Re: does a blind person need to learn kanji while learning Japanese?
Assault pretty much said it all.
I am learning Japanese myself, and kanji, although screenreaders do read them to us, are still important for the reasons given above. The different readings can be be very different (toki and ji was already mentioned, another one is hito and jin which are the common readings for a kanji meaning person).
It's different, sure. Is it bad? ...I wouldn't say so.
Given that in English, I cannot rhyme sword with word, but I can rhyme word with bird, I think I like Japanese a lot better in some regards :-)
As for learning to speak vs learning to read first, that is a tricky one. What I have been doing is a combination of the two:
- Elon.io and Tae Kim's stuff are very good for reading/writing. I tend to use the Japanese NVDA with the Tiflotecnia Vocalizer voices at present. Jisho is a good dictionary that is pretty accessible to quickly look up kanji or romaji. InstantTranslate can help in a pinch but you'll usually only get the meaning the system thinks you want even though there might be more, so I tend to check Jisho even though that takes longer.
- For listening, I combine Japanesepod101 which even though it has a lot, and I mean a LOT, of shortcomings, does have a few redeeming qualities, with GameGrammar and Japanese Quest on youtube. When they mention a kanji and explain it, I note it down, look at how the screenreader reads it, and if I think I can't remember it I add it to a lesson on elon.io .
- Apart from that I look at other resources as well, but those are my staples.
Oh and as for braille kanji ...that is indeed a thing, kind of, but I've been told it is rarely, if ever, used currently, and the kana-based braille tables in Japanese NVDA are way more common, so I never bothered with that.
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