Understanding the Japanese Writing System 

so, how do japanese pronounce kanji?

@@IgneelS11 The correct way.

C iasa

Kk

Ccas

Kanji is Chinese. It's borrowed into the Japanese scripts

@@ss327827 well that's the joke ;;;

@@nyenjime right! I cannot believe I didn't get that they first time. I'll go kill myself now.

my plan is to learn both. Japanese in high school and I'm going to make a career with Chinese. In theory

@@eeeeeeee7774 It does make things easier that I'm a native Chinese speaker trying to make Japanese my third language...

Ah yes, no And の means ‘of’ in Japanese in case you didn’t know

@@RandomPerson295 it was a good joke and you just HAD to ruin it

@@zahraa4149 ok sorry man

@@zahraa4149 An overused not-funny-anymore joke

@@Mike-td4uq literally don't care

Thank you!

kænji

look pinned comment

Haha right?!? I’m mean not to judge to hard but I’m only starting to learn Japanese and know just a hand full of Hiragana and even I noticed the miss pronunciation on Kanji.

Texan: Boy I can’t read non of that “Cangee” chicken scratch! Haha sorry no hate to my boy here :) or my Fam from the South… I just found it funny ;)

I know right!! I love moments like that too, it feels great

Thank you, I'm trying to learn Japanese and this inspired me to keep pushing

Nice

okthen

Same, I’ve been learning Spanish for maybe 3 years so moments like these make me feel so cool. I can read the basics now and piece together advanced readings, but conversations are still a struggle :’)

Ooooooooohhhhhhh

What?

Explain!

ピカチュウ (Katakana) ぴかちゅう (Hiragana) 光宙 (Kanji) Actually 光宙 is Kōchū but it is pronounced Pikachū

Paul HK ピカピカ- pikapika (spark sound) チュウチュウ- chuchu (mouse noise) so ピカ+チュウ- pikachu (spark sound + mouse noise) and if you haven't noticed, pikachu is an electric mouse. hopefully you know understand.

No no no no no

aw hecc nuu

はい フェアデﾌｨﾚ

Try combining Remembering the Kanji with an Anki deck:)

@@joex1084 can recommend. I'm about a thousand characters in and it's extremely satisfying to recognize a kanji out in the wild, especially when you know it's reading ahahaha

Kanji is not that hard if you find out common point in kanji. for example, 金=gold , 銀＝silver , 銅＝copper , and 鉄=steel. These kanji mean metallic elements and they have 金 in them! and there’s more. 猪＝boar 猫＝cat 猿=monke 狩=hunting. They all mean animals and something related to them. and they have 犭 in them!

actually as a japanese high school is wrong. you expect to learn these kanjis within elementary school...

@@deadbones733 Yeah, in fact the some symbols that are used in multiple kanji the Japanese like to call “Kanji Radicals”, it really helps

YEAH I HATE IT There’s so much 漢字マジでキッツイわ

@@user-kk8ui3xe3v yea still don't make sense

My mother tongue is Mandarin (Chinese), so memorizing both hiragana and katakana only took me 3 weeks

Thanks, I've memorized hiragana and katakana but I'm really intimidated by kanji, this helps my confidence

Well it also takes a while to get the grammar and vocabulary down as well.

Kanji takes 10 years of education to learn, even then the average Japanese adult forget and don’t know a couple of them after school. KANJI DOES NOT COME EASILY

I had to learn katakana in two days cos I had a Japanese exam and never learnt it all oops🤣

I thought I was the only one lol. These japanese urban legends arent doing any good for my brain. xD

Lol you should see the American seven year olds in the immersion school I went to... All we could do was memorize and try to find patterns...

Tryptaphobia?

Me too XD

hi kira

Thank you!

kanji looks very similar to traditional chinese words edit: some words are identical

@@bloogibloo9901 Japanese after all get their Kanji from Chinese why they look similar

@@ruty6099 And even past that, the kana are simplified Kanji.

@@ruty6099 buuut why don't they pronounce the same, gotta learn from scratch...

And the content of the poster is perfect. Thanks for the original post with a deep understanding. I hope I can speak English sooner and have a conversation with you. I used the translation function.

So true!

Bruh I can read Latin, Cyrillic, Greek and a bit of Japanese Kana

@@elchile336🍪

Learn it like a kid. Learn the vocabulary before writing. People give up too easily because they have a hard time reading things. Learn how to speak the language cause that's what's important.

@@Shanaoh yep, thats how i learnt Japanese

Time to read japanese children books. Gotta start somewhere simple.

For some reson i started before knowing it was one of the most complicated in the world and for now its kinda a bit not really but still suprisingly easy to learn

There's only three alphabets, they say. Yes, but the last is divided into 5 groups of increasing difficulty and size totalling to 3000. Also they have multiple pronunciations and meanings, so like, no. Let's not. As a side note, that's not the worst of it. Grammar's going to make you want to lobotomise yourself.

Everybody weebs till the kanji starts combining

*whimpers in a mix of confusion, curiosity, and terror*

@@REAL_SKYFIRE dont ever use the word weeb again

@@notrocio why weeb good

@@Beetless no its not 💀 so ur telling me wanting to be japanese when ur not is ok??,,

Thats amazing 😭😭 im sooo behind kanji rn and im too intimidated to start again

do you write them or only just learn how to read and understand them

@@eperkaine I write them out. Writing has been critical to my understanding / memorization of them. The way I do it is I have a set of flashcards of each kanji I "know" and it randomly gives me a word say like "fog" and then I write 霧 from memory in my notebook. On average I write 100-150 daily. Currently have wrote 37,500 this year lol I have a couple notebooks filled with nothing but kanji...its tough, but worth it.

@@austin39833 すごいね～(´∀｀)🇯🇵✨ そんなに日本語を愛していただいて、なんかうれしいです～❤️🇯🇵ありがとう❤️ 日本語でコメントしましたが 大丈夫ですよね？ 文字間の 「間」までわかれば 日本人。 すばらしいですよ😘

no place and no one place is the best to learn japanese, which is why for good and fast results it's best to use multiple platforms and tools to learn the language, but if you wanna just do duolingo for now then keep at it. Part of langauge learning is seeing what works and doesn't work for you. I used duolingo with wanikani, tofugu's guide to japanese, genki 1 and 2 and listening to music and watching anime. Gonna keep on adding.

sorry but duolingo is just a exam or quiz like app to know what u have learned so u need another app for the actual learning it

ಶುಭಶುಭೋದಯ ಐಸೊಹಥಧಹಥಧಬೊಭೊಓಹಭೊಡಢಢಠಂಫಷಟೆಔ। ಷಾ। ಹೌದಮಣಮಹೌದಾ

my reaction was "wryyyy!!!"

無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄無駄

@@user-dd9hg6xw3u 無駄

Whomst ???? Plingaplongdingdong? May sound nice too

Jojo fans are everywhere my god.

The video states that it's about 45+45+3000 scripts. (There are far more than 3000 kanjis, but that's about what you need.) Yes, the sheer number of kanjis makes written Japanese complicated, but that's not the only reason. (By the way, 3000 kanjis does not mean having to memorize 3000 random shapes. Kanjis are made of fundamental building blocks called "radicals".) 1. One kanji can have multiple ways of reading. (Multiple ON readings & multiple KUN readings + exceptional ways of reading) ON = Based on the original Chinese sound. KUN = Sound based on the meaning in Japanese. Parallel in English: The heart symbol can be read as "love" or "heart", depending on the context, as an "Enlgish Kanji". I say "heart" is the ON reading and "love" as the KUN reading. "She has a big ❤︎ (heart).", "I ❤︎ NY" (I love New York), "I'm ❤︎ing it!" (loving), "She ❤︎s him." (loves), "He ❤︎ed you." (loved). Note that ❤︎ as a verb is being conjugated using alphabets like the Japanese verbs that use kanji gets conjugated using hiraganas. 2. The same word can be written in hiragana, katakana, or kanji, and that could express difference in connotation and nuance. For example, HIROSHIMA: In kanji (広島), it's just the name of the city. In katakana (ヒロシマ), it is one of the cities that the atomic bombs were dropped. 3. Different meaning of the same native/indigenous word can be written using different kanjis. For example, ATSUI (hot). If something you touched is hot, then it's 熱い. If the weather is hot, it's 暑い. 4. "Anything goes" for names of people & places. You just have to learn how to read those kanjis case by case. (It's INSANE.) 5. The same kanji word can be read differently in different context and have completely unrelated meanings. For example: 心中 ①shinchuh=What a person is thinking and feeling inside his heart. ②shinjuh=Committing suicide with someone. 6. Jukuji-kun. KUN reading (native/indigenous way of reading) applied to kanji words. For example, 煙 (smoke) + 草 (grass) = TABAKO (tobacco, cigarette) (Those two kanjis do not have the sound TABAKO, but are collectively read as such.) 7. The Japanese can be playful with written Japanese and can be playful with their use of kanjis, which further complicates things. Those are off the top of my head; there could be more reasons.

8. Oh, yeah. There is this thing called "substitute kanji". This means substituting a kanji with a more common one that has the same sound and almost the same or close enough meaning. This will reduce the number of kanjis that get used, but you might run into the original one, so that might confuse you from time to time. Japanese Wikipedia page on this. (Sorry, no English page.) ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%8C%E9%9F%B3%E3%81%AE%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E3%81%AB%E3%82%88%E3%82%8B%E6%9B%B8%E3%81%8D%E3%81%8B%E3%81%88

That's like saying English is difficult because there is a whole dictionary full of words.

@@dominicmorris9480 That's actually a very encouraging thought.

@@machinegunpreacher2469 I hope it helps you overcome and doubts you may have had, if you had any.

same

This guy is basically the equivalent of the Indian dude making tutorials. He makes everything easier to understand.

@@All-star_Giga_Gargantuar exactly

@@All-star_Giga_Gargantuar Maybe he is secretly Indian?

For me 6.30 am

Lmao it’s 4am idk why I’m here

Try 8:35🙇‍♀️

You lost the control of your life

Lmao same

Do it. I challenge you. I know english, spanish, and about 33% french. I'm still learning french and getting into japanese at the same time. I know I can do it. And you can too.

@@ralphserr6341 hm i speak english, indonesian, malay, korean (but still learning) and im learning french spanish japanese chinese. i know its hard to learn these at the same time but i'll try my best since learning languages is my hobby. well good luck for us who are learning foreign languages!!

im actually learning japanese and korean at the same time since both of those languages have same sentence structures:D

Im a starter these are what i learned my mother language is (Arabic) English Japanese French chinese Indonesian im still progressing but the 2 i know is arabic and english

Ralph Serr how do you believe in yourself?

I'm an english speaker learning Japanese and русский.

I'm russian who lives in germany and speaks both if the languages + english, also learns french at school (except i still can't speak it fluently), is going to learn spanish next year at school and has started learning japanese with an app

@@whoareyou6211 what app do you use for Japanese?

@@strawberrymilk3388 i recommend renshuu

Hahahaha! I'm Venezuelan and I'm learning japanese while I'm practicing english, cool!

Why Can-jee and Kahn-jee? C and K make /k/ on both.... Also if someone does not know the IPA, the æ one is basically your normal a, while the second one is making a 'back a' basically put the tongue where you put it when making an 'oo' and then lower it and make an a sound.

I realized that

Academia Cervena muda muda muda muda muda muda muda!

@@novvain495 no

WHOAA THE KANJI FOR MUDA

Basically that's how I read Japanese with a decent knowledge of hiragana and katakana and very little kanji.

The *[REDACTED]* is *[REDACTED]* ing the *[REDACTED]* *[REDACTED]*

My brain thought of something inappropriately when I heard that

The is ing the

Hmmm interesting

@@opabeleza6902 Another interesting episode, English listening test in Japan was once called "ヒアリング(hearing)". EIKEN test, a famous English test in Japan changed to "リスニング(listening)" in 1994. (The kanji for "hear" is "聞く(kiku)", "listen" is "聴く(kiku)". "聴く" is used more often than "観る". For example, "I listen to music" in Japanese is "私は音楽を聴く(watashi wa ongaku wo kiku)")

True. -Japanese

Maybe the cat is watching a movie called "青い魚"

imagining a cat watching a blue fish swimming around in a bowl, using this kanji seems proper to me

I hope a year after your comment here your studies are still going strong.

@@eggsnbacon7122 yes we better get an update

i cant understand if that is negative or positive

@@SquooshyShark1000 It’s positive. His mind got blown and he could understand everything a lot better because of it

Dude forget the 45000, most of those are exchangeable / archaic / used in such a specific context that you only need to learn them once you have to do with it

Bad news, I'm afraid. It's not 500 "kanji words" that you have to memorise. It's 500 kanji characters. And just as a letter in English can occur in the written representations of many different English words, a single kanji character can occur in the written representations of many different Japanese words. Although people talk about "learning kanji", that phrase is really pretty meaningless. A kanji is not a word. You have to learn many thousands of words - things like "haha" and "okaasan", which both mean "mother" - and then learn how to write them, as well, which includes knowing which kanji are used in them, if any. As it happens, the word "haha" is written as 「母」, and the word "okaasan" is written as 「お母さん」. They both use the same kanji, but recognising that kanji and knowing that it is used for words that mean "mother" won't give you any clue that one of those words is "haha" and that the other is "okaasan". So you have to learn the words as well as the characters. And then on top of that, you have to learn why there is more than one word for "mother", and in what contexts each one is used, because you can make a terrible faux pas by using the wrong one in the wrong context!

I'm thinking of relating it to English... You don't have to memorize the entire dictionary to learn English so I'm pretty it's the same way for Japanese or any other language in particular

@@omp199 ok then, how does one even know that "haha" a Kun reading of that kanji character becomes "okaasan"? The sound of the kanji in the word becomes "ka", how does that happen? I also noticed the same with the kanji for father, for which the Kun reading is "chichi", but it then turns into the sound "tou" when in the word "otousan". How the heck and why does that happen?

there are 2156 joyo kanji or there abouts. All news and educational material uses only these kanji. You need about 90% of them. Memorizing them is unnecessary though. recognizing them is sufficient for most.

really? I was told that I only needed 500

@@jaywwen I think for Japanese you need to know at least 500 characters, but for Chinese at least 1500 to be able to read newspaper.

@@jesusismysavior7487 2000 to 3000 i think

@@khshow9891yeah that sounds right bc (at least to my knowledge) Chinese characters aren’t really based on Syllables (like Hirogana/katakana) so you HAVE to know the meaning. We had to do so in my Chinese class.

That's crazy man,you should teach japanese

You can lean from the app duolingo yぷ化nぇあrnf炉mwづおぃんほ

I can count 1-10 You're amazing!

i learn number from dio

@@ftm448 is duolingo's japanese program actually useful? I have found that it wasn't very helpful when I tried to learn Russian for a friend a few years ago

ah yes 男門手針車門

I feel so accomplished being able to read that

@@Ghost_with_Bow you're not the only one👍

@@joaquinbaluyot783 こんにちは*

@@Ghost_with_Bow same haha

@@Ghost_with_Bow how long did it take for you?

I'm 1 year late But yeah SAME

Same i dont even have time time to play games

Well it’s too late to turn back now, I’ve already turned in my school progression form and confirmed that I’m doing Japanese, time to go through the struggle for years

MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA

Same

Muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda muda M U D A

Haha 😂

phthalo blue I FOUND A HAIKYUU ( reference? I dunno if it’s a reference but) 2:59 has yama and tsuki next to eachotherrrrr!!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺

in all fairness, the majority of languages are in the SOV format (subject object verb), while english (among others) use SVO (subject verb object). so while english speakers will read something as "jack reads a book", japanese speakers will read "jack book reads". english is tough, we have a lot of useless words that we add for no reason that makes everything so much longer than needed, but at least english and japanese dont gender objects like chairs and restaurants for no apparent reason (although we do call boats "she")

@@tobywood9156 hello from germany here, u were mentioning us? xD

@@tobywood9156 "At least English and Japanese don't gender words" Europe: *sweats profusely*

La silla, El restaurante *rie en español*

Thank you! I'm glad to hear it!