This is what I could find about the iOS version:
Also I am in the US in case that makes a difference.
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Learning Hiragana opened your mind and the world to start learning Japanese. Learning Katakana gave you the ability to read and turn non Japanese words into Japanese. Learning Kanji opened up a whole new world of being able to watch, listen, see and understand a world you never knew… Now just imagine if you can also write the complete language, what possibilities will it open up for you…
Most of the time when I feel the need to write kanji, it’s on the blackboard, and muscle memory fails me, because I’m used to writing with a pencil and I can’t visually recall the entire kanji. And I do study. OTL m\o_o_//m …OK…
It’s nice to learn how to write kanji via stroke order, but as others have said, not strictly necessary when you can get away with hiragana, katakana, and a bit of copying.
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Yep, you are right. Apologies for my oversight.
The point remains, however, that your anecdotal experience does not support blanket statements. Some people have actually needed to write in Kanji, so telling newbies that it is never needed is as misleading as telling them it always is. Such absolutes really don’t help anyone.
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One thing a lot of people over look is that by learning to write kanji you will be able to visualize them in your mind. In English this is key to being able to read faster than speaking pace, and I don’t see any reason why it should be different for Japanese. Being able to read at a fast pace in any language is extremely useful.
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You could say the same thing about any English writers ability, especially with kids these days. Granted, English has less letters than Japanese has kanji, but forgetting how to write a kanji is a little like forgetting how to spell a word, and I can tell you, vocabulary and grammar have plummeted in English in the younger generations.
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Yes, this was a little shock. For a long time I have used a computer to take notes, even in English and suddenly being asked to turn in handwritten homework for the first time in 20 years was a little bit of a shock.
My handwriting is shocking in English and I compromised by writing my homework out in the computer first and doing a fair copy into my homework book.
I think one reason for learning to write kanji is is that the romaji keyboard and how kanji just pop up is a little bit of a crutch that hinders learning in the long run.
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You’re just wrong, and that’s not even something we have to discuss.
Offices such as ハローワーク have translators and interpreters to help foreigners, and in most other places, there’s not even a need to write your address in kanji. Official documents “work” as well with roman letters.
What’s definitely needed is the ability to draw your name in katakana. There’s no exception to that.
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Doesn’t always give you correct answers. Just saying.
Yes there is a huge benefit to learning how to write kanji.
If you ever actually lived in Japan, you would know that this place has so much paperwork for almost every single transaction. Reading Kanji is one thing, but writing it is another. I had to redo paperwork (after three weeks of waiting) because my kanji was illegible.
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I’m actually living in Japan, right now. Having been for a couple years now in fact.
The same is true for Leebo.
Agree with you. This is true even in prefecture where foreigners are not so common (I live in Toyama prefecture).
Also, even if I must write in kanji I can always get my smartphone and look up the kanji I need to write. Of course knowing how to write them from blank would be better and faster, but still is not mandatory.
I am now practising writing the most used/common kanji just because I use them in my Japanese class and I cannot look them up.
One question I have: is writing kanji required for the JLPT?
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There’s no writing section on the JLPT, but there are more advanced tests (can’t remember the name of them off the top of my head) that include writing kanji.
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Judging from the practice exams, they don’t make you write them in a blank or anything, but they do attempt to see if you know how by showing you some subtly wrong ones and asking you to pick the correct one. I’m not sure I’d get all of those without having learned to write them myself.
I’m not sure which you’re thinking of, but here are other tests with writing.
Kanji Kentei: a test dedicated to kanji. About 50% of the points come from writing kanji. Intended for natives.
J-Test: general Japanese knowledge, intended for non-natives, the kanji section is 30 questions, but only 15 require writing and those only require you to write the reading in hiragana. A short grammar section also requires writing but hiragana is okay.
Bunshouken: a test of written Japanese, including essay length responses. Intended for natives.
I’m sure others have writing too.
Wow, I never expected this much discussion on the topic. I am glad to hear all the different responses though, because I could read one person saying “you’ll never use it” and think that is the case, but the people after that are saying “that’s not true, you absolutely need it”. Obviously there are completely different opinions on this but I hope you all weren’t getting angry with each other, and instead were just having a good discussion.
I think at this point it is safe to say, it would be nice and definitely beneficial to learn to write the kanji, but it is not absolutely needed. But I think more people are recommending that it is good to learn for things such as to distinguish characters, or write a note if needed, or write things like your mailing address.
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learn it if you like it/find it useful for you.
you can get along just fine without any japanese knowledge whatsoever in japan, but knowing the language has it’s perks, being literate is a step up in extension, and being able to write by hand is even further so an improvement. the step after this would then be calligraphy on the writing side, or dialects/classic japanese. see the progression here?
japan is a modern country. their native language makes learning english painful and slow, so they do value your every effort to learn japanese. they’re also happy to try out their english with you, but you going through learning japanese is highly valued.
while japanese people are proud of their culture, language and japan in general, they’re also a curious bunch who love the exotic.
with the olympics in less than 2 years, efforts are being made to make the country even more accessible for foreigners - which is the very opposite of “you need advanced skill x to live in japan”.
main problem in this thread is the usual: some people don’t have a clue, but everyone has an opinion. take everything you read here with a grain of salt.
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I am going to try to directly answer the questions you asked:
I can imagine times that it would be useful / cool to be able to write by hand:
- noone wants a birhday card or thank you note or love letter printed out from a computer (there are still times that getting something hand written is socially meaningful)
- many successful language learners have said that a part of their practice is carrying around a notebook to write down unknown grammar / words etc
- there are still business / work situations that are fairly common that use handwriting (a meeting where ppl are brainstorming ideas on a whiteboard, a company calander where ppl write what job or client they are meeting, etc)
- all of the japanese specific writing things that one might be interested in (calligraphy etc)
maybe. The stroke orders are not arbitrary, so after a while you get a pretty strong feel for the order. WK levels have 33ish kanji per level so if you were doing 10 day levels, you could practice 3 a day. Writing a kanji 10 times would take 2-5 min prob. So you could add this to your practice in 15 min a day. You would also prob want to do more writing practice, but all in all maybe 30 min a day.
I do think that it helps with memorization. But time is what we all don’t have enough of, so you have to weight whether that 30 min is the best use of your learning time at this point in your japanese learning.
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A small anecdote in regards to the stroke order link that I mentioned above. A while ago I used to draw kanji and kana with little regard to proper stroke order and recklessly drew based on my own interpretations. It was mentioned my handwriting at that time looked very similar to letters written by a notorious psychopathic killer known as 宮崎勤. His crimes were by far the worst I’ve ever heard of and explore the details at your own risk (you can find his letters in search as well). I’m told he may (or not) have tried to disguise his writing and whether he actually used improper stroke order….who knows. Nonetheless, it’s not a flattering comparison!! As I’ve practiced more (and used proper order), I made better habits and it began to balance out (or rather, look less psychotic!). Thus it’s been my conclusion that stroke order matters (including all kana)!
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