Japanese people don't know more than 500?
 

Well, I honestly don't know what to think after I saw this video: YouTube - Zeplin in Tokyo - 18 - Kanji

I've watched some of his other videos and they weren't that bad. But in this one, he claims that most Japanese know 500 Kanji and that the stress of learning 50,000 kanji is a flaw in their society.

... What do you all think?

I dont know anything about kani since i'm new to this; but Japanese people cant possible only know 500... beside's it their language. A friend once told me he had to learn 4000 Kanji.

I think he failed at getting any real point across in this video.
I certainly couldn't grasp what he was trying to say, and he seems to be wondering why everybody is calling him out on what he is saying.

When he mentioned the 50,000 kanji thing I lost all hope of hearing anything worthwhile, but I thought I would just carry on watching to see what he had to say anyway.
But then at about 2:00 in he mentioned that his 'ex' only knew 500 kanji, but was a uni student...

I'm sorry... but it sounds like this guy has no clue.
Does he really think it would be possible for his 'ex' to study at uni only knowing 500 kanji?

maybe he's anti-Japan lol

XD

Any high school graduate will have studied about 2000 kanji as regulated by the Ministry of Education. Depending on what they study or what field they enter they will likely learn more specific to their field (i.e. medicine, engineering, etc.), but 2000 is a good baseline number and is considered what is necessary to read a newspaper.

50,000 is an outrageous number to expect anyone to know. That would be like knowing the definition of every word in an English dictionary. No one is expected to learn 50,000.

Clearly this is flawed. When I studied Japanese back in college my Japanese teacher told us that the average person needs to learn around 2,000 kanji's in order to get by. There are tens of thousands of kanji's but no one expects everyone to know that many, just the basic 2,000 is enough.

I know about 1200–1400 kanji. I can't enjoy a book in Japanese or read the newspaper and understand what I'm reading. Extrapolate from that. The end.

Edit By "book" I mean some Haruki Murakami, not manga.

His claims are totally wrong. You need around 2,500-3,000 kanji to be literate in Japanese society- as the person above said, even with over 1,000 you still can't read a newspaper, and no-one here is expected to be able to read 50,000 kanji.

Don't believe everything you see/hear on the internet.

Ugh I'm working up to it. I certainly think living here helps, but weirdly enough it's my weak point. I can't wait to get to that level at which I can read a novel. :)

Hey MMM, how many do you know?

I'm just gonna put myself at 300 or so. I certainly can't write even a quarter of that, though. Not that anybody (even Japanese) can write them anymore thanks to technology... actually a lot of Japanese people I know are pretty embarassed by this. :rolleyes:

That offends me more than anything. Change the "people" part to "6th graders". Only then, I'll be ready for a discussion.

FYI, even a sophomore Japanese major at a U.S. college knows 500 kani. I'd kill myself if I were at the same level as them.