And as a counter example, I like kanji and learned Japanese by reading (though I also like manga, so perhaps it was helpful). I find kanji
very helpful in learning vocabulary. In fact, I actually measured how fast I could learn vocabulary containing kanji I didn't know by learning the kanji first, versus learning the vocabulary phonetically. It was about the same. However, as there are only about 2200 kanji in the list of commonly used kanji and there are about 20,000 words you need for adult level proficiency, it means that each kanji is used in, on average 10 words. Actually, it's even better than that because the first 1000 most common kanji are used in 90% of the words you will encounter. I can learn vocabulary with kanji I know dramatically faster than vocabulary with phonetics alone. Ironically, I think it's even more helpful in Japanese than it is in Chinese because there are so many readings for the character that if you learn the word phonetically, you may have no idea what the root of the word is.
Kanji is frustrating to write, but a joy to read, IMHO. Yes, you need to learn 2000 (or so) characters, but, let's face it -- you've got years to do it. I can now read words that I don't know and have a pretty good idea what they mean -- something that would be practically impossible phonetically in Japanese. In fact, when I'm faced with new vocabulary, I often ask people to write it for me (just in the air) -- as soon as I see the kanji I almost always know what the word means.
I've often thought how superior this writing system is from roman phonetic characters (which bizarre historical spelling anachronisms to boot) ;-) I appreciate that you don't agree, but I hope you'll also understand that I have no intention of grading your education level on the number of kanji you know.
Kanji is frustrating to write, but a joy to read, IMHO. Yes, you need to learn 2000 (or so) characters, but, let's face it -- you've got years to do it. I can now read words that I don't know and have a pretty good idea what they mean -- something that would be practically impossible phonetically in Japanese. In fact, when I'm faced with new vocabulary, I often ask people to write it for me (just in the air) -- as soon as I see the kanji I almost always know what the word means.
I've often thought how superior this writing system is from roman phonetic characters (which bizarre historical spelling anachronisms to boot) ;-) I appreciate that you don't agree, but I hope you'll also understand that I have no intention of grading your education level on the number of kanji you know.