How long did you study JP before you're good?

[zoom909]

as someone learning Japanese, would love to see Japanese switch to a fully phonetic writing system.

I hope you harbor no illusions of that happening quickly enough to get you out of learning kanji ;-)

 

Anyway, Japanese writing in its current state isn't THAT bad.  The readings aren't completely irregular, some are regular and some aren't.  When encountering a never-seen-before word, I often get the pronunciation right on the first try.

[Parallel Pain]

I doubt the idea will be adopted. Japan has an extremely high literacy rate, it doesn't need to make the language easier for its citizens to learn (unlike China when PRC adopted the simplified script). Heck if it wasn't for MacArthur forcing it we wouldn't have 2 kana, just 1.

 

Kanji is incredibly useful to approximate both the pronunciation and the meaning of an unfamiliar word. It's like knowing German, Latin, and Greek while maining in English. It's really useful.