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The only problem is that you learn all 2000 at the very minimum and more than that if you actually want to do something practical. Each one has more than 1 reading, a particular stroke order, and many other things.
This was an interesting symbol to choose for an internet explanation. It took me a while to realise that the rectangle is actually the symbol that I'm supposed to see, rather than a missing glyph.
It's not exactly a rectangle though, the two downward strokes extend slightly past the bottom horizontal stroke.
Maybe it is a missing character after all :) (Oh no, I've been fooled by chrome/freetype/something!)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thus proving that the alphabet is too cumbersome to be practical because it requires the pure memorization of all possible combinations of letters, with the lengths of such combinations becoming longer and longer as words are added to vocabulary.
Eh. It's a "leaky abstraction". Makes things easier, until it doesn't. Much lik3 "I before E, except after C"
For example, when you write "inconceivable," you're not regurgitating every single letter in a line from memory. You probably remember the prefix "in," "conceive," and you know "able." You probably also know the common patterns "cei" or "eive" or "con," so the word "inconceivable" really isn't as complex as the initial length makes it look, as long as you know the blocks.
Kanji/hanzi are the same way -- they look complex and inscrutable to the uneducated eye, but they're all made of common building blocks that make it easier to remember them. After all, human memory works roughly the same way all the world around; people wouldn't be able to memorize thousands of 20-stroke character if they were all completely patternless.
The vocabulary utilizing kanji/hanzi works the same way.
Someone could look at "inconceivable" and say "well shit, that doesn't make sense! It's long, you'd have to memorize so many letters, and the letters themselves have so many bits! Plus it has 'in' in it, which makes no sense because 'in' commonly means 'inside of something', and 'con' usually means 'to swindle someone'! This alphabet thing is completely useless."
It's absurd, reductionist, and a bit offensive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not exactly a rectangle though, the two downward strokes extend slightly past the bottom horizontal stroke.
Not on my screen ( http://i.imgur.com/korTPAQ.png ) Maybe it is a missing character after all :) (Oh no, I've been fooled by chrome/freetype/something!)
Not sure how great an explanation that really is. I like Zompist's explanation: http://www.zompist.com/yingzi/yingzi.htm
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not exactly a rectangle though, the two downward strokes extend slightly past the bottom horizontal stroke.
Not on my screen ( http://i.imgur.com/korTPAQ.png ) Maybe it is a missing character after all :) (Oh no, I've been fooled by chrome/freetype/something!)
This was an interesting symbol to choose for an internet explanation. It took me a while to realise that the rectangle is actually the symbol that I'm supposed to see, rather than a missing glyph.
It has the added bonus of being almost correct even if the symbol is missing.
How many symbols are there? And how would the keyboard look like though?
Hah, and there's the kicker. In Japanese the most common input method is phonetic, either with a latin alphabet keyboard or a hiragana keyboard. The IME kicks in and has you select the ideogram you mean, so in reality it would save you no time typing and actually cost you time.
I don't think anyone does it kanji-by-kanji. In reality, it's really autocomplete as it exists with English keyboards. You type the first few bits in hiragana or romaji, then autosuggest comes up with commonly-used words and you select the one you want.
In addition, hiragana input on mobile devices is FAR faster than romaji input, so I'm not sure how you lose time.
How many symbols are there? And how would the keyboard look like though?
Hah, and there's the kicker. In Japanese the most common input method is phonetic, either with a latin alphabet keyboard or a hiragana keyboard. The IME kicks in and has you select the ideogram you mean, so in reality it would save you no time typing and actually cost you time.
There's often (always?) a reaction when new forms of communication are introduced to language. Usually the older generation railing against the "degradation" or "misuse" of the language the way they learned it. For example txt and emojis currently in English.
Similarly with e.g. Chinese and modern IMEs. Because there are frequently many characters that match phonetically, to save time, typically younger people just pick the first one that's suggested. Mostly due to internet and phone/tablet use.
