New learner here! I'm a nontraditional college student going back to school in my 30s, and am in Introductory Japanese I. We go up to chapter 6 in the Genki book (3rd Ed). I'm still new to Kanji, and didn't really understand it's importance, until today.
For a language that focuses so much on stroke order and efficiency, it didn't make sense to me that たべる and 食べる meant the same thing. Why would you write 食 instead of た? It's so many more strokes and takes a long time. It wasn't until I asked my professor and he pointed out that kanji isn't for the writer, but instead the reader. He wrote this on the board:
わたしはたべます
And
私は食べます
Both are simple, but one is MUCH easier/faster to gain meaning from. It really clicked after seeing that. Having all hiragana can be confusing and feel a bit jumbled. Kanji are like anchors for words in a sentence and can help distinguish particles clearly. It made me want to learn a LOT more kanji.
Immediately after my "ah ha!" moment, I turned to a classmate and said, "This makes so much sense! I wish I could speak in Kanji" 😂😭🤦🏼Anyway, just wanted to share for any other newbies out there struggling with kanji. Just keep going, it really does make a lot of sense even if it seems unintuitive at first!
by BiologicalChemist