Learning Hanzi in spite of being an aphant
1 min readByLiên Vũ Kim
I discovered I have aphantasia at 20 years old; however, I somehow had a strange liking to logographic Chinese characters (Hanzi/Kanji) after experiencing them in Chinese and Japanese texts. I also find learning them strangely easy, because there is no need for visualization, just memorizing the radicals and knowing how they are used. I wonder if any other aphants can do this as well.
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Gyokuto Motiduki•recently•edited
As a fellow aphant from Japan, I resonated with your experience so much!
I’ve always felt that for us, learning Kanji isn't about memorizing a "picture," but rather understanding a logical recipe of radicals. Since our brains prefer structural data over visual imagery, the systematic nature of Hanzi/Kanji actually becomes an advantage.
This is exactly why I find that I can read Classical Chinese and even get the "gist" of modern Chinese texts just by following the semantic traces of the characters. Interestingly, though, I struggle with Hangul. Even though it’s part of the same cultural sphere, Hangul is phonetic—it's a "sound script." For my aphant brain, it’s much easier to decode logograms (which are like high-density data packets of meaning) than it is to process pure phonetic symbols that don't have those built-in semantic hooks.
It’s fascinating to realize that what many see as a "visual" language is actually a "logical" one for people like us!
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Liên Vũ Kim•recently•edited
My only complaint is the "false friend" Hanzi, or Hanzi used in casual settings, and I bet a lot of Japanese people get confused, but these are common in China and Malaysia.
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Neal White•recently•edited
I have only studied a few Chinese symbols, of which I can only recognize 3 at this point. I've never tried to write Chinese.
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