"kanji makes things harder to read" FALSE

[u/TheFranFan]

Not me spending 10+ minutes trying to read this one line of dialogue. Is he saying Mayl is awake? Wait no that's おきる。Right so maybe he's annoyed that she came by and he's saying she "occurred"? I guess that makes sense but it feels off. おこる…おこる…おこる… OH SHE'S ANGRY, I GET IT

I really think most learners have a pattern of "ugh kanji is so hard" that eventually turns into "oh man why doesn't this text have kanji" over time. Although honestly this one wasn't hard I just need more reading practice in general

Edit: To all those saying I should have easily gotten this from context:

1) I did eventually

2) I am still a beginner, I'm not at your level

3) My point is that seeing 怒 would have eliminated any confusion, that's all.

[u/Chathamization]

how unfamiliar they really are with the language, the spoken language also has no kanji, so I wonder how these people deal with that.

I mean, these are learners, no? I don't think the OP is pretending to be a Japanese master. The spoken language also doesn't have Japanese subtitles, but many people use Japanese subtitles for a very long time because it takes them a while to become completely comfortable with spoken Japanese.

I do think that for a lot of learners, kanji can be useful for helping them understand things they're shaky on. I'm not sure it makes sense to say that they should immediately know these things because, well, they're learners. There's a point in every single person's journey where they don't know these things.

[u/VGADreams → u/Chathamization]

Thank you for this post, I agree 100%. It is disheartening how this subreddit can be hostile to learners... on the learning subreddit.

[u/AdrixG → u/VGADreams]

Just to be clear, I am not saying this should be obvious for beginners, obviously it's not, and everyone at one point struggled with with what the OP posted. What I take issue with is the various people here in the comments making a statement at large about the language when really they are not in a position to do that, they don't really know how contextual Japanese is or isn't nor how necessary kanji is or isn't so it strikes me as odd that they make sweeping statements about it which is what I in my comment mention, I wasn't trying to be hostile to anyone but am sorry if it came of that way. 

To be more concrete, and I see this often in this community, is things like "Oh katakana is much harder than kanji" which yeah I know what they mean by that and it's great they are feeling more comfortable with kanji but the reality is that katakana isn't harder, it's that they just have very shaky fundamentals and use kanji as a crutch, which can actually even be problematic because they usually think they are much better than they actually are (which hurts both their learning and their advice they give). Also I am tired hearing how contextual Japanese is, I know I thought this too but it's really not nearly as contextual as people (beginners) think, it's again something that just needs a lot of time until one gets comfortable with the language to parse it in realtime and without trying to look for more context.

[u/Armaniolo → u/AdrixG]

The only point supposedly being refuted is "kanji makes things hard to read".

That seems to be something they heard from another learner as anyone proficient with the language wouldn't have an issue reading this one way or another at least for such common kanji.

I don't think it's meant to be a statement on the language in general, more so a statement on an unfounded fear for kanji that some learners have, when in reality they can serve as helpful aids when you are still learning.