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Japanese kanji vs Chinese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7191 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 9 of 22 04 September 2006 at 10:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Just out of curiosity, are there false friends between the Kanji and the Chinese Characters?
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| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6771 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 10 of 22 04 September 2006 at 11:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Sure. One of the famous ones is 手紙. The characters individually mean hand and paper. Together, they mean "letter" in Japanese, and "toilet paper" in Chinese.
I'm sure there's a list of faux-amis between the two languages somewhere. Edited by Captain Haddock on 04 September 2006 at 11:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7321 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 22 04 September 2006 at 1:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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娘 - daughter (J), mother (C)
石头(頭) - stubborn old man (supposedly J), stone (C) 勉强 - study (J), reluctantly do something (C) 火车(車) - car (supposedly J), train (C) although 列车 is now preferred in both Japan and China 汤 (湯) - hot water (J), soup (C) [ I was very careful about that when preparing Japanese instant noodles ] 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hagen Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6963 days ago 171 posts - 179 votes 6 sounds Speaks: German*, English, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 12 of 22 04 September 2006 at 1:11pm | IP Logged | ||
Really? I have never encountered 列车 outside of formal context in China. (And *列车站 doesn't seem to exist at all.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7321 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 22 04 September 2006 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry, for the confusion. I meant that 列车 is preferred in a formal context to refer to train in both Japanese and Chinese. As for informal use, I'm not sure what the Japanese use.
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| japkorengchi Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6683 days ago 334 posts - 355 votes | Message 14 of 22 04 September 2006 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think 列车 is used in a more formal footing in Japanese. I generally come across with this term in Japanese news or Japanese notices.
列车站 can be intelligible to Chinese speakers but it sounds like an artificially coined word.Japanese people use the kanji 駅（eki) to refer to a train station. And Chinese people refer to a train station by 火車站 or simply 車站. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| japkorengchi Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6683 days ago 334 posts - 355 votes | Message 15 of 22 04 September 2006 at 10:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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From my point of view, the biggest "false friend" between Chinese and Japanese is the
"grammatical gender" system of Japanese. "Grammatical gender" here doesn't refer to the the grammatical genders of European languages like French or German; it refers to the fact that Japanese add either "go" or "o" to Sino-Japanese words arbitrarily to show politeness. This "grammatical gender" is extremely troublesome because there is no rule to follow. And unlike French or German, this "grammatical gender" is not always in use unless you have to be very polite when talking with a customer or a senior.. It means exposure to this "grammatical gender" is much more limited than other European languages and thus more difficult to get it right. When I first started learning Japanese, I had no knowledge of this "grammatical gender" because the textbook simply didn't mention this difficutl aspect of Japanese. But when Chinese learners proceed on their journey of learning Japanese, they will be confronted by this system when you want to achieve native fluency. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6771 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 16 of 22 04 September 2006 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Isn't the general rule that you add go- to Sino-Japanese words and o- to Japanese words? I don't think there are enough exceptions to bother most people.
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