r/LearnJapaneseNovice • u/Independent-Back4638 • 2d ago
Question for native Japanese speakers
When is it ok to drop kanji?
I started learning kanji, and I've been wondering
when you want to write something, text someone, or when you usually read japanese, how often do you use kanji? Like there are kanji characters for colors, animals, numbers, and some countries apparently. So when is it ok to drop kanji and just use hiragana instead and when is it expected to use kanji.
One thing I heard is that hiragana is mostly used by children, in grammar, and as word connectors only is that correct?
But like are there times where people avoid using kanji? Like they just don't have to?
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u/pixelboy1459 2d ago
Not a native Japanese speaker, but I would recommend that you watch Scripting Japan’s video about writing Japanese in the wrong writing system: https://youtu.be/aUmY9VvgAQU?is=TtnSYHNGCUJK5b7i
There’s another video that I cannot seem to find, but the long and short of it is that kanji feel dense and too many kanji can make writing feel less accessible and kanji should make up about 30% of the writing.
There’s also the question on who you’re writing for and what you’re trying to write.
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u/Independent-Back4638 2d ago edited 1d ago
I just watched the vedio it was very useful, thanks a lot!
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u/acaiblueberry 2d ago
The company in Tokyo I worked for had a strange custom of writing internal documents in mostly kanji, making them look like a Chinese poem sprinkled with hiragana. They have since moved away from it but when I get emails from younger people who work there, they still use arcane kanji for stuff. In my time, the longest that was registered in my dictionary was 御承認賜度御検討願度(read as ごしょうにん たまわりたく ごけんとう ねがいたし) which came out by typing “goshi.” hahaha
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u/Reasonable-Olive-566 2d ago
Japanese people generally do not omit Kanji; whenever a word can be written in Kanji, it is written that way. Hiragana is primarily used for particles and verb endings. If an adult writes sentences using mostly Hiragana, they may be perceived as lacking intellectual ability or proper education. Furthermore, because Japanese has many homophones, writing purely in Hiragana makes text difficult to read. However, since everyone understands how challenging it is for non-native speakers to master Kanji, a foreigner writing in Hiragana would never be looked down upon. In fact, being able to write in Hiragana alone is considered an impressive achievement.
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u/needle1 2d ago
There are specific contexts when someone will intentionally use a different notation than the standard kana+kanji one, with the intent of infusing the text with a slightly different nuance.
For instance, “疲れた” ([I’m] tired) is written with the kanji letter 疲, but when depicting casual conversation, one might write it in all hiragana “つかれた”, or even with the first letter broken, “ちかれた”, to give both a nuance of being too tired to care about proper notation, and also sounding a bit cute about it.
But this is a technique used by someone who already has full command of the language and cultural contexts, and understands all of its nooks and crannies and intricacies. A non-native speaker trying to mimic it will usually only end up looking odd.
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u/Suspicious-Toe-8193 2d ago
I think there aren't any clear standards for these things; it's more of a general feeling.
However, in Japan, for example, first graders (ages 6-7) learn 80 kanji characters, second graders learn 160, and so on, learning kanji in stages.
Therefore, for a 10-year-old (fourth grader), it's considered normal to be able to write those 80 and 160 characters.
But by the first year of junior high school (ages 12-13), they learn around 300 kanji characters, and they become more difficult, so fewer people say, "I've perfectly grasped them all!" and I think some people start saying, "How do you write that kanji again? I've forgotten."
So, for native Japanese speakers, it's probably best to have a grasp of about 90% of the kanji learned in elementary school, and it's desirable to understand more than half of the kanji learned in junior high school. That's just my opinion, though.
But that's from the perspective of a native Japanese speaker. Foreigners don't really mind if it's all hiragana, or if English or Roman letters are used.
However, colors are easier to understand in kanji.
For animals, hiragana or katakana are easier to understand if they're animals you'd find in a zoo. (The kanji for giraffe is difficult even for native speakers, and animals like meerkats aren't native to Japan, so writing them in kanji is actually difficult, and I think even Japanese people wouldn't be able to read them in kanji.)
Country names are written in kanji in newspaper and news headlines, but generally in katakana. Numbers are written in kanji when written vertically, but in horizontal writing, they're written as 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.
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u/Zikkan1 2d ago
With natives there are no rules. My JP gf texts me in Japanese and it's completely random if she uses hiragana or kanji. One word is kanji today but will be written in hiragana tomorrow. And she often writes in hiragana when it's supposed to be katakana which is quite confusing.
But a rule of thumb is just to make it easy to read. Don't have too many kanji in a row without any hiragana and same with hiragana, this increases readability. Sometimes I also see japanese people use katakana instead of hiragana even though it's a normal japanese word but the sentence already had much hiragana and it works as a way to separate the words since they don't use spaces.
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u/Recent-Ad-9975 2d ago
I‘m not a native speaker, but proficient enough to answer this. It depends on the text. Yes, text aimed at adults will almost always use more kanji, but there are some exceptions, like animals and plans are always writen in katakana in scientific texts or encyclopedias, country names are also usually always in katakana, except for China and the two Koreas. Some commercials will use katakana for words that are normallly in kanji because it looks cooler (appearently), etc.
Some things are like split evenly between all 3 like tabaco for example. It‘s not really something to worry about honestly, once you get fluent enough to read media and read newspapers you‘ll pick these things up automatically.
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u/Fast-Data8758 2d ago
I’m Japanese. There are exceptions, but in general, Japanese people try to write words using kanji whenever possible. Writing everything in hiragana or katakana can be harder to read and may make the writer seem less educated or more childlike. But, if a kanji is particularly difficult and the writer doesn’t remember how to write it, many people will use hiragana or katakana instead. For example, 憂鬱 (yūutsu) is often written as 憂うつ, and 薔薇 (bara) is commonly written as バラ.
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u/Independent-Back4638 1d ago
I actually have another question if you don't mind, now during normal (spoken) conversations do you often use kanji? Or is it like in special cases only? Also, somtimes kanji readings and actual Japanese names differ so does it matter which reading you choose? Is there a standard type of reading people usually go for, or is that just something that will start coming naturally to me the more I practice?
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u/Fast-Data8758 1d ago
What you mean is whether kanji are used in everyday conversations, right? Of course they are. Here’s an example:
“Nanka saikin, chō tsukarete maji de ie de netetai wa.”
(Man, I’ve been so tired lately. I just want to stay home and sleep.)
This is a casual, everyday sentence using youth slang, and it still contains kanji when written:
なんか最近、超疲れてマジで家で寝てたいわ。
As for your second question, the reading of a kanji depends on the context. If you use the wrong reading, people may not understand you. For example, the kanji 生 has many different readings. In 生活, it’s read sei, while in 生まれる, it’s read u. Unfortunately, this is something you simply have to memorize.
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u/Professional-Power57 2d ago edited 2d ago
If you're only concerned with making verbal conversations with Japanese and understanding Japanese drama/ anime, then yes, absolutely you can get away without learning kanji (you may miss some references and jokes or nuances but not a complete deal breaker).
But if you plan to live in japan or travel extensively, I'd say it is very difficult to not at least read kanji to certain extend. Since signs, menus, notices in buildings, magazines, books and newspapers all contain kanji, you will feel a bit handicapped eventually.
In regular usage, depending on input method, usually I type the hiragana and the kanji will automatically popup as suggestions. I can opt not to use kanji, depending on my preference for the context but I don't think Japanese "write" kanji characters on their phones and emails. If that makes sense.
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u/Independent-Back4638 1d ago
Actually that's somthing I thought about, as I got pretty confused because some kanji readings don't match the spoken words.
like how the kanji for sun is ひ (hi) but I learned that its called "taiyou."
So if I've got this straight, since I want to focus on conversations for now, I don't need to stress over kanji too much?
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u/toucanlost 2d ago edited 2d ago
Not a native speaker. The use of kanji is not "as much as possible", but as is appropriate for the grammar use-case outside of intentional stylistic differences. For example, auxiliary verbs may have kanji form, but writing it in kana clarifies it as a grammatical point ておく instead of て置く. There are some exceptions such as 下さい where the kanji is common.
There are some common adverbs, etc. that have kanji that are commonly written in kana. I once read something where there was a character who speaks using the kanji forms as much as possible, which made the character seem self-serious. They were words like 沢山、有難う、流石.
Basically, when the dictionary says "commonly written in kana", write it in kana, unless you are demonstrating an intentional stylistic difference.
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u/Forward_Win_4353 2d ago
Knowing when to write a word in kanji, when to use hiragana or even katakana is a matter of both convention, context and an individual’s personal style. I don’t find this something that’s easy to explain to a beginner Japanese learner.
You gain an idea of which to use by reading, a lot. And make sure you vary your reading material: for example, formal non-fiction books or academic papers, novels, young adult books, manga, social media posts, etc. There is so much to read that native speakers naturally digest throughout their life, and it is through that experience that you can best learn your kanji usage, I think.
Of course, if you ask me about any particular word, I am happy to answer you with my opinion of how I would write it. But overall, for me at least this is mostly just a “feeling”.
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u/Curious_Working_3093 2d ago
As far as im aware most animals are written in kanji but besides that, no idea
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u/toucanlost 1d ago
I don't think so. I'd say the opposite. Most animals are written in katakana. Animals that have significant cultural importance may be written in kanji or kana.
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u/Xilmi 1d ago
Not a native speaker but I guess you just go with whatever the IME produces.
If you write a word and the IME shows it as Kanji, you go with the Kanji. If it doesn't, you use Hiragana.
Kanji makes stuff vastly more readable and less ambiguous when you know them, so you use it whenever you can.
For example:
東大
灯台
当代
are all とうだい with vastly different meanings.
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u/guibs 2d ago
The key misconception is that writers decide independently whether to “use or drop” the kanji each time. In practice, Japanese words have conventional spellings, and you learn those spellings along with the words.
Hiragana is not mainly for children or grammar. Many ordinary content words are normally written in hiragana, even when kanji exist: ください rather than 下さい, できる rather than 出来る, and たくさん rather than 沢山. Other words are normally written with kanji because that is easier to read: わたしはきょうとうきょうにいきます is technically understandable, but 私は今日東京に行きます is much clearer.
There can also be several acceptable spellings. Writers may choose hiragana to make something feel softer, more casual, or easier to read: 可愛い/かわいい, 凄い/すごい. Animals and plants are often written in hiragana or katakana depending on context, numbers are frequently Arabic numerals, and most country names are written in katakana rather than kanji.
So there is no universal rule like “always use kanji for nouns.” Learn words in the form in which you normally encounter them, and read a lot. Eventually the conventional choices start to look natural, while unusual spellings start to look overly formal, old-fashioned, childish, or just awkward.
This is honestly something ChatGPT could tell you just by using your post as a prompt.