Quziz time! Are the following words Chinese or Japanese?

小測試：以下的詞語是中文還是日語？

（答案是：日語、中文、皆是、皆不是）

Today's topic is: How similar are Chinese and Japanese?

今日主題：中文與日語有多相似？

A lot of people look at a map of Asia and see how close Japan and China are, or they might looked at a sample of Chinese and Japanese writing, and think something looks similar, and they might concluded that the two languages are similar. But are they really similar? Well, the short answer is no. They are completely different languages. But Japanese has been highly influenced by Chinese in Vocabulary and writing system. Chinese and Japanese don't share a common origion, and they don't belong to the same language family. The Chinese language belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family and Japanese, as far as we know, belongs to the Japonic language family.

很多人看著亞洲地圖會發(fā)現(xiàn)，中國與日本有多近，或者他們看著中文與日文的書寫，覺得有些東西類似，然后他們就有可能推斷兩種語言很相似。但是這兩種語言真的相似嗎？簡單地說，不對，它們是完全不同的兩門語言。但是日語在其詞匯與書寫系統(tǒng)方面深深地受到了中文的影響。中文與日文沒有任何共同起源，并且不在同樣的語系。中文屬于漢藏語系，而日語，就我們所知，屬于日語系。

1) Fonology：

音系學

First of all, the fonology of the languages is very different. With the basic difference is been that Chinese is a tonal language while Japanese is not. A tonal language is one or which their tones are pitches that help determine the meaning of the words you use. If you use the wrong tone, then the meaning of the word changes. Here's an example for teacher:（見下圖）So I'm sure that the Chinese teacher get called naive or old-fashioned all the time by mistake. Or maybe not by mistake?

首先，兩種語言的音系學截然不同。其最基本的差異為漢語是聲調語言，而日語不是。在聲調語言中存在聲調或音高來幫助確定詞語的意思；如果你用了錯誤的聲調，詞句的意思改變。下面是一個例子：（見下圖）。所以我確定漢語老師們總是被錯誤地叫成“老實”和“老式”?；蛘呖赡苁枪室獾模?br/>

In Japanese there are basically no tones that determine the meaning of the words. In Japanese, there is something called "pitch accent" which means that the syllables of a word have either a higher pitch or a lower pitch. But they're not like the tones in Chinese, because they typically don't determine the meaning of the word. They're more like stress in English.

在日語里基本上沒有這種聲調來取決詞句的意義。日語里有“重音”，意思是一個詞語的音節(jié)或是發(fā)高音，或是發(fā)低音。但是它們不像中文里的聲調，因為他們一般不被用來決定詞語的意思。它們更像英語里的重讀。

2)Structure：

結構

The structure and grammar of the two languages are completely different. And the most basic level, Chinese is a SVO language while Japanese is a SOV language. Here's an example in Chinese（見下圖）This means he speaks Chinese. And as you can see S, V, O. And here's that sentence translated in Japanese. Here we can see S O V. And you can see some extra little words in Japanese that don't exist in the Chinese sentence. For example, Japanese has the topic marker "wa" which doesn'r exist in Chinese and Japanese also the object marker "wo" which doesn't exist in Chinese.

兩種語言的結構與語法完全不同。從最簡單的層面來看，中文是一門SVO（主謂賓）語言，而日語是SOV（主賓謂）語言。下面是漢語的一則例子：他說中文。SVO:主語、動詞、賓語。下面是這句句子的日文翻譯；這里你看到SOV：主語、賓語、動詞。你可以看到日語中有有些多余的小詞不存在于中文句子里。比如，日語里的一個話題標記“は（wa）”在中文中是不存在的。日語還有個賓語標記“を（wo）”在中文句中也不存在。

Chinese is an analytic language which basically means that you create a sentence by placing independent elements side by side. And analytic language like Chinese do not use inflection. Inflection means modifying words to indicate grammatical meaning like plural, gender, tense, case, etc.. You don't change any part of the word in order to change its meaning. Instead you can add to the meaning of the word by adding an extra word next to it. Japanese, on the other hand, is an agglutinative language that uses inflection. An agglutinative language uses a lot of affixes rather than just placing independent words side by side, you attach additional pieces to words to add or modify meaning. This kind of inflection in Japanese means that Japanese words are often longer than Chinese words. And that may take a few words in Chinese to translate one Japanese word.

漢語是分析語（孤立語），意思是你可以把獨立的元素放在一起來組成一句句子。像漢語一樣的分析語不發(fā)生曲折變化：曲折的意思是修改單詞來表達一些語法含義比如復數(shù)、詞性、時態(tài)或格。你不改變一個字的任一部分來改變它的含義。反之你可以在這個字旁邊加上一個字來給它附加含義。日語反而言之是一門實用曲折變化的黏著語。黏著語使用很多的詞綴，與將獨立的字并排放置在一起不同，你附加幾個字塊來增加或修飾含義。日語的這種曲折性意味著日語單詞比中文長，而翻譯一個日語單詞可能要用到幾個漢字。

In these Chinese sentences, we can see there are no inflection. This sentence means I go to School. This sentence means I went to School. So no part of the verb is changed to indicate past tense. We can show the past tense by just adding a time expression. Now These similar sentences in Japanese show inflection. This sentence means I go to School. I went to school. And the polite form of "I go to school". I want to go to school.

在這些中文句子中沒有曲折變化。動詞沒有改變以顯示過去時態(tài)。我們加上一個時間短語來表示過去。這里類似的日語句子體現(xiàn)了曲折變化。（我去學校）、我去（了）學校還有“我去學?！钡木凑Z形態(tài)。

In the Japanese example, we use inflection changing the word "iku" to the "iki" form and then we use an agglutination to attach a form that shows intention "tai". In Chinese though, there is no inflection or agglutination. You just add an extra word like this. That's just a brief sample of how different the grammar is in Japan and Chinese. Basically, they are completely different languages when it comes to the grammatical structure.

在這個例子里我們用了曲折變化把“行く（iku）”變成“行き（iki）”，然后黏合上表示意向的形式“たい（tai）”。然而在中文里沒有曲折或黏合，而是加上一個額外的字。以上只是體現(xiàn)漢日語法區(qū)別的一個簡單范例。總而言之它們在語法結構上是完全不同的語言。

3)Vocabulary and Chinese characters：

詞匯與漢字

And it's also important to point out that mandarin was not the standard form of Chinese back in those days when those vocabulary words were borrowed into Japanese. So even at that time they were borrowed, the pronunciation was different from standard Chinese today. From what I understand, the modern Japanese pronunciation of those long words is often more similar to modern Cantonese than it is to mandarin. These examples show how the same words pronounced very differently in Japanese and mandarin. The word for family in Japanese is "katei". And actually in Japanese, the meaning is more like "household" or "home". And in mandarin (the pronunciation) is "jiating"....So you can see those words look the same and they have basically the same meaning, but they sound very different.

另一個需要強調的重點是，普通話在日語大量借詞時并不是標準漢語。甚至當時的發(fā)音與現(xiàn)在的標準漢語有別。而且我認為現(xiàn)代日語中借詞的發(fā)音通常與現(xiàn)代廣東話更相近而不是普通話。這些例子告訴你日語與普通話中同一詞語如何有不同的發(fā)音。比如家庭這個詞，日語發(fā)音為“katei”日語里這個詞語表達的意思其實更像是家人群體。中文發(fā)音為“家庭”。（之后例子略）你看這些詞看起來一樣，意思基本上一樣，但聽起來很不一樣。

So Chinese vocabulary words represented by Chinese characters were borrowed into Japanese, but those Chinese characters were also then applied to native Japanese vocabulary that had related meanings to those Chinese loaned words. That means a Chinese speaker can often look at a native Japanese word and undertstand its core meaning without knowing that Japanese word,because the Chinese character is used to represent it. So Chinese people can often read a text in Japanese and they can make sense of the basic meaning of it based on the Chinese characters, but they won't understand all the details.?

用中國漢字書寫的中文詞匯被借入日語，但那些漢字同樣被使用于日語中，意思與中文借詞有關的本土詞匯。這代表著一個漢語使用者通?？梢钥粗粋€本土日語詞并理解其主要意思，即使不認識這個日語詞。因為一個漢字被用來代表它，所以中國人經常可以讀懂一段日語中用中文漢字寫出來詞語的基本意思，但卻不能理解所有的細節(jié)。

And the same is true in reverse, Japanese people can look at a Chinese text and kind of make sense of the meaning of it based on the Chinese character that they know. But it is easy to misunderstand the details of what was written,esepically they have zero knowledge of the other language. Here are some Japanese example sentences that have the same Chinese characters, but the meaning is very different because of the inflection that's used. The cat eats fish. The cat doesn't eat fish. The cat ate fish. In the past tense. The cat plans to eat fish. The cat was eaten by a fish.?

反過來也一樣：日本人可以看一段中文文本并憑借著他們所認識的漢字了解其基本意思。但是對細節(jié)的誤解經常發(fā)生，特別是在對另一語言沒有任何基礎的情況下。在這些例子中用到的漢字在兩種語言中意思一樣，但在句子中的意義非常不同，因為這里使用了曲折變化（見下圖）。貓吃魚。貓不吃魚。貓吃了魚（過去式）。貓計劃吃魚。貓被魚吃了。

So a Chinese speaker reading these sentences would get the core meaning of the Chinese characters, but they would miss some meaning in the inflection. For example, the negative or the past tense, or the intention or the passive form. Especially the last example could be highly misunderstood. So imagining you are a English speaker reading something with English loan words, it might look something like this: Cat bla fish bla food bla bla.

如果一個中國人讀了這些句子，他會理解其中漢字的主要含義卻會忽視曲折變化所表達的意思。比方說否定、過去式、意愿或被動語態(tài)。最后一個例子特別容易被誤解。想象你自己作為一位英語使用者來讀英語的借詞，感覺會是這樣：（見下圖）貓…魚…吃的…

Of course, even after just a little bit of studying in Japanese, the Chinese speaker could probably learn enough to understand basic Japanese sentences like that. For me, as someone who study Japanese to a relatively advanced level, the same is true in reverse. When I was in Taiwan last year, on the subway for example, I could read a lot of the advertisements and I would get most of the meaning, I wouldn't understand all of the Chinese characters, but I could usually get 3 out of 4 of them. And the fourth one would be new to me, because in Chinese there are a lot of characters that actually aren't used in Japanese at all. But just getting 3 out of 4 of them was often enough to understand the basic meaning of that advertisement. But of course I have no idea how to pronounce those Chinese characters. And if I try to read them out loud like Japanese, I would hear laughter both from my girlfriend and local bystanders.

當然通過一點點的日語學習，中國人也許就足夠理解這樣的基礎日語句子。對像我這樣學至高級日語的人來說，反過來也說得通：比如說我去年在臺灣的地鐵上就可以讀懂很多的廣告，并且可以看出大部分的意思。我不會理解所有的漢字，但通?？梢圆鲁?個里面的3個字，而第4個字對我來講很陌生，因為中文有很多日文里根本沒有的漢字，但4個字里面看得懂3個通常足夠讓我看懂廣告基本的含義。但是當然咯，我不知道怎么讀出那些中國字，當我像日語中的那樣讀出來，我會被我女朋友和當?shù)厝诵υ挕?br/>

4)Japanese "returned loan words" in Chinese：

日語給中文還借詞

So as we have discussed already, lots of Chinese vocabulary was borrowed into Japanese, but some Japanese vocabulary has also been borrowed into Chinese. A moment ago I mentioned "wasei kango", Japanese vocabulary created from Chinese roots, vocabulary that doesn't exist in Chinese. But some of those "wasei kango" have actually been borrowed from Japanese into Chinese. Some sources say that such vocabulary counts for around 30% of modern Chinese vocabulary. Of coures the way those "returned loan words" are pronounced based on the modern Chinese pronunciation of the Chinese characters. Here're some examples:（見下圖）

我們前面已經提到過，很多中文詞匯被借入日語，但是有些日語詞匯也被借入中文。我前面提到了“和制漢語”——日語中用中文造的而中文里不存在的詞。但有些和制漢語事實上被借入中文。一些資料稱這些詞匯組成大約30%的現(xiàn)代漢語詞匯。當然這些“回歸的借詞”的發(fā)音取決于現(xiàn)代漢語中的發(fā)音。這里有些例子：歷史、工業(yè)、電子、注射、哲學、系統(tǒng)等。

And most Chinese people these days are probably not even aware of those words were borrwed from Japanese. It's also to point out that in mainland China, simplified Chinese characters are now used as opposed to the traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan and Hongkong. That means someone from mainland China may have more trouble recognizing Japanese kanji than someone from Taiwan for example. So in short, Chinese and Japanese are very different languages, especially the spoken languages. Even though there was a lot of vocabulary borrowed from Chinese into Japanese and a little bit from Japanese into Chinese. Only in writing are those two languages somewhat intelligible because of the Chinese characters that are used.

今天大部分的中國人有可能都不清楚這些詞其實是從日語里借來的。還要注意的是，在中國大陸簡體字代替繁體字使用，繁體字用于臺灣與香港，意味著一位中國大陸人可能會比一位臺灣人更難理解日語漢字。簡而言之，中文與日文非常不同。特別是口語，盡管有很多詞匯從中文借入日文和一些從日語借入中文，只有在書面語中，由于中國漢字的緣故，這兩種語言才某種程度上互通。

評論翻譯

原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網 http://www.ltaaa.com 轉載請注明出處

LeiFengMedia
Chinese mainlanders do NOT have trouble reading traditional Chinese characters. Traditional Chinese is very easy for us to read and understand because only a few characters are actually changed in simplified chinese and are still heavily recognizable from their simplified form. Also many places still use and have Traditional characters like temples shops ect so Traditional characters are still all around us. We only have trouble with writing Traditional Chinese as we are not required to learn how to write these characters in their Traditional forms (and because some are so complex they're difficult to remember all the strokes) Also very sorry for my English.

中國大陸人是看得懂繁體字的。對我們來說，繁體字是很容易讀懂的，因為只有少數(shù)漢字被真的簡化了，但是這些漢字依然能很容易從其簡化形式認出來。許多地方依然使用繁體字，比如寺廟，商店等地方，所以傳統(tǒng)繁體字依然存在在我們身邊。我們只是在寫繁體字時有點困難，因為我們沒有被要求學習怎么寫這些字的繁體形式，（因為一些字的筆畫非常復雜，太難記了）英語不好，抱歉哈。

mochimochi king
I'm a Japanese native speaker. Japanese people study how to read old Chinese sentence so we can understand modern Chinese to a certain extent.

我是日本母語者。日本人學習中國古文，所以我們一定程度上懂得現(xiàn)代中文。

Gak Vivien Roppongi
I'm a Japanese highschool student who is Japanese native speaker and speaks English and French. All Japanese students must learn old Chinese in both middle School and highschool and it's also one of the subjects on universities'enrollment tests (it's like SAT or ACT). Since we frequently interacted with China trading cultural connection religion or even many Japanese went off China to study in the very old time like 700~900 AD we learned many things: poems governance architecture and so on. So it's essential to learn "Japan". Americans learn British history and native American's history. It's the same thing since they are highly effected by those two cultures. So I think many Japanese can understand the outlined ideas of Chinese language we can never pronounce words though. Actually we sometimes understand the meanings of them because of the prononciation. Those who are intelligent and know simplified Chinese characters can read and grab its meaning. A funny thing is they may understand better old Chinese language than Mandarin or other modern Chinese languages.

我是一名日本高中生，母語為日語，同時還會說英語和法語。所有的日本學生在初高中都必須學習中國古文，同時這也是高考必考科目（像SAT和ACT）。由于我們與中國在貿易、文化和宗教信仰上有很頻繁地交流與聯(lián)系，在公元700-900年間甚至有大批日本人去中國留學，學到了許多東西：詩歌、治國、建筑等等。所以（學習古文）對學習（了解）“日本”非常重要。美國人學習不列顛歷史和美國本土歷史，他們深受這兩種文化的影響，這和日本一樣。所以我認為許多日本人能懂個大概，雖然我們不知道該怎么發(fā)音。實際上有時我們能從發(fā)音知道意思。那些知道簡體字的聰明人一般都能讀懂這些簡體字在說什么。一個搞笑的事情是，他們的中國古文比普通話或者其他現(xiàn)代漢語都強。

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

作為一個中國人，正如你所說，我在讀你舉例的句子時就是：貓...魚...吃……

tao han
2 個月前
中：一把把把把住了（有沒同志覺得把在這里出現(xiàn)太多，已經讓人有點懷疑是錯別字了......）

日：ハンドルを片手に住んでた
En：Straighten the steering wheel

英文版：扶直方向盤。

ka.N KAN
I'm Japanese.
Chenese language is not easy for me but I understand many I mean a few handreds of characters.
山(mountain) in Chinese means 山 in Japanese.

海(sea) means 海.
川(stream river) means 川.
我是日本人。中文對我而言并不簡單。但我能看懂數(shù)百個漢字。
山：在中文的意思和日文是一致的；海：也是；川：也是。

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

哈哈哈哈，視頻0.27時的泰語說的是“我進局子了”。

パンあげ
Japanese has just 3type of lattersb34;
And each kanjis have many ways to call.
生→this kanji can read over 100 waysb34;
That's all??

日語只有3種聲調；但每個日本漢字卻有很多發(fā)音方法。比如“生”這個字，有100多種讀法。我想說的就這些:)

Lorosa'e
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.

我就是日本人。我讀中文課本的時候基本能理解所有文字的意思。但有時候文字所表達的意思與我的理解完全是相悖的。因為雖然日語和漢語有很多相同的漢字，卻在日語和漢語中代表不同的意義。比如“大丈夫”在日語中表示“沒關系”，但在中文里卻是指“男子漢（成熟男人）”。我英語不好，抱歉。

Jenny Ni
Speaking of Japanese pronunciation it is very similar to Shanghainese (one of the Wu languages) more than Cantonese (as described in the video).

說到日語發(fā)音，它聽上去更像是上海話（吳語之一）而不是廣東話（如視頻中所述）。

Gillian Fisher
I had about a year of Chinese before I started learning Japanese. To this day even though I still use both languages when I read Japanese [and come across a kanji] my brain initially associates it with the Chinese pronunciation. Instead of "English bla English bla English bla bla" it ends up being something like "Chinese Japanese Chinese Japanese Chinese Japanese Japanese." (I hope that makes sense.) Rarely do I ever have trouble speaking though since the languages are so different.

在我開始學習日語之前，我學了大概一年的中文。直至今日，盡管我兩種語言都用，但當我讀到日語（和里面的漢字）時，我的大腦還是會首先聯(lián)想到中文里的發(fā)音。我大腦最終閃現(xiàn)的是“中文–日文–中文–日文–中文–日文”，而不是“英文blabla英文blabla"（希望你們看得懂我在說什么）。盡管這兩種語言如此不同，但我在說話時很少遇到困難。

Camaro the Great
Let me show you how similar Chinese and Japanese are: 手紙(Japanese-Postcards Chinese-Toilet Paper) 切手(Japanese-Stamp Chinese-Cut Hand) 愛人(Japanese-Mistress Chinese-Wife) 勉強(Japanese-Study Chinese-unconvincing forced) 先生(Japanese-Teacher Chinese-Mr.) 娘(Japanese-daughter Chinese-Mother) 有難う(Japanese-arigatou Thank you Chinese-有難 means accident disaster catastrophe) 邪魔(Japanese-Bother disturb Chinese-evil demon) 文句(Japanese-complaint Chinese-sentence) 大丈夫(Japanese-It's okay Chinese-Strong man upright man) 丈夫(Japanese-robust Chinese-husband).湯(Japanese-hot water Chinese-Soup but in Chinese idiom 赴湯蹈火 they have the same meaning as hot water)

讓我給你看看中文和日文有多相似：?
手紙（日：明信片；中：廁紙）；切手（日：郵票；中：割手）；愛人（日：情人；中：老婆）；
勉強（日：學習；中：無法令人信服、被迫）；先生（日：老師；中：x先生）；
娘（日：女兒；中：母親）；有難う（日：謝謝； 中：意外，災難）；
邪魔（日：困擾，打擾；中：邪惡、魔鬼）；文句（日：抱怨；中：句子）；
大丈夫（日：沒關系；中：強壯的男人、正直的男人）丈夫（日：強健壯實；中：老公）；
湯（日：熱水；中：湯），雖然在 成語“赴湯蹈火”中湯指的是熱水。

ZaiPenser
The meaning of 老實 is actually closer to "honest" than to "naive".

“老實”的意思更接近“誠實”而不是“天真”。

Larry F
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

聽起來漢字在日語里的作用很像法語單詞在英文里的作用。某種程度上在書寫上也是如此，因為講英文的人能認出很多法語單詞，但兩者卻讀音大不相同，比如point、centre等。

いじょう

Any mistake request for comment.

我要說的就以上這些，有任何錯誤，歡迎評論指正。

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

我在看這個視頻時是準備好了學習知識，沒期待會被逗笑，然后出現(xiàn)了blabla那部分，我笑死了。

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

他總結得很對，這就是我們中國人讀日語時的感受.....

Reading text in just Kana is quite frustrating since many Japanese words have multiple meanings despite being written the same way.
Kanji solves this problem for the most of the time.

如果是閱讀只有假名的文章就會發(fā)現(xiàn)十分費解，因為很多日語詞即使寫法相同，卻有很多種意思。日本漢字很多時候就能解決這個問題。

kaisermuto
Japanese grammar and Chinese grammar are different each other. And Japanese Kanji pronunciation has many way while Chinese kanji has only one pronunciation.
For example 生has ikiru sei sho nama jou ki o umareru pronunciations. While chinese has only "Shen".

日語和中文的語法也各不相同。而且日語漢字的發(fā)音可能有很多種，但中文漢字只有一種發(fā)音。比如“生”這個字，日語可以發(fā)音作“ikiru、sei、sho、nama、jou、ki、o、umareru ”等，但中文只發(fā)“shen”這個音。
（審核注：這位仁兄不知道中文有多音字這個存在吧）

Simon Wilson
生 is sheng instead of shen

（吐槽樓上）“生”發(fā)音為“sheng”，不是“shen”。

sing w
You still have to learn more chinese grammar

中文語法你學得還差很多呢。

Suki L.P
As a Chinese teacher I could tell you it is not 100% correct. We use "了“ to indicate something happen in the past. I went to school is 我去學校了 / 我去了學校。 Where to place the "了” could be very tricky. It is depends on what the second part of the sentence might be. Putting the "了“ before school (the subject) normally dedicates you want to explain what has happened after you went to school. If your sentence ends at I went to school you normally put the “了” right after the subject “school” . However you could also use ”了“ with future tense sentences such as things are about to happen. Such as It is about to rain I am about to arrive and etc. My students found it very hard to master ”了“ and I totally agree with them.

作為一名中文教師，我能負責的告訴你，你視頻中的說法并不是百分之百的正確。我們在中文里使用“了”這個字來表示發(fā)生在過去的事件。比如“I went to school”，中文譯為“我去了學?！被蛘摺拔胰W校了”，這個“了”字的用法其實十分嚴格，完全取決于句子第二部分是什么。將“了”放在學校（主語）這個詞之前，通常是想表達去了學校之后發(fā)生了什么。如果你句子在寫到“I went to school”就完了，你通常會把“了”這個字放在主語“學校”這個詞右邊。然而在某些將來時態(tài)的句子中，你也可用“了”來表達即將發(fā)生之事。比如“馬上要下雨了”，“我馬上就到了”等等。我的學生發(fā)現(xiàn)“了”字的用法很難掌握，這我完全認同。