Writing at a first grade level: My experience with written Japanese

              So I`ll just come out and say it, Japanese Kanji are stupid. Not only are they stupid, but they are dumb as well. I hate them so much I get slightly nauseous every time I encounter one. If Kanji were a food they would be white chocolate, everybody loves to look at it but nobody actually likes it.

The simple fact that this seemingly archaic system of writing hasn’t been eradicated leads me to believe there is something not quite right about Japanese folk. In order to put this in perspective allow me to give you a brief lesson in Japanese writing (I promise the title of this post will make sense soon J).

The Japanese language possesses three written alphabets: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji (*Dry Heave*).

First lets talk about Hiragana, the easiest system to learn and by far my favorite. Hiragana is used to phonetically spell Japanese words, hiragana is FAR more similar to our English alphabet than Kanji. There are 45 basic characters in the hiragana “alphabet” each corresponding to a single syllable. In addition to the 45 normal hiragana there are a few small “modifiers” that can change the way each hiragana sounds sounds.

Example:

“は”- This Hiragana makes the “ha” sound and ONLY that one sound. One major difference between Japanese and English is that there are no phonics. In English the letter “C” can make a “ka”, “sa”, or “ch” sound depending on the other letters around it. In Japanese “は” will always just be “ha”.

-“は” can be slightly modified to adjust its sound. “ば” is read as “ba” and “ぱ” is read as “pa”. By adding that small circle or the two dashes to certain hiragana their sounds can be changed ever so slightly. While there are only 45 basic hiragana there are a total of 107 unique syllabic sounds within that alphabet.

              Moving right along we come to Katakana. Katakana has EXACTLY the same number of symbols and syllabic sounds as hiragana. Essentially its just the hiragana alphabet but using different symbols for each sound. “But why Alex?”, you cry out on the verge of tears, “What sort of diabolical entity would contrive to have two different alphabets that serve the exact same purpose? Is it a paradox of sorts? A glitch in the Matrix? Some ancient endtimes prophecy coming to fuition? WHY FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY…… WHYYYYYY!”

I`ll feed you baby birds…

Katakana is distinctive because it is used SOLELY for words that are of a foreign origin. I find this to be remarkably interesting and it does in fact make reading new words considerably easier. At a glace you know if what you are about to read is a word that originated in Japan or was borrowed from another language. Some examples may clear this up a bit.

One of the English Teachers at my school is named みはる (mi-ha-ru)　いまず (I-ma-zu). That was her name written in hiragana because it is of Japanese origin. On the other hand MY name would not be written in hiragana because of my “foreign-ness”. In hiragana my name is written あれっくす (Ah-re-ku-su)*. However, whenever my name is written it is ALWAYS written as アレックス、exact same reading as the hiragana but different symbols. It is actually quite easy for people who cannot read hiragana or katakana to tell them apart at a glance. Hiragana tend to be more curvy ornate white katakana are generally more angular and simple.

*It is important to note here that the Japanese syllabary does not contain “L”, “V”, or “TH” syllables. These particular sounds are very difficult for Japanese to master and is a primary reason for as “assumed” Japanese accent (“Oh herro”) cannot pronounce these sounds very well.*

              A primary use of katakana is to phonetically spell out foreign words to allow Japanese people to read them easier. In addition, many foods, animals, sports and objects that are not native to Japan are just referred to by their native names using katakana. Again some examples:

トマト “to-ma-to”- Tomato

パン “pa-n”- Bread (latin origin)

パソコン “pa-so-co-n” – Personal Computer

And so on

              Finally we come to the bane of my Japanese existence… Kanji (*blood curdling scream*). There are approximately (I say approximately because believe it or not nobody actually knows…) 60,000 kanji in the Japanese repertoire ranging from the comically simple, to the bowl looseningly difficult. Most kanji are used to represent one or two syllables and in fact most kanji can represent words on their own. Some of the easier kanji are great examples of this.

一, 二, 三 “i-chi”, “ni”, “sa-n”- Kanji for one, two, and three respectively. Pretty self explanatory why they look the way they do.

川 “ka-wa”- This kanji means river. It is meant to look like water running between two banks.

Many kanji are made up of components of other kanji called “radicals”. This means that even if you don’t know a new kanji you can get clues to its meanings by reading its radicals. Again… examples… (This is reading like a textbook isn’t it?)

男 “o-to-ko”- Is the kanji for man or male. It is made up of two radicals:

田 “ta”- Is the kanji for rice paddy, again see how the character itself resembles a field.

力 “”chi-ka-ra”- Is the kanji for strength, force, or capability.

So the “image” reading for男(man) is田(rice field) over力(power). So a man is essentially the power and influence necessary to farm and produce rice.

I find this aspect of kanji incredibly interesting, the concept of using images and/or compounded images to represent words is a very cool concept and helps teach a lot about Japanese history and ideals. My interest, however, is considerably dulled at the sheer number of kanji and the fact that they can often be ridiculously difficult to write.

In addition to memorizing the character itself, its meaning (some kanji can have upwards of 5 different readings/meanings) one must also learn the stroke order for the kanji. That’s right, every kanji has ONLY ONE correct way to write it and each and every stroke must be done in the correct order and in the correct direction or you will bring shame upon your family for generations… Or be accused of crappy handwriting. This difficult is further compounded by the complexity of many kanji.

麤

The kanji pictured above is translated as “rough” and contains 33 distinct strokes, all of which must be done perfectly for the kanji to be readable. For most Japanese writing this kanji takes the better part of a minute… For one word. The dependence on Kanji makes word processors incredibly difficult to use in Japan. Typing is very very slow and up until the invention of digital word processors nearly all Japanese was hand written as traditional typewriters could not be sued to write kanji.

I could go on and on about Kanji, Japanese writing, and the language in general but I have a distinct feeling most people have already stopped reading this post anyways (sorry kinda got caught up) as it isn’t too terribly entertaining… I promise I`ll make the next one more entertaining… Something about crazy Japanese festivals, Giant robots, or hello kitty themed prisons… For anyone who managed to make it through my teacher-esque ramblings I applaud your perseverance. For now I am off to clean the school with my students… Something I do every day… Seriously…