Mane25@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Just a learner of Japanese here. Japanese is difficult to read if written purely phonetically because there are a lot of homophones (words that sound the same with different meanings).
So typically kanji carries the root of words and kana is for all the grammatical parts, loan-words, and everything else. Hiragana/katakana duplicate each other but are no more redundant than lower/upper case.
Speaking as a learner, sometimes it’s easier to learn the kanji than the sound of the word so sometimes it can make learning to read easier.
isyasad@lemmy.world 1 year ago
About the homophones, it’s also worth noting that English does the same thing. It’s why we have “to, two, too” and “right rite wright write”.
Just instead of having inconsistent memorized spellings, Japanese has memorized symbols. 同, 銅, 道, 動, 堂, 胴, 洞, etc. all being pronounced the same way = way more need for complexity in order to tell them apart.
Mane25@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Of course, yes, and that’s why I’m not much of an advocate for English spelling reform. Japanese has particularly a lot of them.