When the Allied forces occupied Japan after World War II, the headquarters asked the same question. They think that this mixed writing system (combining Hiragana, Katakana and Chinese characters) is too difficult to learn, which creates obstacles to learning and takes up valuable time, which could have been better used for learning other subjects. Their solutions include abolishing all Chinese characters ("Kanji"), reducing the number of Chinese characters in use, and completely abolishing Japanese to express Japanese with English alphabet.
In order to prove that the current text system is too difficult and needs to be changed, an official from the Allied General Command requested the Ministry of Education to commission a "literacy survey" on the general population. This survey was conducted in August 1948, randomly sampling men and women aged 15-64, using quantitative classification sampling to ensure the selection of suitable individuals from various industries.
The final results of the survey of 16820 participants (the questionnaire is more like a reading comprehension test) showed that only 1.7% of them are completely illiterate (unable to answer any questions correctly), and 2.1% of them cannot write Chinese characters at all. The average score is 78.3 points, with scores between the ages of 20 and 24 (86.3 points) slightly higher than those between the ages of 15 and 19 (77.8 points), due to the loss of education caused by the war.
Obviously, these results left a deep impression on GHQ (Allied Command), and all proposals to abolish Chinese characters were later abandoned. Therefore, we can say that our current writing system is attributed to the men and women who took the exam in 1948. However, it may be worth noting that since then, the number of Chinese characters used has greatly decreased, and many Chinese characters themselves have also been simplified.
From a practical perspective, Chinese characters are very useful.
从实用的角度来看，汉字是非常有用的。
First of all, they can save quite a lot of space, because a Chinese character can express a word that may need 2 to 3 Hiragana letters.
首先，它们可以节省相当多的空间，因为一个汉字可以表达一个可能需要2到3个平假名字母的单词。
Secondly, they can avoid confusion because there are many homophones in Japan.
其次，他们可以避免混淆，因为日本有很多同音异义词。
A sentence often used to illustrate this point is:
一个经常用来说明这一点的句子是:
きしゃのきしゃはきしゃしてきしゃしてきしゃできしゃした。
This sentence uses six different ways of writing the word "kisha" (きし), which translates into Chinese characters and means "your newspaper reporter shot arrows on horseback, donated money to the temple, and then took the train back to the company." It's cool, isn't it?
Thirdly, just as understanding Latin and Greek roots can help English speakers understand unfamiliar words, Chinese characters and their roots (a part of Chinese characters) can help Japanese speakers understand unfamiliar words.
For example, "Otolaryngology" in Japanese means "じびいんこか". The first word is' ear ', the second word is' nose', and the third and fourth words are 'throat'. Although the Chinese character for 'throat' is difficult, an 8-year-old child can see this phrase and guess its meaning because both 'throat' characters use the root word 'mouth'.
Fourth, (initially omitted, but added after seeing some comments), because Chinese characters are widely used in East Asia (still so today), knowing Chinese characters means that when you travel to Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Taiwan, South Korea and other places, you can quite respectfully guess the general meaning of signs written in Chinese characters. Chinese Mainland may be a bit tricky because they use ultra simplified forms, but many people say that they can communicate with Chinese speakers to some extent through writing if necessary. Moreover, as pointed out by Wei Youmou, this also means that people from countries that use Chinese characters have an advantage when traveling in Japan.
Will we give up on it in the future? Absolutely not.
我们将来会放弃它吗?绝对不会。
华裔网友康纳琉斯•高的回答
The best way to answer this question is to ask another question: Why do English speakers continue to use a non phonetic and special spelling system, even if it makes English one of the most difficult languages to learn using the Roman alphabet, and even if they know that a simple spelling reform can solve this problem?
The basic assumption of this type of problem is that letters are superior, and it is usually proposed from the perspective of idealized European writing experience.
这类问题的基本假设是字母更优越，而且通常是从理想化欧洲书写经验的角度提出的。
The second question: Why does the West not use Chinese characters as symbols, even if the information content of Chinese characters is greater, it can even reduce traffic accidents and deaths?
第二个问题:为什么西方不采用汉字作为标志，即使汉字的信息量更大，甚至可以减少交通事故和死亡?
Privilege leads people from Western backgrounds to always demand from other regions that the entire civilization change and abandon habits and cultures that have existed for thousands of years. Westerners have never done this before, so why do Asians do it?
Starting from the 19th century and continuing until today, there have been many movements to reform Japanese writing, making it more "modern".
从19世纪开始，一直持续到今天，有许多改革日本文字的运动，使其更“现代”。
Finally, although South Korea has transitioned from a hybrid writing system to a complete phonetic writing system, Japan has not. There are many reasons for this, and I'm not sure any explanation is perfect, but there are some factors here:
South Korea has a very powerful and effective locally developed phonetic alphabet that clearly represents most of the expressions in Korean language. It's easy to build momentum behind this script. In contrast, Japanese phonetic symbols are not particularly expressive and leave a considerable amount of ambiguity, especially without the use of word separators.
• Korean language phonetic symbols were (and are now) regarded as typical national treasures of South Korea. On the other hand, Japanese phonetic symbols are to some extent seen as a weaker form of expression - in the past, serious literature only used Chinese characters, and even now, political, military, and religious writing tends to use very little kana.
Chinese characters have expressive power, and the language and usage of Japanese have developed to the point where this advantage can be utilized. Japanese names are usually distinguished by subtle changes in Chinese characters, and if not written in Chinese characters, these changes will be lost. Many important words and phrases can only be distinguished by Chinese characters. I can't imagine what Yukio Mishima's kana title looks like. Puns still exist, but they will become... plain and unremarkable. My favorite haiku is also like this: "It's like the rain in the sky.
The Japanese government has proven to be quite poor at controlling language. Efforts to standardize Japanese are often very weak - the long road to standardized kana usage and the incorporation of defective Japanese into Unicode are good examples. In this environment, it is not surprising that significant changes to the writing system have not been implemented.
To some extent, some even support the use of the Roman alphabet in the name of modernization. This kind of thing disappeared in the 20th century, but it revived in the outbreak of reformism after World War II. In 1946, Japan introduced a new set of Chinese character standards, which was considered a step away from Chinese characters and towards the full phonetic alphabet writing system at that time; Fortunately, the unified purpose required by this change was never achieved, leaving behind a list of flawed and incomplete Chinese characters, some simplification of standard font forms, and changes in phonetic spelling. The main impact was to make reading pre 1946 documents slightly more difficult.
Fortunately, Japan has been avoiding this huge risk of cultural reform.
幸运的是，日本一直在避免这种巨大的文化改革危险。
日本网友John Kang的回答
Reading Japanese without Chinese characters is very difficult because there are many homophones and synonyms. Taking the previously released "mountain" as an example, if someone does not use Chinese characters when writing "mountain", it may mean many different meanings, from "sour" to honorific, from "mountain" to "praise", from "product from somewhere" to the number "3" to "brilliant", and so on.
Surely, you can usually understand it from the context, which is essential in conversations, but in conversations, people can use other hints to convey meaning or simply ask for clarification when confusion arises. Alternatively, as another example, the term 'Chinese character' can refer to Chinese characters, but it can also mean feelings, auditors, executive secretaries, government business, national temples, a period of history, smiles, complete recovery, and so on.
In addition to meaning, they can also serve as clues to grammar and sentence structure. For example, if I see a Chinese character followed by several endings, I know it is a verb. Because there is no space between words, the use of Hiragana, Katakana and Chinese characters usually helps to break sentences into easy to understand parts.
As an American learning Japanese, although Chinese characters are difficult to learn, I sometimes have a friendly friend who only uses Hiragana or Romaji when writing letters to me, which is more confusing than using Chinese characters. So far, I have only understood about 700-800 Chinese characters, but although it is difficult, I still enjoy learning them and often can use the Chinese characters I have already understood to guess the meaning of new words I encounter and/or read them. I found that by understanding these hundreds of words, I can read a lot, even if I have to use a single word to find some of them.
There are too many words with similar pronunciation in Japanese. You can understand them through the context in oral English, but sometimes it is difficult to know the meaning exactly by Hiragana alone when reading. Therefore, Chinese characters help distinguish these words. For example, the word 'Naru' can mean 'bearing fruit', 'making or making a sound', or 'becoming'. This is a simple question, but there are more confusing words that do have the same pronunciation.
When scholars first encountered Chinese characters, they hated them and said they couldn't understand the content because of them. When they enter the advanced stage, if they read a text that doesn't have many Chinese characters, they will say, 'What kind of thing? I can't understand, Chinese characters are not enough.'.
The problem with Chinese characters is that due to the popularity of computers and smartphones, Chinese and Japanese people are beginning to forget how to write Chinese characters by hand. For example, South Korea has completely abandoned them, do you regret it now? But as I explained, in Japanese, it's impossible to lose them.
To be honest, with Chinese characters, life becomes much easier. As a Japanese learner, using only Hiragana and Katakana will cause many problems. It is difficult to read because there are no spaces. Many Japanese people mention that they can read Chinese characters much faster.
Personally, I am not good at handwriting Chinese characters. This is not a big problem, because I use computers most of the time, but without computers I almost have Dysgraphia.
I like Chinese characters because they are our traditional culture, but I hate Chinese characters because they are difficult to learn. Even though Chinese characters make reading easier, they also make writing very difficult.
In addition, Chinese characters are a serious obstacle for foreigners to immigrate to Japan. I can imagine that many foreigners cannot live without the help of their families, because although they can speak fluent Japanese, they know nothing about it.
I am not a Chinese character abolitionist to any extent. Once you master the basic skills and practice extensively, you will become more and more accustomed to it.
我在任何程度上都不是汉字废除主义者，一旦你掌握了基本功并进行了大量的练习，你就会越来越习惯。
法国网友维克托的回答
I personally like Chinese characters. They make Japanese reading much easier, they are very interesting, and if you practice calligraphy, they will be very beautiful. They are not that difficult to learn (referring to the common 2000 daily use). Learning more is certainly more challenging. I don't see any need for reform.
But I am not Japanese. Here is my wife's opinion (I copied it while she was speaking):
但我不是日本人。下面是我的妻子的意见(我在她说话的时候抄录):
Compared to before the war, many Chinese characters have been simplified - I believe there is no reason to make them simpler. Children take a long time to learn Japanese in elementary and middle school, but after we learn it, they make Japanese easy to understand. This takes a long time, but there is no difficulty in learning them in Japan. Therefore, there is noneed to reform due to difficulties or perceived difficulties. Nowadays, we often forget how to write smartphones and computers because we use them, but modifying them will not affect this issue at all. Otherwise, I believe there is no reason or necessity to reform them. Chinese characters are an important component of Japanese.
中华文化历经千年传承，形成了独具特色的魅力，自从汉唐开始逐渐向周边小国传播，其中日本、越南、朝鲜等地深受影响，尤其是日本，现存的日本文字就是由中国汉字发展而来的。据统计日本语言当中有1800多个中国汉字，朝鲜等地也曾使用过汉字，只不过现在废除了，其实日本也想更换，无奈汉字已经融入日本社会的方方面面，很多地方无法离不开汉字。在美版知乎Quora上，韩国网友问道，既然汉字这么难，为什么日本不像韩国一样废除汉字？我们看看各国网友的回答。
日本网友铃木麻里美的回答
When the Allied forces occupied Japan after World War II, the headquarters asked the same question. They think that this mixed writing system (combining Hiragana, Katakana and Chinese characters) is too difficult to learn, which creates obstacles to learning and takes up valuable time, which could have been better used for learning other subjects. Their solutions include abolishing all Chinese characters ("Kanji"), reducing the number of Chinese characters in use, and completely abolishing Japanese to express Japanese with English alphabet.
二战后盟军占领日本时，总司令部问了同样的问题。他们认为这种混合的书写系统(结合平假名、片假名和汉字)太难学了，从而给学习造成了障碍，占用了宝贵的时间，这些时间本可以更好地用于学习其他科目。他们提出的解决方案包括废除所有汉字(“Kanji”)，减少使用中的汉字数量，以及完全废除日文，以便用英文字母表达日文。
In order to prove that the current text system is too difficult and needs to be changed, an official from the Allied General Command requested the Ministry of Education to commission a "literacy survey" on the general population. This survey was conducted in August 1948, randomly sampling men and women aged 15-64, using quantitative classification sampling to ensure the selection of suitable individuals from various industries.
为了证明目前的文字系统过于困难，需要加以改变，盟军总司令部的一名官员要求教育部委托对一般人口进行一次“扫盲调查”。这项调查是在1948年8月进行的，对年龄在15-64岁之间的男女进行随机抽样，使用定量分类抽样确保从各行各业中选出合适的人。
日本盟军司令部
The final results of the survey of 16820 participants (the questionnaire is more like a reading comprehension test) showed that only 1.7% of them are completely illiterate (unable to answer any questions correctly), and 2.1% of them cannot write Chinese characters at all. The average score is 78.3 points, with scores between the ages of 20 and 24 (86.3 points) slightly higher than those between the ages of 15 and 19 (77.8 points), due to the loss of education caused by the war.
对16820名参与调查的人(问卷更像是阅读理解测试)的最终结果显示，只有1.7%的人是完全文盲(不能正确回答任何一个问题)，2.1%的人根本不会写汉字。平均得分为78.3分，20 ~ 24岁的得分(86.3分)比15 ~ 19岁的得分(77.8分)略高，这是因为战争对教育造成的损失。
Obviously, these results left a deep impression on GHQ (Allied Command), and all proposals to abolish Chinese characters were later abandoned. Therefore, we can say that our current writing system is attributed to the men and women who took the exam in 1948. However, it may be worth noting that since then, the number of Chinese characters used has greatly decreased, and many Chinese characters themselves have also been simplified.
显然，这些结果给GHQ（盟军司令部）留下了深刻的印象，所有废除汉字的建议后来都被放弃了。因此，我们可以说，我们现在的书写系统要归功于1948年参加考试的男男女女。然而，也许应该注意的是，自那以后，使用的汉字数量大大减少，许多汉字本身也被简化了。
From a practical perspective, Chinese characters are very useful.
从实用的角度来看，汉字是非常有用的。
First of all, they can save quite a lot of space, because a Chinese character can express a word that may need 2 to 3 Hiragana letters.
首先，它们可以节省相当多的空间，因为一个汉字可以表达一个可能需要2到3个平假名字母的单词。
Secondly, they can avoid confusion because there are many homophones in Japan.
其次，他们可以避免混淆，因为日本有很多同音异义词。
A sentence often used to illustrate this point is:
一个经常用来说明这一点的句子是:
きしゃのきしゃはきしゃしてきしゃしてきしゃできしゃした。
This sentence uses six different ways of writing the word "kisha" (きし), which translates into Chinese characters and means "your newspaper reporter shot arrows on horseback, donated money to the temple, and then took the train back to the company." It's cool, isn't it?
这句话用了“kisha”(きし)这个词的六种写法，翻译成汉字的意思是“你们报社的记者在马背上射箭，给寺庙捐了钱，然后坐火车回公司去了。”很酷，不是吗?
Thirdly, just as understanding Latin and Greek roots can help English speakers understand unfamiliar words, Chinese characters and their roots (a part of Chinese characters) can help Japanese speakers understand unfamiliar words.
第三，就像了解拉丁语和希腊语词根可以帮助说英语的人理解他们不认识的单词一样，汉字及其词根(汉字的一部分)可以帮助说日语的人理解不熟悉的单词。
For example, "Otolaryngology" in Japanese means "じびいんこか". The first word is' ear ', the second word is' nose', and the third and fourth words are 'throat'. Although the Chinese character for 'throat' is difficult, an 8-year-old child can see this phrase and guess its meaning because both 'throat' characters use the root word 'mouth'.
例如，“耳鼻喉科”在日语中是“じびいんこうか”。第一个字是“耳朵”，第二个是“鼻子”，第三和第四个是“喉咙”。虽然“喉咙”的汉字很难，但一个8岁的孩子可以看到这个短语并猜出它的意思，因为两个“喉咙”的汉字都使用了“口”这个词根。
Fourth, (initially omitted, but added after seeing some comments), because Chinese characters are widely used in East Asia (still so today), knowing Chinese characters means that when you travel to Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Taiwan, South Korea and other places, you can quite respectfully guess the general meaning of signs written in Chinese characters. Chinese Mainland may be a bit tricky because they use ultra simplified forms, but many people say that they can communicate with Chinese speakers to some extent through writing if necessary. Moreover, as pointed out by Wei Youmou, this also means that people from countries that use Chinese characters have an advantage when traveling in Japan.
第四，(最初被遗漏，但在看到一些评论后添加)，由于汉字在东亚广泛使用(现在仍然如此)，知道汉字意味着当你去中国大陆、香港特区、台湾地区和韩国等地旅行时，你可以相当体面地猜测用汉字书写的标志等的大致含义。中国大陆可能有点棘手，因为他们使用超简化的形式，但许多人说，如果有必要，他们可以在一定程度上通过写作与说中文的人交流。而且，正如魏佑谋所指出的，这也意味着来自使用汉字的国家的人在日本旅行时具有优势。
Is it difficult to learn Chinese characters? Yes.
汉字学起来难吗?是的。
Will we give up on it in the future? Absolutely not.
我们将来会放弃它吗?绝对不会。
华裔网友康纳琉斯•高的回答
The best way to answer this question is to ask another question: Why do English speakers continue to use a non phonetic and special spelling system, even if it makes English one of the most difficult languages to learn using the Roman alphabet, and even if they know that a simple spelling reform can solve this problem?
回答这个问题的最好方法是用另一个问题反问:为什么说英语的人要继续使用一种非语音和特殊的拼写系统，即使它使英语成为使用罗马字母最难学习的语言之一，即使他们知道简单的拼写改革就可以解决这个问题?
The basic assumption of this type of problem is that letters are superior, and it is usually proposed from the perspective of idealized European writing experience.
这类问题的基本假设是字母更优越，而且通常是从理想化欧洲书写经验的角度提出的。
The second question: Why does the West not use Chinese characters as symbols, even if the information content of Chinese characters is greater, it can even reduce traffic accidents and deaths?
第二个问题:为什么西方不采用汉字作为标志，即使汉字的信息量更大，甚至可以减少交通事故和死亡?
Privilege leads people from Western backgrounds to always demand from other regions that the entire civilization change and abandon habits and cultures that have existed for thousands of years. Westerners have never done this before, so why do Asians do it?
特权导致西方背景的人总是向其他地区提出要求，要求整个文明改变和抛弃已经存在了数千年的习惯和文化。西方人从来没有这样做过，那么，亚洲人为什么要这么做呢?
海外网友艾琳•里维拉的回答
Starting from the 19th century and continuing until today, there have been many movements to reform Japanese writing, making it more "modern".
从19世纪开始，一直持续到今天，有许多改革日本文字的运动，使其更“现代”。
Finally, although South Korea has transitioned from a hybrid writing system to a complete phonetic writing system, Japan has not. There are many reasons for this, and I'm not sure any explanation is perfect, but there are some factors here:
最后，虽然韩国从混合书写系统转变为完全的语音书写系统，但日本却没有。这有很多原因，我不确定任何一种解释都是完美的，但这里有一些因素:
South Korea has a very powerful and effective locally developed phonetic alphabet that clearly represents most of the expressions in Korean language. It's easy to build momentum behind this script. In contrast, Japanese phonetic symbols are not particularly expressive and leave a considerable amount of ambiguity, especially without the use of word separators.
•韩国有一个非常强大和有效的本地发展的音标，它明确地代表了韩国语的大部分表达。很容易就能在这个剧本背后建立起动力。相比之下，日语的音标并不特别具有表现力，而且留下相当多的歧义，特别是在不使用单词分隔符的情况下。
• Korean language phonetic symbols were (and are now) regarded as typical national treasures of South Korea. On the other hand, Japanese phonetic symbols are to some extent seen as a weaker form of expression - in the past, serious literature only used Chinese characters, and even now, political, military, and religious writing tends to use very little kana.
•朝鲜语音标过去(现在也是)被视为典型的韩国国宝。另一方面，日本的音标在某种程度上被视为一种较弱的表达形式——在过去，严肃文学只使用汉字，即使是现在，政治、军事和宗教写作也倾向于使用很少的假名。
Chinese characters have expressive power, and the language and usage of Japanese have developed to the point where this advantage can be utilized. Japanese names are usually distinguished by subtle changes in Chinese characters, and if not written in Chinese characters, these changes will be lost. Many important words and phrases can only be distinguished by Chinese characters. I can't imagine what Yukio Mishima's kana title looks like. Puns still exist, but they will become... plain and unremarkable. My favorite haiku is also like this: "It's like the rain in the sky.
•汉字具有表现力，日语的语言和用法已经发展到可以利用这一优势。日本人的名字通常是通过细微的汉字变化来区分的，如果不用汉字书写，这些变化就会丢失。许多重要的单词和短语只能通过汉字来区分。我无法想象三岛由纪夫的假名标题是什么样子。双关语仍然存在，但会变得……平淡无奇。我最喜欢的俳句也是如此:“かたつむり甲斐も信濃も雨のなか”。
The Japanese government has proven to be quite poor at controlling language. Efforts to standardize Japanese are often very weak - the long road to standardized kana usage and the incorporation of defective Japanese into Unicode are good examples. In this environment, it is not surprising that significant changes to the writing system have not been implemented.
•日本政府已经证明自己在控制语言方面相当糟糕。标准化日语的努力通常是非常薄弱的——标准化假名使用的漫长道路，以及有缺陷的日语加入Unicode都是很好的例子。在这种环境下，没有实现对书写系统的重大更改就不足为奇了。
To some extent, some even support the use of the Roman alphabet in the name of modernization. This kind of thing disappeared in the 20th century, but it revived in the outbreak of reformism after World War II. In 1946, Japan introduced a new set of Chinese character standards, which was considered a step away from Chinese characters and towards the full phonetic alphabet writing system at that time; Fortunately, the unified purpose required by this change was never achieved, leaving behind a list of flawed and incomplete Chinese characters, some simplification of standard font forms, and changes in phonetic spelling. The main impact was to make reading pre 1946 documents slightly more difficult.
在某种程度上，甚至有人支持以现代化的名义改用罗马字母。这种东西在20世纪消失了，但在二战后的改革主义爆发中又复活了。1946年，日本推出了一套新的汉字标准，在当时，这被认为是远离汉字、迈向全音标书写系统的一步;幸运的是，这一改变所要求的统一目的从未实现，最终留下的是一组有缺陷和不完整的汉字列表，对标准字形形式的一些简化，以及对语音拼写的改变，其主要影响是使阅读1946年以前的文件稍微困难一些。
Fortunately, Japan has been avoiding this huge risk of cultural reform.
幸运的是，日本一直在避免这种巨大的文化改革危险。
日本网友John Kang的回答
Reading Japanese without Chinese characters is very difficult because there are many homophones and synonyms. Taking the previously released "mountain" as an example, if someone does not use Chinese characters when writing "mountain", it may mean many different meanings, from "sour" to honorific, from "mountain" to "praise", from "product from somewhere" to the number "3" to "brilliant", and so on.
阅读没有汉字的日语是非常困难的，因为有很多同音异义字。以之前发布的“山”为例，如果有人在书写“山”时不使用汉字，它可能意味着许多不同的意思，从“酸”到敬语，从“山”到“赞扬”，从“某处的产品”到数字“3”到“辉煌”等等。
Surely, you can usually understand it from the context, which is essential in conversations, but in conversations, people can use other hints to convey meaning or simply ask for clarification when confusion arises. Alternatively, as another example, the term 'Chinese character' can refer to Chinese characters, but it can also mean feelings, auditors, executive secretaries, government business, national temples, a period of history, smiles, complete recovery, and so on.
当然，你通常可以从上下文中理解，在对话中这是必不可少的，但在对话中，人们可以使用其他暗示来传达意思，或者在出现困惑时简单地要求澄清。或者用另一个例子，“汉字”这个词可以表示汉字，但它也可以表示感觉、审计员、执行秘书、政府业务、国家寺庙、一段历史、微笑、完全康复等等意思。
In addition to meaning, they can also serve as clues to grammar and sentence structure. For example, if I see a Chinese character followed by several endings, I know it is a verb. Because there is no space between words, the use of Hiragana, Katakana and Chinese characters usually helps to break sentences into easy to understand parts.
除了意义之外，它们还可以作为语法和句子结构的线索。例如，如果我看到一个汉字后面跟着几个词尾，我就知道它是动词。因为单词之间没有空格，使用平假名、片假名和汉字通常有助于将句子分解成易于理解的部分。
As an American learning Japanese, although Chinese characters are difficult to learn, I sometimes have a friendly friend who only uses Hiragana or Romaji when writing letters to me, which is more confusing than using Chinese characters. So far, I have only understood about 700-800 Chinese characters, but although it is difficult, I still enjoy learning them and often can use the Chinese characters I have already understood to guess the meaning of new words I encounter and/or read them. I found that by understanding these hundreds of words, I can read a lot, even if I have to use a single word to find some of them.
作为一个学习日语的美国人，虽然汉字很难学，但我有时有一个善意的朋友给我写信时只使用平假名或Romaji，这比使用汉字更令人困惑。到目前为止，我只理解了大约700-800个汉字，但尽管很难，我还是喜欢学习它们，并且经常可以用我已经理解的汉字猜出我遇到的生词的意思和/或阅读。我发现理解了这几百个单词，我就能读到很多，即使我必须用一个词汇来查找其中的一些。
海外网友托尼•莎姆的回答
There are too many words with similar pronunciation in Japanese. You can understand them through the context in oral English, but sometimes it is difficult to know the meaning exactly by Hiragana alone when reading. Therefore, Chinese characters help distinguish these words. For example, the word 'Naru' can mean 'bearing fruit', 'making or making a sound', or 'becoming'. This is a simple question, but there are more confusing words that do have the same pronunciation.
日语中有太多相似发音的单词，在口语中你可以通过上下文理解，但在阅读时，有时仅凭平假名很难确切地知道意思。因此，汉字有助于区分这些词。比如Naru这个词，它可以是“结出果实”，“响或响”或“变成”。这是一个简单的问题，但还有更多令人困惑的单词，它们的发音确实相同。
When scholars first encountered Chinese characters, they hated them and said they couldn't understand the content because of them. When they enter the advanced stage, if they read a text that doesn't have many Chinese characters, they will say, 'What kind of thing? I can't understand, Chinese characters are not enough.'.
当初学者遇到汉字时，他们讨厌它，并说因为它们而无法理解所写的内容。当他们进入高级阶段时，如果他们读一段没有很多汉字的文字，他们会说“什么玩意，我读不懂，汉字不够用”。
These are all important, so they won't disappear.
这些都很重要，所以它们不会消失。
The problem with Chinese characters is that due to the popularity of computers and smartphones, Chinese and Japanese people are beginning to forget how to write Chinese characters by hand. For example, South Korea has completely abandoned them, do you regret it now? But as I explained, in Japanese, it's impossible to lose them.
汉字的问题在于，由于电脑和智能手机的普及，中国人和日本人开始忘记如何手写汉字。例如，韩国完全放弃了它们，你们现在后悔了吗？但正如我解释的那样，在日语中，不可能失去它们。
日本网友衫本的回答
To be honest, with Chinese characters, life becomes much easier. As a Japanese learner, using only Hiragana and Katakana will cause many problems. It is difficult to read because there are no spaces. Many Japanese people mention that they can read Chinese characters much faster.
老实说，有了汉字，生活就轻松多了。作为一个学习日语的人，只使用平假名和片假名会产生很多问题。因为没有空格，所以很难阅读。很多日本人提到，他们用汉字读起来快多了。
Personally, I am not good at handwriting Chinese characters. This is not a big problem, because I use computers most of the time, but without computers I almost have Dysgraphia.
就我个人而言，我很不擅长手写汉字。这不是一个大问题，因为我大部分时间都在使用电脑，但没有电脑我几乎就会有书写障碍。
I like Chinese characters because they are our traditional culture, but I hate Chinese characters because they are difficult to learn. Even though Chinese characters make reading easier, they also make writing very difficult.
我喜欢汉字，因为它是我们的传统文化，但我讨厌汉字，因为它很难学。即使汉字使阅读更容易，它也使写作变得非常困难。
In addition, Chinese characters are a serious obstacle for foreigners to immigrate to Japan. I can imagine that many foreigners cannot live without the help of their families, because although they can speak fluent Japanese, they know nothing about it.
此外，汉字是外国人移民到日本的一个严重障碍。我可以想象，许多外国人没有家人的帮助就无法生活，因为他们虽然能说流利的日语，但对日语一无所知。
I am not a Chinese character abolitionist to any extent. Once you master the basic skills and practice extensively, you will become more and more accustomed to it.
我在任何程度上都不是汉字废除主义者，一旦你掌握了基本功并进行了大量的练习，你就会越来越习惯。
法国网友维克托的回答
I personally like Chinese characters. They make Japanese reading much easier, they are very interesting, and if you practice calligraphy, they will be very beautiful. They are not that difficult to learn (referring to the common 2000 daily use). Learning more is certainly more challenging. I don't see any need for reform.
我个人喜欢汉字。它们让日文读起来容易多了，它们很有趣，如果你练习书法，它们会很漂亮。它们也不是那么难学(说到常见的2000个日常使用的)。学习更多当然更具挑战性)。我看不出有任何改革的必要。
But I am not Japanese. Here is my wife's opinion (I copied it while she was speaking):
但我不是日本人。下面是我的妻子的意见(我在她说话的时候抄录):
Compared to before the war, many Chinese characters have been simplified - I believe there is no reason to make them simpler. Children take a long time to learn Japanese in elementary and middle school, but after we learn it, they make Japanese easy to understand. This takes a long time, but there is no difficulty in learning them in Japan. Therefore, there is noneed to reform due to difficulties or perceived difficulties. Nowadays, we often forget how to write smartphones and computers because we use them, but modifying them will not affect this issue at all. Otherwise, I believe there is no reason or necessity to reform them. Chinese characters are an important component of Japanese.
与战前相比，许多汉字已经简化了——我认为没有任何理由让它们变得更简单。孩子们在小学和初中的时候要花很长时间才能学会，但是在我们学会之后，他们让日语变得很容易读懂。这需要很长时间，但在日本学习它们没有任何困难。因此，没有必要因为困难或察觉到困难而进行改革。现在我们经常因为使用智能手机和电脑而忘记如何书写它们，但是修改它们根本不会影响这个问题。否则，我认为没有理由也没有必要改革它们。汉字是日语的重要组成部分。
Once again. Okay. I agree with her point of view, and I think most Japanese people may also think the same.
我再一次。好了。我同意她的观点，我想大多数日本人可能也这么认为