Can Japanese Speakers Read Chinese?

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Published 2024-07-30
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In this video I see how well native speakers of Japanese can read Chinese without ever having studied it. The results are incredibly interesting!

Special thanks to: Rio, Shin, Nozomi, and Nana for participating in the video!

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▶ Source of information and examples of Chinese:
"Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar" by Claudia Ross, Jing-heng Sheng Ma.

00:00 - Introduction
03:04 - Sentence 1
05:49 - Sentence 2
09:01 - Sentence 3
12:09 - Sentence 4
13:31 - Sentence 5
15:16 - Sentence 6
17:18 - Sentence 7
19:36 - Reflecting

All Comments (21)
  • @Langfocus
    ▶The first 500 people to use my link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/langfocus07241 ◀ Skillshare is awesome for anyone who loves learning. I bet you're one of those people!
  • @na-maste
    When I started learning Chinese, I mistook 美人计(honey trap)for 美人汁(the juice of a beautiful woman), which I thought was a very obscene word😂
  • It was so much fun to be part of this video with my sister! ngl I thought I could do better (๑•﹏•)
  • "馬上" depicts one is already on the back of the horse, thus "ready to go / about to set off", i.e. "NOW". In Japanese, the character "現" has the similar meaning "NOW" / "CURRENT". It is perfectly fine to substitute "馬上" with "現" in Chinese. "電話" telephone reached Japan first, and the Japanese formulated the kanji "電話" for it. It is then "re-imported" into the Chinese language. Book often is written as a compound "書本", "本" depicts an object of pages arranged and bound, joined together and given a cover. The pages can be paper, leather, fabric, leaves, etc.,. "本" itself in ancient texts could by itself be sufficient to mean a "book". Japan took "本" to mean exactly that. But to be more meaningful and clearly identifying what sort / nature of the "本" is, it is more than often compounded (prefixed) with other characters to give the precise meaning, e.g. "書本", "課本"
  • @nicktang9679
    As a Chinese, I believe all simplified Chinese user can understand over 95% of traditional Chinese, vice versa.
  • It was so much fun to participate in this video with my brother🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♂️ I'm so happy🫷🏻👨🏻‍🦲🫸🏻
  • @willwang4634
    As a native Chinese speaker (both simplified and traditional) and a Japanese learner, I often understand more complicated Japanese because it contains more Kanji🤣 (Chinese characters). Sometimes even the pronunciation is very close to Mandarin or Cantonese.
  • @yanghu3974
    I am Chinese and live in New Zealand. My wife is from Germany and learned Japanese at university; she understands katakana and hiragana. We have traveled to Japan twice, and it's interesting that we always help each other during the trip. I can read most kanji in Japan, such as train station, road, and building signs, while she can read out katakana and hiragana, as some of them sound like English or German words. 😆
  • @ucchau173
    In vietnam we use different hán tự(漢字) word that different with madarin example: library in china is 圖書館in vietnam is thư viện(書院),bye in vietnam is tạm biệt (暫別),không mean zero and no is 空,student in university in china still called 學生in vietnam called 生員, teacher in vietnam is giáo viên (教員),hospital in vietnam called bệnh viện 病院 in china called 醫院,books in china is 書in vietnam is sách (策),thư(書)in vietnam is mail,thank in vietnam is cảm ơn(感恩)in china is 謝謝, accordance,proper,.. china is 合适 vietnam is thích hợp (适合),like in china is 贊vietnam is thích(适), dragon fruit in china is 火龍 in vietnam is thanh long(青龍),fruit in china is 水果 in vietnam is hoa quả(花果)teacher in university in vietnam is giảng viên(講員)china is still 老師... Alot different meaning hán tự(漢字) used every day by vietnam language and madarin,..
  • @IanHsieh
    Native Chinese speaker here. At 6:31, you can see her confuse the simplified version of 話(话) as 活, especially with the way how that radical was simplified (言→讠), it looks almost identical to the radical for water (氵).
  • A Japanese native here. As Paul pointed out in the previous video, the more formal and complex the sentences are in both languages the better speakers of each language would understand them; an interesting bit of trivia is that up until fairly recently from a historical standpoint Japanese (and Korean and Vietnamese as well for that matter) intellectuals studied classical Chinese extensively to the point that diplomats in East Asia were able to communicate by writing down classical-looking Chinese sentences. This type of communication via kanji can and does happen today as well, as I'm sure many Japanese and Chinese speakers would have experienced when visiting each other's countries. Another tidbit of historical geekery I'd like to offer is that in the mid 19h century Japan before mass media there were such tremendous differences among dialects in Japanese from across the archipelago to the point they were almost or partially mutually unintelligible. So when anti-shogunate rebel samurais who would later establish the Meiji government were plotting a next coup or two in Kyoto some of them are said to have communicated in written kanjis instead of trying to decipher their Kagoshima (Southernmost Kyushu) dialect or Tosa (south Shikoku) dialect.
  • @unvergebeneid
    You couldn't compare Chinese and Japanese writing any better than with the phrase "un poco similar" 😄
  • My wish came true by commenting in the last video. So I'm gonna try my luck again. Have both Chinese and Japanese speakers read classical Chinese. See who can do better. Great video as always!
  • @kjlovescoffee
    5:10 "This is something that others wrote" - technically correct. Which is the best kind of correct :)
  • @arrow7440
    I would like to give two examples: Many years ago, I traveled from China to Tokyo. Once, I was shopping in a store, but they ran out of stock. The clerk told me to go to another store and gave me the address, but I couldn't understand. I asked her to write it down in kanji, and as soon as she did, I immediately understood. The second example is when I went to the train station to travel from Tokyo to Yokohama. I needed to take the 田园都市线. The staff couldn't speak English, so I kept repeating "Tian Yuan Dushi Xian" in Chinese. The staff eventually understood and repeated it back to me in Japanese. I realized that the pronunciation of "Den-en-toshi Line" is almost the same in both Chinese and Japanese, with the Japanese pronunciation sounding more like the dialect from the Shanghai area.
  • @LinusYip
    Some terms used in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong are different. Eg: to smoke, Taiwan: 吸菸 , elsewhere: 吸煙 Since Japanese is 喫煙, Japanese people is easier to guess Hong Kong wording than Taiwan wording in this case. For 馬上, in Hong Kong and Taiwan use 立即 立刻 more frequently, in Hong Kong also use 即刻. On the other hand, in Mainland China 立马 is also used but never in Hong Kong. Japanese also have 即刻 although I have never seen any Japanese people used. Japanese also have standalone 即 for same meaning although is usually seen in compound and すぐ most frequently for that meaning. For "day", in Hong Kong 日 is used more frequently than 天. In Hong Kong, 飲 or 食 are tended to use instead of 吃 or 喝. 吃 means to slutter such as 口吃 or 吃醋. 喝 means to shout. In Hong Kong, 們 is usually omitted unless in pronouns. Noun plural is usually not to denote in Hong Kong. E.g. : "Ladies and gentleman" Mainland China: 女士们先生们 Hong Kong: 各位先生女士 In Hong Kong, 但(是) is used more frequently than 可是. Since Japanese has 但し, it is easier for Japanese to guess 但(是). Also, Hong Kong and Taiwan versions keep more ancient wording than Mainland China so Hong Kong and Taiwan versions may be slightly easier for Japanese people to guess. As in last video I commented, if you find Japanese people to read Hong Kong or Taiwan Chinese, even in Hong Kong or Taiwan wording but convered to Simplified Chinese, the result will be different.
  • I like how you carefully explain a lot of the things viewers might have questions about, like Nozomi's use of Spanish, or how you break the sentences down into their individual components. Really helps to understand how the languages work!
  • @alexyoung6418
    I was at a store in Shin-Osaka when I wanted to bring something back to China for my girlfriend. The owner didn't speak English and I hadn't learned any Japanese at all. She took a good guess and asked me in Chinese "你是中国人?"(Are you Chinese?) As if she had been anticipating that I would nod, she handed me a memo pad and a pen. I wrote down "日本独有"(unique to Japan), which I figured would be understood by a Japanese. She had no problem reading it and went ahead with her recommendations. It got me interested in learning more about Japanese and I would definitely enjoy spending more time in Japan.
  • @bgildersleeve
    After studying Japanese for 10+ years and passing the JLPT N1, I started learning Chinese. This really matches my experience. Knowing kanji really gives you an advantage, but you quickly learn that the languages are fundamentally different at their core and you need to get some beginner Chinese understanding before your reading abilities are "unlocked."
  • @LuckyBoyJKid
    Really fun to watch as someone who can read and understand Chinese. It was very interesting seeing what Japanese people would be able to understand and what would give them trouble.