Re: Does anybody else think that learning to write kanji is over-prioritized in language classes outside of Japan?
- From: "moon.neko" <moon.neko@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 16:16:59 -0700 (PDT)
Some Japanese people (like Kenzaburo Oe) have really (and I mean
_really_) bad handwriting, so don't worry about it.
I'm so glad you've mentioned that, if anyone ever makes fun of my
handwriting in Japan I'm going to pull that fact out and astound them
^_^
You have to be realistic. In my limited experience, I can only think
of a couple of languages that might actually be a taller mountain to
climb than Japanese for native anglophones, and those languages are
pretty rare. (The Inuit languages definitely look more difficult.)
I know Japanese is supposed to be a really hard language to learn, but
I've always been really impressed with the logic of the grammar and
relative lack of exceptions to rules, etc. In contrast, French grammar
and pronounciation seems really hard. Also, I did try learning
Mandarin Chinese on and off for the last few years, and even though I
managed to get to understand quite a bit, my pronounciation was so
shocking that Mandarin speakers pretty much just laughed so I've
pretty much given up. I'm also engaged to a Cantonese speaker and
haven't even tried learning Cantonese yet, I'm just too scared @_@
I suppose the kanji would be considered the hardest part of Japanese,
but it's quite easy to get to a communicative level of proficiency and
even kanji aren't THAT hard, so I do always wonder why Japanese gets a
reputation of being difficult. (Which is great though, it makes me
look smart to my peers! muahaha)
Don't get me wrong, though. Nobody in their right mind would claim
that maintaining mastery of written kanji is useful, because it isn't.
Nobody writes them these days. Writing the kanji is the best way to
_learn_ them. Once you've learned them, you forget them without
constant practice.
See, I suppose that's what I primarily object to in Japanese classroom
method. When one's taking an advanced Japanese course, you're excepted
to be able to handwrite a very high number of kanji off the top of
your head. I've been thinking of doing my post-grad in Japanese when I
get back, but I just know meeting the writing requirement for the
language classes is going to involve another month straight of writing
kanji again and again so that I can memorize them for the course and
then quite possibly forget them again (I suppose I could keep them up
with a few hours a week practice, but I'm not sure I see the point).
Well, I've actually started studying for the kanken (I posted about
this before), so I'm working my way back, but the only time I write
any kanji these days is in shopping lists for my wife, so the gap has
grown from when I was learning the kanji. I could write all of them
then, but now, it's pretty iffy. And in fact our trip to Japan this
year has been moved back, so I'm not going to be able to take the
kanken, and my enthusiasm in practicing has waned a bit.
Good luck!
.
- Follow-Ups:
- References:
- Prev by Date: Re: Does anybody else think that learning to write kanji is over-prioritized in language classes outside of Japan?
- Next by Date: Re: Does anybody else think that learning to write kanji is over-prioritized in language classes outside of Japan?
- Previous by thread: Re: Does anybody else think that learning to write kanji is over-prioritized in language classes outside of Japan?
- Next by thread: Re: Does anybody else think that learning to write kanji is over-prioritized in language classes outside of Japan?
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
