Can Chinese Speakers Read Japanese?
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In this video I see how well native speakers of Chinese can read Japanese without ever having studied it. The results are incredibly interesting!
Special thanks to: Alfred, Channing, Judy, Paul, Jia, and Webster for participating in the video!
🎧 Japanese sentence audio and Hiragana transcription:
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00:00 Introduction
02:29 Video sponsor: NordVPN
04:05 Everyday sentence #1
06:43 Everyday sentence #2
08:29 Everyday sentence #3
10:40 Everyday sentence #4
12:39 Advanced sentence #1
15:34 Advanced sentence #2
17:10 Advanced sentence #3
19:17 Reflecting on the experiment
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Actually the pronunciation is not entirely different…I think some Kanji characters have similar pronunciation to that in Chinese just that many of the pronunciations are closely related to Southern Chinese dialects such as Cantonese, Fujian and Shanghai dialects, this is because Mandarin is based on Northern Chinese dialect to the north of Yellow River, it became popular only in the past 300 years. For example, “Heart” 心臓 in Chinese is “Xinzang’ and in Japanese is pronounced as “Shinzō”. “Teacher” 教師 or 先生, in Chinese is ‘Jiaoshi’ or ‘Xiansheng’, in Japanese is “Kyōshi” or “Sensei”, very similar. In ancient China the national language varied from dynasty to dynasty, the pronunciation of Cantonese has deep root in ancient Chinese language and still keeps the same pronunciation and phrases. When Japanese students came to Xi’an China to learn Chinese in Tang dynasty in the 9th century, they adopted the pronunciation of Chinese language of that era. And when many southern Chinese in southern Chinese kingdom of Wu migrated to Japan during Japan’s Kofun period during 4th to 5th century, they brought southern Chinese dialect pronunciation to Japan. Having said that if I am not wrong for every Kanji in Japanese there are two pronunciations, one is called Wu pronunciation that is similar to Wu dialect in Shanghai & Suzhou in Southern China, and the other is Japanese way of pronunciation.
Hola
I can understand written Portuguese based on my knowledge of Spanish.
Since I also understand written French and Italian aside from Spanish, Portuguese is about 85 , maybe 90 percent readable.
@@bpsevil ok and hello from Argentina 🇦🇷
Did you know, when Vietnamese natioalnalist revolutionaries went to Japan to find assistance to fight the French, although they didn’t speak Japanese, they still communicated with Japanese people quite conveniently due to kanji.
I tell a related story from my own experience in the video! 🙂
old historic documents mention that the diplomats from east asian countries, sitting around the table, didn’t ‘speak’ but rather ‘write’ in order to communicate each other
This might give the wrong impression that Chinese characters themselves carry meaning. They don’t, it’s just like historical spelling in the Romance language and English. An English speaker can understand a lot of Spanish if they only use formal words.
Also at that time classical chinese was a mandatory school subject both in China and Japan so they were actually using Classical Chinese not just randomly drawing characters. I say at that time but it’s still mandatory in China and Japan. Japanese students have to either take Classical Japanese or Classical Chinese for their center exam which’s basically the SAT over there.
@@YCprivate yes they were writing in Classical Chinese, just like how early modern europeans wrote using latin
More precisely, they communicate by a common written language called ‘Classical Chinese’ that is written in hanzi (not kanji precisely because classical chinese uses the chinese version of the characters). If they use kanji/chu han only, it will still be difficult to communicate, just like modern Chinese and modern Japanese in the video.
Most Chinese speakers may find it easy to guess the general idea of an article written in Japanese as long as there are some kanjis in it.
Everything seems fine until you see a Chinese speaker mistakes the meaning of 金玉 for “jewelry” instead of knowing it’s a slang for “testicles” in Japanese.
I mean they are family jewelry so wouldn’t call it a mistake 🤣🤣
The most difficult thing has to be different words in Chinese and Japanese written with the same characters, because that’s when you don’t realize that you don’t actually understand!
I actually encountered such things in real life… In 2018 I went to Mt. Fuji. The tourist center at Subaru line 5th station has a 仮設トイレ, and the Chinese sign says 假设洗手间
Also, for anyone who don’t want to make such mistakes, there is a list of false friends between Chinese and Japanese on Witionary
@@Young-ep8ik It’s really interesting to me that we have the exact same word for the exact same thing in German!
What’s most interesting to me here is how the slang is the same in Chinese, (I guess German?), and English. We’re more alike than we are different…
That’s pronounced “kindama” right?
I like these new videos where you involve other people in experimenting
Yeah, trying something new was long overdue.
I’m glad you like them!
lol i meant semitic language not semantic language xD
I’m a native Japanese speaker. For me, it is much easier to understand written traditional Chinese than simplified Chinese. Books published around early 20th century use traditional kanji but their grammar and vocabulary are basically the same as today. So we have a plenty of chance to get used to the traditional kanji characters.
There are only about a couple hundred characters that have simplified forms, and they bear some resemblance to the original form. So it would take about one afternoon to browse the table of simplified characters and be caught up on the 20th century Chinese texts.
Ofc Japan “borrowed” kanji during the Tang dynasty
@@Kerguelen.Mapping Oversimplification that also totally misrepresents how the Chinese language arrived in and influenced Japan. A double dose of stupidity. Very nice.
@@Kerguelen.Mapping It is not clear, but it seems like around 200 or 300 AD when kanji first arrived Japan. It must have taken several centuries to get rooted in Japan, but at least late 5c sword unearthed near Tokyo has a certain amount of kanji characters which apparently express Japanese sentence. After that, new pronunciation came to Japan with the new waves of Buddhism (especially during Tang and Song dynasties).
@@John_WeissIt’s not that simple. Of course some part of simplification is just like you said, but there are also “un-cursivised” ones. I mean, they made a new block letter form from cursive script.
When I was living in Hongkong, always use 食(to eat）飲(to drink),but in mainland people who don’t speak Cantonese they use 吃（to eat）喝(to drink).
Japanese also use 食and 飲.
But these all common Chinese characters and they actually do use nouns like 食物/食品 or 饮料/饮品 in their daily life.
Obviously because the elements of the Chinese culture that have infiltrated to Japan over centuries could do so only via the coastal line.
We do speak Cantonese in the mainland… there are more Cantonese speakers in the mainland than there are the population of Hong Kong.
Isn’t it because Japanese people learned the Kanji from the kingdom of Wu?
But 食 and 飲 can only be used informally in hk. In formal situations we have to use a ‘written language’ 書面語 that’s basically the same as Mandarin, and write 吃 and 喝. If you write 食 and 飲 in school, you’ll get a cross.
As a russian, I can read almost all slavic languages, and understand 60-80% of a text
you are my role model. ❤
This experiment would look something like Greek people trying to read Russian. They can recognize more than a half of the letters, and the more high-style Russian examples are used (e.g. scientific, philosophical, religious texts) the more familiar Greek words they would encounter.
@tedsteiner oh.. thanks for mentioned it. I made a mistake. haha.
I wonder how about Lithuanian？Learnt a little Russian and I recognised some words there.
@user-qo5eg7ly5u Lithuanian is a fully different language, it’s from other language family
What i usually feel like is, if the Japanese article is harder or more formal such as some government files or the constitution (or just road signs), it would instead musch easier for a Chinese speaker to read.
I have personally seen a Japanese and a Chinese scientist discussing a concept in English, reach the limits of their English and then write down kanji to express the concepts they are trying to explain and then understand each other.
My husband has witnessed the very same thing.
That’s true. Before 20th century when Japan hadn’t reformed and focused more on kanji education, it was very common for Chinese and Japanese people communicating through writing.
A lot of technical terms in Chinese are actually loanwords from Japanese Kanji terms because those ideas are introduced earlier into Japan than into China.
@@user-gw6fg6mv8b Yes. Those loanwords can be easily understood by Chinese people because kanji itself indicates the meaning (this is something that latin language users can’t really understand), and also many of these words were created based on ancient Chinese classics. For example the word “経済” for economy is created by Japanese scholar from a sentence “經世濟民” in a Chinese books, which can be comprehended by people from both countries.
@@hiskiliu8941 It’s crazy that hiragana and katakana weren’t standardized until 1900. So you could have two unique Japanese characters from different areas representing the same sound. Sounds like a nightmare.
a japanese here. It was a lot of fun looking at signs and boards in Hong-Kong, because pretty much all of them had Simplified, Traditional, and English texts together so that I could confirm my guesses. It was quite satisfying to see my guesses were ok from the day one, and in couple of days I could train myself to read like 80-90% of them right. It was like being surrounded by Rosetta Stones.
Can you help me to learn Japanese
What a lucky guy. Meanwhile, we westerners struggle every time we go to visit you guys when something is not translated 😂
Well… It’s less of a challenge nowadays with Google Lens and such.
Interesting fact about Japanese in Hong Kong. When Hong Kong was under occupation by Imperial Japan, place names had a short but official Japanese reading. These are different than today’s Japanese translations you see in tourist maps.
e.g.
銅鑼灣
English: Causeway Bay
Cantonese: Tung Lo Waan
Japanese reading then: Dorawan
Japanese reading now: Kou-su-wei Bei
Another interesting example:
香港仔
English: Aberdeen
Cantonese: Hoeng Gong Zai (Literally Little Hong Kong)
Under Japanese occupation: 元香港 Moto-HonKon / 元港區 Moto-Minato-Ku (Literally meaning Original Hong Kong)
That legitimately sounds like a blooming linguists dream there.
I am from Hong Kong and I always wondered if Japanese can read the signs written in traditional chinese characters haha (despite slight stroke differences)
Just as before I learn Japanese I could already read Japanese news (because they are all essentially kanji)
When the Portuguese first landed in Japan, they communicated through a chinese scribe who could converse with a japanese scribe through writing. This is so interesting.
It’s kinda like the Latin, Greek and french loanwords scattered all over the european contintent, but much, much deeper.
Japanese is an Austronesian language , listen to Maori. Maori sounds like Japanese.
That last sentence of yours explains why Interlingua is easy for many. Or for some, depending on what other languages they know.
@@cheerful_crop_circle Korean also sounds like Japanese to my ears. But all three are unrelated.
They were actually communicating through Classical Chinese. During that time all educated people like scholars and scribes studied Classical Chinese. It served as a written Lingua Franca in east asia.
@@rudhardotcom Well , both are East Asian languages, so ofc they would have some similar sounds exclusive to that area. But Japanese definitely sounds a bit more like Maori or like some Bantu language imo
As a Spanish speaker I can say that Spanish and Porutguese people can understand each other almost perfectly in writing, especially if it’s a formal text.
Native English speaker that can get around well enough in Spanish speaking countries, took a trip to Portugal with only a couple months crash course, could understand nearly everything written, thought I was ok. Got to Portugal and found that was next to useless. Had an amazing time just with a lot more hand gestures and pantomiming.
So the whole Latin Amarican can understand each other without too much difficulty?
@@bear2s232 I don’t know that for sure, but Latin American Spanish/Porutguese are sometimes very different from European ones. There are a lot of indigenous words and local slang in Latin American variant of the languages.
@@bear2s232not necessarily. Portuguese and Spanish are still very much different languages, so there’s still a level of difficulty. There’s also dozens of native languages that are spoken throughout central and South American
@@bear2s232 In writing yes, it is possible to pick up 80% to 90% of the meaning. Speaking not really, it is possible to communicate, like 30%, but if people speak slowly and strive a bit, then, it could be 50% or 60%, of course with the help of the context
As a Chinese speaker who has learned Japanese, I’d say that the differences does create some minor confusion, but I still learned and picked up kanji terms much faster than other students who did not know Chinese. Also, knowledge in classical Chinese actually helped me more than modern Chinese as that’s the time period when the Japanese was influence by Chinese the most. Once I figured out the basic rules in how kanji are used and pronouced in Japanese, I was able to transpose some of what I know of Chinese characters into Japanese kanji. The 2 languages have lots of similarities that it definately helps to know one while learning the other.
I’m japanese and understand chinese. for japanese who like to read japanese novels, it’s easy to understand many clasic chinese vocabulary. 逍遥、天地開闢、天網恢々, 嶮岨, 曙光 etc.
As an Italian, this situation is similar to reading Maltese. Maltese is basically an odd dialect of Arabic with much of the more technical or litterary vocabulary taken from Sicilian, which is generally easy for me to understand. So I would be able to understand the jist of a text about the economic goals of the Maltese government, but have no clue if a passer by asked me for directions to the city centre.
as an Arabic speaker, I can understand the other half that you couldn’t 😊
By the same token, English is basically an odd dialect of Dutch with much of the more technical or literary vocabulary taken from French.
@@DarklordZagarna more or less 😅
Years ago when living in Japan, I took a trip to Beijing. Rather than paying the high tourist rate to go to the Great Wall of China, I hired a local taxi driver on the street for the day. Me speaking Japanese and he speaking Mandarin, the two of us couldn’t talk, but I was able to use basically a written pidgin to negotiate where we wanted to go, the timing, and the cost. The final element of the negotiation involved me buying his lunch. Did it all with kanji and non-verbal communications. It worked.
Amazing!
As a Chinese speaker who learns Japanese, I would say being able to recognize Kanji fast helps a lot in terms of reading speed. For casual readings I usually just skim over the kanji and make a small glimpse to the end of the sentence to make sure about negation, and that generally works well. But reading kanji is also a curse because relying too much on it means that it takes me much longer to actually remember the pronunciation of many words – they usually are just ambiguous in my mind and sometimes I need a few tries to get them correct when talking to people.
Back in the 90s my grandpa in China used to travel a lot for business. One time he met a Japanese tourist who sat next to him during the flight and they began to ‘talk’ to each other through writing in chinese / kanji. They ended up becoming penpals and the japanese family came back to China visiting us several times.
是个有趣的故事。it’s an interesting story。
[4:49] “切手” is an abbreviation of “切符手形(きっぷてがた)”
[7:17] “吃る” is a verbalization of “吃音(きつおん)”
[9:22]”勉強”is said to derive from “学者固当勉強(learners should work hard)”
吃る is どもる it has no common origin, right?
That makes sense. It’s easier for the Chinese to guess the meaning of the latter ones.
wow，it becomes much easier for Chinese to understand.
chinese can understand the full thing
I’m a Japanese learner who passed JLPT N2 several years ago. But it is the first time for me to know that 切手 is an abbreviation. What is the meaning of 手形 then?
A classic example occurred in the 1980s when Japanese investors established a factory in China. They hung a slogan reading “油断一秒、怪我一生.” Chinese workers unfamiliar with Japanese were initially startled by the perceived rigor of the slogan due to a linguistic misunderstanding. In Chinese, the words translate to: “油” refers to oil, “断” means to stop or cease, “一秒” is one second, “怪” signifies blame, “我” is me, and “一生” stands for one’s entire life. Hence, Chinese workers interpreted it as, if the oil (in a machine or something else) stops for a second, one should blame oneself for the rest of their life. However, in Japanese, “油断” actually means negligence, “一秒” remains as one second, “怪我” signifies to sustain an injury, and “一生” still means one’s entire life. The actual intent of the slogan is to warn that a moment of negligence can result in lifelong harm.
This is a good one. 那只能记得加油了😂
So according to your explanation, it should be translated into “疏忽一時，受害一生” or something like that.
Did it become a proverb?
@@303Cyes,but 😂😅
That’s because 油断 and 怪我 are both are atejis, if not from Buddhist terminologies. They using chinese characters’ sounds to transliterate non-Chinese words