some of the most common and didn't know about that grade system lol I speak a lot of languages already but japanese is the first with a different writing system so thats mostly why I'm so lost

[@Ping63ms]

Maybe you can learn kanji by reading news articles with furigana. It’s better to learn kanji in words

[@mainlander3920]

After watching this learning German seems like a walk in the park.

[@pauladriaanse]

I still don't understand why people think German is hard... It really isn't, especially not compared to almost every other language xD

[@mainlander3920]

Well, from the perspective of a native Portuguese speaker whose only foreign language was English prior to start learning German, and had tried Japanese for a while... yeah, German is certainly easier than Japanese due to Kanji, and it looks easier than languages such a Finnish, Arabic, Chinese, etc... but it's not exactly easy by any means when compared to Portuguese and English. Three genders, cases, separated verbs, somewhat cryptic expressions... it looks like a much harder version of English to me, basically. When I speak English, all comes naturally mostly, I don't have to think a lot. Speaking German, on the other hand, feels like solving an intricate math problem... this goes here, that goes there... that becomes like this due to this case... the fact English is much closer to Portuguese both grammatically and in terms of vocabulary helps a lot, but I would say German is harder than English even disconsidering this. Portuguese verb tenses are much harder than the German ones, but other than that, I think Portuguese is a really easy language overall. I would say German is intermediary in terms of difficulty.

[@essennagerry]

Roberto Silveira I'd say that English is difficult when you're already at like a B2 and want to become better and better, whereas German is difficult from the get go. But it's not THAT difficult. But it's difficult. :D

[@mainlander3920]

English has more vocabulary, is a lot more inconsistent phonetically and has slightly richer verb tenses than German. Other than that, German beats English on difficulty in any other category imaginable, I think.

[@essennagerry]

Roberto Silveira By "inconsistent phonetically" you mean inconsistent spelling/pronunciation?

[@kristofer9776]

I'm learning japanese (polish native speaker). Kanji are not really that much of a challenge to learn. I just read a lot of stuff in japanese that is on the internet, and every word and kanji that I don't know I just write down in my notebook. When you read a lot, kanji will start repeating, so their meaning and pronounciation just automaticly gets into your head. You don't really have to force anything, the learning process just goes by itself when you read a lot. Right now I have been (self-)learning for about 1,5 years and I have memorized around 900 kanji at this point just by reading stuff. And also you don't have to memorize all 2316 (jouyou) kanji to be able to read. Some kanji are used more often than the others. Some statitics that I have found shows that the first 1000~ most used kanji amount to 95% of all kanji used in writing. So right now I am actually able to read quite consistently with only little help from the dictonary. Edit: Wow, I just came back to this comment after 2 years and noticed all the likes it has gotten. Thank you all very much for the likes, I have never gotten that many before on a single comment.

[@druxfilms]

This is true, I found this to be alot more productive than actually studying or even using a repetition program or cards for kanji...

[@wild_insomnia]

stary,kuzwa,szacun

[@masonp5]

well quizlet helps me but i just started a couple weeks ago

[@abc249]

That's awesome congrats on your progress!

[@baruzool9326]

So you're saying it's not that hard, yet after 1,5 years you're still not even halfway through to not being illiterate in Japanese? Cool.

[@langshack4552]

I love how well you design your videos, they are beautifully made and I respect your expertise on languages. Thank you!

[@pureawkwardness415]

Kanji vs Hanzi: The main difference between the two is that because Japanese is agglutinate and uses lots of inflections, this means kanji can have double pronunciation or multiple pronunciation depending on the context of a sentence. For instance, the word for 7 is the same in both languages, 七, is usually pronounced なな, (nana) in Japanese, but in the sentence, It's 7 AM, 午前七時です。, its pronounced shichi. (gozen shichi ji des(u)) Meanwhile the word is always pronounced qi in Chinese, as in 是早上七點。This is the hardest part of learning Japanese. Hanzi's biggest hurdle is learning the tones, which differ depending on the language specifically. However Mandarin has 5 tones, and once you begin to remember the specifics of their pronunciation, it's much easier to remember than the multiple pronunciation kanji can have, which can be completely different in their romanizations. However those tones are much more important since in Japanese, if you say for instance, nana ji and not shichi ji, then most people will still understand what you said. Tones can change a meaning drastically, like the infamous sì and sí (4 and death). Watch Langfocus's video comparing the 2 languages for more info because I'm not a professional.

[@Fei_jisoo1407]

and hanja? These are the Chinese characters used in Korean...

[@fadilnasution5093]

"Omae wa mou shinderu" 13:47 I don't know why, but I'm kinda happy you made that sentence as an example. Cheers mate!

[@mikanbox214]

As you know, it's from a Japanese famous anime, Hokutonoken. The hero of that anime, Kenshiro says these words when he very tries to beat his enemy. But, it is a little different. The correct one is Omae ha mou shindeiru.

[@Beleidigen-ist-Pflicht]

Oh I might be of assistance here ! the first one from you "Jui" would be the Hepborn romanization which transcribes japanese characters from Japanese itself to roman letters according to their phonetic value in English Whereas the "ha" form from "みかん" relates to the japanese System of how Kana are arranged in order , wasn't this called "Gozyūonzu" or "table of 50 syllables" ? Well upon not wanting to digress , this is called Nippon-siki and was invented by some Japanese physician as an antithesis to Hepburn , if I remember correctly . According to my understanding, there also have been some confusions between the transcriptions itself and than there is also "Kunrei" And JSL , Wāpuro and so on. So it just might be fine using either... "wa" or "ha" since this particle is a special case of pronounciation and yaughter, yaughter , you get the point But I must say I personally have fairly a faible for using Nippon-Siki , it's just so steadily formed, if you have an idea what I want to express...

[@sen1679]

he also wrote it wrong its shindeiru because its the te + iru form of the verb

[@SelcraigClimbs]

@@sen1679 and most of the time the い from -ている endings gets dropped in casual informal speech.

[@edroyfernando]

@@mikanbox214 i know that this is verrrrryyyyyy late, but what Fadil said is still correct. The Hiragana syllable "は" is pronounced "ha", unless it's used as the topic marker, then it's pronounced "wa".

[@harunsuaidi7349]

Imagine how many puns Japanese can make

[@WeAreSMC96]

Harun Suaidi it’s their way of life

[@Labr4tOfficial]

it's truue you see a lot in anime and they also explain the kanji

[@Skrapeg0at]

貴社の記者は汽車で帰社しました。 Means "Your reporter has returned to your company by train." Pronounced きしゃのきしゃはきしゃできしゃしました (kisha no kisha wa kisha de kisha shimashita)

[@gc3k]

Dad jokes for days

[@Double-Negative]

@@Skrapeg0at same meaning with not so many repeated sounds 会社の記者は電車で帰りました。 Though, you might want to change 帰り back to 帰社し if you want to emphasize he is returning to WORK.

[@BrendanishLeo]

Hey guys, just wanna say, I started learning Japanese, give or take around the time this came out. Two years in, I can definitely say, it gets better. Keep it up!

[@angelmendez-rivera351]

I believe it. Honestly, the only difficult part about Japanese at all is in fact kanji. If you ignore kanji, the rest of the Japanese language is actually very intuitive (at least to me). If it weren't because of kanji, I would even be willing to concede the potential of Japanese to be easier than Spanish, (my native language), or English.

[@wildfire7268]

Japan needs a text revolution, too. The Japanese language lags behind the keyboard input of the Internet age. It should be transformed into 24 alphabets, not thousands, like Hangeul in Korean.

[@BrendanishLeo]

@@wildfire7268 I'm sorry? Japanese on keyboards is perfectly fine after adjusting a bit. The only issue I've ever had is IMEs not using the correct kanji, but in the worst scenarios, kana works fine.

[@nitram1260]

@@wildfire7268 No, they won’t. Characters are one of the best thing in both Chinese and Japanese.

[@ZK-ff2ru]

@@nitram1260 "one of the best things" i dont think that memorizing thousands of characters are not being considered functionally literate by highschool is a good thing while english speakers can learn to write their language in 2 months

[@Lancetier]

Paul your channel is amazing, everything is so clear and easy to understand, showing a video of using kanji on a smart phone in the top corner of one of your slides was genius

[@Arielscheinermann]

the number of ways which Kanji is pronounced is the most troubling..... omg

[@-haclong2366]

He skipped over the On-Yomi part, there are actually 3 different variants of Chinese reading, each based on different Chinese dialects from different era's, being the Chang'an dialect, the Hangzhou dialect, and the Kaifeng dialect with centuries between them, so they don't even sound remotely similar.

[@gelko2676]

haha yes, even as a second language Chinese speaker myself, I get pissed that Kanji have so many different pronunciations (unlike the large majority of Hanzi)

[@lixiaochen6]

gelko as chinese myself I can’t even handle most modern chinese dialects. Facepalm.

[@SirusStarTV]

Like in English the number of meanings of same word...

[@masacatior]

Well, you could look at it with a different perspective. Each new word you learn you learn how to write it...

[@9UaYXxB]

Paul , disregarding for a moment your channel's intent of (I believe) motivating individuals to encounter languages fully by learning them, I find the information you present is a huge education in the origins and architecture of languages and it fills a need in me to understand more appropriately the 'mindset' or worldview of people in other vital parts of our planet. Your content is nothing short of brilliant, many sincere thanks!

[@robertopascarelli6105]

Swede McGuire same here. It’s fascinating to dig into the origin of the languages and the differences between them. And all the videos of the channel are very well explained. Congrats Paul!

[@alsyrriad]

I agree 100%. A language is nothing without its culture.

[@amys500]

Yes I enjoy the history of each language the most

[@patrickpang4115]

Me, Chinese, knowing the correct way of writing “mother” 母 for the first time in a Japanese tutorial video from a European guy

[@marcinzarebski9089]

I think he's Canadian, not European.

[@kyoumalee2675]

@@marcinzarebski9089 He probably talked about kind of "race", so European descendent Canadian, shorten as " European"

[@RalphBellairs]

As as native English speaker studying Japanese I was intimidated by Kanji when I first started learning, but, after I had learned hiragana and katakana, I found the Kanji fascinating and the most interesting aspect of the language. Doesn't make learning Japanese much easier though! 🙂

[@2oqh]

I personally found the grammar much more tedious, since it wasn’t very interesting. Kanji was a pleasure to learn, and there’s only around ~2100 you need for to be at a very comfortable level. That’s really not too bad, especially since you can usually tell the meaning or remember the kanji easier depending on the radicals it’s made up of.

[@user-do5or6mo6e]

Today I learned how and how much is Japanese complicated with fluent explanation by foreigner. Thank you, Mister! I like your video. I also want to let you guys know how hard I struggle with learning English in middle school. I'm rooting for all of you.

[@VenomBurger]

頑張ってください～！

[@TheGamer2336]

you're doing great!!

[@ninaj6051]

You're doing great indeed! I'm not a native English speaker, yet I often struggle to form proper sentences. I realized I need to spend so much time writing short paragraphs, and I hate how my grammar is overall quite far from perfect, even though I still can communicate about everything, just extremely clumsy. And, when I somehow manage to have perfect grammar (as per the Grammarly app), I sound too formal.

[@levilive9705]

日本語わかぢません!!

[@drakesmith471]

@@ninaj6051 give yourself some credit. I only am able to speak English right now, but I am trying to learn Japanese and Spanish, both of which I can't say I am doing even close to comparable to how you are. I find that sometimes if I can't remember the word or even am blanking on something more basic, I sometimes do a thing called circumlocution which is pretty much talking in a roundabout way to describe something. It sometimes leads to me sounding more formal, though I talk formally to begin with, so it is normal. I will admit, others may find it weird, but talking formally can benefit you, and if that is the way you prefer talking, go for it, let it be something of yours if you will. Anyways though, great job.

[@Suldrun45]

I don't understand why this "dragons on the move" kanji is not part of the regular kanji... Isn't it the kind of word one would use on a daily basis? :p

[@guitaristssuck8979]

Pierre Arnould It was common when dragons were common

[@ragamuffyn6360]

龘 (tō, dragons on the move) can be written as 龍が行く (Ryū ga iku, dragons on the move)

[@guitaristssuck8979]

Bern0d how do you know?

[@Mike-vi6lu]

It's kind of a game. Chinese also have some super complex characters that people hardly use.

[@sodinc]

It was invented just in case of game of thrones

[@EpicB]

"Dragons on the move" sounds like the name of a power metal band.

[@emilyskanjichanneljapan5136]

Langfocus❤️ This is really well done

[@somerandomguy884]

I’m gonna be completely honest here, since young, I’ve not really cared about the stroke rules and order, I just write it the way I thought was faster because notes need to be copied fast.

[@thomasalberto613]

do Japanese people write stuff by hand with kanji? Doesn't that take a lot of time?

[@cueiyo6906]

@@thomasalberto613 "doesn't that take time?" _laughs in Chinese_

[@wildfire7268]

Japan needs a text revolution, too. The Japanese language lags behind the keyboard input of the Internet age. It should be transformed into 24 alphabets, not thousands, like Hangeul in Korean.

[@thomasalberto613]

@@wildfire7268 you mean characters? You are being quite a dumbass

[@KineticManiac]

@@wildfire7268 Just so you know, "alphabet" in English refers to the whole thing, not just one of them. The correct word is "letter" or "character".

[@saptarshikolay7366]

I'm a student of Linguistics. I have interest in writing systems. Thank you Paul. I learn a lot from this video.

[@_heed]

Saptarshi Kolay hi my fellow liguist to be!

[@saptarshikolay7366]

Hello Abdurrahman Syahid. ....... Thanks to reply me sir 😊😊😊

[@aca4254]

Stunning work! Thank you!

[@audreymay9378]

Your channel is the best thing since sliced bread. I appreciate the education. I feel so enriched and fortified with knowledge.

[@michinolo]

I am a native Japanese speaker. Yes, Kanji is necessary for Japanese language. I would speak Japanese as good as I do now, even if Kanji is not a part of the language. However, it would make reading/studying a lot harder without it. There are lots of homonyms in Japanese.　日本語に漢字は必要です。漢字がなかったとしても同じように話す事はできると思いますが、日本語には同音語が多いので漢字がないと読書や勉強の効率がかなり下がると思います。（にほんごにかんじはひつようです。かんじがなかったとしてもおなじようにはなすことはできるとおもいますが、にほんごにはどうおんごがおおいのでかんじがないとどくしょやべんきょうのこうりつがかなりさがるとおもいます。）

[@Hussainalmajed]

Michi4748 Can you explain more why Kanji is important to Japanese people, why not just use Kanji alone then?.

[@brainstormin-pe3mz]

漢文訓読体 is all in kanji.and all things is complex to explain，if you are interesed in it，you can search. the grammar and reading system of Japanese is different from Chinese.but Japanese and Korean both use classical chinese 文言文 in ancient times，most learners are nobels or rich guy of course，they can even talk just by writing 笔谈/筆談 and become government officials by passing exam of china.but not the ordinary people，so，they had to find a solution，the video already said it.

[@dima6018]

Horny Aleks Arabic isn't the only language spoken in the Middle East, there are Hebrew, Kurdish, Turkish, and Persian as well

[@LoyalSol]

It might be harder to read if you strictly go to a pure kana system using the Kana as they current stand. However, if you were to get rid of the Kanji it would make sense that you could also make some adjustments to the Kana system to handle the homophone problem. You only need enough characters to give each word or at the very least enough of them a unique spelling. Similar to how in English you can have multiple characters with the same sound. For example bite and byte are pronounced the same, but in spelling use either the y or i. You would mostly have to focus on the words that have a lot of homophones (さす, こうしょう, etc.) It's more of a combinators/information theory problem. Though odds are it won't be happening.

[@Hussainalmajed]

Horny Aleks Arabic is important only if the economy in Arab countries is doing well , nowadays Arabs are fighting each other and that is very unfortunate so educated Arabs tend to migrate to other countries so if the dire situation continues, there would be more importance to Hebrew or Farsi.

[@NihongoavecKazu]

As a native speaker of Japanese, I think Kanji is very important to build vocabulary. We have so many words invented to translate concepts that didn't exist in Japanese. This is how Japanese stays academic language that can be taught in universities. If Kanji didn't exist, it was very difficult to translate all the new concepts imported from western countries. If we translated those new terms with non-kanji words, each word would have been very long and not convenient to use.

[@yum2735]

European languages tend to use Latin or Ancient Greek words for new concepts, but those words used to describe normal concepts at one point. Scientists retrospectively gave them additional meanings for new concepts or built neologisms from their roots, e.g. "transferre" had the basic meaning "to carry across" in Latin, but now forms like "transfer" and "translate" (supine stem) refer to all kinds of scientific concepts. Japanese could do the same thing and give native Japanese words new meanings or built compounds from native Japanese roots. No need for Kanji. Only Sino-Japanese compounds would be problematic without Kanji due to the amount of homophones.

[@kaneinkansas]

Are you at all familiar with the Korean phonetic system called Hangul? I think it might work better for Japanese than it does for Korean. In korea. They sometimes call it "Morning Characters" because a bright student can learn the system in just one morning and most other people can learn to read inside of a week. I wonder if this would ever be efficacious in Japanese.

[@yum2735]

Tim Kane, Standard Japanese is phonemically less diverse than Korean (fewer codas, fewer vowels), which leads to even more Sino-Japanese homophones. The increasing dominance of Hangul even for Sino-Korean words probably still bereft the Korean language of a lot of Sino-Korean vocabulary since homophones become indistinguishable in the written language.

[@MiracoMango]

I am Chinese. We Chinese has absorbed a lot from Japanese especially in terms of various words in the last few hundreds of years. I wanna know what do you think of the current translation trends of 'katakana-straightforward-phonetic translation' comparing with 'kanji-based-meaning translation'? I know young people in Japan love to use nouns written by katakana.

[@NihongoavecKazu]

As this trend to translate phonetic in katakana existe way before I was born, it's very normal to me. Especially when I was very little like 10 years old, I used katakana words without knowing that these words were actually loan words. Giving an example, I thought the word "Terebi" (came from television) was japanese word.

[@zenists]

Just love your starting part Paul, you are so funny and knowledgable. Internet just make learning so much easier these days.

[@dynamagon]

This was extremely helpful considering you taught the whole system of kanji rather than just the radicals or ways to say them like most people, definitely will help to structure original sentences. Thanks!

[@johndotto2773]

The last kanji that Paul used as a "surprise kanji" (驚) that is exponentially more difficult than the other ones he listed that were easy means "surprised". *Get it???* *Because the kanji was a "surprise"???* ok.

[@user-kj9lb8gp4e]

驚!

[@ssk2439]

驚

[@gururut9242]

惊！（simplified chinese）

[@_feather189]

Boy, the traditional Chinese is truely complicated to write.

[@hebneh]

The fact that Japanese and Chinese speakers are using keypads of the LATIN alphabet to write their own native languages is a huge and very fundamental change in how their brains are perceiving their own words and symbols. This is really earth-shattering, yet for some reason I've never encountered a Japanese or Chinese speaker who seems to see this situation the way I do. Now, when they think of a word they want to "write" (actually type), they think first of the phonetic equivalent in the foreign Latin alphabet, like "ba" or "ro" or some other syllable. I think this is a major cultural shift.

[@hebneh]

I was told hiragana keyboards are not as common and most people use the Latin alphabet one...what about on phones?

[@aaa5064]

@@hebneh Thats right ,most Japanese use the Latin alphabet keyboards, and use Kana Input on Phone. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_input_methods

[@bocbinsgames6745]

there do exist systems for typing chinese where you map the latin keyboard to components, so that you're actually pircing together the characters rather than using a latin intermediary ... it's just difficult. I've been using one for over a year and it was definitely intimidating to learn

[@hebneh]

@@bocbinsgames6745 I believe it. Relying on memory to piece together the different elements of thousands of symbols would be intimidating.

[@quinquiry]

Very clear explanations ! good work Paul !

[@younessalibane7504]

Thank you Paul for this video.

[@girthquake5231]

Thanks for all the effort you put into your incredible videos. My favorite channel on KZbin easily.

[@cuongpham6218]

I'm Vietnamese and had learned Japanese for 6 years before switching to German. Since Vietnamese is also influenced by Chinese (approx. 60% of Vietnamese vocabulary derives from Chinese) and Vietnam is one of the East Asian cultural sphere countries, learning Kanji, especially the On-yomi reading, is not really a challenge for me. But the real challenge is the grammar, as well as listening skills, (man Japanese speak really fast). All in all Kanji is for me an integral part of the language and I love learning them

[@anyaforger8409]

Cuong Pham Not to mention Chu Nom.

[@Joshayne]

I am Cantonese speaker but I don’t know why sometimes Vietnamese sounds like Cantonese but I don’t know what they means LOL

[@change1657]

FaZe Up our language totally different so you can only understand some minor word, that same for us when hearing cantonese

[@mq-mx-xq6315]

I remember you people used to utilize chữ Nôm to write Vietnamese.

[@change1657]

@@mq-mx-xq6315 yes that 200 year ago since we dont have our scpirt so we borow hanzi hanji and modifications it and from the han nom but it even harder than hanzi kanji

[@arielthemermaid3576]

10:42 wow, that’s such a useful kanji. I can’t think of a single day that went by where I didn’t say “dragons on the move”

[@geoffreyherrick298]

Kanji intimidated me for the longest time. Learning the meaning of the word the characters were derived from was a game changer for me. A good start is the book What's in a Chinese Character, by Tan Huay Peng. The illustrations also help reinforce the meanings.

[@carmo122]

I really hate when people go around saying "Japanese people are stupid! Why don't they simplify their language!" or "X language is a lot easier, therefore they are smarter!". All languages in the world went through an enormous process to change with time. If there were problems, like people not understanding the language, they would take measures to change said problems (like it happened in Japan, Korea and China a long time ago). Right now, Japan has a good literacy rate, so the language is doing well as it is. Also, the language is the "voice" of the culture that it represents. Without it, the entire country's culture would be completely different. The sheer effort that it would take to make people talk in a new manner is too big. It also risks ending up like China, where Simplified Chinese was created but people preferred the Traditional Chinese. Every single language in the world has flaws. From the world-wide spoken English to the obscure Yupik languages, languages can be easy or hard, but we shouldn't change them to our needs when so much hinges on them. Besides, isn't it the effort that makes learning them fun?

[@carmo122]

techno girl Yes, but people still prefer to write in Traditional Chinese than in Simplified Chinese. And there are so many variations (Shanghainese, Hakka, Cantonese, etc.) that it is hard to call Chinese a singular language.

[@BlackKnight_999]

I think as of now.. only Hong Kong and Taiwan are still using Traditional Chinese... Macau I am not so sure.. but probably same as Hong Kong. Singapore Chinese students also studies Chinese Language and writes them but we adopted Simplified Chinese a long long time ago.. all it takes is a generation of students growing up with it.

[@carmo122]

willyeo Oh, I didn't know that! But you're right. Languages can be simplified and, most of the time, people will prefer that, like with the introduction of the Jōyō Kanji in Japanese. But to go around insulting other people's languages because of personal standards is really stupid in my opinion.

[@hirokokueh3541]

Simplified and Traditional Chinese are used in several different languages, even their grammar are different. Traditional : Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese Hokkien, classical Chinese, other ancient dialects Simplified : Mandarin, Chinese Hokkien and other modern dialects both of them used in Mandarin, but Mandarin in China(sim), Honkong and Taiwan(tra) are different.

[@user-xe1de9if2o]

There aren't many people in mainland China who prefer Traditional Chinese any more. The gov pushes hard. Many websites, like Baidu, even automatically convert to Simplified Chinese, including Japanese Kanji. It makes it hard for me to find correctly written lyrics for Japanese songs....

[@medsamid]

It's much more complicated than I thought !

[@davidtang2549]

One of my friends from Hongkong told me that when he arrived in Japan, he wrote kanji to ask directions.

[@deadby15]

David Tang that’s something East Asians could do for millenniums. Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, they could communicate using Chinese characters to some extent. Sadly, Koreans and Vietnamese abandoned them in a shortsighted nationalistic fever.

[@Heoltor]

how would it be shortsighted for korea to develop such an efficient writing system

[@Gabriel-l]

@@Heoltor true. Korea has a very efficient writing system and I sometimes wish that China and Taiwan would modernize their system too. But, I have heard that Chinese characters are used in Korean books sometimes for more context.

[@QuyTran-bv7cp]

@@deadby15 It was not shortsighted when those two languages survived and prospered even under heavy influence of Chinese culture (and sometimes colonialism). Chinese characters were used as a writing system but it was clunky ("Hieroglyphs are an idiotic writing system" - Василий Сардина). So once a better writing system was invented (Korean), or Latin-adapted (Vietnamese), it was quickly adopted. Even Chinese has to develop pinyin adapted from Latin characters, hasn't it? or was it just their "Shortsighted 'inter-nationalistic' fever".

[@paradoxmo]

@@QuyTran-bv7cp I think it was the right choice to abandon Chinese characters for alphabets in Vietnam and Korea. However, written standard Mandarin would be impossible to read if it were in only pinyin. There’s too many homonyms and undisambiguated characters. And besides, we Chinese speakers are way too attached to our literature to stop using the system that the literature is written in.

[@delsinrowe6826]

Pretty useful video! Thank you very much. Keep up the good work!

[@Briller5]

very well made video, excellent work, subbed

[@moiquiregardevideo]

I started to learn Japanese, then switched to Chinese to concentrate more on the etymology of kanji. I took a class of Japanese at University, a year where i had to catchup with math calculus. I was the only student answering exam questions with kanji.

[@Gabriel-l]

ok that's actually impressive. Bet you gave the Japanese examiners a hard time marking your paper though haha.

[@mattfield3371]

From what I've heard people who were learning Japanese and Chinese at the same time they say it's actually harder because now you're learning and associating multiple sounds with many of the same characters on top of the ones you'd already need to know so it's really going to require more memorization abilities.

[@michaelregis1015]

What a beautiful and complex writing system!

[@AustinSiler1]

Please do more!!!!! I love your Japanese videos

[@doma3894]

Ya it’s hard!! But I’m giving my best to deal with it. Thank you for sharing your knowledge 👏🏻ありがとうございました‼︎

[@itsban]

ドーマセルパ 私も(^_^)/

[@verdecillo9940]

私は六ヶ月間日本語を勉強しました。初めから漢字学ぶの事を始めました。とても難しいですよ、でも読む力に役立つです。今まで漢字を四百暗記した。I have studied Japanese for six months. I started learning kanji from the beginning. They're really difficult, but so useful when reading. So far, I have memorized about 400. (Most important is simply making study a consistent habit- even if you learn just 1 every day (easily doable), then after a year, you would know almost 400. If you learn 2 or 3 every day (feasible), then after a year, you would know almost 1000!)

[@user-de5jc5gt9l]

Verdecillo six months!You are brilliant!

[@salmon9130]

Kanji is a tool for fast record and compressed message. Just take a glimpse of your comment. I can get information like this: I, six months, Japanese, learn. First, learn Kanji, event, start. Difficult, read, useful. Now, Kanji, 400, memory. Then I almost get the main idea. PS: You are smart!

[@laveniathursch3526]

Great video! I think I've been fascinated by the Kanji for a long time and they were actually my point of entry to learning Japanese. The story they tell (dragons on the move 😂) or that I invent to remember them is really part of the thrill to me. And yes sometimes they give me the meaning right away which is great when my hiragana and katakana are still shaky. And above all things praise the smart keyboard 🙌

[@hue3595]

I've been learning Japanese by myself for about 5 months now and my way of learning might be a little unusual, but I don't really focus on learning the kanji on their own. Whenever I encounter a word I do not know, I'll first look it up and write it down, then I'll put it in Anki with the reading and meaning. It makes it a bit harder to read texts with a lot of kanji I don't know yet, but after I have seen a certain kanji in a few words it gets easier to guess the meaning an reading of new words since I know the context of the kanji.

[@hue3595]

Also, I don't think kanji are as hard as many make them seem, since English also has really weird rules for pronunciation.

[@Hussainalmajed]

hugo van oosterhout It's true even English has its own weird rules , your username doesn't seem English, is it a Nordic name?.

[@hue3595]

it's Dutch, so close enough i guess (:

[@minutekanji7082]

that is agood idea too :) Theory and grammar is always more tedious and hard but it's necessary to understand the rules. It's like having to read a board game's rules booklet before playing. Before starting, you need to know what to do with the pieces.

[@BlackKnight_999]

For a native Chinese language user like me.. the kanji in Japanese text dun make it harder to understand.. in fact it gives the general context of the sentence.

[@yuetiansiah8602]

Chinese speaker here, this video remind me of my first year learning Chinese

[@Hussainalmajed]

Yue Tian Siah Did you study Chinese in China or abroad. Do you find Japanese easy?.

[@adult456zig]

你会说日语吗？

[@adult456zig]

你是美国人还是中国人？

[@yuetiansiah8602]

Hussain Al-Majed Not easy but familiar, it's like you have a set of vocabulary in mind, but now you need to use them in different formats

[@yuetiansiah8602]

Sir Etaipo 我是海外华侨，大马人

[@ulissesferreira849]

Great content! I’m Brazilian student, actually learn n4 kanji group. thanks for the hints and soon started english improvement.

[@user-uq3um5nq7d]

Chinese: After memorizing, it's easy to read, though it is hard to memorize at first Korean: Basically no Hanja/Hanzi/Kanji, only use Hangeul and have some spaces Meanwhile... Japanese: Why not both? Use Kanji AND Hiragana and Katakana to make it easier to read. Easier to read, right..?

[@lloydmeadors]

My Japanese wife says Kanji are necessary, and without kanji Japanese would be different, so she doesn't know. As a non native speaker, but constantly learning myself, I love puzzles, so I treat the kanji as a puzzle to be solved so it's fun for me

[@Blaqjaqshellaq]

I have a feeling that Japanese without kanji would be like black & white without color!

[@nm9864]

But then what's the point of having such complicated language ... if you like puzzles then just solve solve maths na ... English is much simpler and efficient therefore more practical ... if even Japanese native speakers can't figure out all of the kanji, why not just adopt a language that is more practical

[@soheylmoheb7273]

your videos about Japanese were amazing because I'd heard that there are multiple ways of writing Japanese but no one had actually taken the time to explain it in a way that it'd make sense. So great appreciations to you. ;-D

[@dingwanren]

As a mandarin speaker, I only learned basic Japanese grammar for about a month, then I found I was able to understand most Japanese text. Chinese youngsters, particularly born in 90s or after 2000, grew up with heaps of Japanese anime (Naruto, for example). I am an anime lover myself and become familiar with basic Japanese words' pronunciation. While understanding Kanji is easy for me, when I cannot directly make sense of a sentence, I read it out using hiragana pronunciation, which allows me to understand it from the view of spoken Japanese. This is super useful for those Chinese speakers who understand Kanji instantly but cannot perceive the grammatical structure (inflections) at the first glance. Although Kanji helps Chinese speakers to start learning Japanese easily, it quickly increases the difficulty as some Kanji characters are very different from their original Chinese characters and have different meanings as well. I didn't choose Korean as my third language just because Korea totally abandoned Chinese characters which make Korean characters extremely weird (new) to me. I wonder if Japanese speakers have the same feelings regarding learning Chinese and Korean.

[@sugar_tanaka]

I’m Japanese speaker. I studied Chinese a little, but pronunciation is almost different. So I think it is hard for Japanese to study Chinese. I think grammar of Chinese likes it of English, So I think studying Chinese is easy for English speaker (exception of letters)

[@zhou_kaw]

@Mahima Bhat 韩国人放弃了汉字（Chinese character）是非常错误的决定 韩国的古代史与现代韩国人断裂了 如果没有废除汉字，中日韩可以互通书信，尤其是中国和韩国

[@Pipipig948]

@Mahima Bhat Then your memory is incredible!

[@user-qd1qy8gx1f]

In terms of grammar, Korean language is the easiest for Japanese people.

[@samgyeopsal569]

I prefer to to read Hanja Hangul texts (國漢文混用) because it’s easier to understand than pure Hangul.

[@connorgibes709]

I've been studying Japanese for 3 years without making any real progress on kanji. In all that time, you're the first person to say "phonetic component" to me, and now I have a decent strategy to learn kanji. ありがとうございます！

[@usoppsama9431]

Please talk about languages of India, I love your videos so much

[@zerozzable]

+Usopp Sama Stop asking a mleccha to create and give narratives about Bharat. Haven't you learned yet from history and life-experience that they will only deliver their own biased version? Pathetic slavish mentality!

[@briandeschene8424]

Usopp Sama I recommend ignoring negative people like “A Bcde” who replied below. Such narrow minded, apparently bitter people can’t understand the joy that learning brings which you seem to. As a positive response to your request, please enjoy: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6Gze2eIp5JoibM kzbin.info/www/bejne/rKm2lWqmZs6SiqM kzbin.info/www/bejne/iaKuaIuOq8ucjtU

[@vesteel]

I never thought being a weeb was hard

[@wilklikesmilk5371]

You think this is hard 😂 it is pretty hard at first but if you can't understand what he's saying then please don't learn Japanese

[@subscribes6434]

Horny Aleks thats like saying only learning the english alphabet is necessary and that grammar, spelling etc isn't necessary. Thats how stupid you sound.

[@cocoapuff_x]

Horny Aleks Actually you have to learn Katakana too!

[@deltoroperdedor3166]

subscribes I doubt they can even be called human. Even mamal is a bit of an upgrade

[@RevJR]

Litten - You say that, but you missed quite a bit of punctuation. Just saying...

[@oofmate911]

I didn't realize how important kanji was until I was at a store one day, and these shoes had a tag that said たべません。It took me 30 seconds to realize it said 食べません。Now that I think about it, why did it have that warning about shoes?? 😂😂

[@marykong6683]

食 means food

[@mediumjohnsilver]

@@mattybrunolucaszeneresalas9072 In other words, Don't eat the shoes. 😋

[@hallaf3140]

That's so helpful thanks for your efforts, really!

[@IntelVoid]

I think of Kunyomi and Onyomi like English and Latin/Greek. The 'native' English words are usually the most commonly used, while most technical language or newly coined words use Latin elements. Like 'dog' vs. 'canine'. So having 2 or 3 different pronunciations for one 'word' is not really so foreign to English speakers.

[@user-pd6bd7ir4z]

thats basically it, yeah

[@catief1031]

Good point, never thought about it like that

[@noggenfogger1324]

IntelVoid Dont forget "hound"

[@rahuldhargalkar]

Thanks for sharing that perspective!

[@Russocass]

It's not really like that, imagine Spanish didn't have a writing system so they had to use English to write Spanish. One example would be writing "traidor"(traitor), as "try door". So, onyomi is using other pronunciation system to create words in another language.

[@cassiuscyparissus5567]

English actually uses Kanji as well. look at these words: through, though, trough, tough, thought, thorough.

[@MultiVigarista]

🤣😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@kyoumalee2675]

I guess he was talking about irregular spellings of English. When the spelling is not regular, it is not that good with an alphabet.

[@streetsmartdrumming9567]

😅😅😅😂😂😂

[@Dou_Y]

you are genius boiiii~~~

[@PainfulFateX]

I hate these words so much, they are unbelievable hard to pronounce....

[@siamakalaei1148]

Thank you so much for your explanation. Best wishes and also have a nice Dddday!

[@michaelperrigo]

THIS WAS SO HELPFUL, YOU SAVED THE DAY!

[@Ballacha]

as a native speaker and user (as in writing) of Wu & Mandarin Chinese, i find the multiple pronunciation of the same Kanji in Japanese most troublesome. also, to me it's immensely confusing and often takes me quite a while to find out if a Chinese character i'm about to write actually belongs in the Japanese Kanji vocabulary. this is funny because i heard when native speakers of English learn other Germanic/Romance languages (or other languages similar to English), they don't have the same problem I'm having right now.

[@Ramk0core]

Sounds like a different kind of "false friends". That's the closest thing I can think of that resembles that problem you have. Just in case, "False friends" are words that sound similar or even the same (And because of our alphabets, are also normally written similarly or the same) in different languages, but which have totally different meanings.

[@essennagerry]

As a native of a Slavic language, I actually do have that kind of a problem when I speak German - I often wonder if the word I'm about to use is a real German word or if I'm germanizing an Enlish word. :D

[@essennagerry]

German and English do have a lot of false freinds - words that, unknown to me how, evolved to be same or very similar, but mean different things. There are also German words that are modern, which people assume are English words - but aren't - such as Handy and Mobbing.

[@JoelFeila]

its not just European languages. the word "mtoto" is from Swahili but anybody that speaks English would be able to sound it out.

[@Ballacha]

Darko Milošević both my name and profile pic are a reference of a silly cartoon. pay them no mind. im currently living in Australia btw. if i go back to China for a visit, i'll just use vpn for youtube and stuff like everyone else.

[@osasunaitor]

Dragons on the move!!! Hahaha I seriously burst out laughing loudly when I watched that part. I never imagined that any language on Earth would have a single symbol to describe that "concept" XD

[@pauladriaanse]

It isn't really one single symbol is it? ;D

[@jwuhome]

So is the absurd numbering between 11 to 20 in English which is more complicated than they really need.

[@martintuma9974]

@@jwuhome Names for numbers 10^9 and higher are much more absurd.

[@AllisterSanchez]

@Langfocus, I went through a 6-months basic Japanese course in a Japanese university which was enough to give a motivated person like me to progress on my own with kanji. I learned most of the joyo kanji (about 2000 kanji) after a month of going to the library to study every day. It helped that my wife was pregnant and I needed to fill up all paperworks in Japanese -- you learn something when you really need it. :) That said, I agree that I prefer to use kanji as it makes reading (and understanding Japanese text) A LOT faster, like when they are flashed quickly on TV. In comparison, it takes me more time to parse a sentence using alphabet letters or other phonetic symbols like the Korean hangeul.

[@futurevision2317]

Excellent video. This is the first time that I learned details of the writing Kanji in Japanese.

[@pennyfish89]

since i am chinese, chinese language is my mother tounge. So, while learning Japanese language, i have no issue understanding the meaning of kanji. Although, sometimes there are some words with different meaning from chinese. However, the challege is reading them, especially the Kunyomi type of kanji. we have to learn it all over again to memorize like everybody else. what interesting is, a friend of mine, he is a mongolian he can read more kanji than me. it is because he has no basics on kanji, so he had to check dictionary all the time when he encountered kanji, actually it makes him remember them easier. While, since i have basics on kanji, i can guess the meaning of the word, [why bother to use dictionary while i know the meaning already]. Thus, this is one of the challenge where chinese people learning japanese. Thanks for the video, this is an interesting video! Bravo

[@user-kn6vg8dg9v]

pennyfish89 不会啊，我学日文训度很快就记住了，是不是我记忆力比较好

[@charlottez7989]

我对汉字的读音都没什么问题，我记不住的是平假名😅

[@xalibretion]

Charles Spain 我记不住片假名

[@claudiorskjr]

OK Paul, great video at all. 10/10! I love when you make videos about Japanese language, because I became used to listening to you in your general languages videos, and I like how you explain things; also, the images on the video help a lot. You should consider making a Japanese course. About the question for learners of Japanese: I guess dealing with kanji ain't that much hard or difficult. Of course they're complex, but isn't every language complex and peculiar? This is just a part of the game. Also, some kanjis make it shorter for reading and writing, since they take a lot of letters and make it in a "combo" (yes, I see kanjis like some reward in a game). Dealing with them isn't that hard. I guess the bigger problem is just trying desperately to assimilate a kanji's drawing with multiple readings, and not being able to actually use it in the real japanese. Most of the big deal about readings is solved when you actually learn kanjis using vocabulary and words applied in sentences, because you get to naturally assimilate a kanji's reading with how it sounds in the sentence. It's exactly like how we, westerns, learn how to "read" emojis through assimilating their meaning with our mental reading in sentences, like when you see a :) and instantly knows it's a smile. Same applies for 人, 食, 愛 and stuff. By the way, I've been using RTK's method with SRS system to learn kanjis. It has been working with me, since I also learn words with kanjis, and the sounds are becoming naturally familiar in my head. Side note: kanjis are beautiful. Do not let them go away. Cheers!

[@JohnHenrySheridan]

Great explanation!

[@4aridmax]

Learner here. Kanji at first seemed daunting, but I started by learning the rules and learning some kanji with less that 7 or 5 strokes. That went into overdrive when I got an app that organised kanji by their complexity and number of strokes. So now when ever I come across a new one I can at least break it down to the best of my abilities and rewrite it with relative ease. You are right Paul, treating it like a puzzle is excellent motivation.

[@christopherthr]

Japanese learner here. I don’t understand the approach that almost every Japanese course takes of trying to teach students individual kanji. If you try to learn a kanji, you run into all the complexities you described, such as trying to lean all the different possible meanings and pronunciations. However, people don’t speak or write in kanji, they speak and write in words and sentences, which are really only written a single correct way (or two correct ways, one with kanji one without). I think it’s much more sensible to focus on simply learning words, and a part of learning each new vocabulary word is learning how to write it in kanji, if the relevant kanji is a jōyō kanji. 水 isn’t always “mizu”, but “mizu” is always 水, so better that the student learns the unambiguous part instead of the ambiguous and complex part - “If I want to write ‘water’, I write ‘水’.” And over time, you’ll still develop the kanji lexicon that allows you to guess meanings and pronunciations of unfamiliar kanji.

[@alexyuu952]

christopherthr you are so right!

[@maeldnt]

True, First learn 水 mizu / water, then composed words as - 水分 suibun / humidity ... then you get the on'yomi is generally sui. And they are few exception ... It is like if in english 水 = Water, and on'yomi = Hydro or Aqua. I just don't know how to know when I use On'yomi or Kun'yomi, the best is to learn combination directly from the words you learn, and single Kanji appart.

[@odradek5571]

I am a native Korean. Nowadays, we Koreans do not use Chinese Characters in everday life, but we learn how to read and write Chinese Characters at school. I hardly speak and read Japanese, but I can understand roughly some Japanese writings although I cannot pronounce them, because I know the meanings of Kanji.

[@adrianunderwood5573]

Im currently working on learning radicals and kanji. Although its very difficult for me at the moment I really enjoy writing them out, it helps me keep myself motivated. Just wish I could remember them a bit quicker.

[@supermario469]

This is the best explanation of Kanji I have ever seen. As a new learner this video just cleared so much of the fog.

[@geoffk777]

You left out a very important detail--namely that kanji don't usually stand alone. Most of the time, kanjis are read as two character "words". And even knowing the individual kanji wouldn't allow you to guess either the meaning or sound of the word. For example: 社会 "Shakai" means "culture" whereas, the same two characters, reversed: 会社 "Kaisha" means "Corporation". The reading of the character depends on the two character word. For example, 人 (hito/jin/nin, "person") can be 外人（Gaijin, Foreigner), 恋人 (koibito, lover), 人々 (hitobito, people), 犯人 (hannin, criminal), etc. So it's not enough to study individual kanjis. You have to study all of the common words that they appear in and learn the readings and meanings for each word. And names are especially bad. My daughter's name is Erica, but the first character of her name 衣 is most often read as "i" (not "E"). Her last name starts with 久 which is often "ku", but she reads it as "hisa". My nephew is named Motohiro, spelled as 心広. Even Japanese often need to have names written in kana to pronounce them properly.

[@VenomBurger]

I mean he touched on the fact that things are read differently when not on their own 破片・はへん and 片道・かたみち and touched up on using Kanji for verbs like 生きる; but yeah he didn't explicitly mention them.

[@MatsubaAgeha]

社会 "Shakai" is "society", not "culture".

[@geoffk777]

@@MatsubaAgeha That's true. I don't know why I wrote that wrong. Moshiwake gozaimasen

[@angelmendez-rivera351]

geoffk777 That is why, although I do acknowledge the merits of kanji in increasing the semantic readability of sentences, I think this simply does not sufficiently compensate for the number of difficulties and even impractical scenarios they can cause. There were plenty of things the video didn't really mention about kanji either.

[@ThePhreakass]

I am curious. How are Kanji assigned to people when naming them? I always thought they ignore readings that exist and just take Kanji that they thought were cool

[@maeldnt]

@Langfocus Kanji/ Hanja/ Hanzi is the subject of my Master thesis this year. I'm passionated about Ideograms since a long time. As you say they are mysterious signs composed as rebus there is to decrypt. I'm studying the links between (Asian) Cinema's pictures and Sinograms because, in a sense, both are a pictorial writing system. If you handle with Kanji, you most understand that back in time, in traditional societies, Asian developed a totally different apprehension of thinking and spirituality. Westerners are focused on the meaning of the words, the spelling, the etymology ... We think "in line", that permits us to play with the words, to make poetry, metaphor, because words are structures. When Chineses created Hanzi, they don't tried to fix words but concept you can pronounce the way you want ( according your regional idiom ). It is deeply connected to their spirituality, each sign open a large spectrum of interpretations, nothing is fixed. before all there are songs related to a draw, that seems to tell us a story. the poetry is mainly visual, it's like an apparition ( Haiku ) then Calligraphy is a support for the thinking and conceptualization. As in perception, our mind produce a web of images we connect. As in a film. It is difficult to explain, but Asian culture feature a totally different way of thinking far from western's logic. I think this is why Kanji remain an important part of Japanese culture, beside practical aspect, it is the base of their "associative, pictured and conceptual" mind ( As far as Asia wouldn't be influenced by globalization of course ). I hope Paul would be interested by my comment. Thank you for your work, it would help me to explain the way Kanji works to my teachers :)

[@fat1fared]

This sounds fascinating research. :) Whilst I stay away from spirituality comparisons myself, I do think in terms of the way Europeans use language to understand the world as compared to East Asians, what you say is true. When I am trying to help my classmates understand characters, I also explain to them that they need to let go of the European notion that everything is defined through a word/definition and look at characters not as representations of individual words, but as representations of concepts. It is reflected in the way we often approach academic research. Europeans love to define, label and list everything (myself included). I would not say either approach is better or worse, but it is a fascinating thing, and I certainly feel I gained a boarder understanding of the world now I can use Mandarin to express my thoughts about it, as well as English. One of the strangest moments of my life was when I realised that there things about the world which I feel I can only explain in Mandarin (and I could not explain in my mother tongue of English).

[@maeldnt]

Thank you for your comments :) that reassures me haha, sometime I'm lost in my researches. That the point about learning foreign languages, fixing limits between notions is arbitrary, it is interesting to see the shift in these notions in various culture, that build the way of thinking. I like the idea of the dimensions ! I'll go further. I'm French, in my native language there are gender for each word. For sure it enforces non-neutrality... but in a way, I think it is also interesting because we have a representation of each thing as an allegory. then "Lady" Une chaise ( a chair ) is feminine and seems more delicately designed and precious than Mr. stool "un tabouret" which is masculine, and seems more raw and archaic.

[@bjb0808]

Excellent video. I've lived in Japan 37 years and learned things!

[@CCumva]

Actually, I enjoy reading Kanji a lot. It's like graphic novels found the way to draw some of the context instead of writing, which enriched the reading with style, mood, nuances and unsaid details, the same with kanji. They're not read as pictures in comic books, ofc, but they carry much more than just pronounciation and a single meaning. SRS makes this part of Japanese a breath. Grammar and listening is much more challenging though.

[@Patrick-oc1vq]

Even though kanji is a challenge for learners of Japanese or Chinese, I have to admit that it indeed is an ingenious writing system. With which you can skim a one-page-long text in 5 seconds and understand its core topic/meaning.

[@user-hj1dc2wp7v]

I used to think the same, but I read a research about reading speeds in many different languages and there wasn't any correlation between information density and reading speed. The "bottleneck" so to say seems to be in the semantic processing part of the brain. It's a good system to save ink and paper anyways.

[@user-hj1dc2wp7v]

The same goes for spoken languages. Chinese and Japanese can be spoken just about fast, despite Japanese words being way longer than their Chinese equivalents. Japanese speakers say more syllabes per minute, to reach the same density of words.

[@pelgervampireduck]

it's obfuscated, too complicated, twisted, not efficient, it's horrible. I wish I could learn japanese, I love the culture, one day I want to travel to japan as a tourist, but the language is almost impossible to read or write.

[@the_number_one]

@@pelgervampireduck Haha.. who are you kidding except yourself? Learn just 6 kanji per day. Take five minutes for each. Comes to 30 a day. 6*350 = 2100 ja nai ka. Within a year, you can finish and have 15 days to revise! 2100/15 = 140 a day practicing will take 11.5 hours a day for the remaining 15 days. You can do it for sure. Using SRS, spaced repetitive system, it will be even easier. You can do the same every day without repeating to revise the easy kanji

[@the_number_one]

@@user-hj1dc2wp7v she is talking about the core topic!! Not the message! It helps in large notice boards where huge crowds gathered to look for interesting announcements, not a town hall meeting like in the west

[@Nobody-me7wu]

Chinese is my mother tongue, and I also speak Japanese. This video is very informative and accurate, thank you , Paul.

[@mimikyi7686]

this video helps me my confusion of searching kanji pronunciation & trying several ways to remember Kanji

[@Ellisepha]

I started learning Japanese with Duolingo, but quickly also ordered some textbooks to help me learn. Duo is usefull as a learning aide, but with a language like Japanese that is so vastly different from my mother tongue of German, you really need an actual guidebook. Also I always forget how most of the Kanji I already know are written after a few days, but once I learned about the kaligraphy behind them, I was fascinated by them and wanted to learn more. It's still hard, but it's also a lot of fun!