How important is learning how to write Japanese? Can't I just learn how to read the English pronounciations?

Question

Some reasons why I teach the writing systems of hiragana and katakana in the first days of my Japanese lessons.

Answer 1

Using the natural native alphabet of the target language is a phonics technique and it is used when teaching children English and is best adapted for any target language in my opinion, I'm sure there is a linguistics theory that supports this research if that is what you need but i have put it into practice as an English teacher and Japanese learner/teacher. You cannot learn how to speak English with Japanese subtitles because then you will sound Japanese and if you use English romanized translations to learn Japanese, you will always sound like you are butchering the target language. Learning to hand write Japanese characters is still very much emphasized in Japan: forms, resumes, applications for many things are all hand written and judged accordingly even though many Japanese also, aren't able to hand write many kanji characters. Nowadays, learning how to RECOGNIZE (read) characters is more important than writing in my opinon because modern technology allows us to choose the right kanji that translates the words so our letters don't look like a primary school student wrote it.

Answer 2

What are you looking to do with the language?

If you're just looking to come to Japan for a short trip, speaking and listening are more important (along with being able to recognize some signs).

If you're studying Japanese for your career/major, reading and writing are a must.

The problem with romaji (writing Japanese with the Latinate/Western alphabet) is it may influence your pronunciation too much (You brain sees and R and equates it with the English R, for example). In addition, eventually as your vocabulary increases you'll run into homophones that are only distinguished by kanji (search "kiku" on jisho.org).

Answer 3

It really depends on what you wish your level of Japanese to be. If you are looking to immerse yourself in Japanese culture and possibly make a few trips to Japan and/or live there, you're definitely going to need to learn both Hiragana and Katakana. It can seem daunting to an English native speaker, especially since we're used to one general alphabet, whereas Japanese consists of three "alphabets" (ひらがな、かたかな、漢字).

I DO want to say that if you're beginning to learn Japanese, I would focus primarily on pronunciation and mastering the basic vocabulary and sentence structure before beginning to learn to read and write. Learning both of those facets of Japanese will make learning Hiragana and Katakana a much smoother process.

Answer 4

I think it depends on how much you want to be immersed in Japanese. If you want to learn some simple Japanese conversation just to get by in your trip to Japan, it is probably not that important. If you are very serious about learning Japanese--or any language for that matter--why don't you learn all aspects of the language. You can learn the language from all different angles, and your speech will be stronger as a result.