I was told by my teacher that I had used "too many" kanji in this short essay I wrote and that Japanese people find it "hard to read" a paragraph if it has "too many" kanji. For example, I used the kanji for kutsu (shoe) 靴 and she seemed to be suggesting that it should be written with kana but she admitted at the same time that many Japanese people do write it with kanji.

I think she got pissed at me because I reacted skeptically when she said Japanese people find a paragraph with "too many" kanji hard to read...I said something like, "that's not what I read. I've read that studies show that the more kana are used in a passage the slower a Japanese adult reads" (I read this in a book about Asian writing systems). I guess I shouldn't have said that. I forgot that she's supposed to be the expert, being a native Japanese.

She also claimed that a paragraph with "too many kanji" looks "messy" to a Japanese person. I was going to say "you're kidding me, right"? but didn't, as there are still several more sessions of this class left.

It depends on the person and the context, but yes, what your teacher told you is often true. The same word will sometimes be written in both kanji and kana at different points just because of how many other kanji are nearby when the word is written. OTOH, there are people that use kanji for almost everything, all the time (this may be driven by having IME conversion so easily at hand all the time when writing on the computer). I'm not exactly sure but I think that kind of heavy kanji use (even using 此処 for ここ,　如何 for どう, etc.) looks kind of geeky. But maybe I think that because I only see that kind of style in conversations about anime or among amateur light novelists.

Newspapers and textbooks and the like tend to use kanji always for things that are 'usually' written in kanji, and never for things that are 'usually not' written in kanji, so depending on the sentence the kanji density varies a lot, sometimes quite heavy and sometimes hardly any. Anyway, consider that if that's the way you're trying to write that your writing will look and feel like a newspaper or textbook and somewhat affect the tone people perceive.

the more Kanji the better!!!
At least if words are seperated by 送り仮名 or 助詞 it always gets easier, the more Kanji they are.
Take など for example: its often written in kana and is just ***** annoying but once you read it a few times as 等 on wikipedia等 it just gets faster!

KANJI FOR LIFE!

If I were to guess, the over usage of rare kanji wouldn't too be dissimilar to someone using unnecessarily obscure and difficult to understand words when simpler ones would suffice. Depending on the context it may be fine, but in certain cases it immediately seems awkward and can even be overbearing.

This isn't exactly related, but I've been witness to many Japanese adults just guessing at what they think a kanji is when they aren't sure, and sure enough they are often wrong. Many educated adults consider themselves to be 'weak' when it comes to kanji, yet they function perfectly fine in Japanese society. It'd be wrong to assume all Japanese people are walking kanji dictionaries, and equally so to assume they have an affinity for kanji at all. Just like many English speaking adults don't care how bad their spelling is and make no attempts to improve upon it, the same is true for a lot of Japanese adults when it comes to kanji.

I remember in in my first-year class my teacher asked us to not use kanji we hadn't covered in class during assignments, although that stopped after the first year.


My guess is that you wrote things that are normally in kana in kanji, and so she said it was "hard to read" because of that. Like writing 有る instead of ある (might not be the best example), or something like that. Sure, a person might now the kanji, but it isn't written like everyone else does it (it kind of reminds me of this:

)

Go down a few paragraphs to see what I think about the actual Japanese bit

I think this situation has nothing to do with Japanese and more with tact. Your instructor is supposed to be your superior in the classroom (though much less so in college or university, they still are), your attitude towards your instructors criticism means far more than your actual paper.
Unless there is a strict guideline for grading or you have an example of a classmate who did something incredibly similar, you can't complain about criticism in class; you just have to work with it. You should use criticism as an opportunity to learn, not get fed up with the instructor.

Of course, there's the possibility that you have a very bad instructor, but I've had some instructors that were considered 'bad' by other students, but they reacted just as positively to my questions on how to improve as any other instructor, often giving me a far better experience with the class (and a better grade; gotta love/hate academic freedom).

In other words, it's like politics or business; you suck it up and use roundabout methods to get what you want; never complain without evidence handy (you gave this guy partial credit for an answer with the wrong sign, so what did I do wrong to get no credit?).

About 'too many kanji':

Yes, it's awkward to read something that uses too many kanji, just as it's awkward to read something with too few. Of course, it's all down to taste as to how many you use, just as it's up to you how you use active or passive voice, how you organize clauses and paragraphs, and how you use punctuation in English; however, when you write an essay in English (or your native language, if it's not English) for class, there are certain guidelines (three-part essay) and abstract concepts of a 'proper' paper (balancing active and passive voice, for instance; no matter what people say, you can't expect a good grade with only active voice). While the former is easily understood from instruction, the latter is only gleaned through a lot of experience. I don't know how exactly your instructor expressed her thoughts on your excessive use of kanji, but from what you've said, it seems like she was just trying to contribute to your intuitive knowledge of proper (/common/easy to read) kanji density.

Just curious, but was this study you read about in one of your stuffy books from the fifties? Not hating on old research, but kanji usage has changed dramatically in the past couple of decades (noticeable in all levels of written media that I've read). It's possible that the research you read is based off of kanji usage from a time when more things were commonly written in kanji. It's also probable that said research didn't look at the other side of the bell curve (which is what knowledge and ability graphs tend to be when tested in one demographic).

But yeah, I don't think you reacted properly to this situation at all... I mean, it's one thing if she made you fail for using too many kanji, but it just sounds like she was properly doing her job as an instructor.

I don't really understand the "awkward to read" thing. Once you know the kanji, it should just get easier to read, right? If not, then kanji would not be used at all. Maybe being used to how many kanji are usually used makes it strange to read a text where more/less are used.

All of the not using kanji attitude is just because the reader might be too uneducated or because the writer is too lazy to convert (or it's too much work in older times). So in novels etc. there should naturally be the trend to write everything in kanji, except of course for stuff where the reading is unclear.
Isn't the whole thing just a tradeoff between how much time you have to spend learning new characters and how much time it will save you and make the meaning clearer?

At least that's what I've thought so far, I don't really have any source or anything... I would love to see a study or something about reading speed in comparison to % of words converted to Kanji.

edit: sorry for my shitty english..

z1bbo Wrote:I don't really understand the "awkward to read" thing. Once you know the kanji, it should just get easier to read, right?

This of course isn't a direct comparison because there isn't really any way to get that between Japanese and English writing systems, but consider this:

I went shopping for some new clothes.
I went shopping for some new garments.

Both mean the exact same thing but they 'feel' very different, and the fact you know the word garments basically means clothes doesn't change this fact. I actually don't think the kanji issue is as strong as this, but it's in that area. Sometimes garments would be perfectly fine to use, but other times it immediately seems odd regardless of how correct it is.

As for the reading speed thing, I don't think it's much of an issue because we're only talking about a relatively small range of words that people just happen to be accustomed to seeing in kana form. Most can understand them just fine in kanji, but it's become more and more acceptable, even preferable, to stick with kana in some cases. Personally I've no problems with 靴 at all, but くつ strikes me as more 'friendly'.

As a learner I certainly find that kanji-heavy passages require noticeably more effort to read, even when the words are familiar. Presumably that difference persists no matter how good you get at it.

z1bbo Wrote:Take など for example: its often written in kana and is just ******* annoying but once you read it a few times as 等 on wikipedia等 it just gets faster!

Unless it's stuck on the end of a kanji word and you have to decide whether it's part of the word or not, or perhaps even read ら.

And then you learn (e.g. from Nayr's core5000) that it can be read とう even when it means など, and you start to wish it was just written in kana

anotherjohn Wrote:As a learner I certainly find that kanji-heavy passages require noticeably more effort to read, even when the words are familiar. Presumably that difference persists no matter how good you get at it.

z1bbo Wrote:Take など for example: its often written in kana and is just ******* annoying but once you read it a few times as 等 on wikipedia等 it just gets faster!

Unless it's stuck on the end of a kanji word and you have to decide whether it's part of the word or not, or perhaps even read ら.

And then you learn (e.g. from Nayr's core5000) that it can be read とう even when it means など, and you start to wish it was just written in kana

sure but トウ is the 音読み and with practice it's very easy to read it right from context. Of course there are words where it is not that easy,　経緯 for example, where the writer might have to point out if he intends it to be read いきさつ, which seems to be rarer than けいい, and there are even more readings listed.

And of course we learners all suck in reading speed compared to a native, but that's not really relevant.

I have only ever seen いきさつ written in kana (and it seems more common than 経緯, though that might be because of the kind of stuff I read).

And what I meant was that the *relative* effort of reading kanji vs kana is likely to persist, no matter how good at it you get, including for natives.

For example, Nayr's wife misreads several simple kanji in the core5k in places where similar-looking ones would fit the sentence (e.g. 語る vs 悟る). Obviously with more *effort*, such mistakes can be avoided.

Reliably distinguishing 治癒 from 治療 requires a concentration that the equivalent kana does not. Hence 'awkward to read'.

Maybe my experience is different from most, but both my Japanese university teachers couldn't speak English. They told us a few things that were completely wrong. But with Japanese teachers ((at least mine) they got angry if you anyone tried to ask clarifying questions!

I'm wondering if the teacher really meant to say "For my class I only want you to use Kanji for..." ?

Without seeing your essay, it's not really possible to comment in detail. But there are a massive amount of words for which kanji exist but are almost never used. I seriously doubt the professor would say it was awkward to read your essay if the kanji had been used appropriately, and so I have to assume you were using kanji in situations where most Japanese do not. This of course is difficult to learn and you only really get used to it through exposure. One of the first things I usually ask when hearing a new word is, "do you use the kanji for this?" Of course there almost certainly IS kanji, but that is no guarantee that people actually use it. And if nobody uses it, yes it is awkward and annoying to read.

Well, this probably depends on the taste of the teacher and the tone of the text. If it's more informal, the "friendlier" くつ would probably be better. I've e.g. used 蘇り in an assignment without any comment (about that anyway), so it probably depends. One funny thing is that I had to go back and change くつ, because I had instinctively written it as 靴. And as has been mentioned there are things where you can, but probably shouldn't write with kanji e.g. 扨 ,乍ら , 瓩 or 臍.

[Zgarbas]

If you read novels in japanese you'll notice that a lot of words which could use kanjis don't; kanji overload is hard on the eyes and can seem too formal; my Chinese colleafues tend to overdo kanjis and kango for obvious reasons and while they're not incorrect (nor hard to understand), they definitely don't look natural.
i have received conflicting info on Japanese from native speakers (e.g had a prof from Okayamatell me to never use よろしい since it sounds 古、but i've heard it all over the place in Nagoya) but usually native intuition trumps textbooks; you can ask them to expand on an idea without contradicting them like that. Knowing how to not be rude is the #1 important lesson in Japanese (and in life).

Zgarbas Wrote:Knowing how to not be rude is the #1 important lesson in Japanese (and in life).

Yeah, agreed, but both I and my Japanese teacher are here in North America. If my Japanese teacher is planning to stay permanently in North America she's going to have to get used to the fact that we have different cultural norms than the Japanese do and she'll have to get used to the fact that we don't care as much about "politeness" as the Japanese do.

靴 seems like a really strange one to pick on though. I see it written with kanji vastly more often than not. I can definitely see the 'don't use kanji for things that aren't normally in kanji' thing, but, mmm - it does seem quite strange. Anything else specific that your teacher noted?

john555 Wrote:

Zgarbas Wrote:Knowing how to not be rude is the #1 important lesson in Japanese (and in life).

Yeah, agreed, but both I and my Japanese teacher are here in North America. If my Japanese teacher is planning to stay permanently in North America she's going to have to get used to the fact that we have different cultural norms than the Japanese do and she'll have to get used to the fact that we don't care as much about "politeness" as the Japanese do.

Part of the job of a language teacher is to teach cultural appropriateness too. You should be learning not just vocab and grammar, but how to behave in a Japanese societal context.

(The only time I require students not to use kanji is if I think the use of kanji can obscure whether or not they know something -- for instance, when learning the counting system I don't want them to write 三つ and not know whether that's みつ or みっつ.)

john555 Wrote:

Zgarbas Wrote:Knowing how to not be rude is the #1 important lesson in Japanese (and in life).

Yeah, agreed, but both I and my Japanese teacher are here in North America. If my Japanese teacher is planning to stay permanently in North America she's going to have to get used to the fact that we have different cultural norms than the Japanese do and she'll have to get used to the fact that we don't care as much about "politeness" as the Japanese do.

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).

john555, post your essay? I bet what the teacher said was intended to be highly specific to *your* kanji usage in it, even if the generalization to *all* Japanese and writing was unwarranted.

sholum Wrote:

john555 Wrote:

Zgarbas Wrote:Knowing how to not be rude is the #1 important lesson in Japanese (and in life).

Yeah, agreed, but both I and my Japanese teacher are here in North America. If my Japanese teacher is planning to stay permanently in North America she's going to have to get used to the fact that we have different cultural norms than the Japanese do and she'll have to get used to the fact that we don't care as much about "politeness" as the Japanese do.

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.

john555 Wrote: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.

Sounds like you're a joy to have in a class.

john555 Wrote:

sholum Wrote:

john555 Wrote:Yeah, agreed, but both I and my Japanese teacher are here in North America. If my Japanese teacher is planning to stay permanently in North America she's going to have to get used to the fact that we have different cultural norms than the Japanese do and she'll have to get used to the fact that we don't care as much about "politeness" as the Japanese do.

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.

I'm just going to give up on suggesting you reassess your manners (I also apologize for poor wording on my part; it makes me seem a hypocrite). I have better information to give you that's more related to your question. You can ignore the following bit in the parentheses if you like.
(You wouldn't presume to know how to wire a house after only a couple basic circuit lessons, would you? There are better ways to approach the questioning of your superior's knowledge (they are your superior in their field, no matter what you think)).

Anyway, I asked my tutor about this today; she told me that the amount of kanji you use should be dictated by who your audience is. She said that, for a paper aimed at the common person, you should use about the same amount of kanji as a general newspaper (or slightly more, if you're not trying to cater to people with the minimum kanji knowledge). According to her, things like specialized journals, business documents, or government papers would use a lot of kanji (her examples were 有難う and 御免; in more casual writing, these are almost always in hiragana; however they are almost always in kanji when in official papers).
She said the same thing as your teacher too; that using too many kanji makes it less desirable to read; it's not impossible to read, but it's more difficult.

Also according to my tutor: depending on their field, not all Japanese retain all of the kanji knowledge taught in highschool. This is why you might use a bit more kanji than in newspapers, since the newspapers are trying to reach everyone.

Basically, there's an optimum way to use kanji that will require extensive reading in many genres and fields to understand properly. Your teacher is right about using too many kanji (can't actually say whether that's the case with your paper or not).

My two cents: I've frequently been surprised by native speakers preferring to write things out in kana over kanji. I've also seen uses of katakana over both kanji and hiragana that have surprised me. I haven't been able to discern a hard and fast rule, and I doubt that there is one.

I think that this is one of those things that native English speakers will always be a bit off on. We don't have something similar in our language, there isn't a hard and fast rule, so the best we can do is improve the odds of our usage sounding native, but we'll probably never get perfect at it. I know a lot of Japanese who are fluent in English but still make mistakes with particles, pluralization, and so on. I think that this is analogous.

I wouldn't worry about it, and I recommend following the advice of your native speaking teacher.

john555 Wrote:

sholum Wrote:

john555 Wrote:Yeah, agreed, but both I and my Japanese teacher are here in North America. If my Japanese teacher is planning to stay permanently in North America she's going to have to get used to the fact that we have different cultural norms than the Japanese do and she'll have to get used to the fact that we don't care as much about "politeness" as the Japanese do.

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.