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They say that kanji is used with that Chinese language and the Japanese language they can understand Each other by Kanji
How can they under stand Each other while having a
Different Language ?
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They can understand each other using kanji, just not very well at all.
the language is kanji
but the characters are not the same, but some are very similar
however most have different meanings so same language, different meaning
this is similar to say english and french same characters different language
I can understand most of the words written in Japanese kanjis though I have never learnt japanese. However, it is impossible for me to understand sentences. It’s just like that an english speaker will probably be able to understand the french word "urgence" .
Many, but not all, Chinese characters have similar meanings between Chinese and Japanese languages. Although, they are pronounced differently for the most part.
This is a good question really. I wish I had a class to stand in front to answer it. I think it is a little complicated. First of all Japan took the writing that they now call kanji ("Chinese letter") from China. But, not the China of today but China way, way back during the time of the Han dynasty ( han is kan is Japanese … in Chinese kanji is hanzu.) Over a period of many old dynasties they made the Chinese writing into their own.
OK that part is easy enough. Here is the thing: the Chinese of long, long ago is not the Chinese of today. But, Chinese is written in ideograms. Ideographic writing is a stylization of a meaning, a meaning that was once a graphic representation. A pictograph, then is a drawing of something. Chinese today still has characters that are recognizable representation in figures of their meanings. Let me give you a few examples. 門 mon is a representaqtion of a gate. You can see that it looks like the swinging doors of an old western saloon.
Now suppose that you had a bar across the door but with hands lifting the bar: 開。 Can you see it? (hands lifting the bar mean "open") Woman is a figure sitting with her legs crossed: 女。 目 is an eye. but it is standing on end. a mouth is 口。 Tree is a good example, 木 林
森 one tree is a tree, two trees a woods and three trees means a forest.
OK both Chinese and Japanee use these basic characters, but others have been lost or their meanings have changed. Japanese kanji is like fosilized Chinese — old Chinese that still exists today.
So I don’t know how much a Chinese can read Japanese. Some words that combine one or more kanji are so different. I don’t know if I can say some of the things here. For example, 手紙 Japanese (lit. "hand paper" mean a letter that you write to someone.) In Chnese it is a product one uses to clean themself. So while the basic meanings are the same the word have changed over time and by use. You can see how dangerous it might be to assume what something means. Never the less, you can gleen a basic meaning from either knowing the other. And, I think will a little study you could learn to read the other’s language very well.
I hope that I covered everything that you wanted to know. Good Luck..
Your first mistake is in saying that they understand each other. They don’t. Chinese people have to learn Japanese as a foreign language and vice versa.
What is confusing you is that Japanese uses a few Chinese characters (Hanzi in Chinese/ Kanji in Japanese) in its writing system. About 3000 characters out of the approximately 30000 used in Chinese.
Some of these characters, but certainly not all, have the same meaning in both languages but usually different pronunciation.
Imagine an English speaker who doesn’t know French looking at some French writing. They will see words which look similar. Sometimes they will be able to guess the meaning correctly; sometimes they will be completely wrong. Same as Chinese and Japanese.
you are kinda asking — if Italians, Spanish, French, German and English write same Latin letters — does that mean they speak same language and can understand each other all right?…
Chinese and Japanese are different languages…
the symbols are different too…
they can’t. the pronounciation and writing is totally different.
chinese people can guess at what japanese people mean if theyre reading kanji because the meanings are the same. japanese has to use hiragana though, so its hard to fully understand. but if they use as much kanji as possible the meaning is pretty easy to guess, because the only thing not in kanji would be mainly the particles.
same goes the other way around, except chinese has a lot more kanji, and uses only kanji. it might be hard for a japanese person to try and guess meanings if there are a lot of words they dont know, but they are generally similar if not the same kanjis.
speaking would be impossible for either to understand
You’re either sick or don’t know anything. Kanji is Chinese characters used by the Japanese people. It’s in Chinese. Of course, Chinese people can read it, but might not understand it in a Japanese sentence due to the use of hiragana attached to kanjis to differentiate the meanings!!!
If Japanese people were to read a newspaper or novel in Modern Chinese where most of the characters haven’t been borrowed, then they won’t know what’s being written and therefore can’t fully understand it.
Japanese kanji are sometimes simplified the same way as Simplified Chinese, oftentimes not, in addition to kanjis they also have to use hiragana or katakana to get the meanings across.
Katakana = used for "transliterating" foreign names.
Japanese can be written totally in hiragana, but it would be confusing due to too many homophones, words which sound the same but have different meanings, therefore they need to use Kanji or Chinese characters, which were either original Chinese characters or simplified characters made by the Japanese.
Some Japanese kanji uses ancient forms so it’s not understandable by those who only know Modern Chinese. At this point, only a calligrapher would know most of the words due to using different script forms in Chinese for each word. Some used obsolete Chinese words ["obsolete" here means an Ancient Chinese character which is no longer used in Modern Chinese writing] which is still retained in Japanese as written form.
Kanji is the Japanese word for Chinese characters that they’d borrowed into the Japanese language. The pronunciations sometimes contain similarities when one has some background, but mostly it is difficult to orally comprehend one another. However, in reading, thought not everything is direct translations, most Chinese people can get the gist of the passage with the kanji embedded in the text. Similarly with Japanese. However, the usage of the same character are often varied from Chinese to Japanese.
So to answer your question, in reading, yes, to some extent, one can guess their way through the meaning.
First, you have to understand that written language is a mnemonic device. It is intended to help the reader remember the language that is already inside his/her head. You have learned the meaning of all these words before, and I’m relying on your previous experience to help you understand my meaning. It’s how we use language.
Western languages, using an alphabet, do it by reminding you of a pronunciation, and the reader associates that pronunciation with a meaning in their head. That’s why the parts of words (letters) break down into meaningless sounds.
Chinese and Japanese characters, on the other hand, remind the reader of a meaning, which will be connected to the pronunciation in their head. That’s why parts of characters (radicals) break down into meanings that sometimes don’t even have a pronunciation.
Before anyone gets on me, yes, sometimes the pronunciation is implied in the character, but its main role is meaning. That’s why metals and minerals have the metal radical, and why things having to do with speaking have the yan speech radical.
This is similar like how the European languages possess the same root and sometimes there are cross over in meaning and usage.
Kanji is invented by Chinese. The Japanese borrowed the written system (words) and some grammar at first to augment their own language. Which at the time, lacks a written language.
Gradually, the Japanese adopted it into their language as the base of their written system.
So many of the meaning of the kanjis the Japanese used remained unchanged, or simply have multiple meanings added on to the CHiense kanji. THat;’s why they can understand each other to a certain degree via Kanji.
Plus, the "general" structure of the sentences are similar with Chinese being OVN basically, and Japanese being ONV.
good luck
japanese kanji system was derived from chinese characters, so of course there are some similarities. The radicals are pretty much the same (examples are the radicals: people, water, fire).
When I was studying Mandarin, it so happened my Chinese TA was studying Japanese so when I’d forget the Chinese (simplified characters mind you, not traditional) meaning sometimes she would tell me ‘it’s pronounced almost the same in Japanese’ or ‘has the same meaning as it does in Japanese’