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+--- Thread: Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? (/thread-12031.html)
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - Vempele - 2014-07-31
chamcham Wrote:In some cases, you're lucky because there are no other similar looking kanji.No, it's not luck. If such kanji were to exist, you'd just learn to tell them apart.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - yogert909 - 2014-07-31
Vempele Wrote:Context would help too.chamcham Wrote:In some cases, you're lucky because there are no other similar looking kanji.No, it's not luck. If such kanji were to exist, you'd just learn to tell them apart.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - yudantaiteki - 2014-07-31
chamcham Wrote:I'm just saying that if you can't write a kanji, your ability to correctly recognize it isDo you really not have the experience of being able to flawlessly recognize a kanji in context, but not being able to handwrite it?
dubious at best. In some cases, you're lucky because there are no other similar looking kanji. In that case, you can get away with vaguely remembering parts of the kanji because nothing else looks like it. But if you came across a similar kanji in a compound (which if correct would be an entirely different word), you run the risk of translating the wrong word.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - yogert909 - 2014-07-31
yudantaiteki Wrote:Do you really not have the experience of being able to flawlessly recognize a kanji in context, but not being able to handwrite it?I'm still learning my kanji but the ones I know, I can recognise with no contextual hints. If I see them in context, I'm sure there wouldn't be much confusing similar kanji. However I'm sure I wouldn't be able to write most of them from memory. I wouldn't be able to draw my house or my car either, even though I see them every day and never confuse them.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - JusenkyoGuide - 2014-08-01
yogert909 Wrote:That's a rather silly analogy... You don't have to communicate by drawing your house or car, a written language however is a different story.yudantaiteki Wrote:Do you really not have the experience of being able to flawlessly recognize a kanji in context, but not being able to handwrite it?I'm still learning my kanji but the ones I know, I can recognise with no contextual hints. If I see them in context, I'm sure there wouldn't be much confusing similar kanji. However I'm sure I wouldn't be able to write most of them from memory. I wouldn't be able to draw my house or my car either, even though I see them every day and never confuse them.
It's like misspellings in English. Sure, by and large a great deal of writing is done on electronic devices where you have a helpful spell check telling you when you've messed up, but consider how often you still need to apply pencil to paper or pen to paper for any number of things in daily life. If it's a note to you, yourself, spelling and handwriting doesn't count for much, but it does count when given to others.
Now a foreign language of course adds in its own dimension of usage. If you're not in a community where it's used, then meh. If you plan to be however...
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - yogert909 - 2014-08-01
JusenkyoGuide Wrote:That's a rather silly analogy... You don't have to communicate by drawing your house or car, a written language however is a different story.The point I was making wasn't about communication. It was about not being able to accurately draft something that you have no problem recognizing. That they are indeed different skills. As such, I believe my analogy illustrates the concept. If you don't think so, don't worry about it because I clearly stated that I have little trouble recognizing kanji compared to great difficulty writing them. Is it different for you?
JusenkyoGuide Wrote:It's like misspellings in English. Sure, by and large a great deal of writing is done on electronic devices where you have a helpful spell check telling you when you've messed up, but consider how often you still need to apply pencil to paper or pen to paper for any number of things in daily life. If it's a note to you, yourself, spelling and handwriting doesn't count for much, but it does count when given to others.I'm considering how often I put pencil to paper and it's about once every other month and usually it's my name, phone number, things I am unlikely to misspell.
JusenkyoGuide Wrote:Now a foreign language of course adds in its own dimension of usage. If you're not in a community where it's used, then meh. If you plan to be however...Agreed, japan seems to put more of a premium on handwriting than here in the US.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - Arupan - 2014-08-01
A question to those live in Japan - don't you ever write notes? Or do you always use your cellphone for that?
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - jimeux - 2014-08-02
chamcham Wrote:I'm just saying that if you can't write a kanji, your ability to correctly recognize it is dubious at best.The number of kanji natives can write from memory is declining by the day. I'm sceptical that so many of these people have trouble reading.
chamcham Wrote:But if you came across a similar kanji in a compound (which if correct would be an entirely different word), you run the risk of translating the wrong word.I've just finished translating (literally) a series of documents totalling over 250,000 Japanese characters. I had everything proofread by a bilingual Japanese native, and there were a few mistakes related to me confusing words. Despite your concerns, none of them had anything to do with similar kanji or kanji at all.
chamcham Wrote:It doesn't take a lot of time to write kanji after you've finished RTK.Kanji in isolation are meaningless. To learn to write, you need to learn how words are written, and this does take a whole lot of time.
Your own stories literally write out the kanji for you :-)
From my experience as a proficient reader, I believe it's possible to have knowledge of kanji that doesn't necessarily translate to writing by hand. It's not unlike my more urgent problem of recognising words instantaneously, yet having no way of "accessing" them during conversation.
I've actually made it my new hobby to learn how to write at least a few thousand of the most common words, even though it's next to useless for me in practical terms. Since my Anki retention rate is never 100%, I'll still end up being dubious with a probability of between 5-10% though.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - vosmiura - 2014-08-02
Even with RTK, writing words is it's own skill still. If you don't practice writing words then you'll only remember how to write a fraction of the words. I don't practice writing words, so even though I can write the kanji I can't write words well, although a lot better than colleagues who speak better Japanese but have not done RTK.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - john555 - 2014-08-02
I still don't get how you can see a kanji and know what it means but you can't write the kanji when given the meaning first.
That would be like saying, when I see "3" I know it means "three" but if you ask me to write the Arabic numeral for "three" I can't do it. That would make me doubt your ability to know the meaning of "3" when you see it.
When I went through RTK1 I mainly did keyword to kanji and sometimes kanji to keyword. I thought the whole point of the Heisig method was to go keyword to kanji. Heisig says that in his introduction. If you're not doing it that way, you're not following Heisig's "vision".
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - Vempele - 2014-08-02
john555 Wrote:That would be like saying, when I see "3" I know it means "three" but if you ask me to write the Arabic numeral for "three" I can't do it. That would make me doubt your ability to know the meaning of "3" when you see it.I write "5" as a single stroke. If it were a kanji, that'd count as writing it incorrectly, wouldn't it? I mean, I think we were taught a 2-stroke version in school, but I didn't pay attention since I already knew the numbers.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - cophnia61 - 2014-08-02
john555 Wrote:I still don't get how you can see a kanji and know what it means but you can't write the kanji when given the meaning first.The same thing is for input vs output. We can recognise more than what we can produce. And generally we focus first on recognition (reading, listening), because of priorities we have. So many of us can recognize words and grammar structures but we can not produce them early on. The same is for writing, with the only difference that writing is way less fundamental than speaking.
That would be like saying, when I see "3" I know it means "three" but if you ask me to write the Arabic numeral for "three" I can't do it. That would make me doubt your ability to know the meaning of "3" when you see it.
When I went through RTK1 I mainly did keyword to kanji and sometimes kanji to keyword. I thought the whole point of the Heisig method was to go keyword to kanji. Heisig says that in his introduction. If you're not doing it that way, you're not following Heisig's "vision".
In fact I did RtK in production mode and I think this helped a lot in gaining confidence in kanji, but as I don't live in Japan and probably I'll never write a single word in japanese, and my main interest is in reading/listening comprension, the RtK deck now is more a burden than a blessing, and Heisig keywords are not so useful in learning words, so I'm going to flip my RtK deck in recognition mode and substitute keywords with actual meanings. I think if the op main goal is to understand the written/spoken language and then to learn to speak himself, it will reach this result faster if he skip kanji writing from keywords. He can still practice kanji writing simply copying kanji/words from time to time when he reviews them in recognition mode. I think this is enough to gain confidence in kanji and learn to notice the differences with compounds with similar kanji.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - Termy - 2014-08-02
Comparing a "3" with a more complex Kanji is a bit unfair, especially if you've seen numbers your whole life. The more complex the visual imagery is, the harder it is to actively produce.
Take it one step further: you can immediately recognize peoples faces, but unless you actively studied each detail in-depth beforehand or have a real knack for it, it would be next to impossible to remember/produce each visual component that makes up the face of whatever person you know (each wrinkle and fold in their skin, the exact shape of ones lips, the width and length of their eyes, and so on) in a correct fashion.
It's the same with kanji. When you recognize the kanji, your eyes and your brain interpret the whole, but skip the details (just like sentences). Do that long enough, without focusing actively on production, and the details become more and more blurry when you switch to production mode, even if you can still recognize the whole kanji instantly.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - yudantaiteki - 2014-08-02
john555 Wrote:I still don't get how you can see a kanji and know what it means but you can't write the kanji when given the meaning first.You will get it at some point, just wait.
Terny:
Quote:It's the same with kanji. When you recognize the kanji, your eyes and your brain interpret the whole, but skip the details (just like sentences). Do that long enough, without focusing actively on production, and the details become more and more blurry when you switch to production mode, even if you can still recognize the whole kanji instantly.I think that's true. Context also plays a big role. There's a perception that something like 持 vs. 特 is hard because it's just one tiny stroke difference -- so if you don't know all the strokes flawlessly you'll never be able to deal with the difference. But actually those kanji are not used in the same contexts, and once you're at the point where you're processing 特別 or 持参 as words rather than a bunch of little strokes put together, there's no danger of mixing up the two kanji.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - jimeux - 2014-08-02
john555 Wrote:I still don't get how you can see a kanji and know what it means but you can't write the kanji when given the meaning first.Next time you see a Japanese person pull out a smartphone while they're writing, try asking them for an explanation. It's a known fact that natives can't write all the jouyou kanji, and unless your Anki retention rate is 100%, neither can you at this moment. You should really think about what the rest of your post implies given this.
john555 Wrote:When I went through RTK1 I mainly did keyword to kanji and sometimes kanji to keyword. I thought the whole point of the Heisig method was to go keyword to kanji. Heisig says that in his introduction. If you're not doing it that way, you're not following Heisig's "vision".I used RTK myself and reviewed the deck for over a year. That was about 4 years ago. At no point did I try to write Japanese from memory, and at no point have I been able to. There's a lot more to do to become a fluent writer. The topic of this thread is if the subsequent effort, which is significant, is worth it. It has no bearing on reading ability.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - Vempele - 2014-08-02
yudantaiteki Wrote:Context also plays a big role. There's a perception that something like 持 vs. 特 is hard because it's just one tiny stroke difference -- so if you don't know all the strokes flawlessly you'll never be able to deal with the difference. But actually those kanji are not used in the same contexts, and once you're at the point where you're processing 特別 or 持参 as words rather than a bunch of little strokes put together, there's no danger of mixing up the two kanji.Also, it's not just any old one-stroke difference: 扌 appears in hundreds of kanji, almost always cleanly separated from the rest of the character, looking exactly the same. You're going to notice something's odd even if you're somehow seeing 特 for the first time. It's a very special character
.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - Ash_S - 2014-08-02
I'll just say that I just came back from a year at uni in Japan and being able to write kanji helped me...
write letters and seasonal greetings cards
lecture notes
essays
exams
memos to myself and others
fill out various forms
etc.
You will be at a serious disadvantage compared to your Japanese peers if you can't write kanji by hand...
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - yudantaiteki - 2014-08-02
I think a lot of the difference of opinion in this topic comes from the wide variety of experiences people have, and exactly what people mean when they talk about "writing kanji." First off, as other people have pointed out, "writing Japanese" is not the same thing as handwriting kanji. Writing in Japanese involves a number of skills, one of which *might* be handwriting kanji depending exactly on what you are doing.
These are examples of situations you might find yourself having to write in Japanese (either for school, work, or hobby):
- Taking notes in a lecture
- Writing an e-mail to a friend
- Text messaging/chatting with a friend on a smartphone
- Copying information by hand from some article or source
- Writing a note or e-mail to a colleague or boss
- Writing an essay, thesis, or journal article
- Taking a test (Kanken or just a general language exam)
- Filling out forms in Japanese
These tasks all require very different levels of knowledge. Some of them don't require any handwriting ability at all, others require a basic level, others require very advanced levels. In some cases the primary difficulty is composing the sentences and paragraphs, not handwriting kanji (even if that's necessary). In some cases it's just for your own use, sometimes friends will see it, sometimes people above you in rank will see it, and sometimes strangers will see it.
It's common for people to state that their goal is to have native-level ability or to have the language ability to do anything, but this is unrealistic. I guess some people may find such lofty goals helpful, but I think they can be equally confusing because with such a broad goal like that it's hard to know what you should focus on or how you should proceed.
With a question like "Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand?", I don't feel I can answer it without asking some followup questions: What do you want to do with your Japanese ability? What do you mean by "the kanji"?
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - ariariari - 2014-08-02
Thanks to everyone for all these thoughtful replies.
Regarding this:
yudantaiteki Wrote:With a question like "Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand?", I don't feel I can answer it without asking some followup questions: What do you want to do with your Japanese ability? What do you mean by "the kanji"?I'm really just going off the title of the book here: "Remebering the Kanji 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters". Looking at the copyright in the book, it was first published in 1977, long before so much writing was done via computer. Times have changed, and as I embark on what seems to be a very time consuming self-study course, I thought to ask the hard question: so what? You say you can teach me to write the kanji by hand, but I'm not sure that I really need that. What other benefits does your course offer?
Again, I'm not really that skeptical. But because the amount of time required is so great, it seemed like it was worth asking the hard questions up front. I think that the worst situation would be, say, stopping half way because I find the cost too high for the benefit.
To answer your question about goals, well, that's tricky. I guess that ideally I would be able to talk read/write/talk about the things I find most interesting about Japanese culture: their traditional culture (tea ceremony, art, zen), as well as how they are dealing with their current social issues (national security, work-life balance, economic issues and so on).
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - JusenkyoGuide - 2014-08-02
yogert909 Wrote:Language IS communication however. The four skills of language are reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Pretending otherwise is to short yourself.JusenkyoGuide Wrote:That's a rather silly analogy... You don't have to communicate by drawing your house or car, a written language however is a different story.The point I was making wasn't about communication. It was about not being able to accurately draft something that you have no problem recognizing. That they are indeed different skills. As such, I believe my analogy illustrates the concept. If you don't think so, don't worry about it because I clearly stated that I have little trouble recognizing kanji compared to great difficulty writing them. Is it different for you?
Is it possible to lack one? Sure, but you cannot claim fluency and you will forever be at a disadvantage.
Quote:Really? Every note, every memo, every bit of communication is always done on a machine?JusenkyoGuide Wrote:It's like misspellings in English. Sure, by and large a great deal of writing is done on electronic devices where you have a helpful spell check telling you when you've messed up, but consider how often you still need to apply pencil to paper or pen to paper for any number of things in daily life. If it's a note to you, yourself, spelling and handwriting doesn't count for much, but it does count when given to others.I'm considering how often I put pencil to paper and it's about once every other month and usually it's my name, phone number, things I am unlikely to misspell.
Quote:This is true. Japan still loves its fax machines due to that as well.JusenkyoGuide Wrote:Now a foreign language of course adds in its own dimension of usage. If you're not in a community where it's used, then meh. If you plan to be however...Agreed, japan seems to put more of a premium on handwriting than here in the US.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - yudantaiteki - 2014-08-02
The use of fax machines isn't because they value handwriting, it's a holdover from when computers had great difficulty dealing with the Japanese writing system and so it was easier just to handwrite things than to try to type them in on computers. Once all the companies had fax machines and that culture was started, it just continued. But I think e-mail is being used more and more now that Japanese is well supported on all major OSes.
Quote:you cannot claim fluencyI've failed definitions of "fluency" on this board about 15 times but I've still managed to get a PhD.
Quote:Really? Every note, every memo, every bit of communication is always done on a machine?For me this is more or less true. Both here and in Japan, basically the only handwriting I do that other people see is filling out forms. Maybe once every 3-4 weeks I have to write something (usually really short) that someone else has to see. (Now, I'm sure there are other people who do more handwriting, which is why I said earlier everyone's situation is different.)
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - john555 - 2014-08-03
Now here's a solution for those who "can read the kanji but can't always write them": just do your handwriting in romaji! I'm sure you'll be understood perfectly well!
"I read in kanji, but write in ro-ma-ji". It rhymes.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - tokyostyle - 2014-08-03
Arupan Wrote:A question to those live in Japan - don't you ever write notes? Or do you always use your cellphone for that?When I was in (English taught classes) university I would write notes to classmates using kanji I knew but I hardly used it for anything else. Since graduating I know my address without thinking but if I need to write something down I just type it into the phone and then write it. (Thus having written every single Heisig kanji at least once is useful.) For everything else typing it into Evernote on my phone is by far more efficient.
I imagine there are some jobs here where it would be really important to be able to write by hand but I don't have that kind of job.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - jimeux - 2014-08-03
john555 Wrote:Now here's a solution for those who "can read the kanji but can't always write them": just do your handwriting in romaji! I'm sure you'll be understood perfectly well!If you write kanji on a tree in a forest and it falls and no one is around to see it, did you write kanji on the tree at all? The modern interpretation of this proverb is that writing your address is writing Japanese, and the rest is just a remnant of times when pens were closer to man than MacBooks and iPhones.
"I read in kanji, but write in ro-ma-ji". It rhymes.
Why bother to learn to write the kanji by hand? - Stansfield123 - 2014-08-03
If you use a pen to write the Kanji, are you really writing them? Or is it cheating because you have a pen?
I say that as long as you're using any tool (smartphone, keyboard, pen) to write, you're not really fluent. You should be able to just look at the paper and make the Kanji appear.