Reflections on Kanji

So those who read, have ever read, or are learning to read Kanji will only understand the initial rantings of this blog. The rest of you hold tight. Or don’t read this entry. Either way is totally fine with me. Because two alphabets depicting Japanese characters, katakana and hiragana, weren't enough, Japan later decided to incorporate kanji, or Chinese symbols, just to really piss off foreigners trying to read Japanese.

Come on, Japan, you had TWO OTHER alphabets!!

Prior to my arrival in Japan, most people told me to learn hiragana only and that I would get by fine. Those people lied in the worst way.

So, I learned about five symbols per day and arrived with a pretty good working knowledge of the sounds created by hiragana symbols only to discover that one alphabet is far from sufficient. Being surrounded by signs in the three Japanese alphabets forces you to learn pretty fast. Within my short time here so far, I have memorized the complete katakana and hiragana alphabets. Although it takes me a little while, I have no issues reading signs written in these two alphabets. However, kanji symbols just love to rain on my parade. Kanji is a different animal entirely. Not a fluffy, cute, friendly animal, I might add; rather, a terrifying, vicious animal that loves to ambush its prey- the foreigner.

 

Enough by itself1!

Here is what it is like for me to read a sign here in Japan. My eyes will be moving along a line of text, comfortably connecting the symbols to make a word, when all of a sudden a random, squiggly and complex symbol completely throws me off. It’s kind of like listening to a beautiful melody in my mind that is then interrupted by blaring white noise. It would be like trying to read this sentence: My favojkntkjnwkj ihihsdoh. (If that meant, my favorite song is “The A Team” by Ed Sheeran). It’s like, wow, I was about to find out what this person’s favorite song was and then this horrible, nasty string of letters completely prevented me from doing so.

Here is a perfect example: これはどういう意味ですか (It means, "what does this mean?")So, as my eyes scan that word, they see many symbols at the start that they recognize. "Cool," I think, "a word I can understand!" Korewa douiu.....smgddkgdgkdfgkfdgk....desuka. The red symbols are the offending Kanji. I'm on a marathon reading spree when one of my evil fellow runners throws a bag of marbles in my path (what a jerk) and completely throws me off track. Not cool Kanji, not cool. One thing I have come across on signs I have encountered that are a real head-scratcher are the ones where they write a Kanji, Katakana, Hiragana mashup phrase, but then in tiny letter on top of the Kanji symbols they just use the hiragana ANYWAYS to tell you how the kanji sounds. That seems like way more work than is necessary, but I guess they do love work. 

Why bother with the kanji that requires an extra step by placing letters from another alphabet above it. 

Often, people who think the can read Kanji try to explain it to me and I think...

So please don't try. 

All complaints aside, I actually DO like kanji when it is separate from other words. It is useful as a stand-alone expressing days of the week and depicting what a store sells. For example, there is one symbol that means “drugstore.” When I need to buy medication or whatever, I just seek out that symbol on a sign. Easy.