You’re already dead to me…

15 comments

1. At first I thought that too, but when you get onto it, it is a realy smart language system.

2. Wait, there are 3 system?

3. So I have heard as arguments against this that Japanese has lots of homonyms and that’s why it would be (apart from the lack of spaces) difficult to read/understand. However, Korean made the switch to (mostly) just one writing system. So why did it work for them and why could it not for Japanese? What are the main reasons for that and are there any issues Korea is facing because of this (e.g. higher rates of analphabetism)?

4. It is actually pretty impractical though. For Japanese it works, but Japanese itself is impractical.
   Still love the language though

5. I prefer Korean

6. the only thing I complain about is the shape of the letters and kanji, at this point use photos.

7. [deleted]

8. As many people in the comments have stated, there is good reasons for the existence of Kanji and Hiragana as a combined system. Im unsure though if the extra value is really worth the third system – for some it might be.

   I think why many people distance themselves from the Kanji based system is because of its complexity for even a basic exchange of information between the written medium and the reader.

   If you support the argument that written language should be most useful and easy to be understood then Japanese simply doesn’t do it. This is a „tool vs. beauty“ discussion and what’s best depends on the personal perspective.

   In my opinion written language should be as easily accessible as possible so that a broad spectrum of people can read and write without difficulty.

   In western languages we do also have the „deepness of meaning“ in words, but it is more hidden. To fully understand it we have to study the words origin extensively.

   On the other side does Kanji i.e. allow you to understand a chunk of text way quicker then the Roman languages, and as one previous redditor already mentioned the ambiguity of language allows for great beauty in poetry etc.

   Ultimately one can avoid Kanji mostly and learn in the beginning with Hiragana and study by listening. There is a price you pay for being an illiterate but everyone should make their own choice imo.

9. Korean dd it. Even VIETNAMESE(edit), with a tonal(!) Language switched to latin script.

   If the really wanted to reform their writing system, they could.

   It is really.complicated. but only because it grew to this abomination over hubdreds of years. And still it works somehow.

   Edit: meant Vietnamese, not Korean.

10. Technically, Japanese has ONE writing **system, “**kanji-kana majiri-bun”. which employs 3 different scripts.

    Like any other language in the world, Japanese can be written and enjoyed using only kanas, or the Roman alphabet. The Portoguese missionaries in the 16th century demonstrated that abundantly, publishing Aesop’s tales and the Heike Monogatari written in a roman-character based transcription, plus a Late Middle Japanese-Portoguese dictionary based off the same transliteration system.

    That being said, if a nation feels that their writing system does wonders to represent their national identity, I don’t think anyone should take it away from them.

    Why would the Japanese want to chuck their writing system in the bin?

    P.S. You can’t read/write disembodied linguistic meaning, isolated from a sound form (whether you read that form aloud or not). So when you’re reading kanji, you aren’t reading “meaning”.

11. My Japanese pen pal once said to me that people learning Japanese always complain about having ‘three’ alphabets but he pointed out that,

    1. Kanji isn’t necessary to write Japanese. It’s just makes the topic/subject more clear.
    2. In some ways, English has two alphabets both lower case and upper case.

12. English has capital letters tho

13. japanese should only use kanji and hiragana. Katakana seems excessive.

    anyway, this is a pretty chinese centric view.

14. 4 if you include romanisation

15. I personally feel that katakana and hiragana should be combined like replacing them for the simpler writing, such as making it so theres no あ but only ア and オ and no お kanji is super complicated and its what makes japanese hard, but I definitely understand why it exists.