Spelling Bees

[jinksys]

Do the japanese have spelling bees? And if they do, how and why?

I have been wondering about this because a) the japanese don't have names for each character like english does. b) the japanese "alphabet" is syllabic and therefore would make spelling very easy.

Anyone have any input into this?

[wasurenagusa]

you are asking a question that ends up like this:-

# why do we call A an A
#why do we drink water when we are thirsty

so we have alphabets in English right from A to Z
and we drink water when we are thirsty and it wont be preferably be wine to have a sip into, while our chests are as dry as the Thar.

[jinksys]

wasurenagusa wrote:
you are asking a question that ends up like this:-

# why do we call A an A
#why do we drink water when we are thirsty

so we have alphabets in English right from A to Z
and we drink water when we are thirsty and it wont be preferably be wine to have a sip into, while our chests are as dry as the Thar.

Thank you for that non-answer.

[keatonatron]

In English, spelling is very important. If you spell a word wrong, the meaning can change and/or you will look stupid.

In Japanese, kanji is very important. If you write the wrong kanji/write a kanji incorrectly, the meaning can change and/or you will look stupid.

There aren't exactly kanji competitions, per se, but there is a standardized kanji test made for Japanese people that is very popular. Apparently entire families go together and take the test for their respective difficulty levels to see how well they know their kanji.

[jinksys]

keatonatron wrote:
In English, spelling is very important. If you spell a word wrong, the meaning can change and/or you will look stupid.

In Japanese, kanji is very important. If you write the wrong kanji/write a kanji incorrectly, the meaning can change and/or you will look stupid.

There aren't exactly kanji competitions, per se, but there is a standardized kanji test made for Japanese people that is very popular. Apparently entire families go together and take the test for their respective difficulty levels to see how well they know their kanji.

Thank you! I did not know that

[AJBryant]

And the upper-levels of that test require an encyclopaedic knowledge of kanji with obscure readings that aren't used by 99.9% of the population. It's truly a brain buster.

Tony

[hungryhotei]

b) the japanese "alphabet" is syllabic and therefore would make spelling very easy.

I couldn't spell all of those katakana loanwords to save my life, especially where to put the ッ　and ー.

[burstandbloom]

hungryhotei wrote:

b) the japanese "alphabet" is syllabic and therefore would make spelling very easy.

I couldn't spell all of those katakana loanwords to save my life, especially where to put the ッ　and ー.

i hear that.

[aoisatomi]

burstandbloom wrote:

hungryhotei wrote:

b) the japanese "alphabet" is syllabic and therefore would make spelling very easy.

I couldn't spell all of those katakana loanwords to save my life, especially where to put the ッ　and ー.

i hear that.

very true, very true....
but, as for talking about what they do in japan, they would find it quite easy because they would hear the word and know what vowels were long and which had a pause. This is because there is a big difference in that. For example: anko = red bean jam ankou=angler fish

It would make sense about learned the kanji.

[tanuki]

wasurenagusa wrote:
you are asking a question that ends up like this:-

# why do we call A an A
#why do we drink water when we are thirsty

so we have alphabets in English right from A to Z
and we drink water when we are thirsty and it wont be preferably be wine to have a sip into, while our chests are as dry as the Thar.

That's a real gem right there.

[Ashurii]

Not exactly a spelling bee, but I've also heard that speech contests are very popular in Japan. (Including speech contests for foreigners)