Sorry for bit of a derail. But john555 raised an interesting point.

He is IMO, as he describe it, in customer position and it seems that Japanese people are very polite towards customers. But it also seems that teacher-student relationship is exception to this rule, where it is reversed and student should be very polite to the teacher.

I understand that due to public financing, the fact that people are paying their teachers is muddied and in elementary schools and in middle schools there is age difference on top of that. Though... how are workers in store behaving towards their minor (age) customers?

Could someone more knowledgeable please shed more light on salesman / customer and teacher / student relationship in Japan?

There's been a few interesting posts about student/teacher respect in Japan, at least at the University level, where the posts seem to indicate strong elements of seniority and a hierarchy-like mentality between students and teachers. Almost dictatorship-like in some instances.

Now, I'm not sure if that's the norm, but what these people seemed to have suggested is that the teacher's knowledge and experience, at least at the university level, appears to be absolute, and for a student to question it seems to be a sign of disrespect and being rude.

That's where certain cultural norms might come into play. It seems to be that in certain positions and contexts in Japanese life, being submissive is the equivalent of being polite, and that the opposite of that might also be true.

TsugiAshi Wrote:

john555 Wrote:

sholum Wrote:There's a difference between not being at a Japanese level of politeness and being a pompous jerk. I don't know how the exchange went down exactly, but that kind of mentality won't get you very far if you end up in a situation where you need to soften up superiors.
Most people don't like being told things directly when it's something that they don't already agree with. And it seems downright insulting to tell a teacher they're wrong in their field of expertise. These kinds of things require a roundabout approach if you want the best results.

And yes, I live in North America (the US, for that matter, where we're all supposedly loud and rude).

I don't think I was rude to her.

But what I won't do is kowtow to her or act like she's my superior. She's not. I am an adult taking this course for pleasure. I am paying good money for this course. As far as I'm concerned, she's working for me. It's like if you hire an electrician to do electrical work in your house, yes, they're the expert and you're not, but nevertheless you're paying them and they are working for you.

Being impolite in North America isn't exactly a cultural norm that I've ever observed. Being rude in the US is still just called being rude.

That aside, I don't think that you were necessarily rude to your instructor. Being politely vocal and informing your instructor of contrary information than what she gave you isn't being rude. It's perfectly fine not to accept things at face value and to question them. Particularly if you have some degree of an informed, researched opinion on the matter, which it sounded like you did.

And that might be where some people misinterpreted things as being rude. Thinking that questioning what your teacher said about something as being rude, when the point of learning something is partially about questioning it and receiving feedback that can satisfy your thirst for knowledge.

The rude bit isn't that he questioned her, it's how he questioned her. There's a big difference between asking a teacher about contrary information and pretty much saying "you're wrong, this is what I read and I don't care about your experience, actually being Japanese".

It also has nothing to do with Japanese sentiments either. I've never even been to Japan, yet my American experience has taught me that, in the classroom, your teacher is the superior in that field and you should respect that.

Look over the OP again, while he doesn't mention his wording or approach directly, this bit makes me think he was quite rude about it:

john555 Wrote:I was going to say "you're kidding me, right"? but didn't, as there are still several more sessions of this class left.

With that attitude, you can't expect a good experience in the classroom; teachers are human, they tend to favor those students who are attentive, listen to their advice, and ask questions. You don't state contrary information as absolute truth, even when you know it is (which, in this case, it's not); you bring it up as a question, like "Hey, I read this paper that suggested that natives find it easier to read a work with more kanji, what do you think about it?"; bonus points if you have the evidence with you. Unless they are too busy (or are bad teachers), most will take the few minutes required to respond positively to the question. Their job is to teach, and (from all the teachers I've spoken with over the years) they actually like students to engage in the class (even if it's not during the class period), because it's more interesting than talking to yourself while all the students might as well be asleep.

Once again, there's nothing submissive or Japanese about it, it's just good manners.

I have a hypothesis as to why teachers are considered deserving of respect across cultures:
All learning used to take place in something like a master/servant relationship (apprenticeships, for example), once we switched to organized universities, this stayed the same (read period descriptions of university life), only recently, instead of it being seen as a student receiving (the student owes the teacher for life), we started seeing it as the teacher giving (offering a service); however, the idea that teachers are to be respected was still deeply engrained.

Anyway, the idea that teachers should be treated like a product is ridiculous; they have no obligation to make you feel good about yourself or really anything other than talk at you about the course material, anything extra is something given to you by a human who is probably smarter than you in whatever field they're teaching.
Thus, it's incredibly rude to essentially call them an idiot and say you know more than they (even if this were true, you'd be a real jerk to say it).

I read over his post a few times. I don't think that he questioned her rudely. Nor do I think that he said that she was wrong or implied that she was being an idiot. He just said that he read something different than what he was being told by her.

His reply came off as more genuinely surprised and skeptical than rude and antagonistic. Like saying "Really? That's surprising. I read differently. I read that blah blah blah." He phrased his surprise differently than my example, but it's both pretty casual and pretty much the same.

The response that he chose not to say, "you're kidding me, right", shows me that he was genuinely surprised by the information. He learned something more, and by making this thread, he learned even more than what he knew then. So you can tell by those two things that he was genuinely surprised and curious.

I'm also choosing not to focus on what he may or may not have actually said in the conversation with his instructor because that would just be making assumptions on may part that would've been based upon nonexistent information. Basically assuming things about someone simply based upon how they look, judging a book by it's cover, etc.

I'm just responding to the information that he posted, since that's really the only thing we can go on. I'm not saying that the actual conversation wasn't rude, I'm just saying that based upon what he said in his post that he wasn't being rude.

And just because someone's a native Japanese person doesn't mean that they speak for all Japanese people. It's like how John555 said that the cultural norm in the US was to be impolite, and used the fact that he was a native American as evidence of it. But in reality, being impolite in the US is still just being impolite.

So just because someone's native to somewhere doesn't mean that their generalization of millions of people should be accepted at face value, particularly when he read contrary information at an earlier point in time.

I agree with you that phrasing questions a certain way given context and all that is probably better, but that doesn't mean what he said was intended to be rude. Intent and someone interpreting something as being rude are two different things. As our disagreement on this seems indicate as evidence.

If I were his instructor, which I'm not, I wouldn't have taken what he said personally or rudely, as the information presented to him seemed to come off as quizzical and surprising to him, and he questioned it, albeit more casually than what most teachers might want.

I guess that's just our different interpretations then; to me "Are you kidding me?" is less a surprised response and more of an exacerbated response (can be followed by "I'm paying for this crap?", "you're doing 35 in the passing lane when the limit is 55?", etc.)
I wrote with the assumption that the exchange was negative due to the tone of the OP (though I'm fairly sure I conveyed that it was an assumption). The previously mentioned line as well as this one made me think that, though:

john555 Wrote:I guess I shouldn't have said that. I forgot that she's supposed to be the expert, being a native Japanese.

His use of quotation marks also hint at a bitter or sarcastic tone. I could be reading too much into it (years of literature classes had an effect on me), but the whole thing doesn't read like simple curiosity.

I agree, though, that we can't be sure of the situation without details, but it's a bit excessive to ask for that much information.

I took it to mean that in retrospect, while maybe he was a little indignant because of his perception of viewing himself on equal grounds of respect with the instructor, that maybe he knew he should've acted less directly and casually given the instructor-pupil dichotomy. A dichotomy that on some level he disagrees with. His perception might have been indignant, but that doesn't necessarily mean that his reply was meant to be rude.

Some people just present themselves in a more casual and direct manner regardless, and they may not be doing so intentionally to be rude, it's simply just how they unknowingly act/talk. Like being argumentatively-minded where everything can become a debate.

Additionally, it stands to reason that if he thought of himself as an expert, that he probably wouldn't have even hired a language tutor.

Also, I can't really say anything in regards to his reply to the teacher as being rude since I myself would casually open a question by saying something like "I read that blah blah blah." So I took what he said "That's not what I read" as a rephrasing of how I'd see myself unknowingly saying something. Although he could easily have intended for his reply to be rude.

Although in hindsight, if I caught myself saying what I would have said, I would probably tell myself that maybe I shouldn't have been so direct and casual, because even if the intention wasn't to be rude, I can't control how someone would interpret what I said.

I can also see his reply being interpreted as being rude nonetheless, particularly from an instructor who may view herself superior in knowledge. Which is most likely true, but the interpretation being taken so personally can also speak on her ego and knowledge being questioned, which could be taken as a personal offense against her intelligence.

But even so, an instructor shouldn't believe that their knowledge is infallible. I know that if an instructor or tutor made a sweeping generalization about a race or nation of people simply because he or she identified with that group, I would be highly skeptical and a bit put off, particularly if I researched and found different responses to what I was told. Being an instructor or tutor doesn't give a person the right to think that they know everything about the subject they're teaching.

Oh well, if you think that you're reading too much into this, then I definitely am, lol.

[Zgarbas]

I've started admiring and am in awe of (both North and South) Americans and the sense of... Entitlement that they have (for lack of a better word). In class, they take the 自己紹介 time to go in depth about what they want from it, they don't feel bad about using up people's time, they're direct and talk about themselves a lot. It's quite a contrast to what i'm used to, especially in a classroom environment. I think it's pretty cool. Of course, they're never pleased with the classes here. The fact that exercises in class benefit everyone means that 'they waste a lot of time waiting on other people', group projects slow them down, etc. Even when doing bureaucracy, my friend was apalled that she has to explain why she's sending money to the US and found it too troublesome to so, whereas I found it normal (being from a country which many businesses consider high-risk). In the end I took the time to explain the US system to the lady at the counter and she said she'll explain to the other clerk that the information is not available. Really cool. I got bullied by teachers in Romania for being half as outspoken as they are, and wonder how different my school life would've been there.
But then they wonder why they don't fit in in Japan, why their Japanese isn't magically improving, etc. and go back home since 'Japan is so stiff'.

The people who you're describing just sound like they're personally self-entitled in some of the scenarios. I'm American and I'm not like that. Then again, maybe I'm not the norm.

Although one thing I dislike is the mindset that people just have to accept something simply because "it's that way." And I think that some people from the US might share that mindset to some degree. So to me it's slightly understandable why an American would be so fidgety in a setting and a circumstance that they consider to be too rigid and unquestioned, particularly if very few people share their mindset in that setting.

As for teachers in the US, they will "bully" students who are unreasonably or unjustly outspoken, at least in the grade levels prior to college. Heck, I'm sure it can be like that even in college in the US. But of course, not all teachers are like that. Neither are all students unruly.

For me personally, I don't necessarily accept unreasonable sweeping generalizations and absolutes. Particularly not from people who want me to hold them in some level of superiority. They should just know better. So if one is brought up, I'll probably question it. Although if I'm told to shut up or I'll get an F, I'll also keep my mouth shut lol.

Partly I think of Heisig's story about how he came up with RTK. He was in Japan, he was told that he should just take a class and learn kanji the normal way. He chose to do his method instead, and thus RevTK. So there are definitely times to question certain things and standards.

With regards to your actual question, I think using whatever Kanji you want is fine so long as your intended audience can also read it.
Like someone else said, maybe she wanted you to only use Kanji you learnt in class (Although that to me is a bit of a strange idea too)?
Complaining about くつ being written as 靴 seems a bit overboard to me at least.

In real life you develop your own writing style and make choices based on the situation, so a sweeping statement like saying 'Japanese people find it "hard to read" a paragraph if it has "too many" kanji' is just ridiculous.
It all depends on the audience; I wouldn't refrain from using technical words at my work just because someone else might find it hard to understand for example.

So I say use whatever Kanji you want.

Regarding your response to the teacher, if it were me I wouldn't have felt pissed off at all, since I can see it's just you expressing surprise by stating some other information you read.

I do agree with Yudantaiteki that it is her job to teach cultural appropriateness too, however at the same time I agree with you that it sounds like she needs to, as a teacher, teach that cultural appropriateness in the appropriate way for the culture of the people/students in your part of the world.
Maybe you could have reworded your answer to be a bit more diplomatic though.

For example, maybe she would have reacted better if you had said something like 'Ok, I didn't know that some people prefer the use of less Kanji. I decided to use the Kanji because I read ..., could you tell me what you think of that please?'.

On the other hand from what you have written, it sounds like instead of being pissed off she should know that not being in Japan means people are more likely to be direct with her about what she is teaching, and to just explain her position and perhaps explain why that kind of answer would not be as acceptable to a Japanese person used to Japanese culture, instead of getting worked up about it.

With my wife (Japanese) I've been forced to learn how to be very indirect with the way I converse on certain topics with her. I just can't speak with her in the same way as I speak with any other person from the UK, because she takes my directness as an attack on her thoughts/beliefs.

I have to agree with what she is saying and then gently slip my thoughts in afterwards.

TL;DR: Use whatever Kanji you want

Nyanda, interesting comments. I would love to hear an example of how you would put something to your wife compared to how you would say it to any other person from the UK. I tend to attribute things like this to personality rather than cultural differences. I'm an American, and I have a close American friend with whom I have learned to avoid certain topics and conversational approaches because I've learned to recognize -- if not fully understand -- what might cause my friend to get upset. :-)

Zgarbas, I can't help noting the irony in your use of the word "admiring." Nor that what you've written here is a good example of stereotyping, albeit stereotyping that the OP has unfortunately reinforced. In educational settings, by no means is it the norm for (North and South) Americans to feel as entitled and unappreciative as you describe. Also, your friend who refused to explain why she was sending money home simply failed to understand that the question is a bureaucratic formality, not an invasion of privacy -- which I believe is the true reason behind her reaction. The woman at the counter was probably similarly blinded by her own cultural norms and inexperience. The refusal probably wouldn't have fazed a more seasoned or perceptive bank teller. Instead, she would have explained that one only has to answer the question in the most general of terms, such as "transfer to personal savings" or "repayment of personal debt." As you imply, the logjam was completely unnecessary.

Finally, I agree with sholum about the tone of the OP's complaints. As far as I'm concerned, it is downright arrogant to write about a language teacher "But what I won't do is kowtow to her or act like she's my superior. She's not. I am an adult taking this course for pleasure. I am paying good money for this course. As far as I'm concerned, she's working for me," or to refrain from essentially calling the teacher an idiot only because there are a few more sessions to go in the course. Also, it is indisputable that despite variations from person to person, there are unlimited examples of Japanese words and expressions that are most commonly written in kana instead of kanji, and insisting on using kanji whenever possible in these cases risks coming across as eccentric or not yet advanced enough in Japanese to know the difference.

And that should be the final word on all this! (JK Zgarbas!!) ;-)

jishonary Wrote:Nyanda, interesting comments. I would love to hear an example of how you would put something to your wife compared to how you would say it to any other person from the UK. I tend to attribute things like this to personality rather than cultural differences. I'm an American, and I have a close American friend with whom I have learned to avoid certain topics and conversational approaches because I've learned to recognize -- if not fully understand -- what might cause my friend to get upset. :-)

Yes, you're right, this definitely also comes down to personality as well; of course you could meet a Japanese person that is more direct than any other person you have met in your life, it all just depends on personal experience.

Having said that however, because culture has such a massive influence on the way people do things, I do think it's easier to find a westerner that you can talk with directly than a Japanese person without offending them or making them think you are just an tadpole in some way.

I was going to write out an example of what I mean with my wife, but I remembered seeing a video on YouTube about this very subject and managed to find it again.

The video seems a bit exaggerated in places, and depending on the relationship you have with the person and the kind of personality they have you may be granted some leeway, but I think it illustrates the point I was trying to make quite well; you can see it here

jishonary Wrote:As far as I'm concerned, it is downright arrogant to write about a language teacher "But what I won't do is kowtow to her or act like she's my superior. She's not. I am an adult taking this course for pleasure. I am paying good money for this course. As far as I'm concerned, she's working for me," or to refrain from essentially calling the teacher an idiot only because there are a few more sessions to go in the course. Also, it is indisputable that despite variations from person to person, there are unlimited examples of Japanese words and expressions that are most commonly written in kana instead of kanji, and insisting on using kanji whenever possible in these cases risks coming across as eccentric or not yet advanced enough in Japanese to know the difference.

Although I agree that what he said in that quote was arrogant in regards to the instructor being nothing more than someone who works for him, there are certain circumstances where the overall content of that quote can be sympathized with.

From one adult to another adult, like an adult instructor to an adult student, the two should simply see each other as equals. One is teaching, and one is learning, but that doesn't mean the one teaching should hold themselves in the role of a superior and act condescendingly or arrogantly towards the one being taught (like a teacher might in actual school) simply because of the teacher-student dichotomy.

I'm just saying that in general. I don't think that the instructor in John555's case was arrogant or condescending. However, I do think that she took what John555 said to her a bit too personally.

On the topic of using kana over kanji, in some aspects of its practice, my initial reaction to hearing about that was thinking about how people in the US will use single-word letters as substitutes for actual words like "you" and "are," alongside using a more watered-down version of the English language in general. It may be common practice, but that doesn't mean that I would make a habit of doing it myself.

Although in reality I don't know how that comparison between languages matches up. But it still seems strange that someone who opts to use perfectly good kanji over kana would be seen as eccentric. Is it a generational thing? A contextual thing? Like, do younger people opt to use a more relaxed form of Japanese like Americans do with English, and the older people still prefer mostly kanji?

Don't worry about what your teacher said. It only applies to that one assignment. Each assignment should be tailored to the audience, but you should not dumb down your skills to accommodate mediocrity just limit the number of kanji you use to accommodate your assignments whilst using the amounts of kanji you do know in personal writing projects. So long as the proportion of skill to mediocrity is higher frequency of skill to mediocrity, you'll be well on your way to writing in major Japanese newspapers or Doctorate level theses and papers. The question is, how much money do you want to earn using your writing skills? I'd like to keep my options vast and wide as possible, but that choice is entirely up to you. How much work are you willing to do? Is so-so amounts of kanji in your writings good enough for you or are you dumbing yourself down to accommodate someone else?

Hope that helps you decide for yourself what best applies and suits your goals in life. Best of luck!

[Zgarbas]

jishonary Wrote:Zgarbas, I can't help noting the irony in your use of the word "admiring." Nor that what you've written here is a good example of stereotyping, albeit stereotyping that the OP has unfortunately reinforced. In educational settings, by no means is it the norm for (North and South) Americans to feel as entitled and unappreciative as you describe. Also, your friend who refused to explain why she was sending money home simply failed to understand that the question is a bureaucratic formality, not an invasion of privacy -- which I believe is the true reason behind her reaction. The woman at the counter was probably similarly blinded by her own cultural norms and inexperience. The refusal probably wouldn't have fazed a more seasoned or perceptive bank teller. Instead, she would have explained that one only has to answer the question in the most general of terms, such as "transfer to personal savings" or "repayment of personal debt." As you imply, the logjam was completely unnecessary.

No, I do genuinely admire them. I wish I had that presence of spirit and confidence, and I believe it is a great source of ambition and what not. Even the more shy and introverted people from the US or Brazil that I've met simply emanated a self-confidence that would've been beaten out of them in my country. I do genuinely think that's awesome. I've always had a tone of voice that got my in trouble with teachers so I envy a society where that would not be a punishable trait; would've saved me a lot of issues.
It's just that the ones who stand out most for this tend to also be the ones who end up very disappointed in Japan. On the one side, I admire the ambition, but on the other about 30% of the ones I've talked to have dreadfully negative experiences, and I think it is mainly because of this.

And no, she just genuinely never thought that it needs explaining, or that she'd have to explain what she's buying with a credit card. She's not a stuck-up person, it was pure culture clash. It's just how Indians coming to Japan have to explain where they are lodging every day of their trip, but people from Europe or the US don't; they're not used to being suspected of anything and as such find that they're entitled to that trust/respect/whatnot.

Btw, I was teaching an adult last month, he was taking English lessons for his trip, paying me directly (one-on-one), and I was maybe 30 years his junior... But if he said something, he said it politely. If he didn't agree with me, he asked rather than stated. If he didn't do his homework (totally understandable for someone in his position, it was optional anyway) he still apologised, if only for show. He wasn't 'kowtowing', he was just treating me like a human being who is paid to explain things. He could've been rude and I wouldn't have been able to say anything, and I could've just not explained things properly and he wouldn't have said anything either; this way, we both had a pleasurable experience. Politeness does wonders for both parties.

TsugiAshi Wrote:On the topic of using kana over kanji, in some aspects of its practice, my initial reaction to hearing about that was thinking about how people in the US will use single-word letters as substitutes for actual words like "you" and "are," alongside using a more watered-down version of the English language in general. It may be common practice, but that doesn't mean that I would make a habit of doing it myself.

Although in reality I don't know how that comparison between languages matches up. But it still seems strange that someone who opts to use perfectly good kanji over kana would be seen as eccentric. Is it a generational thing? A contextual thing? Like, do younger people opt to use a more relaxed form of Japanese like Americans do with English, and the older people still prefer mostly kanji?

I don't think it's really like this. Considering the comparison to newspapers, I think it's more like how English newspapers will use easy to read sentence structure and phrasing, even when the more difficult version of the sentence is more concise; the first is made of words that pretty much every native speaker of a certain age should know, while the other is better understood by people who read a lot about that topic (and in general).

It's hard to remember at times, but most people aren't as obsessive about language use as many of us. Most people don't do the reading and studying required to get through technical documents with ease. An example of this: in my circuits class, we used a textbook that used language that many struggled with; an excerpt:

Basic Engineering Circuit Analysis (tenth edition); Irwin, Nelms Wrote:[...]We could, of course, plod through the indicated integration; however, with a little forethought we can determine the result by inspection. The first term is independent of t, and therefore a constant in the integration. Integrating the constant over the period and dividing by the period simply results in the original constant. The second term is a cosine wave. It is well known that the average value of a cosine wave over one complete period or an integral number of periods is zero, and therefore the second term in Eq. (9.8) vanishes. In view of this discussion, Eq. (9.8) reduces to [equation].

All of this is perfectly accurate and correct, and is probably more accurate than any simplified version of the same explanation, but it's far from friendly to people who aren't used to this kind of writing (or don't already know the material). For the sake of completeness, the above passage was explaining the simplification of the equation for average power to the frequency domain (which is the only sane way to do circuit analysis by hand; doing circuit analysis by hand is bordering on insane itself, though...)
(The above passage was randomly chosen by opening the book and finding something that wasn't riddled with equations I can't type here. It's actually fairly clear compared to many of the explanations. It illustrates my purpose well enough, though.)
Anyway, that's how I see using all the kanji possible in a passage: perfectly accurate and fine for people who read that kind of stuff, but incredibly dense and unfriendly to people who don't. Even I have difficulty reading such passages for very long, as it's a very tiring style.

Just as a side note: I personally find compounds like 其処（そこ） and 如何（どう） relatively useless in regular print as they're almost never used and there's very little reason to use them (adds needless complication for no added ease of recognition).

TsugiAshi Wrote:From one adult to another adult, like an adult instructor to an adult student, the two should simply see each other as equals. One is teaching, and one is learning, but that doesn't mean the one teaching should hold themselves in the role of a superior and act condescendingly or arrogantly towards the one being taught (like a teacher might in actual school) simply because of the teacher-student dichotomy.

You can be a superior without being arrogant or condescending. Simply telling someone they are wrong is neither, especially when you are a teacher.

I have many years of experience teaching Japanese, and I can't count the number of students who have come to me claiming that what we're learning in class is wrong because of something they saw in anime, or because a Japanese friend told them. In almost every case, the book is right and they're wrong (or their Japanese friend is wrong). So I can imagine that a teacher would tend to take a negative attitude towards any challenge to their authority.

Quote:On the topic of using kana over kanji, in some aspects of its practice, my initial reaction to hearing about that was thinking about how people in the US will use single-word letters as substitutes for actual words like "you" and "are," alongside using a more watered-down version of the English language in general. It may be common practice, but that doesn't mean that I would make a habit of doing it myself.

Although in reality I don't know how that comparison between languages matches up. But it still seems strange that someone who opts to use perfectly good kanji over kana would be seen as eccentric. Is it a generational thing? A contextual thing? Like, do younger people opt to use a more relaxed form of Japanese like Americans do with English, and the older people still prefer mostly kanji?

No. If anything, kanji use has increased with the increase in the use of computers, because you no longer actually have to know how to write the kanji by hand to be able to use them. But there are still many places where normal usage dictates that you write a word in hiragana rather than kanji. (Not using 靴 seems odd to me but without knowing the full context and only hearing one side of the story, I'm not going to guess about that specific issue any further.)

Long post, but I'm replying to more than one person and didn't want to double-post.

I pretty much get what you're saying and I suppose it mostly makes sense with your example, but at the same time I'm referring to less contextually specific and technical material and more about kanji that can be used for the word shoe rather than someone simply choosing to spell the kanji character out in kana.

Heck, I don't know what a cosine and a lot of that other technical jargon is off the top of my head, but the way the technical material is phrased if modestly digestible if you know and understand the jargon.

My thoughts would be the same toward kanji. I'd imagine that the Kanji that's used for techncial material is still technical jargon whether it'd be written as kanji or kana, and potentially unknown to the common Japanese person who isn't interested in that type of subject. My focus is less on that and more on mundane things that people already understand and commonly talk about, and the use of kanji and kana in relation to that.

Similarly, even though I can read cosine, and I've learned it in my past, I can't actually apply a definition for it off the top of my head. So my train of thought is that a Japanese person who doesn't understand the technical term for something would most likely find it difficult to read as both kana and kanji.

But for mundane things, the use of kana over perfectly good kanji just seems like... I don't know, kind of watered-down. I can accept it that it's reality, but it still doesn't necessarily make complete sense without seeming sort of like a more laid-back use of the langauge and kind of lazy (which was a term I didn't want to use but couldn't find a better substitute).

yudantaiteki Wrote:You can be a superior without being arrogant or condescending. Simply telling someone they are wrong is neither, especially when you are a teacher.

I agree that people can be superiors to others without being arrogant and condescending.

And anyone who is in a real position of authority is technically a superior to others -- such as bosses, law enforcement officers, judges, etc, etc, even teachers who teach grade levels up to and including college technically are a student's superiors. But that type of authority really only comes from the ability to threaten the person with some type of duress.

But I was referring to something completely specific, to be honest. It's basically an adult taking a single class for their leisure. The instructor isn't necessarily a superior with any real type of authority for the adult student to abide by because there isn't any real duress involved. And an attempt by the instructor under those circumstances to try to flaunt themselves as a superior might just leave them with a lack of business.

All the instructor in that circumstance can really do is fail the student or ask them to leave the class, and the student doesn't really lose a whole lot either way. Not like in college where you can lose thousands of dollars, get expelled, etc. So in that type of scenario, mutual respect is something that should be observed by both teacher and student, although it really doesn't have to because technically the instructor is still in "control."

In that context, the teacher isn't really a superior though. They're just superior in knowledge. And by a superior, I mean that it wouldn't do well for the instructor to treat the adult as some type of underling, which a real superior can do.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I have many years of experience teaching Japanese, and I can't count the number of students who have come to me claiming that what we're learning in class is wrong because of something they saw in anime, or because a Japanese friend told them. In almost every case, the book is right and they're wrong (or their Japanese friend is wrong). So I can imagine that a teacher would tend to take a negative attitude towards any challenge to their authority.

Telling someone that they're flat-out wrong is sort of different from someone who offers a contrary thought backed by actual research that also happens to be coupled with the curiosity of having the instructor further explain things to them. Under the second circumstance, the student isn't necessarily assuming an air of arrogance based upon their unsubstantiated "evidence." They aren't just trying to show the teacher up by telling them that they're wrong. The student is just asking a question that probably should have been phrased better.

Watching anime and hearing things from a friend aren't exactly credible sources to anything either. A study, however, might be a bit more credible. But I agree that a student shouldn't flat out tell a teacher that they're wrong.

yudantaiteki Wrote:No. If anything, kanji use has increased with the increase in the use of computers, because you no longer actually have to know how to write the kanji by hand to be able to use them. But there are still many places where normal usage dictates that you write a word in hiragana rather than kanji. (Not using 靴 seems odd to me but without knowing the full context and only hearing one side of the story, I'm not going to guess about that specific issue any further.)

The first part of your response in that quote reads to me like lack of kanji use boils down to not wanting to do something extra, lol. Ease of use, as it were. Which is pretty much what I meant by "watered down." If anything it somewhat matches up with my thoughts on kanji usage.

Normal usage in many places may dictate writing in kana over kanji, but my curiosity stemmed from why normal usage dictates kana over kanji. And part of your reply seems to be because of ease of use.

TsugiAshi Wrote:The first part of your response in that quote reads to me like lack of kanji use boils down to not wanting to do something extra, lol. Ease of use, as it were.

I don't really agree with this. It's easier than ever for people to use kanji so why would it boil down to that? I think it's dangerous to assume things about stylistic choices before having a deep understanding of the language.

There's a lot of other reasons that people might want to use kana over kanji for certain words/phrases. The target audience's age is one. Using kanji might be confusing before you read the rest of the sentence depending on how many uses that kanji has. Also going against the normal usage might be seen as a stylistic choice that they don't want to make so they continue to use the standard way.

cracky Wrote:

TsugiAshi Wrote:The first part of your response in that quote reads to me like lack of kanji use boils down to not wanting to do something extra, lol. Ease of use, as it were.

I don't really agree with this. It's easier than ever for people to use kanji so why would it boil down to that? I think it's dangerous to assume things about stylistic choices before having a real firm grasp on and ear for the language.

There's a lot of other reasons that people might want to use kana over kanji for certain words/phrases. The target audience's age is one. Using kanji might be confusing before you read the rest of the sentence depending on how many uses that kanji has. Also going against the normal usage might be seen as a stylistic choice that they don't want to make so they continue to use the standard way.

I inferred it based upon this particular quote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:If anything, kanji use has increased with the increase in the use of computers, because you no longer actually have to know how to write the kanji by hand to be able to use them.

I don't know for a fact that this is the case because it's just something someone is saying, but based upon that quote I'm just making an inference about why people use and read kanji on a computer more commonly than choosing to read and write using kana without one. And the crux of my inference being about ease of use came specifically from:

yudantaiteki Wrote:because you no longer actually have to know how to write the kanji by hand to be able to use them.

It's easier to use kanji when you don't have to write them because they do have so many stroke orders. That actually does make sense. Plus I also agree with you in terms of stylistic choices and not wanting to stand out from how everyone else writes. Same with target audience. But my train of thought was oriented towards common adult usage.

Although I believe that using kana might be confusing too until the entire sentence is read, not just kanji. Kana (alongside the sounds they represent), I think, when written out or spoken can sometimes take on different meanings due to one word sounding or being read like another word, which is probably why it's generally best just to read a sentence through to the end regardless.

So far, even though there are most likely more reasons, I'm seeing that lack of kanji use seems to be partly based on laziness and peer pressure, lol.

TsugiAshi Wrote:So far, even though there are most likely more reasons, I'm seeing that lack of kanji use seems to be partly based on laziness and peer pressure, lol.

Honestly, 'laziness and peer pressure' is an unflattering description of -all- language development.
Why are there contractions? Why was cursive script developed?
Because it's shorter and faster ... easier... lazier.
Why has cursive script been abandoned? Because now we type everything and learning another style of character representation is difficult. 'Laziness' on the part of the reader and 'succumbing to peer pressure' on the part of the writer.
Seeking the easiest path to communication and conforming to the norms (or being 'lazy' and succumbing to 'peer pressure' if you like) is the norm of all language development everywhere. Language isn't there to be interesting and beautiful - although as a reader and a language-learner I certainly understand the desire to find such things. The purpose of language however, is to communicate. Almost always the longer or more difficult way to express things gives way to the easier or shorter way to express things. In the short term, of course, there are trends, fads, and slang that express individuality with longer, more obscure, more difficult ways to express things... which then either get dropped from the language or contracted into a manageable form.
What's 'easier' or 'shorter' in kanji vs. kana is a fascinatingly difficult question which likely has much to do with inconsistency in kanji and kana usage. However, it does no good at all to censure people as 'lazy' or whatever when they don't write the way you'd like them to. Pedants with multiple degrees and a widely read platform to preach from never stop their own language from changing, and the chance of foreign enthusiasts introducing or preventing change in a language is surely less than that.

That's why I added the "lol" at the end to indicate that the statement shouldn't be taken too seriously. It was just a silly and funny observation to me. Although the peer pressure part was funny to me (although I can really understand and appreciate it) in how people do conform to the norm due to the mindfulness of not wanting to appear out of place. They may want to write how they'd like to, but don't due to the aforementioned reason.

It's also sort of a funny realization about the "evolution" of language, too. Even how the Japanese language had more sounds than it does now, but over time decided to get rid of two or more kana characters, yet today there are a lot more foreign loan words that are used in the Japanese language which could've benefited from those extra sounds. Although katakana seems to have expanded its range of sounds in order to more accurately produce the loan words.

It's true about what you said in regards to languages and how they progress over time because people seemingly want things to be easier, shorter and more flowing.

Although with English I'm not too fond of where the language could be headed with the single-letter substitutions for actual 3-letter words and with all of this twitter-speak. I'm all for brevity, but too much of it could form a language that's composed of hashtags, abbreviations, and acronyms alongside expressive emoticons.

As far as cursive writing being abandoned, I haven't really heard of that. Is it still taught in school? I know that I use it fairly commonly when I write. I can't really even keep my plain writing straight without cursive writing habitually slipping in.

And as far as the purpose of language, that's subjective and debatable. Simply because language seemingly develops a certain way isn't necessarily indicative of it's true purpose.

Language can be both there for the purpose of easy communication and to be interesting and beautiful, because if language's purpose was to just be simple and easy to use, then communication wouldn't be, well, interesting. Which happens to be a part of why people enjoy conversing with each other.

I'm technically not labeling people as lazy simply because I think that their use of a language is lazy, it's just the observation and the notion that the developmental progress of language seems to generally sway in the ease-of-use direction, as your post suggests. People choose, over time, to write and communicate more simply and quickly due to the other method being too complex and long. Myself included.

I don't really care how someone necessarily writes, tbh. It's their choice. I'm more on the other side where the norm is telling people how they should write in Japanese (when to a reasonable extent it should be their own choice how they want to write), and several people in this thread suggesting for people to write like that in order not to stand out. It's all good and practical information, but it comes off as peer-pressure related.

Using laziness and peer-pressure probably weren't the best descriptions anyway, but they seem to be somewhat accurate nonetheless.

With all of these long posts I should probably take a lesson in brevity myself.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:As far as cursive writing being abandoned, I haven't really heard of that. Is it still taught in school? I know that I use it fairly commonly when I write. I can't really even keep my plain writing straight without cursive writing habitually slipping in.

Ah, that makes my example a little confusing then I suppose, but, no it's not taught anymore at least in most American public schools. Many young people cannot read it. More than once I've been asked not to use cursive because some people can't read it, which really confused me at the time because I hadn't yet heard the reports about it being eliminated from the grade school curriculum.

(Also, for what it's worth, I understand that cursive has also been eliminated from the Japanese curriculum for high school English. Makes sense I suppose, not to teach a dying form of writing as if it were a staple of the language.)

TsugiAshi Wrote:As far as cursive writing being abandoned, I haven't really heard of that. Is it still taught in school? I know that I use it fairly commonly when I write. I can't really even keep my plain writing straight without cursive writing habitually slipping in.

As stated above, it has been eliminated from the required curriculum here in the US. It's death started almost twenty years ago, now.
I use a semi-cursive when I write, just because I'm lazy, but engineers have been taught for a long time now to use a specific character set and to write this set precisely, because it is easy for written words to be misinterpreted when in cursive or semi-cursive.

That's pretty crazy. Cursive script (in the US), when actually learned, is so simple to write with. It's nice and flowing and you barely have to take pauses to raise a pencil or pen when writing single words. Although it really does make sense that it's been eliminated because of the strain of trying to interpret someone's writing.

Print is all nice and dandy, too, but when penning one's signature cursive script set a custom tone to the writing, and in some ways made it somewhat more difficult to forge.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but I think overuse of kanji isn't neccessarily always an issue about the kanji knowledge of your target audience or "dumbing down for the common man" but could very well be more of an issue of scan- and readability.

Kanji are more complex and thicker in appearance than kana and draws the attention of your eye. I think rather than being neccessarily analogous to difficult words they match better with the use and appearance of bold in a text for emphasis - and if you use kanji (or bold) at every opportunity it can create a messy effect.

Thus switching to kana can create pockets of air in your text and thus make it easier for the reader to scan the text.

Good examples of words you can leave as kana are auxilary verbs and common words that are well known and easy to understand without the kanji between pockets of more kanji-heavy bits. It gives the eye clearer resting points for it to stop on.

I don't think it's unusual for natives to do this either. It's usually subtle and limited to specific cases, but I've definitelly observed this stylistic choice more than once, in novels and regular forum posts as well as personal messages with positive effect.

I'd imagine a text with almost only kanji could feel the same way for the Japanese reader as walls of texts with barelly any indentation can do to us. Not neccessarily hard to read per se, just exhausting and hard to scan.