Why Japanese Kanji Suck

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[@adult456zig]

As a Chinese learner this was really satisfying to watch. Thanks

[@alexfriedman2047]

I'm a Korean learner and I felt the same way. So glad Korean is not like this.

[@GeneralAeon]

I'm learning Mandarin and heck-- it's so hard. 3.5k characters is so annoying to even think about.

[@alexfriedman2047]

@@GeneralAeon Yeah but Japanese is way worse I think. They have multiple readings for every character. I think the characters themselves are easy to memorize. What messes me up with Chinese are the tones. Korean has long vowells and short vowells, and pitch kind of like Japanese but not nearly as much as Japanese. It's only for certain homophones or hononyms. So tones is the hardest thing I think for me. Like 5 differnt ways of saying a word that could mean differnt things??? Or is it 4? I dont remember. isn't it 4 but there's a nuetral tone? O well. I think tones is the hard part, not the characters. So I think you can not worry so much about the characters. They are honestly not that hard. I never really tried to learn them and I know like 200 of them lol.

[@pefwtismenos]

Must be nice...

[@gene4326]

Same

[@sanzhixin]

I’m Japanese and knowing the Chinese stroke of 必 is quite eye opening. It has brought so much meaning suddenly!

[@velienne1319]

@@FrozenSteelLP Not japanese but guessing, Japanese people learn kanji roughly and don't question the way they look like western people learn alphabet. I'm guessing 必 wasn't obvious that it was a crossed out 心 due to the weird stroke order

[@田中之夢]

The forms of 必 and 心 were originally unrelated though。

[@bv83x]

is that the kanji for heart?

[@和蘭芹かりかり]

@@bv83x The kanji for heart is 心, it has 4 strokes. 必 is a different kanji, has 5 strokes.

[@w花b]

​@@和蘭芹かりかり heart kanji -> heart Crossed heart kanji -> heartless I fixed japanese, don't thank me

[@mattvsjapan]

Turns out that there is a "reason" why the fonts aren't adjusted to gain internal consistency. It goes something like this: "simplifying kanji was a mistake... but it's too late to un-simplify the kanji that we already butchered. Let's at least not fuck up all the remaining original kanji...."

[@mueezadam8438]

oh wow, what source did you get it from?

[@mattvsjapan]

japanese wikipedia

[@AkasakaS2000]

As a Chinese, I agree that simplifying the kanji is a mistake XD

[@kingzao9046]

@@AkasakaS2000 Why though ? I think simplified hanzi is ok. Sometimes, it's really hard for no real reason ...

[@AkasakaS2000]

@@kingzao9046 Yes or no. You have seen the video right? If it is simplified in such a way that does not affect the build up of the word itself, then ok. Not if otherwise.

[@TheOneReesy]

So thats why that radical sometimes has 2 drops and sometimes 1, that was really bothering me. I notice some online fonts ignore the second drop anyway!

[@CrimsonDX]

This sounds like the same crap English went through when printers and publishers started "standardizing" English way back when. Things like changing spellings without updating pronunciation or vice versa.

[@amjan]

LOL, you cannot "update" pronunciation.

[@1MarkKeller]

@@amjan toe-may-toe toe-mah-toe

[@CrimsonDX]

@@amjan en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

[@ASquidWithC4]

@@amjan Of course you can, it has happened multiple times already.

[@ADeeSHUPA]

@@ASquidWithC4 uP

[@solarrain1176]

Some mistakes： 1.常用漢字表 is created in 1923，which means its creation has nothing to do with America. 2.Japan had created their simplified kanji before China did. China adopted many simplified kanji when they were creating their own simplified hanzi.

[@XianWangTheo]

finally someone pointed it out even the simplified of chinese are peek from the simplified kanji

[@worldhd1652]

You should be aware that most of the simplified Chinese characters were created thousands of years ago by lazy calligraphers in China. It's fine to be uninformed, but it's not acceptable to be ignorant.

[@solarrain1176]

Yes, the simplified kanji were derived from lazy calligraphers that people had been using in their daily lives, but they were not only derived from daily writings of the Chinese people, many of them were derived from the Japanese people’s own daily writing. Anyway, this has nothing to do with what I said. In my first comment, I stated that Japan promoted these shorthand forms to become standard characters before China did, and when China was creating its own simplified characters, it indeed took reference from Japan’s new standard characters, and even adopted many Japan’s new standard characters.It's fine to have a disscussion, but there is no need for personal attacks. @@worldhd1652

[@ericj9011]

Seems like Japan was already working on script reform, but America further promoted it after World War II and wanted to abolish kanji. Really interesting video!

[@peacemaster8117]

@@ericj9011 Abolishing kanji would've been the best thing to come out of WW2.

[@Brettah31]

I learned Chinese before Japanese. It's doing my head in being told I'm wrong all the time by my Japanese teachers and colleagues and friends. They can never explain why. I was actually pretty sure it's more the case that their entire system is wrong and inconsistent rather than me being wrong. This helped put things into context. I think imma stick to the Chinese stroke order from now on.

[@burnthewitch32]

原因就是漢字傳到日本時已經是1000年前的事了，在這之間日文漢字與中文漢字產生了分歧，所以沒有誰對誰錯

[@thechikuwa284]

The unified stroke order for Kanji was invented by Japanese govt. in the 1800s. Kanji characters were once written freely in any stroke order in China, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. Chinese govt. learned from Japan and decided on their own official stroke order.

[@hayabusa1329]

Chinese Characters only suit Chinese languages

[@Nightmare2.03]

⁠@@thechikuwa284Would you mind sharing your sources? I’m just curious since most sources I found either said that Japanese stroke order was established in 1900s after China or that Japanese stroke order was established after ancient China.

[@thechikuwa284]

@@Nightmare2.03 Japanese source is the Ministry of Education. China also has various schools of calligraphy, each of which used to have a different stroke order. Even today, there’re regional differences in stroke order, and differences between 楷书 and 行书, and the latest standard was updated in April 1997.

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

as someone who speaks both mandarin and japanese 10000% agree

[@44i80]

How did you do to learn both? Could sumarise your experience? Did you travel to Asia to learn???

[@farahtheegreat1605]

@@44i80 ^^^

[@matteosun2875]

@@44i80 he probably followed ajatt/refold for both

[@gayusschwulius8490]

I know HSK4-level Mandarin and right now, I'm trying to get into Japanese, and kanjis are such a hassle. Seriously, if they had to simplify the characters, why didn't they at least use the same simplifications as China? Argh. I think I could read 50% of Japanese writing already if it wasn't for this weird simplification.

[@enzokyrosblanca6320]

how

[@joyfulnoise3621]

Oh my goodness!!! Thank you. No one in my 10 plus years of pursuing japanese even mentioned this.

[@uchuuseijin]

And of course Japanese people use the traditional and simplified forms interchangeably in some contexts. At a park in my neighborhood, the name of a local University is printed as 駒澤大學、駒沢大学、駒沢大學、and 駒澤大学 on signs within about 100 yards of each other. And then of course there are Simplified Chinese translations on some of the signs which read 驹泽大学 as well

[@KenTails]

That reminds me of something similar I saw, when I was at a big train station in Osaka, I saw something like "Osaka-jo Park" and "Osaka Castle" on the same sign (it wasn't listing romaji spellings as well as English named or anything like that, it was just inconsistent). Spelling inconsistency on signs in Japan isn't limited to one language it seems. lol

[@dkwhattouseasusername1012]

Tbh as someone who learnt traditional Chinese but not simplified Chinese, it's not that hard to differentiate but perhaps it's different for Kanji?

[@JanusXX]

How do you function in a place like this?

[@danielantony1882]

@@dkwhattouseasusername1012Nah, it's just people whining about hardship.

[@parasitius]

I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting this video to be that good. Having studied Jp and Chinese both, I didn't really find it the biggest deal to memorize variations. It didn't bother me. But, holy shit, you're pretty right. Regardless- it doesn't aggravate me and I can live with them just fine AS IS. There is however a much bigger problem in my mind, for any learner. You can't find a g**damn reference book that specifically says "here is the OLD Japanese printed form, here is a PRINTED form today, here is how it is written TODAY, here is how it is handwritten in China". So eventually you get screwed over because you start writing it one way because that's how it showed up on your computer, but then you realize your computer was sucking a dick and used the Chinese font instead of the Japanese font due to whatever complex code page reason, or it was showing a rendering which you'd only do in print but not actually hand write. And no matter how much time passes, without just a CLEAR REFERENCE BOOK that is definitive to provide this info - I'll never be able to get it straight. That really makes me angry!! I'm here ready to put in the learning effort and there is just no SINGLE dependable source I can go through to get clarity on all the details. BTW it was a shock getting to Japan and going to my first "Kanji" class getting told how everything I was writing was "wrong" (and they didn't care if it was Chinese or what it was just wrong).. for example the character the character for the word TEA ...yes it is subtly different between PRC and Japan

[@harry.tallbelt6707]

I spent the last hour in a rabbithole of trying to understand why 辻 has two dots, but 道 and a bunch of other kanji with this radical only have one, and why the handwritten-style stroke order picture of 辻 I have has one dot once again. This explained everything, thank you so much 🙏

[@elizakeating8415]

Simplified Chinese has a similar issue with inconsistency as Japanese, as simplification was planned to be rolled out in two waves, but by the time the second wave was ready, they had already solved the illiteracy problem and people weren't receptive to further simplification. Like the 攪拌 issue you mention, one that I've spotted in Chinese is how the very common word 讓 rang4* (to allow) was simplified into 让 in the first wave, but less common characters like 壤 rang3 (soil) and 嚷 rang3 (to shout) were not. As a learner of traditional Chinese, if I were to encounter one of the latter characters while reading, I could easily guess how it's read and look it up, and would also not struggle to handwrite it, as I'm used to writing the complex phonetic component. On the other hand, a learner of simplified Chinese could learn to write 让 much more easily, but would then face a higher barrier when encountering 壤 or 嚷, due to the inconsistent simplification. *pronunciations given in Mandarin Chinese

[@DASmallWorlds]

Don't forget about those still in China who dare to still use them and those overseas who still use them! There's also a small group of people in Japan who still use the traditional kanji.@@LazarusBell

[@maxis2k]

"But oh wait, what's this?" Two Dot Zorro Road. Not to be confused with One Dot Zorro Avenue.

[@JerDrey05]

Underrated comment

[@LawrenceAaronLuther]

Funny you pick 必, I love the Japanese stroke order, has a nice back n forth feel to it

[@Toumakawa]

I always wrote it with the chinese stroke order without ever knowing until now 草草

[@luizemanoel2588]

I learned the japanese way because of RTK but it don't make sense, turns difficult. Before that I always thought it was the same as 心 but with an extra stroke, that makes sense more sense.

[@dontworryhouston]

@@luizemanoel2588 funnily enough it was the opposite for me. I'd gotten so used to the up-down, left-right, center-sides japanese way of writing 必 seemed more natural and pretty than 心. I think I just believed 心 stroke order would be the same as ふ as they were so similar

[@albatross1688]

Ah Kanji. Can't live with it, can't live without it. I legit learned why Japanese doesn't just drop Kanji when trying to look up the meaning of words in Hiragana. Apparently, the Japanese language has so many cases of phonetic ambiguity that looking up a word is so much easier if you also have the corresponding Kanji. I do appreciate Furigana though. Screw text that doesn't have that. That's basically an admission that I may never be able to play games in Japanese.

[@albatross1688]

@@christianneabella1340 Yeah, that's where having the kanji really helps with reading. That doesn't really help when it comes to speaking though. I guess that's why speech has different intonation, as that probably helps differentiate which words are being used in lieu of written clues.

[@based9930]

The solution to that is to add new sounds and stop repeating the same 15 sounds. German is equally stupid in how it just combines a bunch of words into one instead of making a new word for that thing. Like 50% of kanji readings are sho, ku, ji, ju, ko, shi. It's absurd.

[@mrkiky]

@@based9930 Yep, way too many things sounds the same in Japanese, or differ only through pitch accent which is fully lost in writing. If you write in hiragana only, even the Japanese get confused as to what it means sometimes. The kanji is basically drawing a picture of what it means 😂 I feel like Japanese is the opposite of German though. If German combines words instead of making new ones, Japanese makes new ones for the same thing when they're combined, well, at least phonetically. As if kanji aren't hard enough, they have to have multiple completely different pronunciations as well, depending on the usage.

[@niwa_s]

@@based9930 The combined word IS the new word, though. I don't see how that has anything to do with homophones, either...

[@MA-ck4wu]

Not just that. I don't understand why no one ever mentions the kanji compounds (jukugo 熟語). They would be a nightmare to read in hiragana alone, as the individual parts would be impossible to guess unless you were familiar with the compound. Example: だいとうきょうかさいかいじょうほけん. It's not impossible to find out that it's ''大東京火災海上保険'' but it would take some headaches, especially when the hiragana is surrounded by OTHER hiragana particles and verb inflections.

[@hexwolfi]

Japan: YOU'RE USING THE WRONG STROKE ORDER OMG Me, using Chinese stroke order and simplifying radicals that aren't supposed to be simplified: Lol get rekt

[@vaylard9474]

I decided fuck it and just started using the "official standard forms", and that is, all the kanji that were added to the list before 2010 are simplified and all the kanji that were added in 2010 or never are written to match their traditional printed forms e.g. the right-hand side of 錆 is 靑, not 青. I also ditched the 20-something characters of 慣用簡易字体表 and write them traditionally as well. So e.g. not 蝋燭 but 蠟燭, not 掻く but 搔く. Next I want to get rid of all the retarded kanji substitutions like 諳記 -> 暗記, 掠奪 -> 略奪.

[@bioniclegoblin6495]

@@vaylard9474 Are you Japanese or a learner? Do Japanese people really differentiate between 靑 and 青?!

[@vaylard9474]

@@bioniclegoblin6495 A learner. And yes, they differentiate between them. One is the 新字体 of 青, the other is its 旧字体.

[@bioniclegoblin6495]

​@@vaylard9474 Sorry, I meant: do Japanese people actually distinguish 靑 and 青 in handwriting? (Since that seems to be what you were talking about) I can tell the difference, of course, but handwriting the 靑 differently to 青 would seem rather strange to me. Then again, (as a Chinese and Korean learner) I'm used to seeing 靑 and 青 as one and the same character in different fonts -- much like "a" vs. "α", or the two g's in Latin. I wouldn't think of writing them differently. I definitely agree with you on the 諳記/掠奪 business, btw.

[@vaylard9474]

@@bioniclegoblin6495 Yes, they are different. After WW2 written and printed forms were mostly unified, they look the same except for minor differences, notably in characters that contain 令 or 言. The 常用漢字 standard is kind of a hot mess prescribing what originally was printed forms for some kanji, written forms for others, new simplified forms for still others. Kanji that are not in the list are written exactly as they used to be printed before unification except for 令 and 言 by themselves or as radicals (or at least I've never seen any other exceptions). That means 飢饉 do **not** have the same left-hand side in print or in writing, 辿 has **two** dots, not one, and writing 錆 with a 青 is only "acceptable", not standard.

[@Yutaro-Yoshii]

As a Japanese, I am now disgusted by our own writing system. That partial update brings me back to those quick and dirty bugfix tickets on Jira that now we have to live with as features.

[@Thecognoscenti_1]

Me, a Chinese person looking at simplified characters and kanji: "Look how they massacred my boy..." 😢

[@Daniel-vd4uy]

Sheeeeeeeeesh you know English and Japanese? Color me impressed

[@_jp_0966]

Oversimplified logos but it's a writing system

[@田中之夢]

eyes bleed T-T

[@MaoRatto]

That is how I feel about about government language/common language Han.

[@aaronleung8809]

Simplified Chinese butchered Chinese anyway

[@xtricman]

Simplified Chinese also has strange font, exact same weirdness. But native users like me are just fine with it.

[@aetheno]

I am a non-native Chinese speaker. While I agree about the awful simplification logic (same goes for Chinese simplification), I was really suprised to see noone in the comments section talking about your questioning of why Japanese people are so attached to stroke order. The reason why 必 is written the way it is in Japanese is because it preserves the earlier way of writing the character by famous calligraphers such as 王羲之. Many Chinese people praise Japan for its fantastic efforts to pass down the 'original' way to write certain characters, lest they give in to change and lose the 'beauty' of the characters and calligraphy. Characters like 必 and 棄 are just two examples of this, and with there being so many more I can definitely understand why students get frustrated, but it is at least important to know why it is this way, its not just arbitrary.

[@princessthyemis]

Wow that is very interesting! I'm kind of surprised that he didn't mention that. Thanks!

[@a.thales7641]

Interesting too!

[@haha-eg8fj]

Wait, how do they know how 王羲之 write? No one who lives in this era ever watch how he wrote.

[@MRender32]

I dunno, still arbitrary isn’t it? Keeping things the same?

[@retroanim]

The only thing we need from a writing system is convenience, and there's elegance in convenience. That's something I appreciate about Japanese grammar: lot of nuances but very few exceptions.

[@imrukiitoaoffire1908]

Meanwhile, over here in the land of the Latin script, you're just somewhat expected to write a character a prescribed way, but if you don't it's fine just as so long as the letter is distinguishable.

[@robinthestate6548]

For real lol like if people that were latin speakers had to learn kanji by force we'll be like f*** this crap I'll be illiterate. People that use this alphabet can write so different that it's crazy. Probably why there are so many fonts.

[@vanilla8956]

I only figured out i've been writing my letters wrong because I got Brain Age and it couldn't recognize my stroke order because I always wright from bottom to top. I'm native english lol

[@based9930]

@@vanilla8956 something is wrong with your brain

[@vanilla8956]

@@based9930 I was edgy in kindergarten and refused to listen to the teacher tell me to write top to bottom, I was so persistent with this rebellion that she had no choice but to just give up

[@based9930]

@@vanilla8956 rebellion for its own sake is stupid

[@raysquingini5814]

1:19 China didn’t implement Simplified Characters until after Japan. Around 1956-Mid 60s is when it happened over there, although simplified forms in each country have been used for a very long time.

[@latsatmiqk2391]

He actually does have a point, what many people don't know is that Simplified Chinese characters were actually first codified by the Republic of China government back in the 1910s-1920s. It's just that the PRC was the regime that officially promoted and implemented the simplification scheme later on.

[@ElinaNoodles]

In Chinese, we typically write the stroke order in a way so that it can flow naturally as we write out a sentence. Left to right, top to bottom. Even tho I'm learning Japanese, I didn't realise they had different stroke orders for their kanji, I just instinctively wrote the characters in the same way as how I'd typically write the same character in Chinese. Who's going to be checking your stroke order outside of classes anyway?

[@KenTails]

I gotta say, (as one single Japanese native) I don't remember seeing 艱難 in modern literature (not that I read a lot), and certainly not in every day writings of ordinary people including especially blpgs, twitter, etc. Maybe I just forgot about it, maybe it jsu the happened that I didn't come across the word, but I usually see 困難 (kon'nan) used instead, and I myself do so. I can think of many instances where the same word with same pronunciation has multiple kanji spelling though, and there's also this instance where homophone (words with same pronunciation) with similar kanji spellings have slightly different meanings, which is hella confusing.

[@Phantom_madman]

you even made this one awesome, now all we need is meditation part 2 LOL

[@mattimus13]

Phantom Madman no joke, Matt your two videos on the pitfalls of AJATT and the benefits of meditation are absolute gold

[@mavhamm4147]

@@mattimus13 what is the name of his video on meditation?

[@AndersonCrush]

I am currently learning japanese for 2 months, and what you said makes a lot of sense! A few radicals and drawings seem completely different for literaly no reason, and sometimes the stroke order is really counterintuitive. This will not slow down on unmotivate me to learn japanese, but it is really interesting that the JP Kanjis are simplified and now they can't go back to an older system. And THAT THEY ALWAYS DO STUFF BY THE TEXTBOOK EVEN THOUGH IT MIGHT BE WRONG!! It feels like Jouyou Kanji are Kanji for babies.

[@ChristianJiang]

I don’t think China simplified their characters before Japan did… There were plans to do it but 简体字 (simplified Chinese) came into effect after the Japanese simplifications had been introduced!

[@haha-eg8fj]

Exactly. I totally agree with you. As a native Chinese speaker, reading and writing simplified and traditional kanji is just natural for me. But the Japanese kanji system is such a mess. I remember a Japanese coworker once told me my stroke order for a character was wrong. I was very surprised, but I soon realized their way of writing a character could be somehow misconducted. I said nothing but just gave her a poker face.

[@crossthreaded6867]

Imperialism is a hell of a drug

[@annikavestergaard9810]

I started using the RRTK anki deck a month ago and i thought i was finally starting to understand Japanese, turns out i was fooled once more.

[@supersonicsaga]

Lol

[@baronvonbeandip]

I'm excited to eventually have that conversation about why I exclusively use Chinese stroke order and *will always* use Chinese stroke order.

[@ZhangtheGreat]

I can't confirm if this is true or not, but supposedly, when the PRC and Japan were normalizing relations, Deng Xiaoping proposed that the two countries unify their characters. Had this been true, it definitely didn't get very far off the ground for obvious reasons, but man, could you imagine if it succeeded? There would be far fewer headaches going from Chinese to Japanese and vice-versa.

[@electricdreamer]

Imagine Japanese teachers telling Chinese students who are studying Japanese to write Kanji the way Japanese would write but only to find out they've been doing it all wrong.

[@kougamishinya6566]

Just noticed you drew 必 a tiny bit wrong for the Chinese stroke order. Its almost 心 with ノ through it. But actually its 心 minus the dot at the end, ノ and then the final dot. Still pretty logical as it goes left to right in sequence

[@fordring3306]

as I Chinese it is a fun that even we haven't learn any other form of it, we can still read it. for example the example given in the video 艰难 is a the simplified Chinese version of it but I can definitely understand 艱難 . It's like giving you a blue apple you still know that is an apple not a banana

[@bedri1]

Ah yes I can understand the meaning of ⬜⬜ On the small display of my phone 🤗

[@danielantony1882]

@@bedri1 Nice 冗談.

[@tiasm919]

As someone who used to learn chinese and now learning japanese, judge me all you want, i'm staying with the chinese stroke order i learnt. I just feel so much natural and smooth for my hand to slide and glide (i'm talking about the general stroke order & position which is generally top down, left right)

[@sournois90]

[judges you]

[@Ariaa76]

i feel like its people who spent so much time learning it then figuring out ohhh wait shit could've been much easier x)) like im persian and our haksare is equally stupid, one word looks the same but can have 3 diff. pronouncations and meanings. you gotta simplify it man, makes no sense it only adds confusion, doesn't provide anything nor does it even help. see kurdish for example, how much easier it is to read and write in arabic script and while in latin. all these people in the comments be coping and give historical reasons or whatever but it doesn't change shit.

[@KMGJW]

Same here, one thing I cannot stand about shinjitai is the fact that they remove the 钩 in some words, so words like 新 look a little bit different cos that last stroke is missing。 And I don't care if my jap teacher marks me wrong cos it just feels so natural

[@burnthewitch32]

我很訝異日本人對漢字的執著。 在台灣如果不是寫書法，沒有人在乎你的筆劃。 但如果你真正去了解書法，確實在每個時代，文字的寫法跟筆劃都不盡相同。

[@ILuvLiv]

请您一定要以繁体字为傲，新马政府在教育我的年代的时候已经灌输残体字，所以对于繁体字我虽然是看得懂，但是写起来真的很吃力，还是得逼自己去联系习字.@@burnthewitch32

[@Gabriel-mf7wh]

Actually, in the stroke order of 必 in chinese, the line that crosses "kokoro" comes before the last stroke

[@mattvsjapan]

oops, you're right!

[@bioniclegoblin6495]

@@mattvsjapan The stroke order of 必 actually varies from place to place - in mainland China, it's 丶ㄴ丶丿丶，as Gabriel said, whereas in Honkong and Taiwan, your way of writing it is the "standard" form. wikiwand.com/zh-sg/筆順 showcases (at least some) of these differences, as well as where they are used. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y6GrmZVql86Fb80 does a pretty good job of explaining it as well, imo.

[@Azy-Al]

Good thing I watched this video, as I was doing an Anki deck for a couple of days now I noticed some weird radicals (or primitives as Heisig likes to say it) looks unknown and almost cannot be seen from the radical lists. I wish they could freaking fix their Kanji man-- That irony tho 😂😂😂👌👍

[@1manbandkpop]

As a Chinese Singaporean, I'm amazed by your Chinese writing-streetsmart (it is true that when you follow the stroke order, your words look like calligraphy - In Chinese its better and more respected to make it look like how the ancients wrote it.) and Japanese kanji memorization. It also makes me understand why during my visit to Japan, 森 means forest, but in Chinese it means deep.

[@petergriffinhentai4724]

森 (sēn/もり) has always been forest, deep is 深 (shēn/ふか) in both languages

[@1manbandkpop]

@@petergriffinhentai4724 Omg. You're right. How's your Chinese better than me!

[@MrApaHotel]

I hate that the saber and the flesh primitives (according to RTK) in 輸 , 喩 , 前 and 煎 are so mixed up . UPDATE: Now I have bought the RTK 6th edition book and I see that the 4 Kanjis use the same radicals for flesh and saber (#307,#308,#309,#310). It was my anki deck that was screwed up.

[@Horfenico]

I don't really see how you can mix those two up tbh lol.

[@leezhieng]

First time see the 喩 word, I use 喻 (in chinese)

[@robinthestate6548]

I just read all the comments here. It's mostly people learning it being like exactly!!!! Japanese people being like yeah it is weird and some people saying it's like an art😍. It's not suppose to be art it's suppose to be writing 🤷🏻‍♂️ that's why they are trying to fix it without changing into a new alphabet. Because lots of japanese people know it's hard that's why it takes so long to learn it. My first language is spanish and I'm not going to sit here and say that spanish is perfect because let me tell you something it's not. It's one of the most annoying languages there is to master because of all the conjugations and so and so. (I guess spanish conjugations are like kanji) but the one thing i like about spanish it's how it's phonetically consitent. A letter is pronounce one way and that's it. My grandpa is fluent in russian and he says Russian it's the same way. My problem with english it's how phonetically inconsitent it is. Example you ask? Why is the word for present read And past read? If you read this in your head differently then I guess you get my point. When i was learning english i would ask why is this sillable pronounce like this in this word but like that in another and so many times i just heard because it is and because i was a teeen i just shut up and learned it. Now I'm learning my third language japanese and i love the simplicity of the verbs and the grammar although quite weird at first it's not bad at all. But god damnit reading it, it's so hard. I have thought about dropping it just because of this but I won't quit until I can have a conversation and understand it. But it's annoying and I'm not even trying to learn to write it because i don't plan on living japan. I just think languages are interesting. But damn languages are weird too. Anyway good luck with whatever language you are learning right now if you read this.

[@robinthestate6548]

I know there's another two writing systems but like matt pointed out they aren't perfect either. If anybody wants to give me tips on this I'll take them.

[@ahcaileo]

The way biggest problem for Japanese Kangji is that their pronunciations are too volatile. In Japanese, it's really quite normal that a Kanji would have four or five or even more different pronunciations depending on the context it happens to be in. In the same time, roughly four out of five characters in Chinese have just one pronunciation and the rest may have two pronunciations and only in very rare cases there will be characters that may have three or more pronunciations.

[@rogerwilco2]

It is because Japanese and Chinese are very different, so meaning of a character and sound of a character are related in Chinese but not in Japanese. And then the Japanese adopted different versions of the same Chinese character at different points in history. This often leads to 2-6 different versions in Japanese for a single character and meaning in Chinese.

[@UnnamedVibesTree]

Historically speaking, the switch to Toyo Kanji (predecessor of Joyo which did not come about until 1981) was something that had been brewing among educators from even before WW2. The Allied Occupation accelerated the process, but to suggest that the adoption of Toyo Kanji was somehow an American imperative is incorrect. The SCAP had actually proposed a switch Romaji with Kanji abolition as a step towards democratizing Japan. Similar linguistic de-Sinification had been happening in countries like Korea and Vietnam for social reform purposes in the prior century, and so it was though that in order to de-Imperialize Japan a similar measure would be necessary. In the sense that the Ministry of Education moved faster to adopt Toyo, having thoroughly rejected the Kanji abolition proposal, in response to American pressure, this is more accurate.

[@ueomega]

I'm Japanese but you know what, you're literally better at kanji than me! I didn't know the word 艱難 and I had to look it up lol 😂 Also I've never written the kanji 攪 or 迄 by hand, I just go with かく拌 and まで. And especially まで is way more common than 迄 even when it's typed I think.

[@teamscarletdevil6915]

tbh I didn't even know theres a kanji for まで

[@danielantony1882]

迄 is for gigas who like to sound classy from time to time. 古文 is cool, my dudes.

[@dennisshaykevich3451]

3:02 My font writes 撹拌 they way you suggested, with the simplified format. Probably cause it's written the "international default font" but hey, it's something.

[@tay1186]

I watched your 3 hour video the other day and it seemed like you were encouraging people to not necessarily learn Japanese depending on having realistic and tangible goals. You said in that video that you were no longer learning Japanese, but now it seems like you are still learning either it or Chinese. What are your own goals these days?

[@mattvsjapan]

I think the important message to take away from my 3 hour video is to be doubtful of your own motivations.... if you are hoping to "get something" (like self-confidence, respect, life meaning, fulfillment) out of leaning Japanese, you may be in for a rude awakening down the line. May people who do AJATT naturally fall into this trap (because usually these are the people who are motivated to go balls to the wall just to learn a language). But if you are doing AJATT because you find it interesting and fun, then I think it can be a great thing to do with your time. The biggest difference between old-me and current-me, is that before, I viewed learning Japanese as having a specific end goal that I was trying to get to: perfection. Some deep part of my unconscious was convinced that perfection in Japanese would somehow solve all my problems. Now, I simply view learning Japanese as a process that has no end. I study Japanese today because I want to and it's fun. I enjoy the entire process. But I'm not really trying to "get somewhere" anymore. My real goal for the near future is to help more people get to this point and successfully get kick-ass at Japanese. (And also get more people to meditate because I think that will improve people's lives much more than learning Japanese will)

[@tay1186]

Thanks for the great answer! sorry for the late response. I have too many youtube accounts and I forgot which one I commented with. That definitely makes sense to me. I think many people spend their entire lives searching for that mythical storybook ending where their lives will be fulfilling and their true lives will begin. To reference my favorite anime, they're chasing that バラ色のキャンパスライフ rather than ever accepting themselves ;0 I picked up Japanese at first for a year when I was 17 years old. I had no inkling of how to get good at paying attention or cultivating discipline. I was definitely learning it as part of a plan to get an English teaching job in Japan so I wouldn't have to worry about having much responsibility and to try to run away from my problems. Just trying to get a comfortable life where I wouldn't have to think about much (hopefully). I'm 22 now. I picked it up again a month and a half ago, and truthfully, I think I was doing it to run away from my problems again: To run back to a dream of comfort. I won't get into what problems those were, but for addressing the actual problems, learning Spanish (among other things) would be a much more useful goal, so now I've switched to that, even though my familiarity and comfort with Japanese, as well as my much more extensive knowledge of it is very tantalizing still. I'll still come back to Japanese at some point, but I'm learning to be okay with waiting for that, and to enjoy the things I have responsibility for rather than running away from them.

[@k_wang64]

Happens to simplified Chinese characters used in China too, except the simplification was much more comprehensive and managed to include 99% of the characters one may encounter in their whole life. However, characters that are either rarely used or used exclusively in Classical Chinese would sometimes bear the out of date 旧字体 radicals like the 辶 with two dots shown in this video because they never bothered simplifying them, but this happens far less often than in Japanese (which is probs the reason why they never bothered updating the whole system).

[@album_m]

艱難 at the beginning of the video is written as 艰难 in contemporary Chinese as simplefied version of Chinese charactor(kanji) actually. Btw Chinese charactor is the most informative text in the world so that it's kinda faster for Chinese native speakers to read and i think that's why jp didn't abandon kanji utill today for its advantages

[@xluckless]

I came across this while learning RTK 僅 & 謹 and I thought there was something wrong with the font.

[@melopc]

In Chinese for 必 the second to last stroke is 丿, the last stroke is the dot on the right. The principal is from top to bottom, from left to right, from outside to inside except for 辶，which you write the inner part first. A common mistake is 九, the Chinese stroke order is 丿乙.

[@caramelvictim193]

Thank you! I came to the comments to see if anyone would point it out 😂

[@isidore551]

I think 必 not only has a different stroke order in Japan, but PRC, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea each have their own ways of writing... all of which are different from traditional calligraphic stroke order as 顏真卿 would have written Oh well.

[@kexun-i3t]

Although I speak mandarin,but the different ways to pronounce one same character.For example,the character行, in Japanese you can say "iku"and "okonau" for this character.iku means to go and okonau means to hold to conduct.

[@danielantony1882]

Yeah… but the difference between Okonau and Iku can kinda get blurry if it's like a really literary context, or a song. It's more of an exception, though, so you just gotta be ready for it, if you ever run into it.

[@jack-bz7rd]

As a Japanese, I think you can write in any writing order you like! However, if you write in a certain stroke order, you will feel good.

[@Asatora]

This is too complex for me to have a definite answer... but I think we can all agree that it's kinda crazy that half the world can make do with 26 characters and some strokes to combine with then, and for those dudes over 2000 characters isn't enough, not only that, some % of those 2000 has to have 587 strokes otherwise aren't "good enough". On the other hand is a good feeling to come across a new word and be able to deduce it's meaning simply based on the kanji that composes it... But then I remember that if it was romaji I would actually be able to say it out loud regardless of knowing the word or not

[@iuer4643]

societies have a hard timechanging (language) bad habits

[@danielantony1882]

What is Romaji? It is the alphabet of Romans = They carry no relevance to the Japanese. Dream farther.

[@Asatora]

@@danielantony1882 Dream about what?

[@danielantony1882]

@@AsatoraThey aren't going to switch to Romaji, friend.

[@Asatora]

@@danielantony1882 I never expressed any expectation or hope of such thing. I merely stated the fact that you can read a word written in romaji (obviously if it's in a language you can read) even if you don't know anything about it, as opposed to a word that has kanji that you don't know in it. You just proved me right by being able to read what I wrote despite being unable to understand what was written. But to further humour you I shall also address your point that romaji is irrelevant for Japanese people, that's simply false. Given it's not essential romaji still is used on a daily basis in many different medias

[@Spiriax]

Thanks for making this. This explains why the 辻 I learned/trying to remember from the other day has another tiny stroke in it.

[@captchagod64]

holy shit i already thought it was bad, but it seems the jank goes waaay deeper than i thought

[@robinthestate6548]

No cap bro I was thinking on learning japanese and being able to read it and now I'm more confused than I already was. If there was a way to read phonetically sounding japanese while I learn I'll be so happy. Because Right now I can understand some of the words when read phonetically but kanji is driving me crazy.

[@aktuellyattee8265]

Now I have to feel all this new deeply unsatisfying pain, thank you.

[@tianyifanglaceon6100]

私は中国人ですが、日本語と英語ができます。韓国語の初心者です。日本語能力はだいたいＮ３です。 英語より日本語が大好きです。 日本語の漢字、必ず中国の古い中国語に由来しました。一部の漢字が以前の日本人に変化したと思います。 日本語の漢字が素晴らしいですが、古い中国語を見れば、複雑なものが見られます。現在の中国語、よく注意しなければなりません。

[@MegaJefflin]

As a Taiwanese, I much prefer the old Japanese in Meiji and Taisho periods, since 旧字体 is much much more similar to traditional Chinese characters. But Taiwan is just like other kanji-using countries, still simplified stroke orders, pronounces, characters after 1990s. (but not many people know) e.g. 行爲->行為 審覈->審核 合倂󠄂->合併 etc… And most annoying parts are something about pronounce and stroke orders, 教育部（文部省) thinks that they follow the most correct pronounce or order of strokes, keeps changing every several years. eventually no one follows it😂😂 in a nutshell, I think until now, only korean hanjas have the most logical characters, although they dont use it anymore…

[@5IRAHHHP]

this is amazing stuff. my mind just got blown two days in a row. this is stuff that i have never thought about, but it is very informative, and helps give me insights on how to move about this. im pretty sure this video(s) are some of the first of their kind. i dont know anyone else who has mentioned these reasonings and explanations. (excuse me if you guys have seen these types of these videos, these for me are the first ive seen)

[@davidzwb]

Simplified Chinese has the same problem, for example, 適/摘 are not simplified in Japanese while in Simplified Chinese they are 适/摘, 啇 from 適 is simplified to 舌 but not in 摘。It's hilarious that some Chinese people claim "Japanese kanji is such a mess".

[@leezhieng]

because the word 括 (kuo) already existed so they can't turn 摘 (zhai) into 括 as it's conflicting

[@Sam-sm9jd]

Two new videos after a four month hiatus? Great to have you back :)

[@lingobulg]

Well, I guess we'll just have to live with it. Anyways, back to learning.

[@chopperman2122]

Conclusion: Every language is irreversibly fucked up. We should all just start over from scratch and go learn Esperanto or something.

[@Leck400]

I don't think so. Spanish, for example, is very consistent.

[@lukec1471]

@@Leck400 verbs in Spanish are the opposite of consistent

[@viardent8823]

toki pona

[@LocoMocoDoon]

「必」の筆順を初めて知ったけど、確かに不可解と思う ほとんどの日本人は筆順のことなど小学校低学年で忘れ去る みんな漢字を雰囲気で使ってます。漢字を書く機会がなくなったので、読むことはできるけど書くことができなくなってます

[@rogue_hk]

lmao as a Chinese learning Japanese this is very funny, thanks

[@Verbalaesthet]

This was way better than I had expected. Well done!

[@Eistroll0Wie0]

This explains a lot, thanks.

[@Hi-to-ri]

All we needed was a lovely Japanese person to creat SPACE between the words, they would have saved us from endless suffering.

[@SmileyTrilobite]

In books & games for younger audiences, spaces and kana are used! Famous author Yoshimoto Banana also uses few kanji in her novels, which makes them very approachable! If all kanji were gone, I think there might be some confusion from homophones in sentences with little supporting context, but Japanese is very context dependent in leaving out words anyway. Hmm…

[@wueric2855]

Apparently, the reform of Kanji is still going on.

[@Blaqjaqshellaq]

Has anyone proposed a new round of font reforms?

[@christianstainazfischer]

Cultures should use the Internet that some factors of their culture (like the writing system) aren’t efficient. Korean for example has an efficient script

[@leezhieng]

Korean script's problem: 수도 (sudo) could mean 修道 (spiritual discipline), 囚徒 (prisoner), 水都 (city of water"), 水稻 (paddy rice), 水道: (drain), 隧道 (tunnel), 首都: (capital city), 手刀 (hand knife)

[@awawus]

@@leezhieng It's either 首都 or 水道 that is actually in use in Korean both spoken and written. We have different non-ambiguous words for the rest of your examples (which is also true for any other words) so it was never as bad as Japanese dropping kanji in favor of hiragana/katakana.

[@mariomene2051]

I knew I wasn't confused for no reason (learning Japanese on DuoLingo). LOL! I thought, "That same Kanji means something else entirely, and sounds different, in a different context."

[@Sonicstillpoint83]

Very cool and really helps me appreciate differences while understanding where they came from.

[@_eleyya]

Starting to learn Japanese as a Chinese speaker 🤯 The stroke order blows my mind 😅😅😅😅

[@a.thales7641]

I don't understand Japanese and Kanji enough to say what is right or wrong but I really did love your video. Great work. I love critics about things that don't make sense.

[@phen-themoogle7651]

It makes sense for easier kanji to be simplified to some degree. Btw when I type 道　dao with a traditional chinese keyboard in chinese I don’t get the 3 radical thing like 迄 so using 道(みち) and saying that is simplified is incorrect, no? I don’t see much wrong with Japanese kanji, it feels balanced to me but I’ve been using it about my whole life. Interesting video.

[@sageofsixpathskakashi3742]

Watching this moments after taking the N5 hits different

[@jaredlodico]

Dude this is the greatest and most educational video about Japanese kanji I've ever watched. People ALWAYS say "kanji makes so much sense, see how a person looks like a person BLAH BLAH BLAH" and don't explain this kind of thing, which helps SO much when trying to learn Japanese. I hope one day I can get to your level. Keep killing it sir.

[@Marvin-t3e]

I honestly don't pay much attention to stroke orders (yes, there are some Kanji that are a bit more difficult and therefore require some investigation). I would rather study more vocabs or do more active immersion instead. It is enough to apply a few rules of how radicals are supposed to be drawn (必 was a very nice example) + use some common sense 😅👍

[@redkey170]

I thought the video will discuss why 2 kanjis with similar meaning exists, just like your example 艱難. When you look up 艱 and 難, it both have the meaning "difficult" oh well probably a set of Chinese compounds imported. Anyway thanks for this video. It cleared up questions in my mind how some kanjis end up simplified. The jp simplification of 龍 is not that bad tho versus the ch simplified.

[@alusias3183]

i just write the unupdated kanji the simplified way. I also write them all in the chinese order because thats what I learnt growing up

[@cravingfriedrice]

Native chinese here vibin’ cuz I already know most of the kanji vocab (minus pronunciation) lol

[@BeansEnjoyer911]

Either simplify them all or just dont simplify them at all. Those are the correct options Im actually enjoying learning Kanji, but im still in the first 200 of Remembering the Kanji, so i have a lot to learn. I cant imagine what a headache this would be for someone who already knows Chinese to learn about the inconsistencies of kanji

[@danielantony1882]

It actually wouldn't be much of a problem, 'cause it's minimal. Simplified Chinese has the same issues.

[@maigowang]

The Chinese stroke order of 必, as I learned in primary school, is actually 丶乚丶丿丶. The 丿 doesn't come last 😂

[@leezhieng]

Same, even in Malaysia's chinese schools they teach this stroke order.

[@khajitt]

i have to disagree on 棄. It's easier to write in 3 radicals, and also easier to remember, the chinese way is like blending the second radical and last radical which means it consist of 2 radicals now, and you need to make up new way to remember those blended radicals.

[@Weeping-Angel]

But then 廿 wouldn’t be what is written anymore. It would be a different radical.

[@MasaruKasikoi]

YES! I KNEW I WAS RIGHT! I've always written 必 in, what I know now thanks to your vid, the Chinese stroke order and upon coming to Japan I was told I was wrong... but always felt that the Japanese stroke order makes things unnecessarily complicated.

[@burnthewitch32]

日語的筆順停留在古代，因為他們可能沒有辦法完全參與中國文化的流變

[@SuperLlama42]

As someone currently trying to learn Japanese, kanji fucking terrifies me

[@まご-l9f]

この前「孫」って字が浮かばなくて、小学校の頃必死で覚えた自分に申し訳なくなったわ

[@Nakameguro97]

Multiple readings is the real headache with Kanji.

[@APY_j]

even japanese don't know actually meaning about each kanji mean but we can guess meaning from two-character idioms and Hen.

[@xtricman]

Why stroke order? Dude, can we just type? Oh, dude , teachers are crazy about stroke order in primary school, and nobody care it once they went to middle school.

[@mattvsjapan]

nothing matters, reality is meaningless. You don't have to do anything at all, you are completely free.

[@yuliyy__]

If you're using a brush e.g. shodo, it would look different if you screw up the stroke order, especially the starting points of each stroke.

[@adamdehombre6272]

@@mattvsjapan Why is your comment so existential?

[@AC3electrosphere]

@@mattvsjapan damn

[@MidosujiSen]

@@mattvsjapan It really do be like that sometimes

[@johnchan4371]

Actually, why care about stroke order? as a Chinese native speaker , I just write it the way I want. it's fine as long as it looks alike

[@SquirrelASMR]

This is nuts 😵‍💫

[@Keeby.]

does stroke order actually matter at all tho? sure it does if youre in school but like, i havent had anyone ever notice how i write most english letters from bottom to top even tho they constantly told me not to in primary school people will care what your writing looks like if they cant read it, but they dont give a shit how you write it and they also dont even know that unless theyre watching you do it

[@sinuture]

I’m Japanese. I’m proud of my country. How are you demean my …… oh, that’s true. Let’s get out of here!

[@Fire-Manz]

Me, not even done with Hiragana; Alright I heard a lot about this Kanji! I'll dip my toe- Kanji: I'm going to wear your entrails .... Me: ... Let's stay with Hiragana for now ...

[@VacuousCat]

I'm Taiwanese. Traditional Chinese though complex to write but they are pretty consistent.

[@Moosemoose1]

Serious question - why don't they just exclusively use the simplified phonetical system and include a spacing system instead of mixing 3 different writing styles together?

I need that background music in my life. Who's it from?

[@mattvsjapan]

check the description