Worth writing kanji?

Yeah, what does Leebo know? It’s not like he actually lives in Japan, or anything.

\s

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TIL that after almost two years in Japan and reading kanji sketched out on blackboards, handwritten notes, and odd fonts on menus and store signs, in addition to cleanly typed ones in prose fiction and test passages, having passed the N2 with a healthy reading score, I actually can’t read any kanji.

(And I do think writing is important long-term and identify with wanting to be better at it to avoid embarrassment.)

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Personally, I memorize better when I write things down. I’ll probably be typing Japanese 99% of the time, but my brain just memorizes patterns better when i experience the sensation of pen on paper. Not gonna work that way for everyone, but hey, do whatever works for you.

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He won’t respond to anything about me once he starts something. He just jumps into the thread, tosses out a quip and then leaves or mutes it.

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It’s not essential imo, but really it higly depends on your goals. It’s a different skill and will take time (as well as reviewing). So, if you wan’t to read, understand shows, etc… well probably your time will be better spend working at listening / reading abilities.

I started learning how to write kanji, following the book Remembering the Kanji until reaching some 300 kanjis, with that I was clear on how stroke order worked and got to know about the basic radicals you encounter so often, with that I could write and make sense of writting new kanji after seen an example so it didn’t looked like a blob of traces. That method it’s more suited to learning how to write kanji compared to WK, but then, my goal was to read ASAP, and following WK was better for me in that regard.

I went with WK until my current level, and that alongside with reading on a regular pace helped me to improve my recognition skills.
Now I’m suffering the downside of not continuing with my writting practice. As someone mentioned, in Japan lots of Izakayas and billlboards will be written in a style different than the “Times New Roman” equivalent that you usually get in WK and in most books.
But really that’s not at all the problem, I can always ask and get food in my mouth… and the billboards… couldn’t care less about those.

My only TRUE struggle is, I got into a Shodo classroom recently :man_shrugging: . While charactes looked the way I was familiarized with, it was all ok. I was getting some 上手!! comments still.

Recently we started working on 続けじ (cursive writing form) … and now my homework looks like this.

I struggle reading, and clearly japanese people learning Shodo too are super familiar with this kind of writing and don’t go every two seconds to ask the teacher what it all means :joy:

So there… that’s my current perspective on writting and the mess you could (eventually) be into if not learning to write from day one :laughing:.

EDIT: of course my situation is pretending to be humorous about it. There are still some practical uses of writing in Japan for people living here.

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When I started WaniKani I also wanted to be able to write all of the Kanji I learned (both for retention, differentiation of similar kanji and simply being able to write the solutions to my exercises…)

Honestly, learning to write Kanji takes me only about 15min a day by using this WaniKani Anki writing deck.
I imagine most people can probably include those 15min in their study routine without trouble, and I highly recommend doing so as the value of being able to write is well worth the 15min of extra study!

I had a passing interest for shodo at some point. This channel helped me a lot:

The guy has tips for writing with pen too, not just brush.

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And those same people would put it into use?? I mean, it can result in a lot of added time for a nice party trick too.

SRS piles up… so while harmless practice, tends to have that snowball effect.

I think the more info you add to that kanjis when just learning, the heavier the burden… specially if you don’t put that into use.
I only went with WK because I would use the reading in most kanjis really quickly if I kept reading constantly. I kinda feel the same for writting, I will go through RTK now, persuing reinforcing writting, but only becasue it makes sense at what I’m doing now. Otherwise I would feel is not too good of a time investment.

Well I guess you are putting it into use… not sure I would have persued learning to write for that reason though…

Thanks!
I’ve been looking at his videos too.
It has helped a lot to see the videos with the standard written form put side by side with the cursive way, after some videos you can really get how those radicals get simplified.

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You’re right, by no means am I trying to say that you will need to write regularly, I’m simply proposing that it doesn’t take much work to learn, so why not do it?

Learning a language consists of Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing, so in my opinion learning to write is not an option, regardless if it’s useful or not. But I understand that people might see it as extra work.

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Please don’t take too much offense if I’m gonna sound a little harsh, I’m running low on sleep today, so my “appropriately aggressive”-meter probably is a little bit off.

It really annoys when people just make up random guidelines for other people based on their ambitions. It’s such an arbitrary thing to say.
Why the hell would you assume there’s no one out there that’s better off not learning how to handwrite a language.
Many of us are already fluent in multiple other languages. We don’t need Japanese to communicate.
Learning Japanese, for me and many others, is a hobby. We do it because it brings us joy.
This isn’t about puffing up your resume or seeming morally superior.
It’s about what you like, what will be usefull to you and what you yourself want to achieve.

Everyone is different. Don’t go around pushing your ideals and ambitions onto others.

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I expressed my opinion, and you expressed yours, that’s how opinions work.

Learning Japanese (and languages in general) is also a hobby for me, that’s why I want to learn everything about it (writing included), and it’s completely fine if other people don’t want to do that, that’s why I said “in my opinion” and not “EVERYONE SHOULD DO THIS!”.

Please be careful when reading and responding to comments.

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Erm… I’m sorry, but I think it’s the other way around. It’s Sutho81 さん who has been offensive (well, at least on the very border of being offensive) from the very beginning and Leebo 先輩’s replies are quite adequate…

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I totally second that!

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Look, there’s a difference between writing and handwriting. Most of us can write just fine on a PC or smartphone. The discussion seems to be heated around handwriting in particular.

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I did read that, but I guess our interpretation of “in my opinion” kind of differs.
To me it doesnt have an “it’s only applicable to me” feeling.

Then again, might be overreacting a bit because it’s a sore point for me. Not trying to turn this into an argument.

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I think the only person asserting that writing is mandatory or else you don’t know the kanji was sutho.

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My point is simply that learning to handwrite kanji isn’t hard and doesn’t take too much time, so if you can then I would recommend doing it.
However there are people that don’t want to or don’t see the advantages of doing so, which is also completely fine.

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Thanks for that reply, I was quite put off the first time to have someone actually put quotations on my opinion and then go into hammer it. I guess with him it is you reap what you sow.

Anyway, this whole discussion has become quite heated and all simply because Sutho81 さん has formulated his opinion in a way that some people, including me, would consider offensive.
To return it back on the original track, writing kanji is worth it, but depending on your goals it may or may not be necessary. Actually, it’s similar with English. Can you read what’s written here?

I can’t. I can discern some individual words, but the whole text looks not like English but like Abracadabrish to me. Does it mean I don’t know English? Well, by using @Sutho81 さん’s logic, it does. However, I can read typed English text, I can use this forum, I can watch English movies and tv shows without any subs or dubs… This was the goal I’ve set for myself when I started and I think I’ve achieved it.
Now my goal is to achieve the same with Japanese. I’d probably never be able to read texts like this

But that’s not my goal anyway. My goal is to read texts like this:

And to be able to someday go to a Japanese-only forum and argue with someone who’d claim that “If you can’t write English letters by hand - then you don’t know them”.

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I’ve noticed I’m learning a slower lately now that I’m encountering more kanji that aren’t already ingrained in my memory from studying Japanese at school and university. I’m wondering if maybe I can do some writing practise at least for some of the useful kanji for everyday. Maybe I can set rules for myself too e.g. practise items at guru level (or something to that effect).

I used to love writing kanji so it might be nice to include it in my routine :slight_smile:

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