Why don't Japan just use Hiragana and Katakana, and ditch Kanji?

[Finia 260]

I just find it to be a really difficult system?. A hypothetical reason to keep it is for cultural and historical reasons.

 

But hiragana already does it good of writing Japanese words down, and Katakana can be used for foreign words. So it seems like such a much easier writing system by just having a word mean a word, and learning what the word means as you grow up. In the same way latinized alphabet only have certain amount of letters. Like the ones i am writing and you learn what they mean due to being told what they mean. Learning plenty of signs just sounds so unpractical.

 

 

 

I already know some japanese and can understand somewhat, but i just have really hard time with the Kanjis? But its mostly that they can have different readings aswell, which is what i find to be difficult about it. Like that i can't understand what the words are unless there are some small Hiragana to help me. So i basically just have to memorize it based on what the kanji context mean...

 

 

Either way. Wondering what you guys think?

Edited September 29, 2015 by Finia

[Lisa 5,553]

It's faster to read. Sure, learning kanji is hard, but once you eventually do learn it, reading Japanese becomes so much easier and faster because sentences aren't stretched out like with hiragana and katakana.

 

It takes up less space. Pretty self-explanatory. It's just easier to write and more pleasing on the eye because it's in your centre of view rather than being across the page.

 

Also, if kanji was ditched, imagine all the changes that would have to take place such as changing of signs, written documents, websites, etc...

Edited October 1, 2015 by Holiday on the Moon

[CuriousPony 157]

I never got far enough in my Japanese studies in high school to really work with kanji (I was made to take Spanish my first two years, so I missed out on two years of Japanese class), but I think that kanji is a big, traditional part of the Japanese language, so taking it out might mean throwing away some very important and influential Japanese culture. It is easier for those of us who don't speak Japanese natively to use hiragana and katakana, but that's only because it's more similar to our own language. It'd kind of be like the Japanese wanting us to draw up symbols for all our words and then have us stop writing out our words, because they think it's easier that way. It all depends on what's more natural to you, I suppose.

[Bird Mom 900]

It's way more compact. As Holiday on the Moon said, it's hard to learn(over 2000 characters) but it's worth it in the end. Asian writing is a bunch of signs made to form of language and as Japanese being, in my opinion, one of the hardest, it is also a valuable asset Even if you have to learn thousands of signs.

[Jaxsie (Inactive) 1,343]

Thank goodness it's not only hiragana and katakana! Considering that spaces aren't used to separate words, it would actually be much more difficult to read; not to mention much longer to read as well. Kanji can be a nuisance to learn, but it has a place in the Japanese writing system.

[Br O N Y 382]

Kanji are there, because many words are the same in Hiragana. Many words are only 2 hiragana long, and therefor you only have 45^(2)=2025 possible combinations (without the ん), because of that, many combiontions are used multible times. But words which are the same in hiragana, have different kanji, so you can distinguish them at least in written japanese, but this is a problem in spoken japanese, so you often need much interpretation to know, which word someone uses.

[Frith is Magick 1,471]

I took Japanese back in high school plus a semester in university, and kanji saved me big time. The lack of spacing in kana makes the page look like a sea of gibberish, and I found words and sentence particles flowed together. Kanji show isolated meanings, making it easier to skim a sentence, and even if you don't know the actual word, you can understand the meaning of a kanji. Hirigana also fails to distinguish homonyms. I remember when I was taking Mandarin, my teacher commented on how impressive my literacy with Hanzi was, when in truth, I just used characters because I barely remembered a word of the language and couldn't read pinyin (having background in Japanese helped).

 

Furigana are a big help for the beginner, though learning kanji is well worth it.