[drorco]

> Hiragana being far more useful to know starting out, if you had to pick one.

Before visiting Japan, I learned to read in both Hiragana and Katakana, but I didn't really know more than a dozen or so words in Japanese. While visiting Japan, I found Katakana to be a lot more useful, because it's commonly used and often is just English words converted to Japanese letters. I think all my Hiragana reading abilities were completely useless as I couldn't tell what I was reading.

[samus]

> I think all my Hiragana reading abilities were completely useless as I couldn't tell what I was reading.

This is what many people don't realize when they wish they wouldn't have to learn Kanji or Hanzi. They make a lot of sense for languages with lots of homophones.

Edit: typo because of autocomplete

[yakubin]

> They make a lot of sense for languages with lots of homophobes.

I think you meant homophones. At least I hope so.

[samus]

Lol, thanks for spotting :)

[lloda]

Homophones can be disambiguated in writing the same way they are disambiguated in speech, or they can just fall into disuse and be replaced.

[samus]

This sounds easy in theory, but so far only one language has succeeded in completely getting rid of the Chinese characters: Vietnamese. This transition was imposed by the French colonial administration however, to more easily spread European-style civilization by breaking their connection to their native culture. A Vietnamese-speaker would have to tell whether there are any issues with homophones nowadays.

In Korea, Hanja are still actively used for disambiguation of homophones in complex texts. Public debate was divided for a long time, and even though Hanja are slowly being phased out, it is a slow process. It's hard to tell for sure, but even in North Korea the process seems incomplete.