I have spent a lot of time reading in Japanese and studying new words I come across, a little over 80 manga volumes and novels down. Something I frequently notice when I pay attention to how I’m feeling as I read and study, is how breathtakingly beautiful the language looks to me.
The kanji, both complex and simple forms, that tickle my brain’s love of pattern-recognition with their similar elements re-arranged in new ways. Hiragana with their playful, looped and curved appearance. Katakana with their almost futuristic-looking, angular forms.
All of it put together to make meaning.
Sometimes I have to just give myself a few moments to appreciate how pretty the text looks, before diving into the actual story.
Can anyone else relate to this feeling?
9 comments
I thought this too, for a time. But study Japanese penmanship and the printed stuff won’t be too much to ogle at.
I don’t even know how to reply to this. It’s a printed writing system, mate, not art.
Yeah, beautiful kanji like 嬲 take my breath away lol
I can relate to that. Language is really cool, and we’re often too deep in the weeds to take a step back and appreciate it.
日本は世界の一番ダサいの言語
One of my friends said she thinks ネ is beautiful, so I jokingly replied she was missing コ for the ネ to be beautiful.
Jokes aside though I can see why the traditional [painted] characters could be considered art in their own right, though I think the language definitely sounds nicer than it looks.
I know, right? Knowing how much time you’ve put into learning this thing it feels immensely rewarding. Getting through a section with a bunch of kanji or some insane 8-kanji jukugo feels glorious.
When the 明朝体 hits just right
To be serious, though: yeah, I relate. You’ve got to appreciate orthography, typography, and calligraphy in any language. That appreciation tends to come more naturally when the act of reading requires more conscious effort.
But if you’ve gotten through 80 manga and novels, then it seems like for Japanese, thoughts of “this writing system is a certified banger” won’t go away even when I become more literate than a seven year old.
Give it some time. From all the things I have learned in life, the ugliest they have been once I have been very intimate with them. Almost always if I am fascinated or awestruck by something, it is because I am not intimate enough with them or I haven’t fully understood them.