Right, effort does NOT return void. However, the return is not equal for everyone, and the method used will effect gain. Forgive me for this long post, but I want to challenge your thinking on kanji-cards ( for learning readings at least ). 

May I present a problem with learning Kanji+readings with most flash-cards? When reviewing, you will say, "yeah, I know that card," but I challenge you to try writing/typing the answer before you see it. It may be that you recognize the readings, but cannot actually bring them to memory on your own. 

Of course, you will surely have memorized many using flash-cards, but ?inevitably? you may find your recognition becomes dulled as like-readings for many Kanji appear, or worse, your brain hasn't recognized the readings as important. 

Solution? Now, this probably sounds silly, but I suggest using a quiz-ing software that allows you to type( writing would take waay too long, that's why we use anki after all ) in the readings and English. Of course, the software needs to give you more than simply a quiz, but also give you common Kanji compounds that uses the Kanji's readings (Or the ability for you to input your own). 

Drawback? It is best to START using this method from the beginning. I presume it will be discouraging to use this method if you are forced to relearn your Kanji ( even if you have the advantage of already "knowing" the Kanji ). 
Drawback#2: Only has JLPT2 and up, needs more Kanji cards. 
Drawback#3: Needs used daily. 1-3 times (1-3hrs ) a day. Time away will allow memory to dull, there are lots of Kanji to remember. 

Crazy?

Personally I just say the reading (either out loud or just in my head) before hitting the button to reveal the back of the flashcard. If I didn't say the right thing that's a fail. I agree you need to commit yourself in some way to your answer before flipping the card, but you can do that mentally as well as by typing. (For RTK-writing flashcards I write the kanji out, because that's the only way I can avoid fooling myself into thinking 'yeah I totally put in that dot or stroke'. But I don't have that problem for readings because I know what I said and it's much less vague than a mental drawing of a kanji.)

Woa~ Yeah, I've no method for drawing Kanji. Honestly, this may become problematic if I didn't really "know" a certain Kanji using this quizing method. However, I do want to apologize for kind of putting a personal agenda on here. It wasn't the place for it. Sorry.

There were many great answers though! It's important to do as other say and don't get burnt out. Take a break! Only, don't take too long. Again, already was said, but pick a new method or book or whatever to study. The important thing is studying, it will all add up in the end.

Sorry for not replying to the thread, was under the weather for a few days.

@flameseek I appreciate the way you layed it all out. Definitely going take RTK slower in small pieces when I get back to it. Also, I definitely need more exposure to the language which has been a weak spot.

@pepperdirt Interesting idea, I'm going to give it a try. Thank you for sharing that.

Again, thanks to everyone. I'm actually going through Tae Kim and have my motivation and love for the language back. I might not have pushed through without everyone's support

(2016-01-23, 8:47 pm)supermancampus Wrote: This is the hardest post I’ve ever written—I’ve been failing and probably lying to myself.

After 3 years, I haven’t made any real progress. I’ve done RTK lite but never finished the full RTK. I’ve bounced back and forth between kanji damage, and Wanikani. I’ve done some recognition cards, and some production cards. A new method comes out and I try it, but I don't seem to be making progress.

I’ve found myself discouraged, reviews pile up, then I get them down, and the cycle repeats.
Is it my structure, or is Japanese just not for me? I feel like just walking away from it all.

If you've ever been where I am now, and I got yourself out of it, I would love to know what you did because it seems hopeless. I expect to get flamed, but I'm hoping someone out there can get me back on track.

The only people who don't fail are perfect people. And perfection is a theoretical concept, it doesn't exist in nature. You don't want to hold yourself to that standard. You must embrace being fallible. That's how you get things done. A perfectionist is the worst thing you can be.

Failure IS progress. Most of the things we learn, we learn from failure.

The way to get back on track is to start being OK with failing. Every time you fail, you should celebrate, because you just learned something. That's the only way to allow yourself to keep trying, again and again, until eventually you reach your goal...and continue failing, as you move towards your next goal.

If you don't embrace failure, if you punish and scold yourself for failing, then all that will achieve is make it harder to try again (because you're afraid to fail again).

p.s. Look at it this way: there are billions of people, with a "b", who, at some point in their lives, wished to learn a foreign language. And they never failed at it, because they never tried. You're ahead of them all. By A LOT.

There is no one on Earth who has tried doing something really impressive, and did it without failing. And I don't mean failing once, but failing many, many times over.

@supermancampus, you can do it! Like has been said, it really does help if you take the long view, accept failure as a stepping stone, and just focus on being consistent. It -will- pay off. Experimenting with what works best for you in terms of method is great, but first you need consistency and patience.

After Japanese I started learning Chinese at an intentionally slow pace. Five years later and I still can't really speak very much. Can't really read either. But I didn't fail. Yesterday I just hit 5000 text/audio cards in my Anki deck. Averaged out over five years that's crazy slow maybe, but given the other commitments I had over that period I'm pretty happy with. It's a heck of a lot better than nothing, and my understanding every year is measurably better. Sure, we all want to get good fast. But there's no point in piling the pressure on yourself and talking about having failed. As they say, you only "fail" if you stop and give it up. Focus on the direction, and just keep taking those little steps.

@stansfield123 I’ve been constantly looking at my failures, the mistakes I’ve made as just that…failures. Even with being motivated to do more, I still had in the back of my mind “let’s try not fail this time” But the way you explained failures, is like one of the fears I had is gone and that failing is OK. I really appreciate how you explained, and for the encouragement because, other people may have implied the same thing but the way you said it really “clicked” for me.

@danchan Thanks for the encouragement as well. Re-reading your post, I think I really need to experiment with what works and be patient. I’m going to take to heart keeping the long view in mind (which I haven’t been), focus on the direction and keep moving forward. Excellent advice.

Thanks to both of you not only for the advice, but for also for not sugar coating things, telling me the truth, and giving me ways to overcome my own negativity. With the strategies I've learned here, I feel like I really can learn Japanese.

This post really resonated with me, but I'd like to offer a counterpoint (and some suggestions, based on unfortunately hard-won experience).

I did my undergrad in Japanese, and graduated -- for all intents and purposes -- illiterate. It was bad. Really bad. No matter how much I studied, or how many times I copied kanji over and over, in or out of context -- they simply didn't stick. I would cram and cram for exams, pass them, and within a week I'd lose my fragile grasp on the kanji I'd studied. Despite years of trying, I could only consistently recognize maybe ~3-400 characters and produce substantially less than that. Once I reached an advanced enough level that my university split out reading/writing from listening/speaking (at which I was always very strong), I would routinely spend 16+ hours a week studying for 3 credit reading classes. I looked up the same kanji over and over.

The idea of trying to read japanese -- much of which I had done, or attempted to do, in a classroom setting in front of my peers - filled me with humiliation and dread. I just couldn't do it. I felt like a fake, and profoundly inadequate.

Contrast this with: Today I logged into the JLPT website and discovered I'd passed N2 with a 48/60 on the reading section on my first try. It was easier for me than the kanji/vocab or listening sections! I studied for about 2 weeks for the test in December, then walked in and passed it. I read novels for fun.

What made the difference? Well, first -- discovering Heisig/RTK, yes. But more than just using Heisig - which I actually ran through twice before I found an approach to Heisig that really worked for me long term -- I had to make it as easy as possible.

This is what the front of a card in my RTK deck in anki looks like (note each card contains massive context - whatever is required to get the elements and their position into my head, or trigger an association).

[keyword hyperlinked to RevTK website in case I want to update/fix a story that is not memorable enough]
Full heisig story, in however much detail is required to get me to successfully produce the character.
Onyomi
Kunyomi

Vocab list of common words with the character cloze-deleted out

What's more, on my third (and successful) run of RtK, I started with everything suspended except RtK Lite and any character that didn't cover which was in the 1-6th grade set or the most common 1000 kanji in normal text. 

The trick for me was really in finding a system that worked (Heisig), then making my application of that system approachable enough, and easy enough to "win" at, that I would keep doing it (and could see meaningful progress). And no, I didn't do all my reps every day (and still don't), but with this much context I can still produce the characters successfully and -- more importantly to me -- I can read. So I really can't stress enough -- maybe what you're doing is too hard. Maybe you should make it easier, and take it easier, on yourself. It worked for me.

Edit: Went back through and saw there's some discussion of how to best study readings/etc in this thread. I'd second anyone who says it's helpful to take a two-pronged approach and learn spoken language ("Oh, that's that word" is an incredibly helpful feeling, because your brain loves holding onto things that feel relevant much more than things that don't). If you have an ios device, I'd also really recommend the game "Kanji Connect" for readings (though it can be a bit buggy and crashes if you don't quit out periodically), because the games are exactly the right length - and the characters are introduced and repeated at the right rate -- that it feels fun but you're actually learning.

(2016-01-23, 9:10 pm)EratiK Wrote: One thing to remember is that kanji isn't Japanese. And by that I mean studying Japanese doesn't equal burning out on kanji drill. Japanese is a grammar,  a vocabulary, sounds... all of wich can easily be studied with material with furigana. And you already did RTK lite, you can go pretty far with just that. So you have reached your kanji limit? Fine, but that doesn't mean the Japanese journey has to end. When you put "kanji might be a problem later" vs "I have no motivation now", it's urgent to get rid of the motivation killer at once.

(2016-01-23, 9:48 pm)s0apgun Wrote: Learn real Japanese. RTK is killing your motivation because there's not very many benefits to it besides learning a symbols meaning by itself and possibly writing.

Kanji is Japanese. But there's nothing wrong with switching it up.

Lots of people say "kanji isn't Japanese" to emphasize that the "real" learning doesn't begin until after RTK, but this is a flawed way of thinking. The kanji is just as integral a part as any other, and being able to write them (regardless of what keywords you have in your word) is writing Japanese.

(2016-02-20, 4:15 pm)ryuudou Wrote: Kanji is Japanese. But there's nothing wrong with switching it up.

Lots of people say "kanji isn't Japanese" to emphasize that the "real" learning doesn't begin until after RTK, but this is a flawed way of thinking. The kanji is just as integral a part as any other, and being able to write them (regardless of what keywords you have in your word) is writing Japanese.

Kanji is Japanese but I'd consider RTK by itself to be more pre Japanese.

Not saying it isn't valuable or important.

Hitting the weights and cardio in the off season is very important but it isn't quite Hockey, Football, Boxing or what have you. I'd say it is pretty vital to do though.

I am almost done with RTK1 but I couldn't by any stretch of the imagination claim to know the language. I know how to write English words in a different script.

(2016-02-20, 6:59 pm)Dudeist Wrote:

(2016-02-20, 4:15 pm)ryuudou Wrote: Kanji is Japanese. But there's nothing wrong with switching it up.

Lots of people say "kanji isn't Japanese" to emphasize that the "real" learning doesn't begin until after RTK, but this is a flawed way of thinking. The kanji is just as integral a part as any other, and being able to write them (regardless of what keywords you have in your word) is writing Japanese.

Kanji is Japanese but I'd consider RTK by itself to be more pre Japanese.

Not saying it isn't valuable or important.

Hitting the weights and cardio in the off season is very important but it isn't quite Hockey, Football, Boxing or what have you.  I'd say it is pretty vital to do though.

It's Japanese. For your "hitting the weights" example to apply you'd have to be training your memory and researching memory techniques and not learning how to write Japanese characters.

There's more to Japanese than reading. Just because you have English keywords doesn't mean that writing Japanese script isn't Japanese.

(2016-02-20, 10:57 pm)ryuudou Wrote:

(2016-02-20, 6:59 pm)Dudeist Wrote:

(2016-02-20, 4:15 pm)ryuudou Wrote: Kanji is Japanese. But there's nothing wrong with switching it up.

Lots of people say "kanji isn't Japanese" to emphasize that the "real" learning doesn't begin until after RTK, but this is a flawed way of thinking. The kanji is just as integral a part as any other, and being able to write them (regardless of what keywords you have in your word) is writing Japanese.

Kanji is Japanese but I'd consider RTK by itself to be more pre Japanese.

Not saying it isn't valuable or important.

Hitting the weights and cardio in the off season is very important but it isn't quite Hockey, Football, Boxing or what have you.  I'd say it is pretty vital to do though.

It's Japanese. For your "hitting the weights" example to apply you'd have to be training your memory and researching memory techniques and not learning how to write Japanese characters.

There's more to Japanese than reading. Just because you have English keywords doesn't mean that writing Japanese script isn't Japanese.

It's about as much learning Japanese as it is learning Chinese; sure, you might be able to pick out a few characters in a Chinese text (not simplified) by studying Japanese kanji, but you still won't have hardly a clue about how it's pronounced or what it means.

That's why (I think) Dudeist is saying that it's an important supplementary study, but not the language itself. If it's not what he means, it's what I mean.

(2016-02-20, 11:54 pm)sholum Wrote: It's about as much learning Japanese as it is learning Chinese; sure, you might be able to pick out a few characters in a Chinese text (not simplified) by studying Japanese kanji, but you still won't have hardly a clue about how it's pronounced or what it means.

That's why (I think) Dudeist is saying that it's an important supplementary study, but not the language itself. If it's not what he means, it's what I mean.

Pretty much.

I mean is Kanji Japanese. Sure, however just going through RTK isn't *really* learning Japanese. I am almost done and aside from being able to attach an English word sometimes correctly to the Kanji or the Hanzi I know nothing.
It sure doesn't feel as if I know Japanese..

Your Chinese point is valid. In theory I could claim to be learning Chinese, there are times I recognize Hanzi and sometimes it sort of makes sense but I am not.

I will concede that Kanji is a lot more related to Japanese than lifting weights is to say Boxing.

Perhaps it is more a point to say that RTK is to Japanese as learning footwork is to boxing. It's important. Perhaps you can say it is good to do before hand. It is a part of boxing. However if you get into the ring you will get pounded like a rented mule. Likewise with finishing RTK, you couldn't even say hello, goodbye or help me kill Justin Beiber.

I am perfectly fine with claiming I am doing pre Japanese. People are always asking me if I can speak it or understand it and I end up having to go into long winded explanations as to what I am trying to do. It is just weird to study a language and be totally unable to use it. As such I think there should be some distinction between learning Japanese and RTK.

As someone who has only done RTK, when I claim to be learning Japanese I feel there needs to be a big * like in those sports records where someone got disqualified.

It would reduce a lot of the criticism of the method if the difference was reinforced.

All that being said, I often refer to my studies as Japanese when talking to the muggles. I should just say Kanji, or Japanese writing/characters.

(2016-02-20, 11:54 pm)sholum Wrote:

(2016-02-20, 10:57 pm)ryuudou Wrote:

(2016-02-20, 6:59 pm)Dudeist Wrote:

(2016-02-20, 4:15 pm)ryuudou Wrote: Kanji is Japanese. But there's nothing wrong with switching it up.

Lots of people say "kanji isn't Japanese" to emphasize that the "real" learning doesn't begin until after RTK, but this is a flawed way of thinking. The kanji is just as integral a part as any other, and being able to write them (regardless of what keywords you have in your word) is writing Japanese.

Kanji is Japanese but I'd consider RTK by itself to be more pre Japanese.

Not saying it isn't valuable or important.

Hitting the weights and cardio in the off season is very important but it isn't quite Hockey, Football, Boxing or what have you.  I'd say it is pretty vital to do though.

It's Japanese. For your "hitting the weights" example to apply you'd have to be training your memory and researching memory techniques and not learning how to write Japanese characters.

There's more to Japanese than reading. Just because you have English keywords doesn't mean that writing Japanese script isn't Japanese.

It's about as much learning Japanese as it is learning Chinese

They're the characters from the Japanese jouyou set + some Japanese name kanji, so it's learning Japanese. It doesn't matter if there's overlap. The English alphabet has partial overlap with many others, but if you teach yourself to write the English alphabet you're still teaching yourself the English alphabet.

(2016-02-20, 11:54 pm)sholum Wrote: but you still won't have hardly a clue about how it's pronounced or what it means.

There's more to learning Japanese than reading.

(2016-02-20, 11:54 pm)sholum Wrote: important supplementary study, but not the language itself.

It's not supplementary. If you don't know the kanji you don't know Japanese.

(2016-02-20, 6:59 pm)Dudeist Wrote: Your Chinese point is valid. In theory I could claim to be learning Chinese, there are times I recognize Hanzi and sometimes it sort of makes sense but I am not.

No you can't. Not anymore than someone teaching herself the Spanish alphabet can claim she's learning English. Only someone who knows neither Chinese or Japanese would say this. A lot of the kanji that are common in Japan aren't common in China, and vice versa. There are also Chinese exclusive characters within the standard sets, and Japanese exclusive characters in general use as well.

Anyone can proficient in either can look at characters and easily tell what language they're used in.
Once you know your kanji well there are characters that just look Chinese.

阅, 为, 纲, 续.

I've never seen these characters before but I can reliably tell you that they're not used in the Japanese language just based on the primitives and the way they're written.

[Zgarbas]

Illiterate/blind people can still be fluent in Japanese despite not knowing Kanjis :p though admittedly that *is* a bit devil's advocate on my part.


Dudeist is just referring to that fact that having an english keyword attached to a kanji is, in itself, not a skill which has much to do with knowing Japanese; no need for semantics.

(2016-02-21, 5:32 am)ryuudou Wrote: It's not supplementary. If you don't know the kanji you don't know Japanese.

I don't think that's true. Kanji is a part of Japanese, but it's not "Japanese". It's possible to speak and understand Japanese and function to a degree without knowing how to read any kanji. However, it's not possible to speak or understand or function in Japanese if all you know is kanji. Being able to read and write Japanese would fall under "literacy". It's possible to speak fluent Japanese while still not being literate. This could easily turn into a debate about the meaning of "fluency" and "literacy", though, so I am using the dictionary definitions for my argument (fluent, literate).

Of course I think everyone should study kanji if they're serious about Japanese, but to say someone doesn't know Japanese because they can't read kanji just isn't correct. There are plenty of people who grow up in homes where their family spoke only Japanese to them so they can speak fluently without any issues and have no problem with vocabulary and grammar and such, but were never exposed to the written language so they can't read or write. I would never tell the Japanese girl from my Japanese class last year, who was born in Japan and moved to my state in the US at an early age but still visits the country every year, that she doesn't know Japanese when she could talk circles around me. I still remember the time I realized that her kanji skills sucked ass and asked *me* to help navigate Powerpoint in Japanese because she couldn't read it.

Similarly, it's entirely possible to study and memorize correct spellings of English words, but if you don't associate any meaning and/or pronunciation to those words, then you can't speak English. All you'd be able to do is create a sentence of random English words that may or may not have actual meaning behind it. That, in my opinion, is the equivalent of studying kanji with RTK only and not studying anything else in Japanese. Which is also what I believe the others are arguing.

ryuudou Wrote:No you can't. Not anymore than someone teaching herself the Spanish alphabet can claim she's learning English. Only someone who knows neither Chinese or Japanese would say this. A lot of the kanji that are common in Japan aren't common in China, and vice versa. There are also Chinese exclusive characters within the standard sets, and Japanese exclusive characters in general use as well.

Why does it seem like every time I talk to you, it's you nitpicking something into something else and me saying 'that's not the point'...

And in this case, you're still wrong.
If I know how to recognize the character 'p', it doesn't matter if it's English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, or whatever, I can recognize the shape of the letter 'p'. If I don't know the sound it correlates to in any of those languages, or know it in the context of the word and ideas 'phase' or 'perro', then I haven't actually learned any English or Spanish or anything else; I've learned a character. My point when I mentioned Chinese was that you know as much Chinese as Japanese by studying kanji; that is, none.

Characters are just scribbles and shapes that a group of people decided have a meaning, a sound, or are a distinguishing component in a cluster that has the previous two attributes. The only thing you learn by studying these scribbles by themselves is that certain scribbles have the attribute of 'character', which is used to make up 'writing'; there is no inherent language attribute to a scribble (now 'character'), so until you learn those attributes, you haven't learned any language.

If I taught a class full of children how to write the characters 日, 月, 木, and 火, and didn't tell them that these were characters used in a foreign language, would I have taught them Japanese? What if I told them that they were characters, but not from which language? What if I told them they were used in an East Asian language? No, because they are meaningless without a language they represent.
Even if I told them that I was teaching them characters that are used in Japanese, it still wouldn't be teaching them Japanese. There is no magical transformation from squiggle to language when you say something comes from writing; it's only when you put that squiggle into context and assign it a meaning or sound (in the context of language) that it becomes language study.

Spoken words are the same, but you don't really see them isolated in this way (there's no point in it like there is for kanji study); however, one could imagine teaching the same group of children (people, really; don't know why they're children) some sound pattern that's actually a phrase from another language and have them recite it, it still wouldn't be teaching them language, because they don't know what they're saying.

This is why it isn't Japanese study to do RTK (in isolation): there is no Japanese in RTK study, just scribbles. Even adding RTK2 doesn't really make it Japanese (it's more Japanese than before though, because you can name the scribbles), because there's no meaning or context between the scribbles, sounds, and Japanese language.

(2016-02-21, 9:01 am)sholum Wrote: Even adding RTK2 doesn't really make it Japanese (it's more Japanese than before though, because you can name the scribbles), because there's no meaning or context between the scribbles, sounds, and Japanese language.

I agree with you, except for the RTK2 part.

RTK2 does contain example words with pronunciation.

(2016-02-21, 12:16 pm)Robik Wrote:

(2016-02-21, 9:01 am)sholum Wrote: Even adding RTK2 doesn't really make it Japanese (it's more Japanese than before though, because you can name the scribbles), because there's no meaning or context between the scribbles, sounds, and Japanese language.

I agree with you, except for the RTK2 part.

RTK2 does contain example words with pronunciation.

Oh, it does? I never did it, so I was going off the 'learn the on and kun readings' thing. Let me fix that by generalizing to just that part; "learning the on and kun readings doesn't mean you're studying Japanese unless you're actually learning words; 目 is Japanese when you know that it's め and means 'eye'."

(2016-02-21, 9:01 am)sholum Wrote: Why does it seem like every time I talk to you, it's you nitpicking something into something else and me saying 'that's not the point'...

It's harmless, but you project a lot and don't tend to notice it. That's why. You also seem to conflate misrepresentation with me changing my point.

(2016-02-21, 9:01 am)sholum Wrote: And in this case, you're still wrong.

Incorrect. You are.

(2016-02-21, 9:01 am)sholum Wrote: If I know how to recognize the character 'p', it doesn't matter if it's English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, or whatever, I can recognize the shape of the letter 'p'.

It doesn't matter if there's partial overlap because there is only one English alphabet, and if you're learning that specific alphabet, as it exists in full, then you are learning English. 

You're doing the equivalent of suggesting that if someone is orally being systematically taught the Japanese syllabi they aren't being taught Japanese because "ko, ke, ki, and ka" are used in other languages.

(2016-02-21, 9:01 am)sholum Wrote: If I don't know the sound it correlates to in any of those languages, or know it in the context of the word and ideas 'phase' or 'perro', then I haven't actually learned any English or Spanish or anything else; I've learned a character.

The characters are a part of the language.

(2016-02-21, 9:01 am)sholum Wrote: If I taught a class full of children how to write the characters 日, 月, 木, and 火, and didn't tell them that these were characters used in a foreign language, would I have taught them Japanese?

If it's in the context of learning the Japanese character set then yes. They would be in the process of learning Japanese. Just because they don't have the full package doesn't mean they aren't learning Japanese. Both parts, reading and writing, are essential.

(2016-02-21, 9:01 am)sholum Wrote: This is why it isn't Japanese study to do RTK (in isolation):

Learning the Jouyou Kanji, as determined by Japan, is in fact studying Japanese.

(2016-02-21, 9:01 am)sholum Wrote: there is no Japanese in RTK study

Except for the Japanese script.

(2016-02-21, 8:17 am)zx573 Wrote:

(2016-02-21, 5:32 am)ryuudou Wrote: It's not supplementary. If you don't know the kanji you don't know Japanese.

I don't think that's true. Kanji is a part of Japanese, but it's not "Japanese". It's possible to speak and understand Japanese and function to a degree without knowing how to read any kanji.

It's possible to understand a Japanese sentence without being able to read it. It's also possible to read things you can't understand.

(2016-02-21, 5:32 am)ryuudou Wrote: However, it's not possible to speak or understand or function in Japanese if all you know is kanji.

If you don't know the script you'd wouldn't be able to function either. You wouldn't even be able to graduate elementary school (and thus would never be able to legally work), would not be allowed to drive, and so on and essentially would have to live like a special ed person. All parts, reading/speaking/writing/comprehending, are essential to Japanese.

(2016-02-21, 5:32 am)ryuudou Wrote: Of course I think everyone should study kanji if they're serious about Japanese, but to say someone doesn't know Japanese because they can't read kanji just isn't correct.

They would be illiterate. If the result of knowing all of the standard Japanese script (hiragana/katakana/the Japanese set of kanji) is literacy in Japanese, then logically learning that script is studying Japanese.

Zgarbas Wrote:Illiterate/blind people can still be fluent in Japanese despite not knowing Kanjis

Fluent in speaking it. Not writing it.

Draw me a circle with a bump on it.
Tell me why it's a circle with a bump and not something else.
Tell me how it's innately the shape that it is.
Tell me what makes it 'a circle with a bump'.

You can physically do the first; you can rationalize the second (we can come to an agreement that the thing you drew is, in fact, 'a circle with a bump'); you can answer the third through a mathematical relation; the fourth is something only possible because we both agree that, in the context of this exercise, you drew shape that resembles a 'circle', but has an abnormality described as a 'bump'. Squiggles have no innate meaning on their own, suggesting that they do rationalizes magic circles.

Learning kanji (squiggles) without context (language) does not impart the agreed meaning and use of the squiggle to the learner, thus learning characters on their own isn't learning language.

It is impossible to read things unless you understand them:
花火 says 'flower-fire' according to RTK (a Mario power-up ripoff if I've ever seen one! Except RTK came first...); according to Japanese, it says はなび and translates to 'firework'; unless you know that 花火 doesn't have anything to do with literal burning flowers, you don't know what it means. Some work out okay with RTK keywords (火山 being memorable for me, because I guessed its meaning while doing RTK), but this is just a coincidence. 手紙 vaguely relates to paper, has little to do with hands, unless you think of it in the specific abstract sense of 'a paper with a message on it, carried by hand, and handed to another person'; this is even a popular example of why knowing characters doesn't mean knowing language, since it's meaning is completely different in Chinese scripts (still having something to do with paper, but of an incredibly different use).
If characters have the attribute of 'language', and weren't simply arbitrary tools of language, then you'd understand every word written with that character by simply learning to write it; which is as fantastical as magic circles summoning demons.

As for you changing your point, you didn't do it very well: we were talking about whether learning characters in isolation is learning language, and we're still talking about whether learning characters in isolation is learning language; I don't see a change: you still claim that isolated squiggles have inherent connections to language, and I disagree.

I was a bit... (crass? blunt?) with my initial sentence, but it does seem that all my conversations with you have been arguments over stupid things that ultimately have no value for improving language studies.
Maybe those are just the most memorable conversations, or maybe you have a tendency to nitpick and I have a tendency to argue and we just fulfill each other perfectly in that regard~<3

(2016-02-21, 4:48 pm)ryuudou Wrote: If you don't know the script you'd wouldn't be able to function either. You wouldn't even be able to graduate elementary school (and thus would never be able to legally work), would not be allowed to drive, and so on and essentially would have to live like a special ed person. All parts, reading/speaking/writing/comprehending, are essential to Japanese.

I don't see how this is relevant considering we're talking about foreigners who are learning Japanese, not native Japanese people. You can legally work in Japan without knowing the script. You can drive as well. There's a pretty big list of countries where you can transfer your foreign driver's license to a Japanese driver's license without a test beyond checking eye sight and such (no written tests or anything of that sort). Without being able to read or write Japanese, you'd still be able to hold conversations, ask people questions about things you might not be entirely sure about, and so on. I'm not saying it would be the most comfortable way to live, but it'd be possible. If you were living in Japan long term then not learning kanji would be stupid and stubborn. I think it's a bit much to argue that it'd be living like a special ed person considering the number of tourists that visit Japan every year and make it around just fine with very limited to no Japanese. Unless we're assuming we're in some alternate universe where any bit of English or any other foreign language is sucked out of the entire country and everyone has to graduate from a Japanese elementary school.

(2016-02-21, 4:48 pm)ryuudou Wrote: They would be illiterate. If the result of knowing all of the standard Japanese script (hiragana/katakana/the Japanese set of kanji) is literacy in Japanese, then logically learning that script is studying Japanese.

I covered that already. Being illiterate does not mean that someone does not know Japanese at all. Literacy is one part of the equation in knowing Japanese.

Also, I'm not saying that learning the script is not studying Japanese. It most definitely is studying Japanese. I'm arguing the fact that you said "If you don't know the kanji you don't know Japanese", which would imply that you must know kanji or else you don't know Japanese, which is not the case.

(2016-02-21, 5:11 pm)sholum Wrote: Learning kanji (squiggles) without context (language) does not impart the agreed meaning and use of the squiggle to the learner, thus learning characters on their own isn't learning language.

RTK is context because it's a book aimed at acquiring the Japanese script as it's used in Japan (jouyou kanji). Learning the kanji is context, because the kanji is the Japanese script.

(2016-02-21, 5:11 pm)sholum Wrote: It is impossible to read things unless you understand them

Incorrect. If you know the readings of kanji you can read them without knowing what they mean.

(2016-02-21, 5:11 pm)sholum Wrote: this is even a popular example of why knowing characters doesn't mean knowing language

Moving the goalposts. I simply said that RTKanji is studying Japanese.

(2016-02-21, 5:11 pm)sholum Wrote: If characters have the attribute of 'language', and weren't simply arbitrary tools of language

The characters are just as much the language as the sounds are. The jouyou kanji are a unique group of characters with a unique usage (including Japan-invented kanji) that only exist that way within the Japanese usage.

(2016-02-21, 5:11 pm)sholum Wrote: As for you changing your point, you didn't do it very well

I didn't change my point at all. You misunderstood.

(2016-02-21, 5:11 pm)sholum Wrote: I was a bit... (crass? blunt?) with my initial sentence, but it does seem that all my conversations with you have been arguments over stupid things that ultimately have no value for improving language studies.

I have no idea who you are. Perhaps you're often find yourself in these kind of discussions because you're guilty of the behavior you're talking about.

(2016-02-21, 5:14 pm)zx573 Wrote: You can legally work in Japan without knowing the script.

As a dish washer, illegally under the table in a hostess club, or teaching English in the form of being an ASL (assistant language teacher) for the main teacher who is a functional literate adult that merely uses you for examples and pronunciation.

Anyone who knows even the bare minimum about the Japanese job market knows that most normal jobs require at least N2 from non-Japanese applicants.

(2016-02-21, 5:14 pm)zx573 Wrote: There's a pretty big list of countries where you can transfer your foreign driver's license to a Japanese driver's license

Temporary license. When it comes to driving being able to reliably read the signs and streets and buildings is important.

(2016-02-21, 5:14 pm)zx573 Wrote: I covered that already. Being illiterate does not mean that someone does not know Japanese at all. Literacy is one part of the equation in knowing Japanese.

Nobody said it doesn't mean you don't know any Japanese at all.

(2016-02-21, 5:14 pm)zx573 Wrote: Literacy is one part of the equation in knowing Japanese.

Exactly. Which is why teaching yourself to write Japanese counts as studying Japanese. Studying any part of the parts essential to literacy in the Japanese language is studying Japanese.

(2016-02-21, 5:14 pm)zx573 Wrote: Also, I'm not saying that learning the script is not studying Japanese.

Maybe you weren't, but plenty were.

(2016-02-21, 5:14 pm)zx573 Wrote: It most definitely is studying Japanese.

I'm glad you agree.

(2016-02-21, 5:14 pm)zx573 Wrote: I'm arguing the fact that you said "If you don't know the kanji you don't know Japanese"

You know part of Japanese, but not all of it. You can be fluent in the spoken language while being illiterate in the written one. For most of the history of the Japanese language the written language actually had different rules from the spoken one. It was called 文語.

It still is sometimes actually. を、は、and kanji puns.