(no subject)

[owlectomy]

Things that people have told me about studying Japanese:

If I am willing to skip learning all the different fish kanji, which are not common except at sushi restaurants and are not relevant to me since I do not eat fish, my standards are TOO LOW.

If I think that you can read quite a lot of casual/colloquial Japanese with about 1200 kanji, my standards are TOO LOW. (Note: I did not say that I myself only know about 1200 kanji. That's about how many I can write -- obviously my standards are TOO LOW -- but I can read probably 1800 or so given the right context.)

If I read stuff and don't understand every single word on every single page, I am fooling myself if I say I understand what I'm reading. (And also my standards are TOO LOW.)

I'm not out to be the Grand Master Champion of learning Japanese. I find it kinda sad that so many people are. I mean, do you really think that knowing the kanji for sardine is something that's relevant and useful to you, or do you just want to prove you're better than everybody else? It seems sometimes like people just want to find some criteria by which they are winning. And I'm sympathetic to that, but not when it means defining everybody else as losing.

And I go on reading my book about the theory of relativity and the sudden, mysterious appearance of penguins in a small town, because that feels like winning to me.

(Penguin Highway by Morimi Tomihiko, which won the Seiun Award and got a blurb from Moto Hagio, and which is both really entertaining and pretty male-gaze-y. I may have something to say about it later.)

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Are the perfectionists Japanese themselves?

Kanji are so damn hard if you didn't grow up with them. I max out at about 100, every time.

Fish names are highly relevant to me, since I love fish. But I just memorize the names, and ask people to read the kanji aloud for me.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

In the world of Japanese-learning, I thought passing ikkyuu trumped all and allowed you to tell people to shut it, or kindly go away, or whatever. These critics are in the starry reaches of further tests 'n' study, I assume?

(But if you passed ikkyuu and can read Kawabata, your kanji recognition must be far past 1800? I doubt there are 300 常用 you don't recognize in context, let alone specialized vocab from one's preferred area. Mine are all smutty, of course.)