How Similar Are Chinese and Japanese?

Поделиться
HTML-код
  • Опубликовано: 6 июн 2024
  • This video looks at the similarities (and differences!) between Chinese (Mandarin) and Japanese, two unrelated languages that have mutually influenced each other. Learn Chinese with ChineseClass101: ► bit.ly/Class101Chinese ◄, or learn Japanese with JapanesePod101: ► bit.ly/japanese-pod-101 ◄
    (Full disclosure: if you sign up for a premium account, Langfocus receives a small referral fee. But the free account is great too!)
    Thanks to Eric Yang and Hao Yi for their Mandarin audio voice samples!
    Support Langfocus on Patreon: / langfocus
    Special thanks to: Nicholas Shelokov, Sebastian Langshaw, Brandon Gonzalez, 谷雨 穆, Adrian Zhang, Vadim Sobolev, Yixin Alfred Wong, Kaan Ergen, Sky Vied, Romain Paulus, Panot, Erik Edelmann, Bennet, James Zavaleta, Ulrike Baumann, Ian Martyn, Justin Faist, Jeff Miller, Stephen Lawson, Howard Stratton, George Greene, and Panthea Madjidi for their generous Patreon support.
    / langfocus
    / langfocus
    / langfocus
    langfocus.com
    Music: Intro: "Sax Attack" by Dougie Wood.
    Body: "Which Part Me Born Free" by The Passion Hi-Fi. This track is unequivocally free for commercial use, scammers don't try to copyright claim it. Source: www.soundclick.com/bands/page...
    Outro: "Circular" by Gunnar Olsen.
    00:00 Quiz time!
    00:25 The short answer: Japanese and Chinese are unrelated
    01:07 The phonology of Chinese and Japanese
    01:57 Structure of Chinese and Japanese
    04:21 Chinese characters and vocabulary
    09:16 Wasei kango: Japanese-created Chinese words
    10:09 Japanese "returned loan" words in Chinese
    11:37 Final comments

Комментарии • 16 тыс.

  • @Langfocus
    @Langfocus  4 года назад +514

    Hi everyone! If you're currently learning Chinese, check out ChineseClass101 ►( bit.ly/Class101Chinese )◄ - one of the best ways to learn Chinese. Or for Japanese, check out JapanesePod101 ►( bit.ly/japanese-pod-101 )◄. I'm an active member on several Pod101 and Class101 sites, and I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I do!
    For 32 other languages, check out my review! ► langfocus.com/innovative-language-podcasts/ ◄
    (Full disclosure: if you sign up for a premium account, Langfocus receives a small referral fee. But if I didn't like it, I wouldn't recommend it!)

    • @serapkaratas2149
      @serapkaratas2149 4 года назад +6

      I LOVE THIS VIDEO! can you do more like this? Like: how similiar are Dutch and German? Or: how similiar are hindi & Hebrew??? I LOVE IT

    • @renatosilva5304
      @renatosilva5304 4 года назад +3

      I was wondering if you mean Mandarin when you use the word "chinese" as a language.
      The official dialect of China is Mandarin, also call "Putonghua". More than 70% of the Chinese population speaks Mandarin, but there are also several other major dialects in use in China: Yue (Cantonese), Xiang (Hunanese), Min dialect, Gan dialect, Wu dialect, and Kejia or Hakka dialect.
      While the languages spoken in China are numerous, about seven groups are considered as the most important.
      Mandarin. Mandarin is the top language among the groups. ...
      Wu. On the coastal area in Shanghai, Wu is the Chinese dialect spoken. ...
      Yue. ...
      Xiang. ...
      Min. ...
      Gan. ...
      Hakka.

    • @Pr3ppie
      @Pr3ppie 4 года назад +2

      Langfocus Why does Japanese language somehow sound more like the Malay or Indonesia language rather than Chinese?

    • @jpshushumoo4048
      @jpshushumoo4048 4 года назад +2

      It's great that there are videos like this talking about the differences between Japanese and Chinese but they are much more similar than they are different. The fact of the matter is that Japanese as a written and academic language much like Korean was the result of heavy Chinese influence. I know this is going to come as a shock to most people on this video and probably the video creator as well but Japan's history stems to its Chinese related origins. Sorry to all Meiji Restoration enthusiasts but Japan didn't start because Izanagi and Izanami had tons of god children and then created the Yamato people. It started when Qin court advisor Xu Fu fled China and settled in Japan during the late term of the first Chinese Emperor's reign - the part where he went crazy and wanted all his ministers to help him find the elixir of immortality. This is why you'll find so much of Japanese culture relatable not to modern day China of course but to war-like China back in the era of Qin. As for the rest of its culture much of that is more well known to people on this side of the world. Influence from Buddhist Tang China. That's where most of the yokai and Japan's famous katana and motif of cherry blossoms come from among other things.
      So taking that to the language aspect you'll also find that Chinese isn't always SVO and in fact this is a much more modern form of the language. Meanwhile the same or similar Japanese SOV form is present in older forms of Chinese - and Cantonese which many people on this side of the world will point to when talking about older forms of Chinese. For example saying "I am telling you" (SVO in English where I = S, am telling = V, you = O) would be 我对你说 (SOV where 我 = S, 对你 = O, 说 = V) and similarly 私はあなたに話します (私は = S, あなたに = O, 話します = V) You can't say 我说对你. That doesn't make sense. On a side note 对 here holds the same place value as に in this sentence. Like the video suggests in Japan there's inflection where words are changed to add meaning while in Chinese you'd just add a word. BUT this is related in that the particles like に take the place of words. In this case both things mean "directed at" the object. Other particles also have this direct one to one correlation. Meanwhile verb conjugation like the different inflections of verbs in the video's examples are related to the Ainu local grammer structure of which Xu Fu and early Japanese settlers adopted to differentiate themselves from Qin China. Even the term Yamato which is the Japanese word for their people is derived from Chinese and then changed to fit with the more confident Japan of the Meiji Restoration. The bottom line here is the Meiji Restoration changed or hid a ton of what Japan was in order to promote the Dainippon state they were trying to build.
      In fact you can get so much more understanding of China from looking at Japanese culture. One of the best places on youtube for this is Gaijin Goomba's channel. He's done a great job of explaining the histories and origins of much of Japan's history so be sure to check him out if you haven't!

    • @user-gs3in1sp1u
      @user-gs3in1sp1u 4 года назад +2

      actually ,If you want to speak "I went school" in chinese you maybe should say "我去了学校" or "我去学校了"

  • @sath6089
    @sath6089 4 года назад +1873

    Me: * Finally learns new language *
    The native speaker I'm trying to communicate with: "Who are you and why do you want to eat my children"

    • @Langfocus
      @Langfocus  4 года назад +588

      Say thanks to Duolingo.

    • @sath6089
      @sath6089 4 года назад +232

      I swear that bird is gonna kill me because it's been 4 months since I haven't opened the app. Remember me when i get kidna-
      _he didnt took his lessons so i took his life_

    • @tobito99
      @tobito99 4 года назад +9

      Transient Rain I will do my lessons! I swear!

    • @catchonk18
      @catchonk18 3 года назад +7

      *nani*
      But that’s fine some Hong Kong people know English

    • @lionberryofskyclan
      @lionberryofskyclan 3 года назад +2

      @Shuriken Master r/woooosh
      I am dumb.

  • @PsychosisFire
    @PsychosisFire 4 года назад +1518

    "Cat bla fish bla food bla bla".
    Such articulation and poetry. Brought a tear to my eye.

    • @lucasan8855
      @lucasan8855 3 года назад +15

      Indeed

    • @gertrudemcstein6288
      @gertrudemcstein6288 3 года назад +21

      Tears of laughter, no doubt

    • @MrChickennugget360
      @MrChickennugget360 3 года назад +8

      could be a good haiku poem

    • @Pseudoplasmagore
      @Pseudoplasmagore 3 года назад

      I recognise that this is indeed sarcasm. You're welcome, y'all.

    • @3xperiment8
      @3xperiment8 2 года назад +1

      When portuguese native speakers hear Italians speaking + the talking hands.

  • @donkensler
    @donkensler 2 года назад +494

    When I was working in Japan my boss told me about when his wife and daughter were travelling in China. One day they had to ask a passerby for directions when someone came up with the bright idea of pulling out a notepad and communicating via kanji. A basic level of mutual understanding was reached, directions were given and received, and everything ended happily.

    • @alextsau
      @alextsau Год назад +69

      That sounds like 筆談(conversation in writing) in the history of east Asia. People from China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam had different spoken languages, but they shared the same written characters(kanji/Hanzi), so they could communicate with each other with written words. I've heard that European people did similar things in the history, but in Latin.

    • @nashorngamingtm7711
      @nashorngamingtm7711 Год назад +2

      @@alextsau that's probably true, vietnam was heavily influenced by china for a thousand years, there are native vietnamese characters based on chinese characters so that chinese people couldn't read.

    • @notabletex3534
      @notabletex3534 11 месяцев назад +3

      ​@@alextsauits like in laos cambodia and thailand that has a border between themselves and in its writing the sketch is very similar as in Korea, Japan and China and historically it is linked even when the Khmer empire existed, these were annexed and culturally similar

    • @spectator4786
      @spectator4786 11 месяцев назад +5

      I had this experience, my friend a Cantonese speaker , did exactly this, first time in Japan and communication via Han script.

    • @it.is.mario.
      @it.is.mario. 9 месяцев назад

      And then they went to Nanjing.....💀

  • @vnXun
    @vnXun 7 месяцев назад +29

    My friend and I are Vietnamese, I've been self-studying Japanese for a few years and he just started learning Chinese at university. Sometimes when we are just chilling in Discord (maybe waiting for other friends, or we're about to go to bed) he would type some Chinese sentences he remember from his lessons and I would try to guess the meaning of those, and translate a few words into Sino-Vietnamese if I can. It's very interesting how similar (and different) the three languages are.

  • @aro4457
    @aro4457 3 года назад +4666

    I’m a native Chinese speaker and “Cat blah Fish blah Food blah blah” is a pretty accurate way of describing how I read Japanese texts

    • @NovaM87
      @NovaM87 3 года назад +200

      You said what I want to say 😀

    • @bells1297
      @bells1297 2 года назад +29

      Yes

    • @nishikiakane4585
      @nishikiakane4585 2 года назад +91

      我学日语之前也是这样的。遇到全都是片假名、平假名的日语句子不知所措🤣

    • @kuanwen5471
      @kuanwen5471 2 года назад +8

      True…

    • @user-mj2lg3fv1g
      @user-mj2lg3fv1g 2 года назад +43

      well it's actually more seemed to have a possible meaning to guess, for example: plane blah blah blah _a character that looks like "take out" but it's actually not_ blah blah blah

  • @TheBiochemist809
    @TheBiochemist809 4 года назад +4943

    Fun fact: The word 手紙 (tegami) in Japanese means ''letter", but in Chinese it means "toilet paper"

    • @lloydclegg7656
      @lloydclegg7656 4 года назад +164

      Wow is Chinese" tegami" meen hand paper?

    • @Jason-rj7ww
      @Jason-rj7ww 4 года назад +319

      it means finger 手指 in cantonese

    • @user-ud2ee8rf8o
      @user-ud2ee8rf8o 4 года назад +53

      @@lloydclegg7656 yeah, just the literal meaning

    • @DeactivatedCharcoal
      @DeactivatedCharcoal 4 года назад +82

      This could cause problems at the post office when mailing a "letter"

    • @TheBiochemist809
      @TheBiochemist809 4 года назад +63

      @@DeactivatedCharcoal Yes, Japanese and Chinese have some differences in vocabulary. But there are other words for letter Chinese can use, for example 信 (xìn) or 书信 (shūxìn)

  • @wilsons2882
    @wilsons2882 Год назад +13

    the visuals are consistent and adds up to the overall appeal. the appeal of being concise yet detailed. its very thought provoking and interesting. love the videos. nothing comes close to Langfocus. its my personal benchmark for linguistic studies and how projects should come out not as close to Paul san but it's definitely a goal.

    • @Langfocus
      @Langfocus  Год назад +4

      Thanks. I just try to make good videos about things I’m interested in.

    • @wilsons2882
      @wilsons2882 Год назад

      @@Langfocus thank you for the all the content you put out for all of us. the audiovisual narrative and information layout is totally astounding.

  • @Themindofreyrey
    @Themindofreyrey 2 года назад +2

    Very detailed video. Loved it!

  • @thedamntrain
    @thedamntrain 5 лет назад +4218

    *Chinese: I am SVO language*
    *Japanese: I am SOV language*
    *Russian: Hold my vodka. "He went to school" can be:*
    *SVO: Он пошёл в школу (lit.: He went to school)*
    *SOV: Он в школу пошёл (lit.: He to school went)*
    *VSO: Пошёл он в школу (lit.: Went he to school)*
    *VOS: Пошёл в школу он (lit. Went to school he)*
    *OSV: В школу он пошёл (lit. To school he went)*
    *OVS: В школу пошёл он (lit. To school went he)*
    *All of these forms are grammatically correct in Russian*
    P.S. Even though all of these forms are grammatically correct, some of them are still more preferable and sound more natural in different circumstances and thus may contain slightly different meaning (but English translation would still be the same). SVO and SOV are the most commonly used word orders but in some cases other word orders would seem more natural. Word order can also change the emphasize in your sentence
    After some experience of speaking and reading Russian you will automatically chose the most natural word order in any particular case
    I wouldn't call Russian word order 100% free, you still need need to learn some rules, but it's definitely much more flexible and much less strict than in English and most of other languages

    • @novvain495
      @novvain495 5 лет назад +503

      Noun cases are the best.
      Free word order best word order.

    • @thedamntrain
      @thedamntrain 5 лет назад +383

      @@novvain495 Yeah, true. They are hard to learn for non-native speakers, but if you master them - you can write beautiful sentences. It's also easy to write poems in such languages due to free word order

    • @novvain495
      @novvain495 5 лет назад +90

      @@thedamntrain My native language, Romanian has noun cases, but the accusative and Nominative share the same endings, but still you can change the order to SVO (default), VSO and SOV, but since the Dative has different endings, you can put the indirect object where you want.
      EG: I gave the boy a book
      SVIO= Am dat băiatului o carte
      VSIO= (the same as above)
      SIOV= Eu băiatului o carte am dat
      ISVO= Băiatului am dat o carte
      And so on. This does not happen in other romance languages.
      Although Russian's case system surpassed romanian's by a lot.

    • @thedamntrain
      @thedamntrain 5 лет назад +107

      @@novvain495 Yeah, we have six cases in Russian for EVERY situation that can happen in your speach, so there are almost no situations when you can't take one word from the end of a sentence and put it straight to the beginning. You almost always can do it and it will always be grammaticaly correct. Of course, we have most common word orders - SVO and SOV, we usually use them in our speach. So if you say OVS- "В школу пошёл он" - people may be surprised with your unusual and uncommon style of speach, but no one will tell you that this is grammaticaly wrong. People will still understand you, because the meaning of your sentence didn't change. Except for some rare situations, word order doesn't affect meaning. That's why we have a huge amount of poets - Russian is literally created for them. It's pretty useful - if you can't find a rhyme - you can take it from anywhere in the sentence, add to the end and enjoy your rhyme!

    • @ionthruster9572
      @ionthruster9572 5 лет назад +362

      actually,in Chinese,we can say:
      你吃饭了吗?svo
      饭你吃了吗?osv
      你饭吃了吗?sov
      吃饭了吗你?vos
      吃你饭了吗?vso
      饭吃了吗你?ovs
      LOL
      they have a little different but they both mean:have you had your meal?

  • @ani-yf3pt
    @ani-yf3pt 5 лет назад +4661

    actually,most of the chinese from mainland have no trouble reading traditional Chinese characters.😂 I have no idea why we understand it without systemically learning it but that is the fact.
    看得懂繁體的大陸小夥伴們舉手🙋🏻

    • @eki3300
      @eki3300 5 лет назад +218

      因为小时候会看很多港台翻译的日本动漫,像数码宝贝、神奇宝贝之类的,也会看很多香港电影和台湾的综艺,再加上港台有很多歌手大陆人也很喜欢,因此潜移默化的就学会了大部分会常常用到的繁体字。

    • @jzm1926
      @jzm1926 5 лет назад +401

      繁体完全看的懂,但是不会写

    • @hechen9980
      @hechen9980 5 лет назад +144

      Probably just because the main base structure haven't changed so if someone from China(uses simplified) goes to Taiwan(uses traditional) would have no problem understanding I myself is one of them as well
      不过还是看不惯台湾左到右上到下的中国传统写法

    • @user-us8gm6mq4g
      @user-us8gm6mq4g 5 лет назад +40

      Annie L 哈哈哈哈哈哈哈是的 就莫名其妙的能看懂

    • @gmax9931
      @gmax9931 5 лет назад +128

      大陆人都能看懂繁体字,只是不会写

  • @user-ug5pe1zx6y
    @user-ug5pe1zx6y 2 года назад +11

    Good job,you have explained clearly on the difference and similarity of Chinese and Japanese language,thanks!

  • @AnoNymous-2013
    @AnoNymous-2013 2 года назад +1

    Amazing content! Thank you.

  • @zoom0ut
    @zoom0ut 4 года назад +3737

    im a Chinese speaker and this "Cat bla fish bla food bla bla" really made my day. LOL

    • @matf5593
      @matf5593 4 года назад +261

      Yeah. I loved this example choice. Lol
      I speak Japanese but I like trying to read Chinese websites.... Mission nearly impossible but it's fun!

    • @XiaoMof
      @XiaoMof 4 года назад +162

      Matthew Fairbairn As a Chinese speaker trying to read a Japanese website and determine is meaning is hard but fun! Kinda like a puzzle!

    • @Incognito-rb4tz
      @Incognito-rb4tz 4 года назад

      me dumb :p ww

    • @domingochang9887
      @domingochang9887 4 года назад +22

      Same here 🤣🤣🤣 literally burst out laughing

    • @LittleWhole
      @LittleWhole 4 года назад +28

      @@XiaoMof I do this a lot too, but I made sure to get a rudimentary understanding of Japanese grammar and some Japanese-only kanji so I don't run into 大丈夫 and get confused XD

  • @archdukesnowman2240
    @archdukesnowman2240 4 года назад +494

    Love the progression of the example sentences at the beginning:
    私はタバコを吸わない:I don't smoke cigarettes
    在室内不能描烟: Basically means "No smoking indoors"
    警察: means police
    The thai sentence means I'm in jail
    Guess he didn't stick to not smoking huh lol.

    • @d0m2288
      @d0m2288 4 года назад +51

      Ha, funny easter egg for the few that could read them all. I can only read the Japanese one so I totally missed it.

    • @angelkilier
      @angelkilier 4 года назад +24

      It's 抽烟, not 描烟

    • @user-os3wd7sh9u
      @user-os3wd7sh9u 4 года назад

      Franklin Zhang 不知道那个是啥输入法

    • @jiaxinjin
      @jiaxinjin 4 года назад +4

      It is 抽 not 描

    • @user-ji8uo2wm3d
      @user-ji8uo2wm3d 4 года назад +9

      描烟 sounds like depicting a picture of cigarettes lol

  • @dimitryrusu4022
    @dimitryrusu4022 2 месяца назад

    Thanks! It was exactly the kind of explanation I looked for

  • @gangwei7126
    @gangwei7126 2 года назад +1

    Good work. Thanks!

  • @raspberryp
    @raspberryp 4 года назад +891

    8:05
    It’s same when Japanese people try to read Chinese. For example...
    我愛你 (It means “I love you” in Chinese.)
    Japanese people can read 我 and 愛, but can’t read 你, so it’s like...
    I love bla

    • @user-ji8uo2wm3d
      @user-ji8uo2wm3d 4 года назад +85

      I wonder if Japanese people will read “我爱你” as "My love bla".

    • @jinhonglian3576
      @jinhonglian3576 4 года назад +8

      wa ta shi (to) ai?
      sou de su ga?
      i learn japanese recently

    • @user-gy2ii2or5h
      @user-gy2ii2or5h 4 года назад +81

      actually, japanese don't use the character "你"
      so it's like " me love ...what??"
      but,since 我愛你 is famous Chinese sentence, almost every japanese understand the meaning and pronounciation.

    • @marvin5312
      @marvin5312 4 года назад +34

      It's like so many chinese knows the meaning of 愛してる.

    • @kiw6024
      @kiw6024 4 года назад +4

      @@user-gy2ii2or5h Oh, I didn't know 你 is not used in Japanese. Suprised as a one who learns both Japanese and Chinese. I just easily thought all chinese characters would shared of course eventhough I really haven't seen 你 in any Japanese senteces.

  • @shackled1502
    @shackled1502 3 года назад +743

    the thai text in the beginning literally translates to “I am in prison” lmao

  • @cshion
    @cshion 2 года назад +5

    I'm a native speaker of both, and wow this summary is amazingly accurate! Thanks Paul, you made my day!
    Maybe just one comment about the tone: I think the Japanese language is somehow tonic, not in a linguistic sense (they still get the meaning) but there is certainly a natural tone for each word/sentence (... and yes some are pretty picky about it). There are also a few cases where you can only differentiate the words by tone (e.g. kaki: 柿/persimmon (accent on "ki") vs 牡蠣/oyster (accent on "ka") e.g. hashi: 橋/bridge (accent on "shi") vs 箸/chop sticks (accent on "ha")) but they are indeed super rare.

    • @Langfocus
      @Langfocus  2 года назад +3

      Yeah, there is something in Japanese called pitch accent (高低アクセント), which is technically part of the word, and a different accent can indicate that it’s a different word with a different meaning. But in context they almost never cause confusion. Like, if I say I’m going to eat an あめ and I use the pitch accent for “rain”, you’ll still know that I mean “candy”.
      And of course, the pitch accents differ depending on the region. I often discuss certain words with my Japanese wife and her parents, and there’s often a debate over which accent is correct, or whether a certain accent is standard or dialectal, etc.

  • @xpxp2839
    @xpxp2839 11 месяцев назад +1

    thank you very much for your analysis😊

  • @tiansunli2463
    @tiansunli2463 7 лет назад +3574

    I'm Chinese, I have no problem reading the text on the cover of Japanese porn.

  • @DiscoFlye
    @DiscoFlye 4 года назад +849

    THE CAT WAS EATEN BY A FISH

    • @JCLIAO007
      @JCLIAO007 4 года назад +31

      这只猫被一条鱼吃了。

    • @matf5593
      @matf5593 4 года назад +47

      猫はめっちゃ吃驚した!
      The cat was very surprised!

    • @jayeden3532
      @jayeden3532 4 года назад +32

      Sharks are fish, so it could happen😂

    • @Incognito-rb4tz
      @Incognito-rb4tz 4 года назад +4

      @@JCLIAO007
      這只貓被一條魚吃了。
      一條魚把這只貓吃了。
      一條魚吃了這隻貓。
      魚吃貓

    • @Akirashinto
      @Akirashinto 4 года назад +7

      The cat bla eaten bla bla fish

  • @krystalkleardonut8692
    @krystalkleardonut8692 Год назад +8

    This is a great video and it is very educational, thank you for making this! :)
    However, for more educational purposes:
    1:29 老实 means "Honest", not "Naive". Maybe you can interpretate it as the person is too honest that they become naive, but 老实 means Honest literally.
    3:32 Actually, you can add a “了 ( Le )” or “过 ( Guò )” inside to show you have already done that action!
    Examples are:
    我去了学校 = I went to school
    我去学校了 = I have went to school
    我去过学校了 = I have already went to school

    • @yanliew4027
      @yanliew4027 9 месяцев назад

      I went to school. Past tense went
      I have gone to school. Past participle tense gone etc.

  • @bremen1919
    @bremen1919 7 месяцев назад +47

    Great video!
    As a Japanese, I can't think of a life without Kanjis.
    A sentence made only by Hiragana and Katakana is a literal hell😭

    • @user-in5yv7gg8o
      @user-in5yv7gg8o 6 месяцев назад +1

      日本人跟慰安妇道歉

    • @Brinquitos9
      @Brinquitos9 4 месяца назад +2

      im a Japanese learner and I agree kanjis are very important to text

    • @theorixlol2018
      @theorixlol2018 4 месяца назад +1

      Could I ask if, like, a sentence made only using Kanji could exist?

    • @stanliux
      @stanliux 4 месяца назад +3

      ​@@theorixlol2018Not in modern japanese.

    • @carlliu2552
      @carlliu2552 4 месяца назад

      钓鱼岛是中国的!

  • @airspacebao
    @airspacebao 3 года назад +2013

    As a Chinese who has traveled to Japan, I will answer the last question of the video. I can basically understand road signs, signboards, place names, signs, etc. I can understand 50% of menus and product names. For news, I can guess the topic it discusses.

    • @FffffffffffffffffffffffffffffL
      @FffffffffffffffffffffffffffffL 3 года назад +71

      Why are there not more Chinese people who are bilingual in Japanese, or Japanese people who are bilingual in Chinese? I feel like I never hear about these people. Meanwhile in Europe it's very common to be bilingual or trilingual

    • @Kiwi_89
      @Kiwi_89 3 года назад +238

      @@FffffffffffffffffffffffffffffL In many European countries students learn English + another European language while in (I believe) most countries in Asia students only learn English as one foreign language

    • @paoloernesto2591
      @paoloernesto2591 3 года назад +122

      @@FffffffffffffffffffffffffffffL There's a similar situation in Brazil but even stranger because all of our neighbours are Spanish speakers, Spanish and Portuguese are quite intelligible, but bilingual Brazilians in Spanish are quite rare. Usually we learn only English as a foreign language, and those ones who want something else go to French.

    • @user-ss9jk8rc2m
      @user-ss9jk8rc2m 3 года назад +5

      so you can say bilingual or trilingual ? If we have not choose about langurage.Just like you probably can't understand me now, because I don't even know English

    • @yinenoch7877
      @yinenoch7877 3 года назад +102

      @@FffffffffffffffffffffffffffffL In China,Japanese is most popular second language for study,Japanese is very easy study to Chinese student.

  • @feliksovarondenisovich7706
    @feliksovarondenisovich7706 4 года назад +1662

    "You thought all Asian languages are the same? Racist!"
    Haha, love the comedy in the beginning! LOL!

    • @Jasiel.95
      @Jasiel.95 4 года назад +6

      Феликсов Аарон Денисович that was awesome! 😂

    • @frankwang5332
      @frankwang5332 4 года назад +13

      Что???However,I think it's difficult for both Asian and West European to learn Russian.😂😂😂

    • @mhp0810
      @mhp0810 4 года назад +7

      Yah there's no comedy there. Let's not pretend that language is synonymous with ethnicity

    • @user-gq5zi6fp5p
      @user-gq5zi6fp5p 4 года назад +2

      Штоп, сто?

    • @terrancechan6282
      @terrancechan6282 4 года назад

      Russia is an Asia country right?So Russian is the Asian language too

  • @Earnestboy-bw1jj
    @Earnestboy-bw1jj Год назад +31

    The phrase "我去学校" mentioned in video 3:37 in general Chinese means the present tense, which is "I go to school", while "我去了学校" correctly means "I went to school",The character "了" is important.

    • @loser_CaO
      @loser_CaO Год назад

      No
      近代的旹候才出现这种鬼东西,白话文没有任何语法变化

    • @loser_CaO
      @loser_CaO Год назад

      尤其是葉聖陶搞的好事😅😅😅

    • @Earnestboy-bw1jj
      @Earnestboy-bw1jj Год назад

      @@loser_CaO 请问我提到的和葉聖陶有什么联系?我不知道这背后的故事,能否大致说一下

    • @Earnestboy-bw1jj
      @Earnestboy-bw1jj Год назад +1

      @@loser_CaO 但为什么中国大陆几乎所有官话地区都会习惯性在口语里加上“了”,这个推广过程也太快了吧😮,在古籍里一般不会加“了”,我感觉在古籍里会在行为动词前加上“已”比如:“昔人已乘黄鹤去”

    • @loser_CaO
      @loser_CaO Год назад

      @@Earnestboy-bw1jj 你不知道?

  • @andredesouza5374
    @andredesouza5374 2 года назад +2

    Excelente vídeo!!!

  • @jamesyan9436
    @jamesyan9436 7 лет назад +653

    As a native Cantonese Chinese who grew up in Australia, and also speak fluent Japanese, I have to say, this video is BY FAR the most accurate representation of the differences I have ever watched on RUclips.
    Thank you Paul, well done and please keep up the awesome work!
    You ROCK dude!

    • @jamesyan9436
      @jamesyan9436 7 лет назад +31

      To answer your question, I don't have much difficulty understanding Japanese anymore, but back when I was studying Japanese I just took a guess of the core meaning of the text by looking at the kanji first and then fill up the missing context with hiragana. It's quite convenient I must admit
      However, the biggest hurdle is still the kunyomi...Chinese is often represented as onyomi, then there's keigo (OMG)
      but hey! speaking English has a huuuuuge advantage! since I could translate most katagana directly =)

    • @eycg
      @eycg 5 лет назад

      I totally agree

    • @DD-oz9tj
      @DD-oz9tj 5 лет назад

      James Yan Not a native English speaker? Only a native Cantonese speaker?

    • @ccpmustfall6445
      @ccpmustfall6445 3 года назад

      @@DD-oz9tj You can learn english later on =.=

    • @Crazy_Henry11
      @Crazy_Henry11 2 года назад +1

      @@ccpmustfall6445 名字很不错

  • @ndubuisiezeoye2099
    @ndubuisiezeoye2099 2 года назад

    Thanks for the knowledge imparted

  • @nineekahnineekah5385
    @nineekahnineekah5385 2 года назад +1

    You are brilliant!!!! Thank you teacher

  • @leonerdodavin92
    @leonerdodavin92 7 лет назад +232

    There's actually this funny phrase called "大丈夫" which in Chinese meant "Manly man". However in Japanese, it meant "are you okay?". It was extremely confusing when I saw it in japanese text the first time.

    • @jonahwu9230
      @jonahwu9230 7 лет назад +9

      also 天地無用 :D

    • @khongkokwai
      @khongkokwai 7 лет назад +73

      I guess if a man isn't ok, he won't seem so manly anymore.

    • @mason7031
      @mason7031 7 лет назад +4

      jonah wu 帝王切开

    • @mason7031
      @mason7031 7 лет назад +8

      Khong Kok Wai 大丈夫大丈夫,不大丈夫大丈夫😂

    • @foreveryoung8287
      @foreveryoung8287 7 лет назад +1

      Davin Cher hahaha! That made laugh :D

  • @PedroSantos-fw6gk
    @PedroSantos-fw6gk 5 лет назад +706

    7:40 "The cat plans to eat fish.
    The cat was eaten by a fish."
    Poor cat 😂 something went wrong with his planning.

    • @happydragon5077
      @happydragon5077 5 лет назад +38

      It was a big fish.

    • @casual3266
      @casual3266 5 лет назад +17

      Pedro Schmitz fish like a shark or something

    • @Fun-os1ij
      @Fun-os1ij 5 лет назад +3

      Yeah unfortunately sometimes even this situation might happen😄

    • @RealNameNeverUsed
      @RealNameNeverUsed 5 лет назад +22

      Still a better story than Twilight.

    • @weishan4611
      @weishan4611 5 лет назад

      For a moment I thought i must have misheard😂

  • @simplefahrenheit4318
    @simplefahrenheit4318 7 дней назад +1

    The video is far more informative (and interesting) then I was expecting

    • @Langfocus
      @Langfocus  7 дней назад

      I’m glad to hear that!

  • @MerylMunara
    @MerylMunara 2 года назад +19

    I speak beginner-intermediate Japanese and referring to your 8:20 part, I also had the same experience when I went to Taiwan. I speak pretty much zero Mandarin/Chinese but I survived due to my Kanji knowledge, at least I can order food and use the MRT. 😂 The fact that Japanese Kanji is based from Traditional Chinese which is used in Taiwan (and also HK) is super helpful too!

    • @genyo6506
      @genyo6506 2 года назад +2

      中国大陆在1956年之前一直以来都是使用繁体字,后面为了减少文盲,才开始推行简体字,但是香港、澳门、台湾还是保留的繁体字的使用

  • @Commander_HW
    @Commander_HW 7 лет назад +319

    chinese here. when someone hands me a japanese product, i can pretty much read the directions and get an idea what that product is for, and how to use it.

    • @lecoureurdesbois86
      @lecoureurdesbois86 7 лет назад +12

      C Park you made my day

    • @user-wl9hh9lu7k
      @user-wl9hh9lu7k 7 лет назад +1

      C Park u got the point bro

    • @Shenzhou.
      @Shenzhou. 7 лет назад +13

      JAVs tend to have Chinese Subtitles. Good for us ^^.

    • @minjutge5335
      @minjutge5335 7 лет назад +1

      你们这些人讨论了半天,我就想知道你们有没有看过行书,草书还有我的“鬼画符”。大体结构和笔画相似,意思就不会差太远。。。另外,想知道你们看的懂甲骨文的吧。

    • @tonysbooth9179
      @tonysbooth9179 7 лет назад

      Minjut Ge 看不懂

  • @sylviasummerful
    @sylviasummerful 7 лет назад +141

    Chinese people like me who was educated all the things in simplify Chinese have no trouble to recognize traditional Chinese charaters. it's basically same to us to read, and type, just a little bit hard to hand writting

    • @cm01
      @cm01 7 лет назад

      sylviasummerful Because Chinese is not my native language, I can recognize what traditional characters' simplified counterparts are quite often, but probably not as much as you. How long have you been learning English by the way?

    • @sylviasummerful
      @sylviasummerful 7 лет назад +6

      Caleb McCall almost all the Chinese students in my age was force to learn English from middle school. but what we acturally learned from classes are nothing to use. For me, I start to speak English seriously since I met my boyfriend 1 year ago, who is a native American, Chinese blood and learned Japaness before :) He had trouble with learning Chinese between recognize charators and words, he can read some if charator comes individually, but when they are combine together, he always make me laughing :D

    • @brainwashkenny1
      @brainwashkenny1 7 лет назад

      It took me 2 weeks to figure out simplified chinese characters, when I was in millitary.

    • @insuspectedrulling1082
      @insuspectedrulling1082 7 лет назад

      I don't believe you know how to write in bopomofo

    • @skylee274
      @skylee274 6 лет назад +7

      繁体字我放在句子里认识百分之99没有问题,拿出来就只能认识七成了。写的话感觉很少

  • @Peacewind152
    @Peacewind152 2 года назад +6

    I'm studying Japanese. I'm still at a fairly beginner level but I do know a lot of N5 & N4 kanji. When I went to the local Chinese market, I picked up a newspaper in Chinese and was able to get the basics of an article. I even asked the lady behind the counter if I was correct. Turns out for most of it, I was.

  • @dathyr1
    @dathyr1 Год назад +3

    Thank you for this video on comparisons. LOL I like your Thai joke at the beginning quiz.
    I am a beginner in learning Japanese and some videos say that the Kanji vocabulary came from the Chinese, so I was wondering how much different the two languages are. Now I know from this video.
    Thank you very much for the grammar part of Japanese where you talk about the SOV order of grammar. Yes, I am noticing in allot of the Japanese sentences have the Verbs are at the end of the sentences.
    Japanese has 3 vocabularies with Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji lettering structures.
    Does the Chinese vocabularies also have multiple letter types to learn? I know you talk about different tones of Chinese.
    Anyway, learn something new everyday. Thank you and take care.

  • @TheStompy1988
    @TheStompy1988 3 года назад +844

    Jp: 手袋 (glove)
    Ch: 手袋 (hand bag)
    Jp: 家庭 (household)
    Ch: 家庭 (family)
    Jp: 迷路 (maze)
    Ch: 迷路 (lost (in a place))
    Jp: 我慢 (patience)
    Ch: 我慢 (I'm slow)
    Jp: 大家 (landlord)
    Ch: 大家 (everyone)
    Jp: 床 (floor)
    Ch: 床 (bed)
    🆕
    Jp: 私 (I)
    Ch: 私 (Private)
    Jp: 顔 (Face)
    Ch: 颜 (Color) *There is a different word*

    • @sidu9326
      @sidu9326 3 года назад +70

      But, in Japanese
      手さげ袋(te sage bukuro)=hand bag!

    • @TheStompy1988
      @TheStompy1988 3 года назад +65

      @@sidu9326 In Chinese, 手提袋 also means hand bag.

    • @sidu9326
      @sidu9326 3 года назад +15

      Sounds interesting!

    • @-cupcake-2400
      @-cupcake-2400 3 года назад +17

      Gloves in Chinese : 手套 shǒu tào(shou3 tao4)

    • @karaqakkzl
      @karaqakkzl 3 года назад +43

      Ch: 大丈夫 (a real men)
      Jp: 大丈夫 (i'm fine)
      Ch: you er girl

  • @kr_caroline1000
    @kr_caroline1000 4 года назад +1448

    Library in
    Japanese : 図書館(Toshokan)
    Chinese: 图书馆(Túshūguǎn)
    Korean:도서관 (Doseogwan)
    Everything in
    Japanese: 全部(Zenbu)
    Chinese:全部(quánbù)
    Korean:전부(jeonbu)
    Interesting.

    • @wanxinmike
      @wanxinmike 4 года назад +195

      This only proves the point on pronunciation similarities because the modern word for library in Chinese is a borrowed word from Japanese. 图书馆 is a Japanese-invented noun reverse adopted in China in 1896.

    • @xxxppp4741
      @xxxppp4741 4 года назад +72

      @@wanxinmike Not true. ‘图书馆’ these three characters are actually Chinese. Do your own research.

    • @wanxinmike
      @wanxinmike 4 года назад +187

      @@xxxppp4741 Of course the characters are Chinese. What I'm saying is that the terminology is Japanese. Why don't you do more research instead?

    • @fgdfhdhjd7776
      @fgdfhdhjd7776 4 года назад +29

      kabigon the pronounciation is determined by the characters in the borrowing country, hence the similarity proved the common roots of the characters. You should check. This RUclipsr also said how the pronunciation was determined when it is borrowed

    • @fgdfhdhjd7776
      @fgdfhdhjd7776 4 года назад +7

      kabigon check 10:41.

  • @sir9500
    @sir9500 Год назад +26

    The meaning of “I went to school “, usually expressed in Chinese is “我去过学校了” or “我去了学校”. “I have gone to school “ usually express in Chinese is “我已经去过学校了”.

    • @peoplestreamoffish3258
      @peoplestreamoffish3258 Год назад

      “我去过学校了”和“我已经去过学校了”是相同意思的,都是“l have gone to shool ”。“我去学校了”更符合“l went to shool"

    • @Verg1l0
      @Verg1l0 Год назад

      @@peoplestreamoffish3258 我去过学校了更好,native Chinese speaker here

  • @georgejin8695
    @georgejin8695 2 года назад +3

    This is a great video.
    I would like to correct one word you mentioned in the video. When you talked about the "Examples of Wasei Kango", the first word "忍者" was not created by Japanese. The word and pronunciation of "忍者" (ninja) was used in ancient China back to "宋“ dynasty or earlier. However, unlike Mandarin, the exact pronunciation and meaning now only exists in the rural county "Xiuning休宁" (Anhui province, China). Xiuning dialect sounds much like Japanese. Some research papers on Xiuning dialect are written by Japanese linguists .

  • @lawrenceyang7222
    @lawrenceyang7222 5 лет назад +620

    I am Chinese, and I am shocked a foreigner can understand both Chinese and Japanese so well. What you said it's all true, especially the part of Chinese people read Japanese: "cat bla bla fish bla bla food", totally agree! Your video just fantastic.

    • @sarangaborah4107
      @sarangaborah4107 4 года назад +33

      You are also speaking the language of Britain bro, love from India

    • @dumdum7786
      @dumdum7786 4 года назад +4

      It's kind of like when an English person tries to read Spanish. Like for the sentence "I call the police" in Spanish would be "
      Llamó a la policía". To an english speaker this just looks like blah blah the police.
      Also you were surprised how much a foreigner knew Chinese, but I live in the US, you speak better English than some of the native people here. 😂😂😂😂😂

    • @user-zs3wt2wx5m
      @user-zs3wt2wx5m 4 года назад +10

      @@user-jn3zs8yz9z 制杖别在这秀好吗?读不懂英文吧

    • @franzxaverflotze7096
      @franzxaverflotze7096 4 года назад +5

      @@user-jn3zs8yz9z 他给up主说的,up是加拿大人,用英文没问题啊

    • @user-nh3vj5qv4i
      @user-nh3vj5qv4i 4 года назад +4

      japan jackas 你是外国人吧,你这段话语法有问题,根本没法被读懂

  • @growler777
    @growler777 5 лет назад +614

    These days, Ariana Grande's tatoo "七輪" is bringing a lot of fuss on the 'net. The Japanese are laughing a lot because it means "barbecue" (precisely, a small barbecue to be placed on the table), but in Mandarin it means "Seven Rings".

    • @alkaideirauud9137
      @alkaideirauud9137 5 лет назад +288

      「七」means “seven” in both Mandarin and Japanese, the misunderstanding lies on the second character 「輪」, in modern China it means “cycle”, “wheel”, etc. and in Japanese it means “ring”. Japanese people find the tattoo funny because 「七輪」is a brand of barbecue oven in Japanese(imagine someone have a “Seven Eleven” tattoo, seven is ok and so is eleven, but “Seven Eleven” just reminds you of a convenient store). I’m a native Chinese and the first time I saw her tattoo I thought it represented “seven cycles(of life)”, because “seven wheels” sounded too ridiculous.😂😂😂

    • @sophiajune546
      @sophiajune546 5 лет назад +4

      Wouldn't it need a measure word?

    • @ghanighetok
      @ghanighetok 5 лет назад +40

      and this is why you don't wanna be edgy and put random "cool meaning" kanji tattoos on your body. unless you're a native of course.

    • @eugeneng7064
      @eugeneng7064 5 лет назад +2

      @@sophiajune546 Not in Chinese. It functions as it's own measure word. Really depends on intended meaning though

    • @jackyzhu9761
      @jackyzhu9761 5 лет назад +6

      She could have made it in Chinese, not Japanese

  • @NganNguyen-qv6zd
    @NganNguyen-qv6zd 2 года назад +1

    I hope langfocus makes more new videos

  • @kriwologie
    @kriwologie 2 года назад +1

    Love youre Videos ✌️👍👍👍

  • @XzFreaKzX
    @XzFreaKzX 8 лет назад +2853

    cat bla fish bla food bla bla

    • @annmax7786
      @annmax7786 8 лет назад +133

      it was brilliant! ))

    • @marsamet128
      @marsamet128 8 лет назад +213

      I laughed so hard when I heard that

    • @ugandanwarrior5657
      @ugandanwarrior5657 8 лет назад +275

      cat blyat fish blyat food blyat blyat

    • @TheLittleRussian2
      @TheLittleRussian2 8 лет назад +19

      +Don Carlo I hear exactly such convos on the street every day.

    • @scoshi6592
      @scoshi6592 8 лет назад +4

      LOOOOOL

  • @kalvon
    @kalvon 4 года назад +500

    How similar are Japanese and Chinese...
    Me: *HARD*

    • @RC-sc5li
      @RC-sc5li 3 года назад +28

      Actually, he should have mentioned some Chinese dialects rather than only Mandarin. Shanghainese is the dialect that most similar to Japanese. Cantonese, Fujianese, and Hokkien are also more similar to Japanese than Mandarin.
      Remember, Chinese is not just a single language.

    • @cczsus6513
      @cczsus6513 3 года назад +1

      @@RC-sc5li Late but Hokkien and Fujianese are basically the same I am from Fujian and I just call it Hokkien more specifically I am from Fuzhou there isn't really a closest language(still debated) but I personally believe Hokkien is the closest

    • @johndoe5346
      @johndoe5346 3 года назад +1

      @@RC-sc5li "Cantonese and Hokkien are more similar to Japanese than Mandarin"
      That's just not true... If anything Cantonese is more similar to Vietnamese than Japanese

    • @KrisNielsen0807
      @KrisNielsen0807 2 года назад +2

      @@johndoe5346 粵語 閩南語和國語具有親屬關係

    • @janet.isabela
      @janet.isabela 2 года назад +1

      In my opinion I think Chinese is harderr

  • @ricardoestrada5837
    @ricardoestrada5837 2 года назад +1

    Thanks!

  • @SpringBekyuu
    @SpringBekyuu 2 года назад +4

    This video is so useful. Other videos are just people from the two countries saying random words to show the differences and similarities, what I really wanted to know was about grammar and characters. Thank you!
    As an Advanced Japanese student I can understand chinese signboards, but the way mandarin has simplified characters just blows my mind. Also the fact that Chinese is SVO, my heart feels the pain when I remember how confusing was the SOV first time learning Japanese.
    I'm currently studying for JLPT N1, only when I pass I'll decide if I try studying Mandarin. Both beautiful languages :)

  • @Treeexe-cv8mf
    @Treeexe-cv8mf 2 года назад +224

    Take the word 勉強 as an example
    Japanese: study
    Chinese: forcing oneself / reluctant

    • @flyingpenguin223
      @flyingpenguin223 2 года назад +99

      I mean those are basically the same words

    • @yz293
      @yz293 2 года назад +19

      大丈夫
      Japanese:(it’s) fine / okay
      Chinese: big husband or big grown-up man

    • @user-nh3vj5qv4i
      @user-nh3vj5qv4i 2 года назад +5

      别勉强自己了

    • @nnwslswu
      @nnwslswu 2 года назад +3

      Or "barely" in Chinese

    • @minglin2814
      @minglin2814 2 года назад +2

      @@yz293 ye I was pretty shocked when I was in my weeb phase trying to type japanese with romaji and the word is completely different meaning in Chinese

  • @myowncomputerstuff
    @myowncomputerstuff 7 лет назад +232

    I feel so proud of myself for getting all four of the questions right at the beginning.

    • @chapmacpherson2626
      @chapmacpherson2626 7 лет назад +2

      same lol

    • @SchUlrich
      @SchUlrich 7 лет назад +6

      myowncomputerstuff I failed the last one, thought it was sanskrit not Thai.

    • @myowncomputerstuff
      @myowncomputerstuff 7 лет назад +11

      Dibe_007 A good trick to distinguish a South Asian language like Sanskrit is to look for a continuous horizontal line, with most of the character features being below the lines (not above, like Arabic).
      For example
      Hindi: क्या हाल है?
      Nepali: तिमीलाई कस्तो छ?
      Punjabi: ਤੁਸੀ ਕਿਵੇਂ ਹੋ?
      To quickly point out Thai, notice the many tiny circles on the characters (often referred to as "heads"), not all fonts include the heads on the characters, but if they do, you can be sure it is Thai. Without the heads, it may be easier to mix up with other Southeast Asian abugidas like Lao and Khmer.

    • @SchUlrich
      @SchUlrich 7 лет назад

      myowncomputerstuff oh thanks

    • @tomtinker8220
      @tomtinker8220 7 лет назад +4

      i did lose confidence when it was the two kanji tho. i need to study more.

  • @yugammalik2798
    @yugammalik2798 Год назад

    You are very knowledgeable person 😊

  • @augustawind69
    @augustawind69 2 года назад +17

    The phenomenon of "returned loan words" is so interesting to me. Especially as a native English speaker learning Japanese, and seeing words like "waifu" and "karaoke" that have made their way back to English as a Japanified version of the original English word.

    • @lpi3
      @lpi3 2 года назад

      Karaoke is english word? :/

    • @augustawind69
      @augustawind69 2 года назад +6

      @@lpi3 karaoke comes from the Japanese word 'karappo', which means empty, and 'okesutura', which is a loan word from the English "orchestra".

    • @lpi3
      @lpi3 2 года назад +3

      @@augustawind69 Thank you, I didn't know that. The greek origin of 'orchestra' makes this phenomenon even more impressive. I don't have any doubts that there is karaoke in Greece :) This means that word made interesting journey :)

  • @jayson5373
    @jayson5373 7 лет назад +116

    as a Chinese, like you said, I can read the sentence in your example just like cat bla fish bla eat bla bla

  • @n124ac9
    @n124ac9 2 года назад +106

    To say "I went to school" in Chinese, you would say:
    我去了學校。
    (wǒ qùle xuéxiào)
    With the character "了 (le)", indicating the complete past of the action.

    • @foxtail7363
      @foxtail7363 2 года назад +3

      Ohh I thought it dis characters
      学校
      for school I guess thats is traditional then and the other is simplifed. Even in Japanese we use the 学校

    • @unknownace3613
      @unknownace3613 2 года назад +5

      @@foxtail7363 actually some of the Japanese words are borrowed to create simplified Chinese

    • @augustinjoly8072
      @augustinjoly8072 2 года назад

      @@foxtail7363 you're right its 学校 but he right it in complicated character

    • @metrozlu4524
      @metrozlu4524 2 года назад +3

      我去過學校 aslo works well

    • @Yi-ol8dn
      @Yi-ol8dn 2 года назад +1

      Finally there is an answer to that part, I don’t think he understand how Chinese work completely but he has some good points.

  • @DamirKajtazKladusa
    @DamirKajtazKladusa 2 года назад +1

    Interesting video.

  • @Fullface
    @Fullface 8 месяцев назад +5

    日本人です。
    私の母から聞いた話です。昔母がイギリスに留学した時、そこで中華系マレーシア人の友だちができたそうです。基本的にはお互い英語でコミュニケーションを取っていました。でも、母はその頃まだ英語が得意ではなかったため、コミュニケーションが難しかった時もあったそうです。そんな時は、漢字を書いて、筆談で話していたと聞きました。
    実際私も子供の頃(もちろん英語は全く理解できなかった頃)、旅行の一環でロンドンのチャイナタウンに行った時、漢字を見てすごく安心したのを覚えています。それまでずっと読めない文字に囲まれていたので、少し読める文字を見た時にほっとしました。

    • @carlliu2552
      @carlliu2552 4 месяца назад

      钓鱼岛是中国的!

    • @joejoe7960
      @joejoe7960 2 месяца назад +3

      ​@@carlliu2552 这里没人说不是,友好交流应当是相互的。

    • @BallG-by1ro
      @BallG-by1ro Месяц назад

      😂​@@carlliu2552

    • @ShaJinManRen
      @ShaJinManRen 12 дней назад

      @@carlliu2552琉球乃中国之物

    • @Liam-ow3el
      @Liam-ow3el 10 дней назад

      傻逼

  • @sasayan_fps8604
    @sasayan_fps8604 5 лет назад +1010

    Thank you ancient chinese people for inventing Kanji(Chinese character).
    As a japanese, it's a little bit difficult to learn, but once we acquire it, it's very useful. I'm really appreciating it.
    我是日本人。我愛中国。偉大國家。

    • @davidyang6074
      @davidyang6074 5 лет назад +71

      ☮️ peace

    • @yimingliu7809
      @yimingliu7809 5 лет назад +40

      a ri ga to gu sei i ma su!!! We love you too...

    • @WadcaWymiaru
      @WadcaWymiaru 5 лет назад +6

      Anncient japanese language EVOLVED and absorbed many other japanic around. (Japan is NOT always populated by japanese, several aren't japanese, but they are absorbed to the ponit only few dozens live today)

    • @user-hj9uv2rq9c
      @user-hj9uv2rq9c 5 лет назад +37

      l am Chinese,but l love Japanese.Now l am learning it

    • @doozhvag
      @doozhvag 5 лет назад +7

      Sinian Fang
      I love you too, I learned putonghua so I am learning cantonese now. Wish you a good luck.

  • @shujitomita7781
    @shujitomita7781 7 лет назад +251

    Your understanding of the difference between Japanese and Chinese are quite right and I appreciate the way you explain it based on your vast knowledge about language. One addition is that japanese way of pronouncing Chinese characters are quite different as you explained but Japanese, especially high ranked people before Meiji reformation could read Chinese perfectly by some technique called Kanbun, even though phonetic way is Japanese but could understand the meaning of Chinese sentences. Kanbun is still taught in high school, especially studying Chinese Poems. Thank you.

    • @lawrencelee5647
      @lawrencelee5647 7 лет назад +1

      Hi Mr, just wondering if I may ask, why would Japanese school teach Chinese Poems?

    • @yuncc1104
      @yuncc1104 7 лет назад +16

      Chinese shcool also teach western poems, and japanese article

    • @skipthepump7714
      @skipthepump7714 7 лет назад +36

      Because it's classical literature .We also learn about western civilization. Knowledge belongs to the human race.

    • @annahsu185
      @annahsu185 7 лет назад +41

      why not ? In Korea, higher education still remains studying of Chinese literature and writting system. This language had influenced Korean and Japanese for centuries. It's just so resourceful to learn, and it's a treasure of the entire mankind.

    • @vimitas631
      @vimitas631 7 лет назад +29

      In Western schools, many Eastern topics are briefly touched upon or adapted. China acts much like Rome does in the West, so in school it kind of seems like learning one's roots.

  • @dziku2222
    @dziku2222 10 месяцев назад +3

    Actually I have a pretty fun situation, my best buddy started to learn Japanese in roughly the same time I started to learn Chinese, we don't know pretty much anything about the other language, but there were multiple talks and reading of the same text in 2 different languages we are learning together. Must say it's fun.

    • @user-gx3ux9qk6i
      @user-gx3ux9qk6i 9 месяцев назад

      because Japanese was developed on the basis of Chinese

  • @AnoNymous-2013
    @AnoNymous-2013 2 года назад +21

    I remember I was hanging out with my Asian friends, and we did this experiment. I would whisper something to my Chinese Malaysian friend adn she would write it, and then my Japanese friend would read it and say it loud back in English. Most of the time the meaning was intact.

  • @f2p122
    @f2p122 3 года назад +523

    I remember that when I was a child, there wasn't a Chinese version of most Nintendo games that existed, so the games my family had were mostly in Japanese (I couldn't read English back to that time). Since my family and I could neither speak Japanese, we guessed the meaning of dialogues by Kanji entirely. That feeling was strange that I didn't understand the meaning of 90% but from those fragmental pieces of Kanji, I can roughly know what I ought to do the next step.

    • @VieiraFi
      @VieiraFi 3 года назад +18

      What was the videogame system you were playing?
      I heard early videogames couldn't handle kanji, so they used kana (with spaces).

    • @FunnyParadox
      @FunnyParadox 2 года назад +23

      @@VieiraFi 8 bits couldn't, but 16 bits could (not every kanji but at least a sufficent amount)

    • @evanmuir4587
      @evanmuir4587 2 года назад +1

      pokemon

    • @BabySonicGT
      @BabySonicGT 2 года назад +12

      So you could see like :step 1 blah blah blah jump blah blah blah

    • @constantinestambolitis321
      @constantinestambolitis321 2 года назад

      @@BabySonicGT I believe communist China made everyone believe Chinese isn’t related to Japanese. Even the internet follows this propaganda. Even China got rid of characters recently that is now exclusive to Koreans and Japanese. The guy is good here but he was brainwashed.

  • @adelineinactivity
    @adelineinactivity 6 лет назад +335

    "the cat was eaten by a fish" - paul 2016

    • @hongfeng007
      @hongfeng007 6 лет назад

      con mèo ăn cá

    • @terrific1290
      @terrific1290 6 лет назад +6

      Well it is possible if it was a pirranha

    • @MrPoornakumar
      @MrPoornakumar 6 лет назад +2

      CloudQuake ! Why not, when a shark can eat a man (Shark is a fish too).

    • @pilivon
      @pilivon 5 лет назад

      Large catfish can swallow a cat.

    • @mq-mx-xq6315
      @mq-mx-xq6315 5 лет назад

      Gaming Corrupt Tiếng Việt!

  • @gristen
    @gristen 2 года назад +3

    pitch accent does determine the meaning in japanese tho! just look at the words for bridge and chopsticks, both are pronounced はし (hashi) but depending on which syllable is higher the meaning changes. the words for rain and candy are also like this, both are あめ (ame) but have different pitches. pitch is extremely vital to meaning, especially when it comes to homophones.
    of course its not as extensive as chinese since its not fully tonal, but in many ways pitch accent is much closer to tone then it is to the english equivalent, stress; so its more accurate to view pitch as a subdued form of tonal language rather than as a type of stress.

    • @gristen
      @gristen 11 месяцев назад

      @@FriendlyandKind ive only barely dipped my pinky toe into korean, but from what i understand, yes. korean, unlike japanese and chinese, isnt tonal. apparently it used to be a long time ago and some dialects still have hints of it, but its not considred one anymore. i think i read somewhere that linguists suspect that it might be redeveloping back into a tonal language, but not sure if thats been confirmed or even a widely held belief. i remember being surprised when i learned that korean wasnt a tonal language because it kind of sounds like one to my untrained ears, but then again i had been studying japanese for many many years before i learned about pitch accent so maybe im just bad at recognizing language tones 😅

  • @Bonkychan
    @Bonkychan 2 года назад +9

    I am trying to move now into studying Chinese, and I have found that my foundation in Japanese has helped me. I acknowledge the huge differences, but at least in reading is helping me to grasp some basics on the characters. I always try to help myself to connect a similar language to learn a new one. If you have any other tip to help me improve my multilanguage practice, please feel free to comment. At this point, Chinese will be my sixth language. And many thanks for this video, it comes in handy now that I'm trying to learn Chinese!

    • @lifeisstrange336
      @lifeisstrange336 2 года назад +1

      You can speak six languages! Amazing

    • @Bonkychan
      @Bonkychan 2 года назад

      @@lifeisstrange336 I am a very basic speaker in the rest of languages. My best ones, so far are Spanish, English and Japanese. But I'm trying to level up in German.

  • @LEAHF4R
    @LEAHF4R 3 года назад +206

    Me correct at thai
    him: "What you think all asian letters are the same?"
    me: 👁👄👁

    • @AnuDugala
      @AnuDugala 3 года назад +4

      👁👄👁

    • @gustavschnitzel
      @gustavschnitzel 3 года назад +4

      👁👄👁

    • @silangangbahagi9267
      @silangangbahagi9267 3 года назад +3

      ᜑᜑᜑᜑᜑᜑ ᜈᜃᜃᜆᜏ᜵ ᜇᜒ ᜈᜋᜈ᜔ ᜃᜐᜒ ᜎᜑᜆ᜔ ᜃᜋᜒᜅ᜔ ᜋᜅ ᜀᜐ᜔ᜌᜈᜓ ᜀᜌ᜔ ᜄᜈᜓᜈ᜔ ᜋᜄ᜔ᜐᜓᜎᜆ᜔ ᜁᜑ᜔ 🙄

    • @user-mh5lo7jn5k
      @user-mh5lo7jn5k 3 года назад

      Me whos Thai :👁👄👁

    • @isaacevilman7586
      @isaacevilman7586 3 года назад +1

      I mean, I didn’t know it was Thai, but I knew for sure that it wasn’t Chinese or Japanese

  • @rwong4
    @rwong4 4 года назад +14

    The way you explained and elaborated is so detailed and professional.

  • @muchunchen1117
    @muchunchen1117 2 года назад +5

    只看了前段,但是关于我去学校那里,是不够准确的。
    我去学校= I go to school
    我去学校了= I went to school (may be I am in the school, may be not, but at least I went to school in the past)
    我去过学校= I have been to school(I am not in school now)
    我将去学校= I will go to school
    但是有一点是明显的,汉语确实不讲究事态,一般都有语境或者具体的时间顺序作为参考

    • @NathanielvonSchelling-rm6fb
      @NathanielvonSchelling-rm6fb 6 месяцев назад

      the same as Mayan.作为半个汉语母语者(我是混血),大学选修了尤卡坦玛雅语,发现玛雅语也有类似表示时间的用法。其实汉语不是没有时态,而是没有tense而是有aspect.(当然玛雅语与汉语没有任何亲缘关系)

  • @madimay3304
    @madimay3304 2 года назад +35

    I’ve been learning Japanese for the past few months and let me tell you, it was a huge confidence boost when I could immediately recognize which was Chinese or Japanese, I also relatively understood a handful of examples from memory!

  • @peachjuice3453
    @peachjuice3453 6 лет назад +1909

    I go to school 我去学校
    I went to school 我去 了 学校

    • @bread3288
      @bread3288 6 лет назад +35

      Mark Luo lol quite true tho

    • @GeeTransit
      @GeeTransit 6 лет назад +91

      It should be 我上过学校 but those work too

    • @user-yh5ic6zm2w
      @user-yh5ic6zm2w 6 лет назад +8

      right

    • @cesiumbob7278
      @cesiumbob7278 6 лет назад +28

      I can see that the difference between those two sentences is the use of “le” which is the particle of Completion which you simply inserted into the middle of the sentence.

    • @julyukika
      @julyukika 6 лет назад +83

      Eh... If you use"I went to school" to express "I got education (those years)", it's much better to say 我上过学.
      As a native speaker of Chinese, personally I suggest that 我去学校 lay more emphasis on the action of going from home to school.

  • @hehe8525
    @hehe8525 7 лет назад +81

    oh man, I love that "cat bla fish bla eat blabla", it is so good to understand how does a chinese feel by reading japanese. And also it makes me laugh.

    • @abcdefg0394
      @abcdefg0394 7 лет назад +7

      I know, it's extremely funny, but it's true!

    • @cuteguy498
      @cuteguy498 7 лет назад

      +Harmony Lucis as a chinese, i wNNA say its true!haha

    • @abcdefg0394
      @abcdefg0394 7 лет назад +13

      cuteguy498 Well I'm a chinese too ^_^
      so for example and for fun this:
      鳥インフルエンザにかかった鳥の羽や粉末状になったフンを吸い込んだり
      for us Chinese it would be like: Bird blah blah blah bird feather blah dust-like blah blah inhale blah blah blah
      This is somehow getting more and more amusing...

    • @LSC124377322
      @LSC124377322 7 лет назад

      He Yiqun I lol'ed there too.

    • @LmaoDota
      @LmaoDota 6 лет назад +3

      That sounds like some cool bird drug you taking

  • @user-seX3wrstm
    @user-seX3wrstm 2 года назад +2

    日本人でも勉強になりますね、
    いい動画ありがとうございます。

    • @Langfocus
      @Langfocus  2 года назад

      どういたしまして.😊

  • @pob2527
    @pob2527 7 лет назад +623

    The thai word in this video 0.27 mean "I'm in jail" lol

    • @ahmadal_shanqeety802
      @ahmadal_shanqeety802 6 лет назад +16

      MrPob Pob do you make that bubbles in the latters when you write it??

    • @lwl2034
      @lwl2034 6 лет назад

      魏振雄 你要 A cup还是B cup有没有C cup?

    • @ilakya
      @ilakya 6 лет назад +32

      Ahmad Al_shanqeety Formally, Yes. You could ignore them when you write fast or for some artistic intention like font designing and we still recognize the letter fine. But it's informal. They said Thai letters are invented for carving in stone first. The bubble which we call the letter's "head" is always where you start to write the letter. Because it's where you punch a dot first before starting to punch stroke away from that point. But the writing in late 600-800 years are mostly by heat iron write on dried palm leaves book, The fonts are evovle from dot to circular starting point.

    • @NNN-yq1fr
      @NNN-yq1fr 5 лет назад +3

      ใช่ อยู่ดีๆขึ้นมาว่า ผมอยู่ในคุก โคตรตกใจ 55555

    • @Songyuan89
      @Songyuan89 5 лет назад +1

      我在监狱 ,太可笑了,ตลกมากครับ ผมนี่ยืนขึ้นเลย

  • @user-el2no6hg6z
    @user-el2no6hg6z 2 года назад +834

    as a japanese I could say that I can understand almost 60〜70% of chinese text.
    In many cases, simplified chinese character confuses me but I strangely like to guess what that mystery kanji initially was lol

    • @user-oq7dx9bn4x
      @user-oq7dx9bn4x 2 года назад +107

      This is because Chinese characters used to be written in many ways, for example, the country, it can be written into 国、圀、國、囻、囯 in the past. Smplified Chinese 国 is just one of its forms, is not created by the CCP.

    • @user-oq7dx9bn4x
      @user-oq7dx9bn4x 2 года назад +67

      For the same, the Dragon 龙, can be also written in 龙龒龍竜 in the ancient Chinese... maybe the 竜 is most popular than 龙龒龍 in Tang Dynasty...

    • @EsiriusJ
      @EsiriusJ 2 года назад +28

      At the same time the cross in 渋 is very ugly and confusing for native Chinese speakers, no matter mainland China, Taiwan or Hong Kong
      Cause it's a strange simplification out of nowhere,
      Similar examples like the three dots upon 桜

    • @horacehe6362
      @horacehe6362 2 года назад +12

      @@user-oq7dx9bn4x some of them picked form exists before, but many of simplified words are just made up and nonsense. the worst thing is to simplified some completely different words into a single character just because they pronounce the same. Like 發髮are totally not related, but they are all simplified to 发

    • @auflute
      @auflute 2 года назад +27

      简体字大部分来自草书体

  • @harryhan3317
    @harryhan3317 Год назад

    really great

  • @halloechenstudios612
    @halloechenstudios612 2 года назад +2

    Pog I got all the questions right at the beginning.

  • @user-so6td5mv5p
    @user-so6td5mv5p 4 года назад +569

    As a Chinese who speaks Mandarin, Shanghainese, Cantonese and Japanese (and many other languages), I want to say that Japanese pronunciation is closer to Shanghainese than Cantonese.

    • @tttyuhbbb9823
      @tttyuhbbb9823 3 года назад +46

      That's reasonable! They face Shanghai, not Canton!

    • @takayanagi-senseissurprise2104
      @takayanagi-senseissurprise2104 3 года назад +26

      I’m a bit curious if Japanese is closer to Hokkien (福建話,閩南語)

    • @ganjer63
      @ganjer63 3 года назад +94

      I ’m a Japanese. I think, it's not an accidental matter. According to an old Chinese history book(三国志魏書第三十巻東夷伝烏丸鮮卑東夷伝倭人条) 、ancient Japanese had very similar culture and customs to that of old southern Chinese kingdoms(呉or越). A Japanese ethnologist Prof. Kenzaburo Torigoe analyzed that such ancient Japanese people (or what are called “Yayoi-jin”弥生人) were originally emigrants from Lower Yangtze area and Japanese nation’s name in character”倭”was supposedly came from the kingdom’s name”越”.

    • @Jaiysful
      @Jaiysful 3 года назад +26

      I agree. I would say when a Chinese tries to learn/speak Japanese. Shanghai dialect speakers tend to have the closest pronunciation right off the bat. Cantonese is a lot more nasally and isn't as close to Japanese in comparison.

    • @nsebast
      @nsebast 3 года назад +4

      @@ganjer63 Of course. The closer geographically the closer the language and customs.

  • @yprwat
    @yprwat 4 года назад +156

    これ日本人が見ても面白いな

    • @user-cy8mv4ck3b
      @user-cy8mv4ck3b 3 года назад

      两个日本人看见脸上开心?纯自行理解的,是这个意思嘛?

    • @user-fc9bk7pp1c
      @user-fc9bk7pp1c 3 года назад +23

      外国人視点で自分の国を見るのって面白いよな(笑)

    • @theoneitself
      @theoneitself 3 года назад +2

      @@user-cy8mv4ck3b ¿Por qué respondes en Chino a una pregunta en Japonés?

    • @genm3509
      @genm3509 3 года назад +1

      @@user-cy8mv4ck3b 不是即使是日本人看这个也很有意思的

    • @jesses3688
      @jesses3688 3 года назад +1

      雅咩爹 You know?🤣

  • @Qladstone
    @Qladstone 2 года назад +5

    8:50 This is my favourite part about the Chinese language. As a bookworm it's pretty extreme. There are plenty of words I'd not know how to pronounce but can get by understanding them in a text well enough. It's probably mind boggling to people who've never learnt such a language. Maybe it's controversial, but to me Chinese is a written language first, and a spoken language second.

  • @xchara2058
    @xchara2058 Год назад

    im someone who learn chinese and will also try to learn japanese next im really happy that learning chinese is going to make my learning of the next language easier

  • @udittlamba
    @udittlamba 7 лет назад +44

    This is a very under appreciated channel.

  • @RedShirtGuy96
    @RedShirtGuy96 7 лет назад +219

    I was watching this being very informed and not expecting to laugh, then the bla bla part happened and I died.

    • @AlexanderaPopova
      @AlexanderaPopova 7 лет назад +40

      he did that right) that's exactly how we Chinese feel when we read Japanese..

    • @pineapplep6922
      @pineapplep6922 7 лет назад

      Haobin Song yep 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

    • @ppm83wlkp
      @ppm83wlkp 7 лет назад +2

      When I was young(er) I thought that Cyrillic system is difficult, but then I noticed Chinese and Japanese (Korean, etc) characters and I was... speechless... Maybe I will ask stupid question now, but do you see Chinese as difficult language to learn for.. Chinese?

    • @qinzhang1701
      @qinzhang1701 7 лет назад +5

      It could be easily and naturally learned by 99% students in the school. But we are mostly struggling at English. When I started learning Japanese I have to say that I felt quite comfortable. Just like some English speaker learning German or even like Portuguese learning Spanish.

    • @aewtx
      @aewtx 7 лет назад +1

      Do you mean archeology?

  • @Kavino
    @Kavino Год назад +7

    I think it is worth to note that in Edo/Ming era it is perfectly reasonable for the literate class of two countries to communicate using writing. Ming and Joseon merchants often traded in Edo Japan with this type of communication.

    • @seltainc1715
      @seltainc1715 Год назад

      Totally wrong.
      Sino-Japan culture communicate since Wei.

    • @seltainc1715
      @seltainc1715 Год назад

      Japanese Emperor was called 亲魏倭王 by Wei Emperor

    • @Kavino
      @Kavino Год назад

      ​@@seltainc1715 The two are not mutually exclusive? I didn't say that contact only started in the 1600's.

    • @seltainc1715
      @seltainc1715 Год назад

      ​@@Kavino Ming dynasty Sino-Japan two countries have some war because Ming cut off the commercial and culture communication.

    • @seltainc1715
      @seltainc1715 Год назад

      @@Kavino Kanji, Chinese character was imported to Japan almost AD400-500

  • @GSX13OORZY
    @GSX13OORZY 2 года назад

    Nice!

  • @jimmykaming
    @jimmykaming 3 года назад +61

    I don't speak Japanese but I know Cantonese and mandarin. some times, when I watch videos in Japanese on RUclips, I can understand like 30 to 40 % of what is being said as there are always some Kanji or Chinese characters on the screen to aid me along the way on my understanding. it helps a lot.

    • @mariacastaneda77
      @mariacastaneda77 2 года назад

      Being Chinese a language very different from English in vocabulary and everything else. Has it been difficult for you to learn English?

    • @zhtpro5927
      @zhtpro5927 2 года назад +1

      @@mariacastaneda77 not very

    • @brewingtonnadine
      @brewingtonnadine 2 года назад

      @@mariacastaneda77 personally , it's still easy to learn English, i think a junior high schools student can communicate fluently if sufficiently exposure are take in our english lessons

  • @catharinemiyabi3242
    @catharinemiyabi3242 5 лет назад +485

    Hi! I'm Japanese. I love Chinese cuz I love Chinese charactors!

    • @jiml938
      @jiml938 5 лет назад +74

      I love Japan because of your food and culture. Everything is decent

    • @jamesxu4538
      @jamesxu4538 5 лет назад +8

      Qian Liu me too.

    • @kidgaming8458
      @kidgaming8458 5 лет назад +32

      Hi! I am chinese and I love japan because of the delicate food culture and imaginative animes.

    • @user-ox9tk9ef2g
      @user-ox9tk9ef2g 5 лет назад +18

      你的名字很好听,in Chinese is called"gong xia you xi",很美

    • @x007007007
      @x007007007 5 лет назад +44

      hi,我是中国人,希望中日韩友好发展,不要被政治搞得互相敌视

  • @spettro9
    @spettro9 Год назад +2

    From a Mandarin learner who got to intermediate-ish fluency while living in Beijing for 4+ years:
    Only thing I would add is that everyone I knew had no problem whatsoever with traditional characters, eg watching HK movies, in karaoke, reading old stuff, etc, etc
    I do wonder what it's like for Japanese or Taiwanese to see the Simplified characters though..
    My very good friend who is Japanese I know was really interested to learn little by little about the simplified characters.
    Anyway, one again, your stuff is ON POINT. Well done as usual. Thank you.

    • @hiuminglo3040
      @hiuminglo3040 Год назад

      From what I know, Japanese or Taiwanese usually have difficulty reading simplified characters. Traditional characters still show up here and there in some unexpected ways in mainland China, but not the other way round. For Taiwanese and especially Japanese, simplified characters are almost non-existent in their daily life. But it seems the ability of reading traditional characters of mainland teenagers is declining because of less and less exposure.

    • @spettro9
      @spettro9 Год назад +1

      @@hiuminglo3040 Somewhere like 40-50% of simplified characters are unchanged; a lot more than "here and there".
      My Japanese friend would be really interested sometimes to see how a certain character was simplified.
      There is a bit of a pattern to it, similar to the way other things are put together within the characters to begin with.

    • @naxingdiu
      @naxingdiu Год назад +1

      @@hiuminglo3040 Contrary to what you said, Chinese people’s understanding of traditional characters will not decrease, because there are things written in traditional characters on buildings in many parts of China, such as Spring Festival couplets, which have to be rewritten and replaced every year. In addition, people in Taiwan and Hong Kong will not understand simplified characters, just like some people misunderstand that people in mainland China cannot understand traditional characters. In fact, if you are familiar with the writing of Chinese characters, you can judge whether simplified characters or traditional characters through the context, or It is similar through fonts, because simplified characters are not fabricated out of thin air, and based on traditional characters, try to write with fewer strokes. Finally, people in mainland China and people in Taiwan often quarrel over political issues. Do you think they can't understand simplified/traditional characters?

  • @motspourmauxwattpad4751
    @motspourmauxwattpad4751 2 года назад

    i'm french and i try to practice my english and learn japanese !! so this video is perfect for me ;) thanks!

  • @phongsathorn69
    @phongsathorn69 5 лет назад +685

    ผมอยู่ในคุก means I'm in jail. rofl

  • @user-zz6qm3ko4v
    @user-zz6qm3ko4v 4 года назад +420

    我日本人、我中国尊敬。(偽中国語)

    • @Davs1997
      @Davs1997 4 года назад +173

      我中国人、我日本尊敬(伪日本语)

    • @doubi1895
      @doubi1895 4 года назад +132

      君中国语本当上手(伪中日双语)

    • @user-sp2nd1lq4s
      @user-sp2nd1lq4s 3 года назад +33

      たぶん我日本人,我尊敬中国(中国人)

    • @D.U.N.E.
      @D.U.N.E. 3 года назад +60

      我是中国人,尊敬地球人(真汉语)

    • @user-ej4oj5ml3n
      @user-ej4oj5ml3n 3 года назад +32

      可愛い

  • @user-gx6ol6oc5r
    @user-gx6ol6oc5r 2 года назад +6

    Japanese tones is different by where one is from, like dialect. For example, generally, it is different whether "hashi" means "bridge(s)" or "chopstick(s)" , but those who live in Osaka, Kyoto, and the cities around these pronunce both samely.

  • @user-hw9mu6ok4d
    @user-hw9mu6ok4d 2 года назад

    Thank you for posting traditional Chinese!

  • @keith6371
    @keith6371 3 года назад +224

    i once read a technical manual for Japanese world war 2 Zero fighter when I was working in DC during my college summer break; to my surprise, it was almost entirely written in Chinese (although the sentence construction was kind of like reading Chinese old text). I was in China with my parents during my early teens so I had no problem reading the manual. My friend, who were pretty fluent in Japanese, couldn’t make out what the manual was saying, and we read later in US navy documents that their Japanese experts had great difficulty understanding it as well. One part I remember clearly even today was the engine start sequence, which contained many words my Japanese speaking friend told me she had never studied. Apparently it was written in a prewar technical Japanese to assert elite status of engineering department (almost like writing a manual entirely in Latin to show how educated you are.

    • @runnethdown
      @runnethdown 2 года назад +23

      The fact that Japanese was a lot more complicated and kanji-heavy pre-1946 probably also contributed to that lol

    • @user-wi3dq5dk3e
      @user-wi3dq5dk3e 2 года назад +11

      Japan is a subsidiary of China in the Tang Dynasty and has studied Chinese culture for many years

    • @adzumahaya
      @adzumahaya Год назад +8

      Chinese old text っていうのは、日本でいう漢文のことを言うてるんかな?

    • @fluckyu7
      @fluckyu7 Год назад +11

      @@adzumahaya I think it means classical Chinese,the Chinese before the 20th century

    • @Weeping-Angel
      @Weeping-Angel Год назад +3

      @@fluckyu7 like 文言文?

  • @larryf2821
    @larryf2821 8 лет назад +219

    Sounds like the role of Chinese words in Japanese is very much like French words in English. In a way also the writing, since so many French words are recognizable to an English speaker in print, but are pronounced very differently, e.g. point, centre

    • @scoshi6592
      @scoshi6592 8 лет назад +7

      other examples: différence, correction, alphabet, and many other nouns that end with 'tion'

    • @NOTJustANomad
      @NOTJustANomad 8 лет назад +7

      I like your idea. But I would say, by writing e.g. vocabularies there are more similar/identical words between the Chinese/Japanese languages. While in English and French, the similarities are less recognizable by the pronunciation, but only by writing.

    • @g10bus
      @g10bus 8 лет назад +1

      Sorta. Except English is really close to French both being Hindo-European. With English being helpful for learning French and vice-versa, it is not just that the 60% of the complicated words in English are romance/French-derived. It is also that French often uses similar grammar to English to express things.
      I am going to do something
      Je vais faire quelque chose
      Where is my cat?
      Où est ma chatte? (Yep, in Alice the cat was female).
      The French are tolerant of lovers
      Les Français sont tolérants des amoureux
      There is no such luxury in the Sino-Japanese pair.

    • @g10bus
      @g10bus 8 лет назад +5

      :)
      Common ancestry may still mean fairly different grammar. Russian vs English (both "derived" from PIE over the ages) makes a good example. Languages do share a lot of Swadesh in simple words -- but use different basic constructs. Like, Russian is notorious for lack of use of modal verbs. There is totally no "to be" and "to have" in modern Russian, up to the point "I have something" in Russian being expressed with something like "At mine, there is" (у меня есть).

    • @sdfsff1
      @sdfsff1 8 лет назад +2

      Actually I would say french words in english still sound very similar cause mostly the word origin both from latin. Chinese and Japanese loanwords as well as the pronounciation differ more from each other.

  • @Nonooooooo231
    @Nonooooooo231 Год назад +33

    as a french native speaker, when I started to learn english, I could recognize a lot of words which seemed to share a comon origin. And like a japanese or a chinese person who tries to learn the language of the other, even though you can guess a certain amount of a text, you also miss the subtleties and can be confused with some words which seems the same but which actually have a different meaning or some words which are not still used in the modern french.

    • @maia_key
      @maia_key Год назад +1

      C'était le meme chose avec moi, quand j'ai appris le français au lycée et au fac (Je suis australien). Alors, il faut qu'on fasse l'attention avec les faux amis, je sens que cette idée s'applique envers l'ecriture Chinois et les kanjis du Japon. Maintenant, j'apprends le Japonais je souhaite voyager au Japon cette année pendant le fin de l'été. (Excusez-moi, ma grammaire est mal selon moi.)

    • @leonardos2925
      @leonardos2925 9 месяцев назад +1

      Very different though. Chinese and Japanese are completely different. French was spoken by English aristocrats for centuries. They have false cognates but many and many more differences, no one expects to understand the other language by learning the first.

    • @Nonooooooo231
      @Nonooooooo231 9 месяцев назад

      yes, it's true that except some common vocabulary, japanese and chinese are further from each other than it does between french and english when it comes to compare the grammar. Another difference is that in japanese, most of chinese loanwords are used with a very specific way, most of the time in compound words, while that's not the case in english.

    • @user-gx3ux9qk6i
      @user-gx3ux9qk6i 9 месяцев назад

      words mean one meaning in English,but when you see a word in Chinese,you can just read it and meanings of it could be three or more, even means different in different sentences.your brain should be active to receive this character and search in your mind at the same time.otherwise,you gotta misunderstand many words people said

  • @nikosthegreek12
    @nikosthegreek12 7 дней назад +2

    The "watashi wagakkou e ikitai" sentence "I want to go to school" might not be frequently used

  • @user-ps8wi5kh2k
    @user-ps8wi5kh2k 7 лет назад +277

    I'm Japanese. When I look at Chinese text, I feel I can understand almost all of the meaning. But it would be often totally wrong after getting it. This is because there're so many words that have the same kanji but completely different meaning between Chinese and Japanese. For instance, "大丈夫" means "It's OK" in Japanese, but "full-fledged man" in Chinese. Sorry for my poor English.

    • @kyoumalee2675
      @kyoumalee2675 6 лет назад +27

      Lorosa'e Very interesting,when I look at Japanese text,I often only get a general idea.The more kanji ,the more details I get.

    • @Quadronnn
      @Quadronnn 6 лет назад +18

      @Jacky Chew
      Dude, do you have a problem with Japanese using Kanji? You've written who knows how many comments that basically say the same thing: that Japanese might as well abandon the use of Kanji. It comes off as ridiculous and insecure.

    • @emiliacaramella5755
      @emiliacaramella5755 6 лет назад +15

      Lorosa'e your English is no poor!

    • @zheli1862
      @zheli1862 6 лет назад +16

      You're right. But when I was in Tokyo I would not be lost since I can understand the meaning of the road signs. I'm a Chinese.

    • @firecat6666
      @firecat6666 6 лет назад +4

      Quadronnn, do you think koreans are ridiculous and insecure? They did exactly that.
      You saying it comes off as ridiculous and insecure comes off as ridiculous and insecure, by the way.