I think because learning japanese and getting used to a foreign culture is a long and time consuming process, a lot of foreigners kind of get rather worked up and/or paranoid about the issue. Japanese people are human too. I assure you most of them are far too busy with their own lives to really give a crap about your foreigner status, unless it's somehow getting in the way of their interaction with you (ie. your Japanese is really is still lacking) or they find it interesting (hardly a crime). Being treated as a foreigner (eg. being asked about your culture) when you are one is no different than being treated like a woman/man, lawyer/garbage man or whatever else.

aphasiac wrote:

If you plan to live in Asia and want to be independent, you need to learn to write, simple as that. Living in Taiwan (and I can't see how Japan will be any different), you have to hand-write stuff *all the bloody time*; off the top of my head, I can think of these paper forms that I've had to fill out in the past 6 months:

- Employment contract
- Visa forms
- Joining the local library / gym / dvd rental shop
- Application for a bank account
- Renting an apartment
- Tax forms
- Scooter license / insurance
- Visiting the hospital for a medical check
- Ordering lunch at work

For the last one I can ask my work colleagues to help. For the rest you either need a significant other or a good friend who's consantly willing to be there, otherwise you'll struggle to live a basic functional life.

You're completely correct.  (However, I think the previous posters were arguing more about being able to write, say, an essay, rather than your own address.  At the very least I know erlog is going for the essay.)

I would learn how to write kanji since it helps with memorizing them.  Also, when you want to write notes on things you read, its much easier.  I originally went through RTK1 without learning how to write and learned how to write in a second pass.  To make things more interesting, you can use skritter.com to study RTK1.  It's a pay site but I think its worth it.  I'm beta testing the Japanese iOS app and its pretty awesome.

PotbellyPig wrote:

I would learn how to write kanji since it helps with memorizing them.  Also, when you want to write notes on things you read, its much easier.  I originally went through RTK1 without learning how to write and learned how to write in a second pass.  To make things more interesting, you can use skritter.com to study RTK1.  It's a pay site but I think its worth it.  I'm beta testing the Japanese iOS app and its pretty awesome.

Any word on when the app will be released? I know they only have the Chinese version atm.

s0apgun wrote:

Any word on when the app will be released? I know they only have the Chinese version atm.

It may be a few months away.  But if you have a jailbroken iPhone/iPad and pay for a membership, they can probably give you access to a copy of the beta iOS app.  But ask before you pay if you don't want to use the website app in the meantime.

yudantaiteki wrote:

there's a reason the kanken exists.

Because every good bureaucracy needs a battery of standardized tests? (I kid :p)

yudantaiteki wrote:

It is hard, though, and it definitely makes sense to ask how necessary it is.  The more kanji you can write the better, but it's always a question of time and effort vs. rewards.  Not everyone has the time or motivation to learn to write many kanji by hand when there are other things they might be doing that they would enjoy more or to improve their Japanese in other areas.

Why does everyone approach learning Japanese like they're going to spontaneously drop dead of a heart attack sometime in the next 18 months? You're either in this thing for the long haul or you're not. It all takes time. It's okay for things to take some time.

I'm not saying it should be prioritized ahead of skills that do matter a lot in a real way. I'm saying people shouldn't ignore it or staunchly defend deficiencies in their abilities as "not mattering." It does matter. Native speakers can do it. Our goal as foreign learners should be attaining that same level of ability in as many areas as possible.

yudantaiteki wrote:

Absurd.  Kanji are incredibly difficult.  They take both native speakers and foreigners years and years to learn.  I am still sometimes shocked that the Japanese put up with a writing system that takes their kids 9 years in school to learn, and even then they don't learn it perfectly.  Taking time is part of being difficult because it involves a lot of motivation to continue and the less often you do or see something the easier it is to forget it.

Why do you insist on conflating the concepts of "difficult" and "time consuming?" They are not the same thing. Theoretical physics is difficult. Calculus is difficult. Those are extraordinarily abstract concepts that you don't really get better at through sheer memorization.

Kanji and being able to write them are just a memorization problem. We have Anki for that. As long as you put the time into Anki consistently you'll succeed.

It being difficult to have good study habits is not the same kind of difficult as something like Calculus. That's what I mean when I say that Japanese and kanji are not difficult. It just takes time, and that's the truth. If you put in the time with Anki you will get better.

yudantaiteki wrote:

I'm not sure how many kanji you're suggesting a foreigner should have active control over writing, but the higher that number is the more difficult it is and the fewer people that will be able to achieve that goal.

Sorry. I haven't drunk the kool-aid on it being just too difficult for foreigners to attain the same level as a native Japanese person. I expect people to be working toward the only real yard stick we have, and that's native speakers. It's expected of people in other languages, but when it comes to Japanese everyone's suddenly completely okay selling themselves completely short.

I think a lot of people have internalized the very Japanese idea that there's something genetic about being able to learn Japanese or kanji. Just talk to anyone with Japanese heritage about the kinds of assumptions made about their ability to learn Japanese versus a white person's ability to learn Japanese.

The reason we believe these things to be "difficult" is because we're constantly told by Japanese people that it's difficult and also praised up and down for being able to count to 10 and say おはよう. The bar is set artificially low based on these perceptions, and foreigners fall into the trap of thinking that Japanese people who have never learned Japanese as an adult know what it actually takes to learn their language.

I think people shouldn't prematurely cut off their language skills development based on imagined limitations of how far they might go. It's amazing what you can do when you put in small amounts of consistent effort over long periods of time.

yudantaiteki wrote:

vix86:

Most Japanese will be able to write at least 1000 characters I would imagine.

That's probably a fairly good estimate for average Japanese; maybe not even that much.  Obviously people with college educations or people with jobs that involve a lot of handwriting will be higher, but there's a reason the kanken exists.

In my experience with my students(I teach from age 6 on up to 88) the number is probably closer to around 1400-1500 before people start breaking out their phones. It seems like people have a really good handle on very common written words up to the end of middle school. After that the focus becomes more on being able to read complex things, and the words they're learning start becoming rare enough or not concrete enough for them to need to be able to remember how to write them.

The number of kanji they write is also not a good metric. The key is remembering which kanji go with which words and what the okurigana is. I can write like 2500 kanji or something right now, but I'm only really really solid on the vocabulary for about 1300 of them.

yudantaiteki wrote:

Most Japanese will be able to write at least 1000 characters I would imagine.

That's probably a fairly good estimate for average Japanese; maybe not even that much.  Obviously people with college educations or people with jobs that involve a lot of handwriting will be higher, but there's a reason the kanken exists.

I think almost any Japanese adult would be embarrassed to take anything below level 3 (1607 characters, middle school graduate level).  Anything under that is intended for children.

yudantaiteki wrote:

Why?  Everyone has different goals in studying Japanese -- not everyone cares about having the same ability as a native speaker, nor should they.

I already covered this earlier in the thread. I think if you expect to live in Japan and call yourself bilingual then you should probably put in the small amount of extra work to be able to write kanji as well as Japanese people can because "when in Rome..."

If you don't expect to live in Japan then go nuts, work toward whatever goal you want to work toward.

yudantaiteki wrote:

...having the motivation to do the work is not something that everyone has.

Learning a language takes motivation and consistent effort over a long period of time, though. That will always be the case so I don't think it's useful to design study plans around people who, from the outset, are going to fail because they're not motivated. You're kind of saying that because those kind of people exist then that makes it okay.

Like it makes it okay that people are deficient in this area of Japanese because so many people are unmotivated. It's a kind of, "but everybody's doing it..." argument.

yudantaiteki wrote:

You seem to subscribe to the idea that if you don't tell someone that something is difficult, they won't get a mental block and they'll be able to do it.  But it can just as easily result in disappointment or demotivation when they struggle with something that was described to them as easy.

I never said to tell anyone it was easy. I'm saying people should be more honest. I was lied to by my Japanese teachers, people on this forum, and native speakers of Japanese for the first 5 years I studied Japanese. I was constantly told how difficult Japanese was and how it was totally okay that my level was the way it was.

It was okay that I couldn't write. It was okay that I couldn't read a newspaper. It was okay that I couldn't read a novel. It was okay that I couldn't write kanji. It was okay that my reading level was below that of a middle schooler because dang it, Japanese is so hard and white people just aren't very good it.

If I had known how much work and time it was going to take I would have been fine doing that work. Nobody ever told me the truth, though. Everybody just wanted to be nice, and I ended up wasting years of my life making very little progress towards my goal. It was only after I started to be really honest with myself about my own abilities and my own time commitment that I was able to move forward at a good pace.

Nobody ever just wants to get down to brass tacks and tell people they should probably  make it a habit to put in the time to study every day if they want to get better. Everyone's so afraid of scaring people off with the boogey man of having to make some time commitments.

For the people who consider Japanese as a hobby that's fine, but I'm sure there's a number of people on this forum that actually do want to be bilingual. If those people were to follow the advice given on this forum, given by Japanese teachers, and given to them by Japanese people then they're going to set themselves up for failure just like I did.

You accuse me of projecting my own expectations on other people. That's true to some extent, but most of this forum is guilty of doing the same. Most of this forum gives advice from the standpoint of Japanese as a common hobby rather than a lifestyle choice to be bilingual.

yudantaiteki wrote:

My 1000 guess is talking about writing them in context; not just knowing the shapes but which kanji go with which words.

Yes, I understand that. I'm telling you that estimate is too low. For most Japanese people it's around 1400-1600.

rahsoul wrote:

erlog wrote:

Nobody ever just wants to get down to brass tacks and tell people they should probably  make it a habit to put in the time to study every day if they want to get better. Everyone's so afraid of scaring people off with the boogey man of having to make some time commitments.

I guess your experience was different.  At most of the places I've read, this was the complete opposite, and a repeating theme.  "Make time every day, even if it's just a little bit.  When you make something a habit it becomes natural and easier to do."  I can't say that I've come across any learning resource that has told me otherwise.

They'll say it at the beginning, but notice that when people are giving advice to someone on a forum like this they almost never ask about whether that person is really putting in enough time consistently. In threads where people say they're stalled or ask for advice about study plans, nobody seems to respond with "Have you considered maybe you're just not putting in enough time?"

There's a lot of people on this forum that fall back on, "Well, I just don't have time so therefore..." Then the people responding to that person just act like that's a legitimate angle to take. What needs to be said in situations like that is, "Is Japanese not important enough to you that you can't find even 30 minutes in your day to study? If you want to reach the goals you say you want to reach then you probably should..."

The running theme is that nobody ever wants to call someone out for not working hard enough or make someone feel bad for not working hard enough. It sucks to make people feel bad about things, but sometimes I think people need to in order to face situations honestly. Most of the time there's a lot of rationalizing and bargaining of failure in lieu of actual commitments to work harder toward success in the future.

I really wish someone had been around 5 years ago to be really tough with me about my expectations. Lots of people are willing to be nice, but few are willing to be honest. It holds people back.

Last edited by erlog (2012 July 16, 10:23 am)

It depends on the individual I guess. Before this thread I thought it was a no-brainer that you should be able to write kanji but clearly I was wrong!

Personally I want to function in Japanese just like the intelligent college-educated person I am in English. So being able to write properly is essential for me.

Well, at the moment I'm really caring about learning German, but in between my Japanese study plan, my job and (soon) school I know I won't be able to dedicate even half an hour per day to German. That doesn't mean I don't expect my German to considerably improve after a few months, since it still adds up; if 100 hours of study (roughly 6 months at a 30min/day rate) doesn't make a difference, then why even bother starting to learn anything if you can't make it a full-time job/lifetime commitment?

erlog wrote:

I really wish someone had been around 5 years ago to be really tough with me about my expectations. Lots of people are willing to be nice, but few are willing to be honest. It holds people back.

i've never blamed anyone here for holding me back, nor do i give much responsibility for any of my successes to people in this forum. all the advice here that i've taken and applied, i looked at the results instead of being blind about it.

i would stop trying to "rally the troops" and instead just focus on your own studies.

a lot of times i've found myself concentrating on a few areas because i randomly enjoy it or had a need for it. i had a phase where i focused on penmanship because i thought it was cool. and you can say "well it's not really important" but i don't care, i liked it. one guy got flamed here because he wanted to know what pencil to buy to write kanji and everyone's like "lolol noob" but i watched the same special he did, linked it, and some people were like "oh that's cool, i wanna give it a shot."

as far as writing goes, i still think the following:

-handwriting stuff nowadays is infrequent
-japanese students here and native japanese can probably handwrite more kanji than they think they can
-the diffusion of reading kanji to writing kanji is fairly good. definitely better than the carryover from reading to writing which is why i don't think it's ever completely neglected despite saying "it's not important"
-kana exists and is still good enough for communication