Japan-Related Video - Sept 23

こんにちは,

For this blog assignment, I watched a video that discussed the history of the Kanji system in Japan and the intricacies and complexities that are observed in the system. It was very interesting learning about the historical context of why kanji is used in Modern-day Japan. The kanji characters/words made their way to Japan during the early 5th century. The interesting part about how the kanji assimilated into Japanese culture and language is that the Chinese pronounced the kanji differently than was interpreted by the Japanese. This gave way to the on'yomi, which is based on the pronunciation of words. Kun'yomi is based on how the kanji is interpreted, and the meanings behind each kanji that do not directly correlate with the pronunciation. The video also described other aspects of kanji, like ateji, which are kanji that are used just for their sound. The video dove deeper into the various facets of the kanji system, which are complex and hard to fully grasp even with years of study. This video was very interesting as it helped me develop a better understanding of the basic reasoning behind the kanji system. I hope you learned something interesting!

じゃあね,
Joshua Jones