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I used to know how to write in Japanese

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Re: I used to know how to write in Japanese

#121

Post by gchamonlive »

> How is it possible for you to "see" the text in your mind and not be able to replicate it with a pen? Even if the mental image is faint and fuzzy, surely you can sketch it out roughly at first, then refine it until it settles into its exact form? Apparently, that is not how mental images work, either.

That's really not how it works. I draw as a hobby and I love to study human anatomy. I can conjure in my mind people in many poses with detail, in different clothes and colour. Still the act of drawing without a reference is a world in itself. If I try to sketch from memory without a reference, it quickly falls apart.

It's not that the mental image is incomplete, wrong or an illusion. Is just that knowing it and reproducing it are two very different things.

Re: I used to know how to write in Japanese

#123

Post by latentsea »

hintymad wrote: post #52
bapak wrote: post #30

A system fails when its natives don't know how to use it. So time to sunset the system, surely? I don't know why so many countries are so obstinately hanging onto something so difficult. Do it like Korea if you don't want to go the Vietnamese way.

Are you sure? If anything, spelling along makes it hard to read Chinese or Japanese. Examples: can Japanese people correctly understand this: “かんじをせんねんいじょうつかっていたけいいからかんじをはいしするとぶんしょうによるいしのそつうにへいがいがしょうじるからです”？ In fact, the following two different sentences both have the same above kana： 「監事を専念異常浸かっていた敬意から監事を配しする飛ぶん商による石の疎通に兵が意を招 じる空です。」 「漢字を千年以上使っていた経緯から漢字を廃止すると文章による意思の疎通に弊害が生じる からです。 Or how about くさくさくさくらくらくさくさくさくさくさく…

> Or how about こうないしゃせい？Is it 校内写生 or 口内射精?

It could be 校内射精.

Re: I used to know how to write in Japanese

#125

Post by latentsea »

timr wrote: post #61
svara wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find the argument about homophones very convincing, since people do speak to each other and it works. People will surely be able to adapt. But, you're basically throwing away the country's history. In just a few years young people wouldn't be able to read any older text anymore. I can see why you wouldn't want that.

It is substantially harder and slower to read a stream of hiragana than to read a stream of hiragana and kanji. I don't know if you know anything about the language, but it's not because of homophones (though that is certainly improved) -- it's chunking. Japanese written language has the property that when you see kanji followed by one of a very small number of hiragana patterns, you know you're seeing a verb. Stemmi…

It's all solvable. Korean did it. Koreans are fine.

For verbs you could just replace the kanji with katakana so that you still get the pattern recognition of okurigana as a visual aide.

They just don't want to do it, because they don't like to change. A generation educated under a new system wouldn't have difficulty using it. They would however lose access to an abundance of cultural artefacts which play a central role in daily life.

Re: I used to know how to write in Japanese

#126

Post by latentsea »

hintymad wrote: post #70
astrobe_ wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't possibly count the third time as a real attempt. A language reform initiated by a foreigner and recent enemy at war, who burned your cities and even nuked two of them? If someone knows about successful examples, I'd be curious to hear about them.

My understanding is that Japanese are very open to external influences, even when they come from enemies. Case in point, they embraced the legal framework and political reform that was pushed by the Americans. On the other hand, MacArthur was careful to respect Japanese culture (arguably, depending on who looked at it, I guess) when pushing his reforms. Nevertheless, Japan quickly became a pretty well run democratic…

I mean... they did just get nuked prior to that. That might have had something to do with it.

Re: I used to know how to write in Japanese

#127

Post by latentsea »

jack1243star wrote: post #37
bapak wrote: post #30

A system fails when its natives don't know how to use it. So time to sunset the system, surely? I don't know why so many countries are so obstinately hanging onto something so difficult. Do it like Korea if you don't want to go the Vietnamese way.

> A system fails when its natives don't know how to use it. They definitely do, it's just that hand writing has become a more niche use case in modern society (regardless of the language). If you removed all kanji in a block of Japanese text (replaced with kana), I'd expect at least a 50% reduction in reading speed for natives, and some errors in comprehension. They're fundamental to the language.

You wouldn't expect the same 50% reduction if the natives had been educated under that paradigm and suitable adjustments made to the system like adding spaces etc to accommodate it.

Re: I used to know how to write in Japanese

#128

Post by xandrius »

koakuma-chan wrote: post #124

"is point is that learning kanji presents two obstacles: remembering what the shapes mean and remembering how they are pronounced." How is this different from English words? How is conscientiousness pronounced? Not to mention rendezvous.

The difference is that for most words you can easily get 90% there in English and, even if you don't read it properly, the listener can somewhat get what you are trying to say.

And say you don't know how to read "conscientiousness" but you know how to read "con" and "ousness" you can try to go for con-shu-tiouness and at least you're somewhere.

It's not the case with Kanjis, sure you might know one part of a word but you might be wrong. Also similar looking kanji don't read similarly at all, so even that is out of the window.

And don't get me started on the approach of applying memoization techniques purely on the strokes of a kanji, that's gonna hurt more than not.

Simple examples:

- 末 and 未

- 大 and 犬

- 千 and 干

Re: I used to know how to write in Japanese

#129

Post by numpad0 »

xandrius wrote: post #128
koakuma-chan wrote: post #124

"is point is that learning kanji presents two obstacles: remembering what the shapes mean and remembering how they are pronounced." How is this different from English words? How is conscientiousness pronounced? Not to mention rendezvous.

The difference is that for most words you can easily get 90% there in English and, even if you don't read it properly, the listener can somewhat get what you are trying to say. And say you don't know how to read "conscientiousness" but you know how to read "con" and "ousness" you can try to go for con-shu-tiouness and at least you're somewhere. It's not the case with Kanjis, sure you might know one part of a word but…

It actually works the same way in Japanese. Radicals give rough clues about meanings as well as pronunciation. Similar looking kanji do read similarly. It's just... you can read pronounce "brochures" in either French style or in Southern American, and which one is more appropriate depends.

edit: Simple examples:

  - 臆 and 億
  - 誤 and 語
  - 諦 and 締

Re: I used to know how to write in Japanese

#130

Post by movedx »

victorp13 wrote: post #101

Small nuance, but the term ワープロ馬鹿 actually is unrelated to software like MS Word, and refers to the at one point ubiquitous ワープロ (Word Pro) dedicated hardware device that many Japanese people owned in the 80s/90s to write letters. Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_processor#Japanese_word_p... Interestingly the English Wikipedia page above only mentions Japanese word processor devices in a small secti…

Thanks for sharing this part of your life. That’s so cool.
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