|
 |
Does knowing Chinese help with Japanese? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| dagojr Groupie United States Joined 5377 days ago 56 posts - 131 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 11 12 April 2010 at 10:50am | IP Logged | |||||
|
Let's say you can speak and write in Chinese. Does this knowledge of Chinese make learning Japanese significantly easier?
As an example of what I mean, if you learn to read and write in Spanish, then this knowledge will help you a lot if you decide to learn Portuguese. Does the similar relationship exist between Chinese and Japanese? I know that Japanese Kanji barrows from Chinese characters. On the other hand, Chinese and Japanese come from very different language families. I don't know much about either of these languages, so a detailed explanation would be appreciated. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6556 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 11 12 April 2010 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
You won't get an advantage grammar-wise, but you'll have a huge head start in reading and writing Japanese if you
know Chinese, as well as vocabulary and cultural background. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ManicGenius Senior Member United States Joined 5269 days ago 288 posts - 420 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese | Message 3 of 11 12 April 2010 at 10:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Grammar and vocab are really off. (... well... ok, some Japanese words are Chinese loans without the tones). The only thing that'll help you a lot is having knowledge of Hanzi. Even then Japanese does this thing called Kanji compounds which will throw you completely off if you're used to the Chinese way of writing.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 5974 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 11 12 April 2010 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
In terms of vocabulary you'll have an advantage because it's estimated that around 70% of currently used Japanese vocabulary is derived from Chinese languages. Knowing enough Japanese will enable you to hear the occasional, OCCASIONAL word in Chinese. I don't know which Chinese languages this applies to most.
For writing, your biggest hurdle by far would be the Japanese syllabary as you would already have a knowledge of hanzi. However, knowing Cantonese or Taiwanese would be much more advantageous since they use the same traditional characters that Japanese uses; Mandarin uses the simplified characters, which are sometimes quite different. Compounds using Chinese characters in the more advanced stages would be cake because you would often only need to learn a new sound for the same set of characters. This paragraph also applies to learning Korean, and I bet some other Asian languages like Thai as well. But don't quote me except for Korean. Grammatically you would have no advantage other than the fact that you became accustomed to Chinese, and so learning another grammatical system would be slightly easier to wrap your head around. Possibly. Culturally the two countries have similarities but honestly I think the linguistic aspect in their cultures is different enough that you won't have a significant number of learning shortcuts. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5169 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 5 of 11 13 April 2010 at 4:55am | IP Logged | |||||
70%?!? Isn't that a bit high??! I'd say knowing Chinese helps with characters, but other than that, the fact that some words look approximately like some Chinese word would help you learn vocabulary perhaps in the same way knowing Swedish would help you learn French. As for grammar, it helps none whatsoever. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| starst Triglot Senior Member China Joined 5302 days ago 113 posts - 133 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, Japanese, EnglishC2 Studies: FrenchC1, German, Norwegian | Message 6 of 11 13 April 2010 at 5:19am | IP Logged | |||||
|
Sometimes we joke about Chinese being able to read the Japanese newspaper without ever learning the language. It's a joke somewhat true. A Chinese speaking no Japanese and a Japanese speaking no Chinese can communicate not bad with the help of a pen and a piece of paper.
Here is another example. Thanks to my mother tongue (Chinese), I passed JLPT Level 1 after 3-month full time study and 8-month living in Japan. As comparison, I have learnt French actively for 3 years, including a 4-month stay in France, but still struggling in the B2 level. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Smart Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5127 days ago 352 posts - 398 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French Studies: German | Message 7 of 11 13 April 2010 at 9:00am | IP Logged | |||||
|
Learning Chinese can cause you to be aware of what you are looking at when you begin your Japanese. They are by no means identical, however knowing character system as opposed an alphabet will make those first few weeks of Japanese easier.
I do not know either language yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 5974 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 11 13 April 2010 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
Except that if I write 行政部, 立法部, and 司法部 in a Japanese or Korean essay you could accurately assume that I'm talking about the American government system without any second guesses that might arise from conjugation or gender, etc. All three of those words are written just like that in any of the languages that use(d) Chinese characters, except in perhaps Mandarin, which might have simplified versions of some of the characters.
Actually it would make the advanced stages far easier. I'm willing to bet the beginning stage would actually be almost as hard for anyone since you'd be learning a lot more native Japanese words at first. Writing would be a cinch though. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
