Kanji is not particularly difficult in itself, there are just a lot of them, so they're time-consuming to learn. But once you learn enough to start making a difference in how you read, the whole language gets significantly easier.
Kanji aren’t especially difficult, but there is a lot to learn. And they do seem to form a barrier that prevents many learners from progressing into and past intermediate level.
Same as all the above responses, kanji aren't hard to learn per se, just time consuming. This app is great for memorization, which is the main roadblock for many Japanese learners.
I would say that for someone who has learned to read or write using letters of an alphabet to form words, learning ideograms can be quite a challenge. Aside from the obvious differences with Western alphabet letters, a kanji can have many meanings depending on the context. Additionally, kanji have multiple readings: the Japanese reading, or kun'yomi, and the Chinese reading, or on'yomi. Furthermore, if you want to write them correctly, you must know the number of strokes and the stroke order.
As you can see, there is a lot to learn with kanji alone. Now, consider the fact that the 常用漢字 (jouyou kanji, the kanji for daily use) consists of over 2,100 characters! It is no wonder that students spend many years in school learning them. So yes, I would say that the process of learning Japanese presents significant challenges, particularly with kanji.
アルゼン, you sound suspiciously like a bot. Are you using an LLM to write your posts? Because I would hate it if your account turned out to have been hijacked.
No, ポールおじさん I'm not a bot. I just used GPT3 to correct my text... is that something bad? I mean yeah maybe I'm using it too much recently, sorry. Just wanted to express myself correctly, and sometimes I find it to be a useful tool for traduction.
About an account being hijacked... I never thought of that before, I don't know why would anyone do that. It is something that happened before in Renshuu comunity? I'm concerned now.
Yes kanji is challenging, but for me it's mostly about memorizing.
I actually find grammar much more difficult. Unlike kanji, grammar is not something that can be learned through simple memorization, it requires a deeper understanding.
I have to agree with アルゼン that a significant portion of difficulty with kanji comes from them having multiple readings. It's a lot of memorization...but there's also kanji that quite honestly feel like a booby trap where you'll think it's one reading and it's another one completely!! That definitely makes it harder to memorize than just vocab lists, to me at least.
But in my opinion, its easier than grammar. With grammar i feel like i have to completely rewire my brain and break out of the patterns ive spent my entire life using. Im often tired and get headaches and I can still study kanji at times like that....but usually sideline the grammar 😓
No, it’s not weird. The meanings are arbitrary, after all. They are just there as a crutch for non-speakers to use until we learn the readings and vocabulary. Sometimes they are a little off, and sometimes they’re just wrong. But they’re the standard that we all use.
Since someone is sure to wonder, outright errors are rare, of course. One that I remember is 嘛, which had been given the meaning “wheat,” which is clearly impossible. Jim Breen agreed that “wheat” must have been a typo for “what” and changed the master copy accordingly.
All non-English translations are done by volunteers, so there are many mistakes. You can report them in the translation page in Renshuu
This is not true - there is a huge number of kanji translations that come in through the original jmdict project (where the vocabulary meanings come from) - I cannot speak as to that specific one, but if you want to DM me with the fully corrected version, I can update it :)
Kanji is not particularly difficult in itself, there are just a lot of them, so they're time-consuming to learn. But once you learn enough to start making a difference in how you read, the whole language gets significantly easier.
I think so, maybe because I'm lazy to learn it because there are so many kanji characters.Thanks for putting it in.
But only volunteers can know the right correction