Nope, 橋 - bridge and 箸 - chopsticks are both read はし, and there are numerous other occurrences like this in Japanese. Simply put when reading Kanji gives a distinct meaning to a word and when speaking you depend on context clues and tones.

It's possible to be very functional in Japanese without a lot of kanji, but even that functionally illiterate level requires between 600-1000 daily use kanji. Most Japanese people know between 2500-3000, and it affects the way they communicate.

From time to time there's misunderstandings that are solved by someone explaining which kanji are in the word they're using while drawing it on their hand with their finger.

Even if you don't want to read, I think kanji are such a large part of the culture that to ignore them becomes more work than just learning them to begin with. Also, you're on a forum of a site with the mission to learn kanji...I wonder what kind of responses you're going to get.

Last edited by erlog (2012 June 07, 5:07 pm)

You'll be illiterate. Are you sure you'll never want to read normal content? Books, internet?

I think it would be kind of smart for most people to gain an adequate aural comprehension of Japanese before they start hardcore kanji study, personally. I think it's not irrelevant that kids generally have been speaking the language for years before they start writing it. Homophones are not a huge problem -- we have lots of them in English, too, and generally they're resolvable from context, pitch accent, and from the fact that some of them are much commoner than others.

At the same time, I think there are some things it's hard to get over without knowing kanji -- like the technobabble in some science fiction anime. (Because a lot of those scientific words won't come up in conversation, so you pretty much have to learn them by reading.) And generally, I find that it's easier to passively acquire vocabulary through reading than through listening, because the words don't come at you so fast.

Personally I really like reading books. And not all the books I want to read are the kind of light novels I'm liable to find on torrent sites. But you're the best person to judge what you want to achieve. It may be that you're happy forever with a mostly-aural knowledge of the language, and it may be that you come to a point where you feel the need to improve your kanji knowledge.

DoctorHabib, you definitely can. There are plenty of fluent speakers who didn't learn to read well or at all. You can always return to kanji later if your reason for learning Japanese changes.

Knowing kanji has a number of benefits (both during the language learning journey and as a final outcome.) But, as you say, considering your objective you can weigh the benefits against the big investment of your time.

I also think it can be very motivating and beneficial to build a language foundation and get some proficiency in listening and speaking before tackling the RTK/kanji vocab mountain (for those who do.) I'm not so sure it can be compared to how native children learn to read, however. Foreign learners using reading to acquire the language is a bit different. And neither will be already familiar with all the new vocab they encounter while reading.

(Mr AJATT has observed that many people give up after RTK.  Maybe he'll modify his advice given the number of people giving up on Japanese before they even get started. His order works, I think, for a certain kind of person, but that's not most people.)

If he's coming from a language without pitch accent or tones then he probably won't notice the difference. But context takes care of it usually anyway.

Inny Jan wrote:

s0apgun wrote:

Nope, 橋 - bridge and 箸 - chopsticks are both read はし

Nope,
橋 - はし [2] (LH)
箸 - はし [1] (HL)

If the OP is learning Japanese by listening then he will hear the difference.

There are about 50 million or so Japanese people who will disagree with you on how those words are pronounced.

Last edited by kitakitsune (2012 June 07, 8:03 pm)

The OP is basically right.

Theoretically, you could learn Japanese to a fluent level with no real problem using just kana. The amount of resources containing furigana are more than enough to get you to that point.

Except you'll still be technically illiterate. If you are fine with that, then I say go ahead and continue with what fits your style and language learning goals.

Last edited by kitakitsune (2012 June 07, 8:17 pm)

I agree with most of the people in this thread.  It's not hard to learn kanji if you're already using an SRS.  Just put in a card with the front being '行く' and the back being 'いく'.  Sure, there are some words that have the same kanji and okurigana but different pronunciations, but it isn't a problem in 99.9% of the time.

With that being said, you don't have to learn kanji.  As long as you're having fun, don't worry about. 

However, let me give you one good reason you may want to learn how to read.  In the past couple of years, there have started to be subtitle files for Japanese dramas and anime appearing online.  You can read what the characters are saying in your favorite shows.  Whenever I watch a show with subtitles, my comprehension increases by easily 20-30%.  I enjoy it more because I understand it more.

Doctorhabib,
anything is possible under the Sun.

I've never heard anyone speak in kanji (or hiragana for that matter). I sometimes think I must have been unlucky.

I think sticking with hiragana makes perfect sense for a lot of people. Adult students convinced the director of a private Japanese school that I have attended to change the curriculum so that many classes concentrate more on comprehension and oral fluency and less on Kanji while adding a track for people who wanted more Kanji and reading practice.  The school was going under because adult students were failing the final exams and were stuck taking the same level over and over.  Many students are professionals whose jobs requires then to travel to Japan, but who don't really need Japanese fluency because they work in English eg.  doctors who teach short courses in Japanese hospitals.  Some students are  Japanophiles or lovers of some particular Japanese drama, anime, music etc.  Only a few students are aiming for literacy.   Now more students who attend this school are achieving a usable level of comprehension and oral fluency.

The writing in the air thing is ingrained in the culture, and it isn't just kanji. My students will do it in English, and I'll frequently do it if I'm describing how to spell something to one of them. The difference in comprehension is night and day.