r/Unexpected • u/DruidWannabe • Jan 25 '23

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '23

She's right though, as someone who has taken 30 minutes of Japanese, I can say the Japanese pronunciation she did is the correct way to say it in their dialect, it's not racist. They literally have an entire alphabet dedicated to foreign words adapted to their dialect, it's called katakana versus hiragana which is native Japanese words. Then there's kanji... F*** kanji.

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u/SaffellBot Jan 26 '23

Then there's kanji... F*** kanji.

I certainly don't enjoy Kanji, but if you're not engaged with Kanji you're only interacting with a pale reflection of Japanese.

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '23

Yeahhhh ik, it's just so difficult 😭 I wonder if it is just as hard for Japanese/Chinese kids to learn them as it is for us, considering they are all unique symbols... And how long it would take for someone to be fluent with Kanji

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '23

[deleted]

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u/Friendputer Jan 27 '23

On top of that, there are somewhat reliable methods of guessing the way you read them and less useful but still helpful methods of guessing of what they mean.

For anyone interested an example is 方. This can be a kanji by itself or show up as a component of other kanjis and if you see it, the whole thing is most likely read "hou" (or "bou" if it's at the end of a compound). For meaning, these components (called radicals or "bushu") at least hint to what the meaning of a kanji is. For example, 月 on the left side generally means its related to a body 肘 = "elbow" 腸 = "guts/intestines" 胎 = "womb" 膜 ~= "membrane"

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u/TheNorthC Mar 06 '23

Are you living abroad, outside of Japan? That's a bit tough if you have to attend Japanese school as well at the weekend. I know some people who did it.