Quote:When you learn a compound kanji word, like 問題 you probably learn it means "problem" (that's the semantic meaning) and then you also have to learn that its pronunciation is もんだい. If writing is important to you then you also have to learn that as well. To a Japanese person, Pronunciation and Semantic meaning are intertwined because they know もんだい means problem so all they have to do is associate that with the the Kanji. They get to drop an entire stage of learning when dealing with Kanji that most L2 learners can't, because you don't have a relationship between words (just words, not kanji) and meanings. 

I rarely learn compound kanjis as whole 
in this situation I learn maenings of 
問 -question,problem

題 -subject,topic
and when I read it I see as "question topic" and 

兄弟 
translates into 
"brother younger brother" what is obviously meaning of siblings


sometimes meanings of words do not match compound meaning like
大丈夫
which translates into big height husband
but I can asociate that with "all right" and "daijobu"
or, because this is very common compound i just learn it as whole eventually.

native speakers can't benefit much, because native speaker cant use 大 anywhere he wants to say "dai" he has to use specific kanjis in specific compounds. and thus he has to learn correct usage of each symbol. which is limited to very few compounds

Quote:Pronunciation wise きょだい　and きょうだい can sound nearly identical and unless you, as a L2 learner, are specifically encoding/learning the long vowels as well, this will trip you up. To the Japanese though, they don't struggle with this, they intuitively know its a long vowel.

This is not a problem at all, because i do not need to speak Japanese I only need to read it now.

(2015-11-24, 9:57 pm)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: Language is not engineered, it's a natural phenomenon. People communicate with each other using the language in the same way that others use the language. Of course, with a very rigid government and state education you can force change into a language from the top down, but aside from that language grows organically and not according to any plan or system. You can rail all you like that it isn't as efficient or logical as it could be, but that won't change the nature of language. Whether you like it or not, that nature includes aesthetic elements and emotional attachments, traditional writing systems and spellings... and people reacting badly to an excessive use of perjorative terms.

Terms I use here do not even come close to terms an punishments directed towards people who try to rebel against established rules of language.
Just try to use your own language modifications at school, you will end with constant F's  and ruined carrier if you do not submit.
try to introduce your own language modifications in your writings and you will face wrath of grammar Nazis calling you nastiest words.

(2015-11-25, 5:09 am)vonPeterhof Wrote:

Quote:I'm a native speaker of Russian, but I don't really have anything serious to say in response to this. LOL, just LOL. Not sure if you know this, but not only is the belief that English is far more efficient than Russian pretty widespread among native speakers of the latter, some Russian "patriots" actually take this as a point of pride, as another example of the the great Russian Soul contrasting with the cold, calculating, soulless Anglo rationalism. Don't be surprised if your praise comes across as an insult to such people.

This has nothing to do with patriotism.
But what those patriots want to say is that Russian language is far more flexible than English and provides you far more tools of expression.
English language lacks any way to express feelings, you can only convey raw meaning of sentence but you cant attach emotions and that's why it is cold.
It is even considerable problems to translate Japanese manga into English  since you lose all those emotions.

@sholum
Finaly some arguments to discuss:

Quote:-Compression:
Which of these is most compact? 社長　しゃちょう　

First you should check meaning of term compression. It does not mean that you simply cram more characters into same space you have to use less bytes per same amount of information.
社長 is not shorter: we have to split it into radicals and it will make 4-5 symbols　which is close to しゃちょう
also you can't even cram more kanji characters in same space because you need to make them big enuogh to be readable
you can fit one English letter into 5x5 pixel area, while you need something like 30x30pixels to fit one kanji.

Quote:-Distinction:

Which includes both the loose meanings they carry as well as their ability to easily distinguish between words, whether they're pronounced similarly or not: 社長　V　部長 or しゃちょう　V　ぶちょう or shachou V buchou. Just at a glance, the first two are easier to distinguish and assign meaning to. You might argue that, if one of those other systems was the one in regular use and had been studied, that it would be true for those as well; I won't argue that's not the case, but I will argue that the first set, objectively, is the most distinctive (they also convey the relationship between these words more directly than the others).

I think it is distinctive enough in any case, just can't be more distinctive.

Quote:As for me feeling superior... I feel superior to brats that complain about such petty things as learning something they don't need. I also feel superior to people who complain rather than trying to reach their goals. You know that otherwise healthy fat guy who constantly complains about being fat, but still takes the elevator to the second floor and drives his car to go next door? Yeah, that's what you sound like.

Is that a bit mean of me? Maybe, but if you're going to claim that I must have some kind of superiority complex to hold my opinion (especially with that nasty tone), I don't feel any qualms about expressing my impression of you being a whiny brat. 

I am not complaining at all.
It is not my language and I have no power to affect it.
However I have ability to express my opinion and give courage to other people who think same.

am more complaining about my own language and even while in school I was trying to use my own writing methods and that was not accepted. 
And yes I took time to learn idiotic rules of my own language got good grades and I continue to fight and complain about them  pointing into bullshit that other people are afraid to mention or try to retain because of strong nationalism and desire to preserve language.

I believe Japanese people face same situation so I am just expressing my support and say be brave and fight those Nazis and senile teachers. Do not be afraid to speak and write as YOU want not as you are told.

Quote:If you don't want to learn Japanese, why learn it? I can't think of any reasonable situation you could be in where you'd need to learn Japanese, especially since you already know English. If it's for business, someone can be hired (or communications can be with someone who knows English; there's no way that learning another language is cheaper); if it's for entertainment, much of it has been translated either officially or unofficially (and there's always other content); if it's for speaking to random people... then that counts as wanting to learn the language, because there are plenty of people in the world. 

Basically, you either want to learn the language or you don't.

Again, you miss my point, my goals are irrelevant I am not trying to make Japanese people talk in a way i like to make my learning process easier.
It just that if I come across something wrong my reaction is what "imbecile made it that way" it  does not matter if this is language phone, TV or new car.  And then I am trying to find a way around that problem while cursing one who created it for me.

Quote:I'm not trying to discourage you from learning Japanese, but I do have to wonder what odd motives someone could have to learn something like this when they hate it.

Motives are same as every rational person: I want to understand that language, to be able to read Japanese text.

Quote:As for grammar and spelling nazis... You don't understand the purpose of written language, do you? It's a separate entity that's meant to make communication at a distance easy. If you let people just change shit around at whim, you defeat the entire purpose.

Grammar Nazis are not concerned about meaning, they are concerned about traditions.

(2015-11-25, 6:46 am)Digix Wrote: Motives are same as every rational person: I want to understand that language, to be able to read Japanese text.

Learning another language requires learning words. If desired that would also include the written component of that language if it exists. Some Japanese people do have concerns with their language. However, they want to master Japanese and feel that path is difficult.

In relationship to modern computers the number of pixels is not an issue, nor is there an issue for printed material.

Having a goal to be able to read Japanese material is great but that means reading the words. That is both understand the words in the context that they are used and how they are pronounced in Japanese.

問題 Has several meanings in both Japanese, and because of that more in English. There are many people on this forum who are well versed in Japanese who could give you good advice on how to reach your goal.

(2015-11-25, 5:54 am)Digix Wrote: English language lacks any way to express feelings, you can only convey raw meaning of sentence but you cant attach emotions and that's why it is cold.
It is even considerable problems to translate Japanese manga into English  since you lose all those emotions.

I'm going to restate the obvious here.  IF you think that you are unable to express emotion using English, then you have no idea what you are talking about, and your English is not nearly as good as you think it is.

Quote:Again, you miss my point, my goals are irrelevant I am not trying to make Japanese people talk in a way i like to make my learning process easier.
It just that if I come across something wrong my reaction is what "imbecile made it that way" it does not matter if this is language phone, TV or new car. And then I am trying to find a way around that problem while cursing one who created it for me.

It sounds like your problem is that you are lazy, and are just looking to whine.

(2015-11-24, 7:06 pm)Digix Wrote: Language is not supposed to be "aesthetically-pleasing" language must be efficient, flexible, with right amount of redundancy for error recovery.

this is true for western languages, but it doesn't apply to japanese and chinese. your issue with chinese characters stem mostly from your igorance of culture that produced such scripts. writing in japan and china is not only means to a communication, it is also one of the highest forms of artistic expression, on par with painting and music.

there was an exhibition last year in tokyo where they showed sesshu toyo's 'haboku sansui', one of the most famous asian paintings. if you take a look, you will find out that approximately 70% of actual scroll surface is taken by calligraphy. the actual landscape that it depicts only appears in the lower third of the painting. the trouble with this is that we don't have anything remotely similar in western canon to make comparisons. it's literally a completely different concept of visual representation and subsequently of looking at world.

when my friend's baby got born a couple weeks ago, and when they brought baby home from hospital, my friend's dad wrote baby's name in calligraphy and hanged the scroll in a room. he did it not so he could remember the name, but because the act of writing out characters expresses his emotional and mental state. there is highly charged symbolic meaning behind such actions. in a 2003 movie 'sharasoju', a father copes with his son's death by preparing ink and writing his son's name in calligraphy.

chinese and japanese are aware that characters carry personal meanings too, and constantly creatively interact with their written language. your idea of replacing hanzi with latin script is not radical, it's simply unimaginative and intellectually lazy. if you want to see a radical rethinking of chinese written language that is at the same time politically subversive, look no further than xu bing's 'a book from the sky'. he hand-carved, the traditional way, some 4000 characters and printed them on paper. the difference is, these characters have no semantic content, they were invented by the author. it's a purely aesthetic language, visually identical to hanzi, that is imbued with author's emotions and point of view.

romanization would fundamentally add nothing new to japanese and chinese, but it would destroy a pretty unique way of self-expression that they have now.

@RandomQuotes

Quote: I'm going to restate the obvious here.  IF you think that you are unable to express emotion using English, then you have no idea what you are talking about, and your English is not nearly as good as you think it is

excelent , in that case you as eglish expert will be able to help me.

how to translate onichan into english? (or other words with -chan ending)
also how I am supposed to some man or woman in derogatory way or in respectful way?
when you try to translate manga this is real problem.

in my native language we have tools to turn every word into several levels of cuteness and also several ways to show disrespect if you mangle that word in specific way
nothing of that is possible in English.

Quote:It sounds like your problem is that you are lazy, and are just looking to whine.

Ok fine I am just looking to whine, and is there something wrong with that?

@umetani666

Quote:this is true for western languages, but it doesn't apply to japanese and chinese. your issue with chinese characters stem mostly from your igorance of culture that produced such scripts. writing in japan and china is not only means to a communication, it is also one of the highest forms of artistic expression, on par with painting and music.

You are absolutely right and this is precisely one of reason why kanji will die.
You are not supposed to communicate with art and music and you are not supposed to become Mozart just to say "2 packs of french fries please"

Quote:chinese and japanese are aware that characters carry personal meanings too, and constantly creatively interact with their written language. your idea of replacing hanzi with latin script is not radical, it's simply unimaginative and intellectually lazy.

Do anyone read what I say in almost all my posts?
I do not demand replacing anything. I am not even telling how it should be because that saves effort and time.
Our goal is to make life easier not harder.

[Zgarbas]

The problem is that we are totally feeding a troll.

@Omoishinji

Quote:Learning another language requires learning words. If desired that would also include the written component of that language if it exists. Some Japanese people do have concerns with their language. However, they want to master Japanese and feel that path is difficult.

this is not the case with Chinese, where written language is totally independent from spoken words.
if you learn Chinese you only need to learn English meaning of Chinese symbols and some grammar while you do not need to know anything about how they sound

in fact i use similar approach for Japanese where I read kanji as English word instead of Japanese word.

Quote:In relationship to modern computers the number of pixels is not an issue, nor is there an issue for printed material.

It is an issue between fact if you will be able to read fine print or not without magnifying glass.
but anyway i was just responding to argument about kanji being more compressed, what is wrong. It is not compressed.

Quote:Having a goal to be able to read Japanese material is great but that means reading the words. That is both understand the words in the context that they are used and how they are pronounced in Japanese.

Why I need to know how they are pronounced? I am reading, not listening.

Quote:問題 Has several meanings in both Japanese, and because of that more in English. There are many people on this forum who are well versed in Japanese who could give you good advice on how to reach your goal.

Usually every word has only one meaning which differs in level of specificity, so when I learn word I learn those very fuzzy meanings. words "question", "problem", "matter" "glitch"  all have same meaning just with diferent focus.
My approach to Japanese is heavy linguistic analysis not just raw memorization.

(2015-11-25, 10:52 am)Zgarbas Wrote: The problem is that your definition on easy is based on misunderstanding of fundamental linguistic concepts, extraordinarily strange interpretations of what constitutes a word, and a very, erm, unique take on language which applies to virtually no one else (*you* only need to read japanese, so pronounciation is not important... But what about the other 99.99% of learners?)
Emotions are beautiful when expressed in english, as in any other language. if you want to be creative with your language use then learn new words or speak a dialect or use interesting vocabulary or turn your words into poetry which manages to momentarily shake the depths of an interlocutor's soulf during a superfluously dramatic poop joke (e.g. Shakespeare). Languages are dynamic and beautiful and inevitably personalised by each individual in a manner that reflects their personal history education and personality; it would be silly to reform them in such a forced and ridiculous manner because some bloke on the internet finds it annoying.

I am aware that my understanding is completely differnt because I am an engineer not linguist I have to categorize everything.
In any case It not like I am pushing my ways onto anyone, but it would be nice to find someone like myself.

I already provided example where English fails to express emotions
when i say some random word I may want to attach emotion to that word, for example lets say I want to refer to a car and I wan to show that I hate that car or I love that car or if It is god car or bad car.
and I simply want do that in English without dedicating whole sentence to that description.
Attaching emotional meaning to the word itself has completely different effect on reader or listener.

lets take words "small cute cat" and "kittty"
when you read word kitty you get immediately afected by emotion of love while reading word "small cute cat" you feel absolutely nothing even if meaning is precisely same.
this is why English language is seen as cold and emotionally dead.
Russian or Japanese allows you to communicate emotions very efficiently.

I don't want to get into the heart of this debate that's developed, I just want to comment on two things:

1. One common myth about "kanji abolitionism" (to use the topic title) is that it's only beginners who suggest it, because they just don't know enough Japanese to know better. Actually there are a fair number of serious scholars who have spent their lifetimes on Japanese or Chinese who are proponents of abandoning Chinese characters. One example is John DeFrancis, who made an excellent series of readers in Chinese (characters) and continued to work on Chinese character dictionaries and textbooks until his death in his mid-90s.

2. Chinese writing is not separate from language. Modern written Chinese is a representation of the standard Mandarin dialect. Sometimes it uses some literary features, but it's still Chinese. Cantonese speakers who read it do not read it as Cantonese; they pronounce the characters in Cantonese fashion but the grammar and vocabulary is still Mandarin. Written Cantonese exists, and it cannot be read by native Mandarin speakers.

Literary Chinese, while still based on a spoken language, does rely on the written characters to the point where it cannot be understood spoken aloud. But modern Chinese cannot read it without specifically learning the literary language. Knowledge of the characters as used in modern written Chinese is not enough to pick up a literary text and just read it.

Digix: Why I need to know how they are pronounced? I am reading, not listening.


Unfortunately, there was no need for me to enter this discussion. All the best.

(2015-11-25, 11:27 am)Digix Wrote: lets take words "small cute cat" and "kittty"
when you read word kitty you get immediately afected by emotion of love while reading word "small cute cat" you feel absolutely nothing even if meaning is precisely same.
this is why English language is seen as cold and emotionally dead.

You contradict yourself here. If "cat" and "kitty" have different emotional weight, than the language obviously is expressive. Just because YOU don't know how to do it, doesn't mean the words don't exist.

Quote:how to translate onichan into english? (or other words with -chan ending)

How would you say "Oniichan" well that would depend. You could always add the persons name plus a diminutive. Thomas -> Tommy. Robert -> Billy. You could also just go with a simple "Bro" or "Big Bro." The fact that in Japan people tend to use titles to refer to their siblings has nothing to do with language and everything to do with culture.

Quote:also how I am supposed to some man or woman in derogatory way or in respectful way?

Are you honestly asking if there is anyway to refer to a man in respectful or derogatory ways? I'm going to humor you here:
Respectful to ways to refer a Man- Sir, Gentleman, gent, Mister
Respectful to a woman = Ma'am, Lady, Madam, Miss, Missus, Ms.

And I'm not going to go in to the myriad of ways one can derogatorily describe a man or woman.

Quote:My approach to Japanese is heavy linguistic analysis

No, it's not.

Quote:Ok fine I am just looking to whine, and is there something wrong with that?

Yes.

I don't know if Digix is intending to be a troll or not but... He said himself that he's only learning Japanese to read hentai manga. He repeatedly describes Japanese as nonsense, random, ridiculous, etc. Then he talks about how Japanese has a depth of meaning/emotion that English can never have. In any case, this discussion is becoming another train wreck and I don't think Digix is someone to be taken so seriously...

Quote:You contradict yourself here. If "cat" and "kitty" have different emotional weight, than the language obviously is expressive. Just because YOU don't know how to do it, doesn't mean the words don't exist. 

Cat and kitty is just rare example, while what i need is to do same with other words.
Yes you sometimes can imitate -chan with -y but it is not applicable to most of words 

Quote:How would you say "Oniichan" well that would depend. You could always add the persons name plus a diminutive. Thomas -> Tommy. Robert -> Billy. You could also just go with a simple "Bro" or "Big Bro." The fact that in Japan people tend to use titles to refer to their siblings has nothing to do with language and everything to do with culture. 

How the hell Robert becomes Billy? and i don't want to use name.



"Bro" is like total oposite of -chan, it is nearly derogatory casual speech.
and I think Japanese do not use titles you simply do not understand what is meaning of those words.

My language has similar structures and they are not titles their purpose is not to show respect but to express your own emotions.

when you say "onichan" you are telling how you feel towards that person not that you are obligated to use that title because of some arbitrary rules.
I guess English people just cant even understand such concept, because English language and culture itself lacks that function. 
 

Quote:Are you honestly asking if there is anyway to refer to a man in respectful or derogatory ways? I'm going to humor you here:

Respectful to ways to refer a Man- Sir, Gentleman, gent, Mister

Respectful to a woman = Ma'am, Lady, Madam, Miss, Missus, Ms.


And I'm not going to go in to the myriad of ways one can derogatorily describe a man or woman.

Well, maybe you are right here but for me those words have very snobby feeling.

Quote:No, it's not.

You probably have psychic powers.

(2015-11-25, 12:33 pm)yukamina Wrote: I don't know if Digix is intending to be a troll or not but... He said himself that he's only learning Japanese to read hentai manga. He repeatedly describes Japanese as nonsense, random, ridiculous, etc. Then he talks about how Japanese has a depth of meaning/emotion that English can never have. In any case, this discussion is becoming another train wreck and I don't think Digix is someone to be taken so seriously...

You tell lies. I never said that.
 Japanese language is very good besides some problems , however kanji system is invention coming from hell itself designed as perfect tool of torture.
And this is completely consistent in all my posts.

If you think I a m troll just do not respond, because I also have no desire in pointless flame war.
I think I presented my arguments clearly and I prefer to discuss arguments not individual tastes  of people who are in love with this thing.
I dont think you would ever take anyone seriuos who will speak about simplification of any language.


I did not even expected such reaction at all, what i expected was that nobody will care like usual.
but looks like my predictions can be correct because it looks like I hit some painful issue.

Digix Wrote:Ok fine I am just looking to whine, and is there something wrong with that?

No, but it is when you don't admit that's what you're doing. As wacky as some of your opinions are, there's no problem with you voicing them, but at least be honest from the start that it's just you complaining.

Digix Wrote:also how I am supposed to some man or woman in derogatory way or in respectful way?

Since RandomQuotes didn't want to go there, I'll list the ones we're allowed to post on this board and then imply the rest:
Man, boy; woman, girl. These depend on the context, but so does お前 (maybe you're reading historical fiction). The latter of each set diminishes the individual to the level of a child (or 'just a child' if the target is actually a child). The former of each set strips the individual of any rank and implies condescension  (e.g. don't call a cop or your boss 'man' or 'woman', if you don't want to be put in an unfavorable position). Then, of course, are all the ways to insult someone's intelligence, such as 'fool', 'idiot', and 'stupid'.
As for the rest, they're mostly considered profanity (I'll stick some cleaner ones in there if I think of them), and Fabrice likes a clean fight without having to use the profanity filters, so....
**** (you know, feces),
**** (something used to get off),
**** (slang for female genitalia, implies they've been used a lot),
Ass (the animal),
******* (this time it should be arse, but we Americans don't like spelling it that way, because we don't pronounce it that way, even though the English do; how is this bad enough to get turned into 'leprechaun'?),
Dumbass (the animal again),
***** (those poor female dogs),
***** (slang for female genitalia, used to call a male 'coward'),  
**** (the short version of ************; incestuous),
Bastard (illegitimate child),
Whore/ho (prostitute; do I need to say this?),
Slut (a dumb whore ('cause they don't make any money), lol)
And a myriad of racial and political slurs like:
****** (black people),
***** (Asians),
****** (Central and South Americans),
******* (rich, white, abusive slave owner; somehow not seen as a nasty racial slur just like the others, but I censored it anyway),
Red (communist),
All the bs that SJWs come up with (cis-het-white-male is their current favorite, but they're sure to add more sooner or later, like when they decide to add something that means 'would prefer to have sex with adults instead of prepubescent children'),
SJW (neo-progressive activist),
Right-winger (ultra (social) conservative),
Lefty/leftist (usually used for neo-progressives or socialists),
Bible thumper (Christian conservative and/or evangelist),
Nazi (using the name of the nationalist, collectivist German political party to imply pretty much anything evil, especially antisemitism)...

Oh man, I'm getting tired... I think that's enough for now.
(And yes, I ended with Nazi on purpose.)
And guess what? All of those words are emotionally charged; some even without context. Why do you think people want so many of them censored even when they're not being used as insults?

That's all I'm going to cover now, because I don't see much use in this argument. I just wanted the childish fun of listing all of these derogatory words!

(2015-11-25, 2:10 pm)Digix Wrote:

(2015-11-25, 12:33 pm)yukamina Wrote: I don't know if Digix is intending to be a troll or not but... He said himself that he's only learning Japanese to read hentai manga. He repeatedly describes Japanese as nonsense, random, ridiculous, etc. Then he talks about how Japanese has a depth of meaning/emotion that English can never have. In any case, this discussion is becoming another train wreck and I don't think Digix is someone to be taken so seriously...

You tell lies. I never said that.
 Japanese language is very good besides some problems , however kanji system is invention coming from hell itself designed as perfect tool of torture.
And this is completely consistent in all my posts.

If you think I a m troll just do not respond, because I also have no desire in pointless flame war.
I think I presented my arguments clearly and I prefer to discuss arguments not individual tastes  of people who are in love with this thing.
I dont think you would ever take anyone seriuos who will speak about simplification of any language.


I did not even expected such reaction at all, what i expected was that nobody will care like usual.
but looks like my predictions can be correct because it looks like I hit some painful issue.

You never said that, did you?

http://forum.koohii.com/thread-2214-page-15.html

Why don't you scroll to the bottom of this page then?  Or, to quote you directly: "I study Japanese because I want to read hentai manga which nobody cares to translate into English."

That aside, I think it's safe to say that regardless whether or not your intention was to troll, many of your posts come across as such.  From the sound of it, you're still at the beginner level with your studies, and even then, you're more than entitled to believe what you want and share it.  But I think it's only natural to expect a bit of backlash when most of your posts seem to be about telling people who've spent far longer with the language how everything should be from some imaginary cold, "rational" standpoint.  As others have mentioned, many of the things you've posted do come across as whiny, with a decided air of superiority to boot.  

I understand your frustration, and I'm not blaming you for it.  That being said, no one's forcing you to learn the language, and just as I mentioned in my last post, a good deal of respect would go a long way in allowing you to argue your points.  

I'm not trying to flame you, Digix, I'm just summarizing some of the things you've said.
Because of the forum changes, I'm not sure how to quote properly but here we go, from the "I study Nihongo because..." thread:

Quote:Digix
I study Japanese because I want to read hentai manga which nobody cares to translate into English.

My study is strictly limited to understanding Japanese language, mostly written form, without any need to speak Japanese.
This poses some problems because all Japanese courses are focused on speaking while almost completely ignoring understanding of Japanese. To make matters worse instead of explaining stuff they just provide some shortcuts for "safe versions of sentences"
So I have to create my own learning methods as well.

My native language is not English and Japanese seems to be pretty close in grammar, but learning Japanese from English perspective is much harder.

Your reasons for studying Japanese are so different from many of us (all?) here. Am I correct in saying that not only are you only learning Japanese to read, but you are not trying to learn vocab or kanji readings? Am I correct in saying you do not like the Japanese language and would not be learning it if you didn't want to read a few things in it? Since you've come to this forum, you've put down the Japanese language quite a bit and a lot of people are getting riled up and trying to correct your mistakes or explain why the Japanese language is not full of random nonsense.

The point I'm trying to make, is that I don't think it's good for everyone to debate at length with one person whose goals and attitudes are so different. I've seen a few times on this forum, where someone with unusual views shows up, and suddenly we have a long miserable debate thread (ex, that Benny Lewis thread, I can't find the others right now). It's very ugly and I wish people would take a step back and think "do I need to add my response to this pile?" The biggest problem is that it's always one person against everyone else who reads the thread and gets riled up.

[ファブリス]

Are you guys done? This thread is becoming ridiculous.

Digix, you made your point. Every one, likewise you made your point.

Thread closed.