Today I read yet another post about the importance, or rather, the non-importance of Kanji. Yes, they are not easy and there are a lot of them. So not making the learning of Kanji your first priority when you start learning Japanese is ok, but you will end up needing them.
The post I read today was focusing on the kanji’s pronunciations. Not only can one Kanji have several ways of being read (beyond on-yomi and kun-yomi) but as radical (part) of a composed Kanji this reading might differ. The recommendation was to learn just one on-yomi and apply it always for a success rate of 50%. Interesting theory.
But I want to focus on another aspect of the Kanji today: their meaning and what implications it has in people’s minds and cultures.
As you know, Kanji are ideograms, the definition of which is “a character symbolizing the idea of a thing without indicating the sounds used to say it”. So, basically, there is one or several ideas behind every Kanji and a combination of ideas behind every word.. And here is where it becomes important to understand Kanji: you might have a translation of a word, a representation of an object, concept or trait in the ideas of your own language, which might differ from the ideas represented by the Japanese Kanji.
Let me get to a couple of examples. Let’s look at 残業（ざんぎょう）. We learn that it means “over-time”, but it actually doesn’t. The first Kanji, 残, stands for “being left” or “left over”, while the second one, 業, means roughly “business”. So, while you might thing in terms of “time” and “going over”, the Japanese word is about doing “left-over business” or “unfinished work”. Now, do Japanese do “over-time”? Surely many work beyond the regular hours, but the mental approach is different. Surely not for 100%.
My second example is a little more complex. Think about 先生 (せんせい). You have probably learned that this word means “teacher” or “doctor” , which is not wrong. But the actual meaning is “born before”. Following this thought, it means that seniority defines who you will learn from (or get treated by). It is assumed that somebody “born before” will have more knowledge than younger ones.
In contrast to this let us look at how westerners tend to pick their source of knowledge. Let me skip the the word “teacher” and get to another, more common one, such as “Master” (“maitre” in French, “maestro” in Spanish and Italian, “mestre” in Catalan, “Meister” in German). You see, they are all phonetically similar as they have the same root. And they all mean the same: somebody who has learned something to the point that they excel in it. In other words, they have “mastered” a skill, technique or science. You can see there is no reference to age or seniority here (although it is also an important concept in Western cultures).
In short, Japanese (and other eastern Asians) learn from their seniors while westeners do it from experts.
(This is deeply connected to the Confucian vs. Socratic educational patterns I will touch upon in another post.)
To wrap it up: knowing the meaning of Kanji and being able to understand, if not read, them gives a good insight on how the culture of Japan and, by end, its individuals, is constructed. Besides, learning them can be fun!
Appreciate if you have other examples (or a differing opinion!).
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