[Harumaki]

Ofcourse it is not magical or inhuman or impossible to learn the same style of kanji knowledge.

But lets take some examples. If you see the kanji of cat, you will not see a symbol and you will KNOW it will read/mean cat.

A native kanji user or for my part someone who spend muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch time in learning to understand (note: not read, UNDERSTAND) the true structure of kanji, that person will see the word cat without having to know the reading.

but lets take a much more difficult kanji. A kanji you can not read. Or a word that is made by 5 kanji. A western learner will have to check every reading of all the 5 kanji's WITH meaning to partially understand what that 5 kanji word means. like this one: 高度成長期

I for my part, will have to research all kanji and then see somthing like: high,long, economic, etc etc and then maybe come to the conclusion that this word means 'the economic boom' from Japan.

Tho a native kanji user will see the whole word as one single identity and identify it as the economic boom. Even if he doesnt know the correct reading/meaning of every kanji. And that is, because he has learned kanji at native level. He trully understands the kanji system and structure.

A Western person on the other hand will mostly have to learn the readings and meaning of every single kanji he encounters. Except, like you 2 stated, if he spends maybe many years and much mcuh much effort into it.

I can also start a research discussion with you guys about the critical time period in which a person can become native in a language. (native and being fluent are different!!) But that is a linguistic problem I will not further discuss on the internet :P


So in summary, I wrote a thesis about second language acquiring on a native/fluent level. I researched language skills of deaf people and researched the difference in language skill between kanji users and non-kanji users. All my words are speaking of 'normal' situation. I am not speaking of super intelligent, super motivated or super talented people whoes only desire is to master kanji. No, I am talking about normal person who are learning the Japanese language. And Japanese is not only kanji.

Therefore, it is unbelievable difficult (but not impossible) for a Native western to learn Kanji on the same level as a native japanese kanji user has. (speaking of same IQ level ofcourse)