Yet another post about Kanji
I read an article today which made 2 points; that you could become fluent in Japanese without learning Kanji and that stroke order doesn't matter if you don't intend to write.
I feel one of these is largely wrong. And the other is at the least misguided.
Can you become fluent in Japanese without learning Kanji? Sure, I suppose anything is possible. But, you're not likely to find many, if any people easily who have succeeded. And I think that there are a few reasons for this.
And because of the importance of learning Kanji, I think that the stroke order debate ties in quite well at the same time. And while this is less firm in my mind, I think that there are benefits you wouldn't expect to doing it right.
First, before I dive in, fluency for the sake of this means the ability to converse confidently in the language, even if lacking some niche specific vocabulary, even where common to know it.
Secondly, if you just want the short version; if you're not immersed in the culture, reading is going to be a key resource for acquiring fluency, and there is simply not enough, readily available, high quality, advanced reading materials in Japanese which don't use Kanji. You'll also be left without a lot of nuance. And, if you include the ability to understand jokes, of which there are a great deal around Kanji pronunciation and forms... then it is actually outright impossible.
As for the stroke order, the short version is this; Yes, you can faithfully reproduce Kanji without proper stroke order. But, your reproductions will be slow, and your ability to recognize the Kanji in the real world will be virtually non-existent.
And now back to the longer story on Kanji and fluency.
As you may have heard, Kanji, while originally from China, have grown into something different, and in some ways more complex. They have on average far more readings and the meanings can be harder to get to the heart of. But, there are far less required for fluency in Japanese than in Chinese. And, the way the Japanese language has evolved, it basically means that integrating Kanji comprehension into your studies serves a shortcut to understanding a lot of quirks of the language and will radically improve your ability to pick up new vocab.
One of the reason is that a lot common Japanese terms are compound words. This, in itself is not a particularly unusual feature of a language. But, because of the multiple readings of a Kanji, it may not always be obvious going by reading alone what a new word is a compound of. And Kanji itself makes most words a form of proto-compound word.
Without working Kanji comprehension into your studies, every word becomes a unique occurrence that needs to be memorized all on it's own. With very little context. And probably a lot of confusion. With Kanji comprehension, that work load is cut down by a freakishly large amount. Certainly, it cuts it down by more than it would cost you to invest in familiarizing yourself with at the least the 常用漢字.
The next problem is much more holistic. What are your resources for language learning? Again, if you're not actually living in Japan, it is really hard to get exposure to the language. Manga and Anime aren't accurate examples of how real people talk to each other. Even dramas if you can find them aren't great. Which means you'll probably need books. And, to get books that will get you to "fluent" level? Yep! You'll almost certainly need to know how to read the Kanji.
So again, it isn't a hard requirement. But, just as ignoring Kanji is going to multiply your workload on vocab acquisition, it is also going to shut down a lot of avenues for consuming native resources, which is again going to painfully prolong your learning experience.
A bonus point would be, if your reason for attaining fluency is to live and work in Japan, you'll probably need to complete at least the JLPT N2, if not N1 regardless of your actual skills in spoken Japanese. And those will require a basic knowledge of the common kanji.
The final bonus is humor and other ways Kanji is embedded in Japanese life. I watched an episode of Terrace House (the one with famous "the meat incident"). And the hosts are talking, and one jokes that when she sees the male's name, all she can see is meat.
This is because the kanji in his name that reads UCHI (内) looks very similar to one for meat, NIKU (肉). This kind of word based comedy is pretty common. But, as you can see above, the joke stems from the Kanji as much as the situation. And Terrace House is a pretty easy level Japanese. Can you call yourself fluent if you can't catch such a simple joke?
Anyway, I believe that the reason I've never seen a person attain a level one could call fluency without Kanji is (primarily) due to these points; not having that skill cripples your growth, cuts you off from some valuable learning materials and may even mean that you don't even meet the minimum standards required for the reason you're learning in the first place.
With my argument for integrating learning Kanji out of the way. Why does stroke order matter?
Well, as I said earlier, it does and it doesn't. Not knowing, or not using the correct stroke order doesn't make it impossible to write a perfectly legible Kanji.
But, there are two connected issues which do relate to stroke order; speed and legibility. And thirdly, recognition.
Kanji, like any written language, in the real world isn't as clean as a font on a screen. And, like any language there are some fonts that take some artistic liberties with appearances. What makes a Kanji legible is the balance of the components of the Kanji and certain, common distinctive marks which tend to stem from how they're written when done in the correct order.
In short, when following proper stroke order, it is a lot easier to attain the selected balance and naturally produce those other features, and be able to do so more quickly.
It also means you're likely to pick up on these things yourself over time when you see the Kanji in funky fonts or handwritten. If you focus on neat reproductions without proper stroke order, you'll likely be lost.
And stroke order is fairly predictable and a lot less complicated to get the hang of than Kanji in general. So, you're basically doing yourself a disservice.
I'll note, I'm not strict on myself by any means. But, when I practice writing a new Kanji, I do start with the proper stroke order. I'll practice a few times over the course of a few days and practice writing a fair pace. At the end I'll double check my stroke order. If it is off, I'll check if this has affected the balance or legibility of my Kanji in any way. If not, I'm generally OK with it. But, more often than not there is a noticeable impact and re-teaching myself the correct stroke order corrects the oddities in my writing. Not all strokes are created equal when measuring how important they are in producing good writing.
I hope that was a helpful dissection of my thoughts on Kanji in the role of learning Japanese.
I feel one of these is largely wrong. And the other is at the least misguided.
Can you become fluent in Japanese without learning Kanji? Sure, I suppose anything is possible. But, you're not likely to find many, if any people easily who have succeeded. And I think that there are a few reasons for this.
And because of the importance of learning Kanji, I think that the stroke order debate ties in quite well at the same time. And while this is less firm in my mind, I think that there are benefits you wouldn't expect to doing it right.
First, before I dive in, fluency for the sake of this means the ability to converse confidently in the language, even if lacking some niche specific vocabulary, even where common to know it.
Secondly, if you just want the short version; if you're not immersed in the culture, reading is going to be a key resource for acquiring fluency, and there is simply not enough, readily available, high quality, advanced reading materials in Japanese which don't use Kanji. You'll also be left without a lot of nuance. And, if you include the ability to understand jokes, of which there are a great deal around Kanji pronunciation and forms... then it is actually outright impossible.
As for the stroke order, the short version is this; Yes, you can faithfully reproduce Kanji without proper stroke order. But, your reproductions will be slow, and your ability to recognize the Kanji in the real world will be virtually non-existent.
And now back to the longer story on Kanji and fluency.
As you may have heard, Kanji, while originally from China, have grown into something different, and in some ways more complex. They have on average far more readings and the meanings can be harder to get to the heart of. But, there are far less required for fluency in Japanese than in Chinese. And, the way the Japanese language has evolved, it basically means that integrating Kanji comprehension into your studies serves a shortcut to understanding a lot of quirks of the language and will radically improve your ability to pick up new vocab.
One of the reason is that a lot common Japanese terms are compound words. This, in itself is not a particularly unusual feature of a language. But, because of the multiple readings of a Kanji, it may not always be obvious going by reading alone what a new word is a compound of. And Kanji itself makes most words a form of proto-compound word.
Without working Kanji comprehension into your studies, every word becomes a unique occurrence that needs to be memorized all on it's own. With very little context. And probably a lot of confusion. With Kanji comprehension, that work load is cut down by a freakishly large amount. Certainly, it cuts it down by more than it would cost you to invest in familiarizing yourself with at the least the 常用漢字.
The next problem is much more holistic. What are your resources for language learning? Again, if you're not actually living in Japan, it is really hard to get exposure to the language. Manga and Anime aren't accurate examples of how real people talk to each other. Even dramas if you can find them aren't great. Which means you'll probably need books. And, to get books that will get you to "fluent" level? Yep! You'll almost certainly need to know how to read the Kanji.
So again, it isn't a hard requirement. But, just as ignoring Kanji is going to multiply your workload on vocab acquisition, it is also going to shut down a lot of avenues for consuming native resources, which is again going to painfully prolong your learning experience.
A bonus point would be, if your reason for attaining fluency is to live and work in Japan, you'll probably need to complete at least the JLPT N2, if not N1 regardless of your actual skills in spoken Japanese. And those will require a basic knowledge of the common kanji.
The final bonus is humor and other ways Kanji is embedded in Japanese life. I watched an episode of Terrace House (the one with famous "the meat incident"). And the hosts are talking, and one jokes that when she sees the male's name, all she can see is meat.
This is because the kanji in his name that reads UCHI (内) looks very similar to one for meat, NIKU (肉). This kind of word based comedy is pretty common. But, as you can see above, the joke stems from the Kanji as much as the situation. And Terrace House is a pretty easy level Japanese. Can you call yourself fluent if you can't catch such a simple joke?
Anyway, I believe that the reason I've never seen a person attain a level one could call fluency without Kanji is (primarily) due to these points; not having that skill cripples your growth, cuts you off from some valuable learning materials and may even mean that you don't even meet the minimum standards required for the reason you're learning in the first place.
With my argument for integrating learning Kanji out of the way. Why does stroke order matter?
Well, as I said earlier, it does and it doesn't. Not knowing, or not using the correct stroke order doesn't make it impossible to write a perfectly legible Kanji.
But, there are two connected issues which do relate to stroke order; speed and legibility. And thirdly, recognition.
Kanji, like any written language, in the real world isn't as clean as a font on a screen. And, like any language there are some fonts that take some artistic liberties with appearances. What makes a Kanji legible is the balance of the components of the Kanji and certain, common distinctive marks which tend to stem from how they're written when done in the correct order.
In short, when following proper stroke order, it is a lot easier to attain the selected balance and naturally produce those other features, and be able to do so more quickly.
It also means you're likely to pick up on these things yourself over time when you see the Kanji in funky fonts or handwritten. If you focus on neat reproductions without proper stroke order, you'll likely be lost.
And stroke order is fairly predictable and a lot less complicated to get the hang of than Kanji in general. So, you're basically doing yourself a disservice.
I'll note, I'm not strict on myself by any means. But, when I practice writing a new Kanji, I do start with the proper stroke order. I'll practice a few times over the course of a few days and practice writing a fair pace. At the end I'll double check my stroke order. If it is off, I'll check if this has affected the balance or legibility of my Kanji in any way. If not, I'm generally OK with it. But, more often than not there is a noticeable impact and re-teaching myself the correct stroke order corrects the oddities in my writing. Not all strokes are created equal when measuring how important they are in producing good writing.
I hope that was a helpful dissection of my thoughts on Kanji in the role of learning Japanese.
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