Japanese, like Korean, borrowed most of its Kanjis (characters) from Chinese. This is good news if you already speak Chinese since the vast majority of characters are very similar or exactly the same in both languages. Furthermore, they are often pronounced in not totally different ways, which considerably helps when learning new vocabulary.

Table of languages significantly similar to Japanese

	Similarity			Statistics
	Vocabulary	Grammar		Speakers	Countries	GDP
Japanese	100%	–		127 M	1	$4,326 bn
Korean	40%			70 M	2	$605 bn
Total				197 M	3	$4931 bn

EXPLANATION

Similarity
VOCABULARY: Percentage of vocabulary that isvery similar in both languages.
GRAMMATICAL: Cactuses () indicate the relative difficulty of learning this language if you already speak Japanese. The fewer cactuses/cacti, the easier.

Speakers
NUMBER: total number of native speakers of each language.
SHARE: number of speakers times % similar vocabulary (see above). This gives you an indication of the number of people you can reach indirectly by learning Japanese.

Countries
NUMBER: Total number of countries where the language is an official language or widely spoken.
SHARE: The number of countries times % similar vocabulary (see above). This gives you an indication of the number of countries you can reach indirectly by learning Japanese.

GDP
NUMBER: Combined total nominal GDP in US dollars for each language.
SHARE: Combined GDP times % similar vocabulary (see above). This gives you an indication of the economic importance of the language group you enter by learning Japanese.

The purpose of this table is to list the most important languages similar to Japanese and see how closely related they are. It helps you select the language you want to learn by appraising you on what significant other languages you could learn more easily on the basis of your future knowledge of Japanese.

If you feel the figures listed in this table are not correct and you have learned one of the languages listed above, please feel free to contact me and let me know how this should be improved and why.