Back

Question about Reading those small Kanjis online

#1
So I've been getting ready to start RtK. It's quite exciting. In conjunction with that I'm doing some AJATT immersion. Since I know Hiragana/Katakana/like 100 Kanjis/basic grammars from what I learned in my homestay in Japan, I can understand a few things, so while I'm still lost a lot of the time, it's kind of fun switching all my websites to 日本語 and whatnot.

However, I came across a problem that I'm not sure is a problem or not, so I need you guys who have done RtK to tell me.

Those Kanjis that are really, really scrunched up. Are they legitimately readable, or do all of you just increase the font size of your PC to read them?

Some of them literally look like blurs on the screen.

Let's look at "日本語". Sure, the "go" part looks slightly complex and if you didn't know it, sure it would look like a mess, but using Heisig's primitives method I can distinguish the parts of the character and I recognize it in context.

However, sometimes I see really really really crazy ones that are just so small and scrunched up that I have no idea what I'm looking at, and I can't even break it up because they look fudged up.

IS it just because I don't know the words/context and should just start doing the RtK book and shut up, or is it because Japanese people have magical reading abilities / set their browsers to 200% font size?
Reply
#2
Once you've read enough, you recognize the letters when they are really small, just like English letters. It's still a little difficult, but it's not that bad.

Personally, though, I increase the font size. I don't need to increase it as much as I used to, though.
Reply
#3
Once you are able to read and know the context, you don't need to see every line and dot to know what the kanji is. But you can always increase the font size, so it's no big deal.
Reply
May 16 - 30 : Pretty Big Deal: Save 31% on all Premium Subscriptions! - Sign up here
JapanesePod101
#4
After a while you'll not only recognise Kanji by themselves but as groups. To use your example of 日本語, even when it's really small you'll know what it is because you know 日木語 for example would make no sense.
Reply