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What do the Japanese think of the Chinese language?
日本人是如何看待中文的?
Peter Yonge, works at Japan
Answered Jan 20, 2016
All these answers are excellent and helpful. I particularly like Serina's view of the kana as "childhood friends among a mass of intimidating business men" - that's pretty much how I felt in my early years in Japan.
Let me just add: there is a sense in which ordinary Japanese people see Chinese as something quite familiar, a sense of "we already know this." That's because the basic education in middle and high schools includes lessons on classics. These, in turn, cover not only old Japanese literature but also Chinese works - they have to, because numerous elements in Japanese culture are derived from Chinese history, and in particular a great many words and phrases can only be explained by telling a story from old China.
A well-known example: the common word for "contradiction" is 矛盾 mujun in which the characters mean spear and shield. It goes back to a Chinese story about the armourer who sold his wares saying, "This spear is so sharp, it will pierce the toughest shield!" and then, "This shield is so tough it will deflect the sharpest spear!" His customers laughed at the inherent contradiction, the story got quoted by a famous scholar, and the phrase stuck.
See the Wiki article Kanbun for more detail than you probably want... but the "kanbun" system for reading classical Chinese as if it were classical Japanese (despite the huge differences in syntax) is something everyone has to do in school, even if they never get good at it. Granted, modern Chinese is not the same as the classical form, but Japanese readers do get a bit of experience in following the distinctive word-order.
By the way, normal literacy in Japanese requires a basic stock of about 3,000 kanji with more added in the jargon of each specialism. Chinese literacy needs 4,000 or so, and again more for special topics. It's not that the sheer number of characters is so different, but rather that the two sets don't fully overlap - some characters are common in Chinese but never used in Japanese, and to some extent vice versa. In both languages thousands more characters exist in theory, or have been used historically, but are now left up to the pedant and classicist to have fun with.
Of course, everything I've said relates solely to the written language. Pronouncing it is, as they say, a whole nother story...!
彼得?揚 在日本工作
所有（其他答主）的回覆都很棒也很有幫助。我尤其喜歡瑟琳娜的觀點，將假名比作「一群可怕的商人裡面的童年朋友」—這與我早年在日本的感覺完全一樣。
我只想說：普通日本人對漢語有一種相當的熟悉的感覺，這種感覺就是「我們早已經了解過了」。因為中學時代的基礎教育包含了文言文。它不僅是指古代日本的文學作品，還包括他們必須學習中國的文學作品，因為日本大量的文化都起源於中國的歷史，在詞彙和短語方面尤其的多，這些詞彙和短語只能用來自古代中國的歷史故事來解釋。
一個廣為人知的例子就是：常用詞彙「contradiction」---矛盾，這個字符的意思是「矛」和「盾」。這還得回到一個中國故事裡，一個武器製造商在售賣他的貨物時候說：「這矛如此的鋒利，它能刺穿最堅韌的盾！」，然後又說，「這盾是如此的堅韌，它能折彎最鋒利的毛！」他的顧客們對此哈哈大笑起來，這個故事由一位著名的學者引述，並且固定成了一個短語。
可以去維基百科上看一看「漢文訓讀」，你能了解到更多細節（ 漢文訓讀（日語：訓読、漢文訓読、読み下し），是日本人依日語文法解讀漢語文言文（日本人稱之為「漢文」）的方法）。文言文的「訓讀」系統，就如學習古日語一樣是每個日本人在學校都必須要學習的東西，即使他們壓根學得就不好。必須說，現代漢語跟文言文形式不同，但日本讀者可以藉助以下某些經驗來區分詞彙規則。
順便一說，在日語中，正常的讀寫能力需要大約3000個漢字的基本知識，而在每個專業術語中都有更多的術語。漢語讀寫能力則需要4000或者更多，在特殊領域下同樣需要更多的漢字。中日漢語詞彙不是完全不同，但也不是都重疊---一些中國常用的漢字在日本完全沒使用，反之亦然。兩門語言理論上存在數以千計乃至更多的漢字，至少在歷史上存在過，但如今只作為一些書呆子或古典學者娛樂的工具。
當然了，我所說的只涉及書面語。語音方面，正如他們所說的，是完全不同的故事了……
Serina Kurahashi, lived in Japan
upxed Jan 21, 2016
I consider the Chinese language like a distant relative that I've never met before.
I'm interested and curious to know more about them since we share the same roots, but somewhat intimidated to actually do so because I hear they have a difficult personality. So instead, I stay away.
I say difficult because of mainly two reasons:
1. The fact that hiragana and katakana don't exist.
2. The pronunciation that appears as if it would be nearly impossible for a non-native speaker to perfect later on in life.Hiragana and katakana, to me, are like childhood friends among a mass of intimidating business men, some of whom I have a hard time trying to understand because they are so intelligent. The businessmen in this context are kanji.So when I see stuff like this:
東京都中央卸売市場築地市場東京水産物部卸売業者売場
I get nervous because I don't see a single friend. (The above is the official name of a fish dealer in Tsukiji Market, Tokyo.)And in Chinese, there will never be any childhood friends. :'(
I would have to learn to get along with these formal business men, 24/7.
In regards to pronunciation, this is a pretty famous example known among the Japanese. In Mandarin Chinese, "ma" can have 4 different meanings based on how it is pronounced:
mā - 媽 - mothermá - 麻 - hempmǎ - 馬 - horse mà - 罵 - scold
I listened to the audio here and the four are similarly confusing! I fear I would talk about my mother and everyone would wind up thinking I have a horse. Or just really love hemp.
I've talked to various Chinese people before and they have told me that learning Chinese would be easy (which I still refuse to believe).
However, apparently the past and future tenses are decided by context and not by conjugating verbs, meaning no complicated "go → went", "eat → ate", so in that sense it does seem foreigner-friendly.
In regards to deciphering meanings, whenever I see signs in Chinese, the guessing games begin.
I found it highly amusing when I saw this in Taiwan:
It says: "Cleaning - Entry prohibited".
The part that says "禁止進入" or literally "prohibited to enter" can be switched and it would make perfect sense in Japanese as "進入禁止 (entry prohibited), which, may not be interesting at all to many people, but I had a serious "whaaaat" moment right there.
I love finding these kinds of minor similarities and differences. :D
I'm also constantly amazed at how the Chinese language can assign Chinese characters to completely western names, like the below:
All in all, I think Chinese is a very practical, historical, and fascinating language, and I would love to tackle it someday in the near future.
瑟琳娜·倉橋 曾在日本生活
我認為中文就是我之前從未見面的遠房親戚。
自從知道我們共享同樣的漢字以來我就對漢字感興趣，但因為一些嚇人的事實---我聽說它們（漢字）難以溝通的性格。所以取而代之，我與它們保持距離。
我說的難以溝通主要基於兩個原因：
1.中文不存在平假名和片假名；
2.中文的發音，對於非本國口語者來說，用餘生來掌握似乎基本不可能。
平假名和片假名，對於我來說，就像是一群可怕的商人裡面的童年朋友一般。他們中的一些「人」讓我花費了大量時間來理解記憶，因為他們實在太有智慧了。這個說話背景裡，「可怕的商人」就是日式漢字。
所以當我看見這樣的材料：
「東京都中央卸売市場築地市場東京水産物部卸売業者売場」
我感到緊張因為我看不到一個朋友。（上面的意思是：東京築地漁業交易市場的正式名字）
所以中文對於我而言，那裡完全找不到任何童年朋友。:(
我將不得不學習中文---與那群正式的商人們獨處，7月24日。
就發音而言，這是日本相當著名的例子。現代漢語，「ma」基於發音可以有4種不同的意思：
mā – 媽 - mother
má – 麻 – hemp（大麻）
mǎ – 馬 - horse
mà – 罵 - scold
我有聽過它們的發音，它們太令人抓狂了！我害怕在我談論我媽媽的時候，別人會以為我在說馬。或者很愛大麻。
我已經跟各種各樣的中國人聊過天了，他們告訴我說學習中文非常簡單的（我至今拒絕相信這點）。
無論怎樣，英語的過去和將來時態是基於上下文而非動詞的組合，意思也不複雜「go-went」，「eat-ate」，所以從時態來說，英語似乎是一位外國朋友。
到了我看中文，猜字謎的遊戲就開始了。
我在臺灣隨處可見這種好玩的文字：
意思是：「清潔中，禁止進入」
「禁止進入」這段文字或者字面意義上「prohibited to enter」可以被完美被替換成日文「進入禁止」 (entry prohibited)，對於很多日本人來說這稀鬆平常，但對於我來說，當時那瞬間我真的有種「啥，這是認真的？」的感覺。
我熱愛尋找那些比較細微的類似和差異之處。
同時中文能用漢字與西方完美名字匹配這點，我一直感到不可思議。像下面這種：
總的來說，我覺得中文是非常實用、非常古老、和迷人的語言，並且在最近幾年我會熱衷於學會它。
Elliott Chen
Jul 6, 2016 · 5 upvotes
Seriously chinese is easy for Japanese speakers. My girlfriend is Japanese and she barely studied and can speak fluently.
認真的說，中文對於日本人來說是易學的。我的女朋友就是日本人，她僅僅學過一些就可以流利地說中文了。
Serina Kurahashi
Jul 12, 2016 · 6 upvotes
Could it be that your girlfriend is just simply a genius?
可能僅僅是因為你的女朋友本身就是一個天才？
Max Yang
Jan 7, 2016 · 14 upvotes including Serina Kurahashi
Plus, don't fear people would get confused that you are talking about horse when you talk about your mom. Even if your pronunciation is wrong, there is context so people will understand what you're talking about. Only that you will have a strong "foreigner" accent (obviously has to be Japanese accent). Different tones are used for expressing different moods in non-tonal languages. In Mandarin, in order to add moods to standard pronunciation, you have to go further on the tones. It's subtle and it needs practice and getting used to. But at the beginning don't worry about it. Don't even think about it.
補充一點，別再為你談自己媽媽的時候害怕別人誤解為「馬」了。即使你發音錯了，依據談話背景，人們也能理解你說的是什麼。除非你帶有強烈的「外國人」口音（當然是日語口音）。在非聲調語言裡，不同的聲調常被用來表達不同的情緒。在普通話中，為了在標準的發音中添加情緒，你必須更進一步的學習聲調系統。它們很微妙，需要練習並經常使用。但現在不需要擔心這點，也不需要考慮這點。
Serina Kurahashi
Jan 8, 2016
Do you know Japanese or English speakers that started learning Chinese past their 20's and managed to achieve really good pronunciation?
你有認識哪個說日語或英語的，從20歲開始學習中文並已經擁有合格發音的人嗎？
Sean Li
Jan 30, 2016 · 2 upvotes including Serina Kurahashi
The was this (international student) Japanese girl who I knew from a Japanese language exchange table though I doubt she remembered me. But anyway, I decided to take a second semester third year Chinese course to boost my GPA and I saw her there and heard her speak. While she'd use the wrong tone every once in a while, her pronunciation, timing, stress, intonation, diction, and all those things that make up an "accent" all sounded very fluid, natural, and native to me.
我在日語課上認識一個日本女孩，儘管我懷疑她是否還記得我。不過不管怎麼說，我是在第三學年的第二學期決定上中文課來提升我的平均成績的時候見到她的，我聽了她的口語。雖然她偶爾沒有正確使用聲調，但她的發音、時機、重讀、聲調、措詞以及所有帶有口音的發音，對我來說依舊是非常流利、自然，跟中國人沒什麼不同。
Tse-en Fan
Jun 3, 2016 · 2 upvotes including Serina Kurahashi
Actually a couple of the people with the best spoken and written Mandarin have been white american friends who started learning in their mid/late 20’s. The span of time which they achieved fluency is what surprised me the most: 1–2 years. Being an ABC I still haven’t achieved that although I’m considered 「good for an ABC」
As for learning languages, polyglot Ollie Richards provides many good resources and tips on how to learn various languages, both for free on his blogs and email newsletters and for sale.
事實上，有數個口語和書面語最好的美國白人朋友，他們在20歲中後期開始學習的中文。他們達到流利的讓我驚訝的程度最多也就1-2年。作為一個ABC，我甚至都沒能達到我眼中的「合格的ABC」的程度。
要學習語言，通曉數國語言的 Ollie Richards提供了很多很好關於如何學習各類語言的建議和提示，可以免費關注他的博客和郵箱，來付費獲取。
Serina Kurahashi
Jun 9, 2016
One to two years? That’s very quick! :O Makes learning Chinese seem more achievable. Thank you for listing out resources.
1-2年？這也太快了！讓我覺得學習中文似乎更有信心了。謝謝。
Tse-en Fan
Jun 9, 2016 · 2 upvotes including Serina Kurahashi
One tip he gives that was the most helpful was: Familiarize yourself with the radicals/roots first. Once you do that, overall literacy is automatically increased quite a bit via context clues. This works better in traditional scxt rather than simplified scxt (i.e. Mainland China) but for the most part it’s applicable.
Unlike English and many other Western languages, which are easier to pick up but immensely difficult to master (also with a lexicon of over 1 million words), (Mandarin) Chinese (50K-100K characters) is quite front-loaded and then sort of plateaus until you get to Classical Chinese. You 「only」 require 3K-5K characters to be on par with the average native speaker. Also, there are no gendered nouns (except for like 5 characters that relate to he/she/it), no tenses, nor conjugations.
他提供的最有效的一個提示就是：首先熟悉詞根。一旦你做到了，通過上下文線索，讀寫能力自然而然就會迅速提高。運用這種方法，學習繁體字會比簡體字來得更快，大多數情況下。
不像英語等大多數西方語言，它們更易於採用但很難精通（這些語言的詞典包含100萬詞彙），漢語普通話（5萬-10萬漢字）則是完全是先難後易，然後再經歷一段高原期學會文言文。你只要掌握3000到5000漢字的話就能與當地人持平了。再者，漢語沒有依性別進行區分的名詞（除了他、她、它），沒有時態，沒有動詞詞形變化。
Serina Kurahashi
Jun 17, 2016
I think 3K to 5K is the same amount of characters a native Japanese speaker normally knows. Eek! But I guess it’s much better than 50 to 100 K. Thanks for explaning, I didn’t know a lot of things you mentioned.
我覺得3000到5000漢字也是日本本國人通常所掌握的漢字字數。嗯嗯！但我猜這肯定比掌握5萬到10萬詞彙要容易多了。謝謝你的解釋。聽君一席話勝讀十年書。
Joseph Bond
Jan 20, 2016 · 2 upvotes including Serina Kurahashi
I do have a friend that learned Chinese as adult and is very good, but the guy was committed to learning Chinese - his goal was to become a translator. He was able to devote a lot more time than the 45-60 minutes per day that I devote towards language study....
When I'm studying. ;-)
我有一個朋友，身為成年人也在學習漢語，效果還非常好。但這傢伙致力於掌握漢語，他的目標是成為一位翻譯員。他常常每天花45-60分鐘來學習，這也是我現在的目標……
我現在也在學習語言哦
Sun Jeen Ling
Jul 21, 2016 · 4 upvotes
In Malaysia, we Chinese use a lot of 啊，咯 and son on
馬來西亞華語 - 維基百科，自由的百科全書
受閩、粵、客諸方言影響，馬來西亞華語後方通常會加上獨特的語音嘆詞，而這些語音也會影響整個句子的含義。例如：
是啦！ （代表確定的意思）是咩？ （代表懷疑的意思）是喔！ （代表贊同的意思）是呱？ （代表不肯定的意思）是咯！ （代表附和的意思）是哈？ （代表驚訝的意思）是吼！ （代表恍然大悟的意思）是咧！ （代表肯定的意思）
so, we not necessary use tones to express emotion
在馬來西亞，我們華人大量使用「啊，咯」等詞彙。
受閩、粵、客諸方言影響，馬來西亞華語後方通常會加上獨特的語音嘆詞，而這些語音也會影響整個句子的含義。例如：
· 是啦！ （代表確定的意思）
· 是咩？ （代表懷疑的意思）
· 是喔！ （代表贊同的意思）
· 是呱？ （代表不肯定的意思）
· 是咯！ （代表附和的意思）
· 是哈？ （代表驚訝的意思）
· 是吼！ （代表恍然大悟的意思）
· 是咧！ （代表肯定的意思）
所以說，我們不必使用語調就能表達感情。
Gabriel Chan
Jan 6, 2016 · 7 upvotes including Serina Kurahashi
The part that says "禁止進入" or literally "prohibited passing" can be switched and it would make perfect sense in Japanese as "進入禁止 (passing prohibited), which, may not be interesting at all to many people, but I had a serious "whaaaat" moment right there.
That’s me in Japan, and I thought 「I would make this kind of 『mistake』 in Chinese school」 :P
圖片上「禁止進入」這段文字或者字面意義上「prohibited to enter」可以被完美被替換成日文「進入禁止」 (entry prohibited)，對於很多日本人來說這稀鬆平常，但對於我來說，當時那瞬間我真的有種「啥，這是認真的？」的感覺。
這在日本才行的通，在中國的學校裡這就是其中一種書寫錯誤，哈哈。
Yanchen Shi
Jan 7, 2016 · 12 upvotes including Serina Kurahashi and Emanuel Leung
The metaphor is totally reversed when I read Japanese. I feel good when reading a scxt consisting of lots of kanjis, but get pretty nervous facing a sentence only has kanas, especially the case that a plethora of continuous katakanas. It looks amusing that I could read a Japanese Wikipedia page of greenhouse effect faster than a Pokemon game dialogues.
當我讀日語的時候其內在意思完全是顛倒過來的。當閱讀一長串日式漢語的時候才感覺好點，但面對一段假名句子的時候又會變得非常緊張，尤其是一長串的片假名句子。相比於看一段Pokemon遊戲上的對話，當我發現我能更快的閱讀日本維基百科上關於溫室效應的內容的時候，想想感覺還挺有意思的。
Serina Kurahashi
Jan 12, 2016 · 2 upvotes
I admit - I don't get nervous but when there are full sentences in only kana or hiragana, it is sorta hard to read. A little bit of kanji breaks it up nicely!
我同意，我通常不會感到緊張除非整個句子都是平假名或片假名的時候，這挺難讀的。少量的日式漢字能迅速的明了整段話的意思！
Rakesh Sridhar
Jan 19, 2016 · 3 upvotes including Serina Kurahashi
As a foreigner (non-Chinese) learning Japanese, I find katakana to be the most difficult of the three Japanese alphabets - hiragana, katakana, kanji. Especially, when you write a foreigner's name using katakana, it's a nightmare... On the other hand, I find kanjis to be quite easy because they have a meaning associated with them and also because I am a Heisig fan. (Google Heisig for more information.)
I can understand why Japanese people find kanas to be very easy. It's because they learn the kanas before learning kanjis. However, most foreigners learn kanas along with kanjis and depending on the method of learning kanjis, you will totally love the beauty of the kanjis and don't bother to memorize the kanas (that's me!) or you hate the kanjis and just learn the kanas but never understand any signboards, etc.
作為一個學習日語的外國人（非中國人），我覺得片假名是日語3種文字中（平假名、片假名、日式漢字）最難的一種，尤其是當用你片假名來寫一個外國人的名字的時候，這簡直是噩夢……另一方面，我覺得日式漢字非常容易學習，因為他們自身就有明確的意思，也因為我是Heisig手機軟體的粉絲（譯註：Heisig根據百度，是一款學習漢語的安卓學習軟體）。
我能理解日本人為何覺得假名更容易。因為他們先於漢字學習的假名。儘管如此，對於大多數同時學習假名和日式漢字、並依賴漢字的外國人而言，你絕對會愛上這美麗的漢字的，它不會讓你會記憶假名而感到煩惱，或者你討厭日式漢字只學習假名，然後就會發現完全看不懂任何標識牌……
H?kan Stors?ter
Apr 13, 2016 · 1 upvote
I'd say most foreigners would learn kana before kanji... At least if you count to an usable level and not just the very basic kanji...
我得說，大多數外國人都是先學習假名後學習日式漢字的……至少你能通過這種只需要掌握最基礎的一些日式漢字的方法，就能讓你達到一定的適用的水平。
Rakesh Sridhar
Apr 13, 2016 · 1 upvote
What I meant is foreigners who are committed to learning Japanese and those who want to use Japanese in practical situations transition from kana to kanji very quickly - in a matter of weeks. As a result, they don't give enough time for the kana to set into their system. This is unlike a typical school kid in Japan who will spend at least a few years reading completely Hiragana based textbooks. So, many foreigners are actually comfortable reading scxts with kanjis than exclusively kana based scxts. (May be, I should not generalize. Everyone has their own way of studying Japanese or any other language for that matter.)
我說的外國人的意思是，那些致力於通過學習日語，來讓自己可以在實際情況下迅速的將假名翻譯成日式漢字的人，大概只需要數周時間。也就是說，他們不需要為掌握假名而花費足夠時間。這不同於在日本大眾學校中學習假名的孩子——他們至少要花數年時間來閱讀平假名文本。所以事實上，許多外國人閱讀日式漢字文本會比閱讀純假名文本來得更舒服一些。（可能，我不應該說得這麼明確。其實每個人都有自己學習日語或其他任何一門語言的方法，這才是最重要的。）
Jenny Davenport
Jan 23, 2016 · 3 upvotes including Serina Kurahashi
What a perfect essay explaining just how I have always felt about the Chinese language! I learned Japanese as a child, lived there twice, and my first job out of college was in Tokyo, so I pretty much came of age in Japan, although I have no Asian heritage at all. Now, years later, I'm an ESL teacher in a school that teaches Mandarin immersion, among other languages, and I'm only now starting to make my acquaintance with this distant relative who I only vaguely knew before! I love being able to read bits and parts of the children's Mandarin work posted in the halls, and I'll say Hello in Mandarin to my colleagues, but having not a lot of time as a teacher and mom myself, it's just a passing, humorous acquaintance. Thank you for such an evocative essay!
這真是一篇關於漢語的不錯的留言，說到我的心坎裡去了！
我在孩童時代學習過日語，在那裡生活過2次，離開大學找的第一份工作就是在東京，所以我在日本的時間也不算短了，儘管我完全不是亞洲人。
如今，數年過去，我成了一所學校裡的一名外語教師，這裡教授沉浸式漢語和別的語言，而我現在對於漢語這個遠房親戚的接觸才剛剛開始。我喜歡看那些用普通話寫在走廊上、給孩子們的話，我還會跟我的同事們用普通話打招呼，但身為老師和媽媽，則沒有多少時間再去接觸過去的、詼諧幽默的老朋友（譯註：指日語及過去在日本的經歷），謝謝你喚起了我的回憶。
Elliott Chen
Oct 12 · 2 upvotes
That’s a fascinating comment how you said growing up you never thought you were studying Chinese language and Chinese philosophy in school. Of course you were not. But of course you were.
看到你說「你完全沒有覺得你在學校有學習漢語，只是在學習中國哲學」就覺得很有意思。
你當然可以認為你沒有，但你當然有。事實勝於雄辯。
Kentaro Chiba
Oct 17 · 1 upvote
Yes, it is rather strange when one thinks about it. We were learning how to comprehend 5 syllable 5 line poems from the Tang dynasty period, written 100% in Chinese characters, but reading them verbally in Japanese and appreciating them! Even imagining a sun setting over a tavern near the border to the west region(silk road territory) , for example.
是啊，一般人會覺得這說法很奇怪。我們學習5音節5段詩的唐詩，它們百分百是漢字寫就的，但是用日語讀出來的，我們非常欣賞這些詩歌！舉個例，只需要想像夕陽越過絲綢之路上酒館，緩緩落在西邊天際。
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Nell Zhang, lived in Japan
upxed Dec 14, 2016
I have many many Japanese coworkers who are Chinese language learners.
Let me share my rank of "Japanese learners' Comments to Chinese".
1. Suggei! Zenbu kanji! (Gosh! All characters!)
I hear this one nearly 100% when a Japanese visits China THE FIRST TIME, the first moment walking on the street of China.
Yes as everyone said, no hiragana or katagana in Chinese, all those TOUGH characters, kind of shocking.
2. mirebawakaru. kakebatujiru. (I can understand the road sign/shop names/nearly everything on the road! And I can communicate with locals by writing things down!)
Actually this is a huge benefit on both sides-Japanese people visiting China, and Chinese people visiting Japan. The similar Chinese characters work so greatly that you feel like you never crossed the country border.
3. shisei!(The four tones of Chinese)... Sigh. Such a pain in the ass.
4. You guys are crazy! You translate EVERYTHING!
There are countless gairaigo (loan words from foreign languages which are introduced into Japanese directly by SOUND, such as "restaurant"-resutoran, "TV"-terebi, not only nouns but also verbs, adjs, phrases like "case by case"-keisubaikeisu, "backup"-bakkuappu, etc) in Japanese language. While in Chinese there are A FEW too, but too few comparing to Japanese. For example, TV is called dianshi using 2 characters 電"electric" and 視 "view" which is the exact TRANSLATION. And so do "basketball", "camera", "computer"...nearly EVERYTHING.
And even such pitiful a few loan words, such as 巧克力(chocolate)，沙發(sofa)，幽默(humor), as you see, they are not written in alphabet or anything like katagana, but still in kanji characters!
My Japanese coworkers always blame "What's the point you guys translate all the western stuffs into kanji?"
Just like we Chinese Japanese learners always wonder "How can you Japanese people remember so many totally FOREIGN WORDS like ketchup without the meaningful character like 番茄醬(tomato sauce)?"
5. This one is not a comment.
Chinese Mainlanders use simplified characters as well as Japanese people use mostly, well, kind of traditional characters (not exactly, just relatively speaking, to make long story short). So generally Chinese mainland characters are simpler than their Japanese version. Most of my Japanese coworkers can understand both versions, but once they started to write the simpler ones, they got ADDICTED to them, even in their signatures.
I understand this point SO MUCH, because...just see my company meeting note, see what a mixture of hiragana, simplified character and English alphabet...We human love easy stuff, don't we? ^^
And I always feel...
Japanese Chinese learners ROCK!
I really feel grateful to them because without their views, I would never find Chinese, my mother language which I use 24/7/365 and got so bored at is in fact INTERESTING!
Nell·張 曾居住在日本
我有大量的在學習漢語的日本同事。
我來分享那些「日本學習者們對漢語的言論」排位：
1.我的老天爺！全是漢字啊！
所有第一次造訪中國、漫步在中國街道上的日本人的第一句話，我所聽過的全都是這句話。
是的，每個人都這麼說過，沒有平假名和片假名，全都是令人生畏的漢字。
2.我能看懂這個路牌標識/商店名稱/幾乎每條道路的標識！而且我能通過書寫漢字來與中國本地人溝通！
事實上這真是日本人和中國人互訪的巨大便利。這些漢字是如此的相似，你甚至覺得自己沒有離開自己的國家。
3.漢語的聲調系統，真是讓人頭疼。
4.你這傢伙太不可思議了！你什麼都能翻譯過來！
日語裡有不計其數的外來詞（引入日本的外語詞彙，尤其是引入聲音，例如「旅館」，「TV」，不只是名詞，還包括動詞，形容詞，短語）。然而在中國，外來詞就比較少，跟日本比起來。例如，「TV」被成為電視，用了2個漢字，這是直譯。還有「籃球」、「數位相機」、「電腦」……幾乎所有事物。
即使是少得可憐的一些外來詞，如：巧克力(chocolate)，沙發(sofa)，幽默(humor),正如你所 的，他們都不是用字母或類似片假名來書寫的，而是漢字！
我的日本同時總是抱怨「你們這些傢伙把所有西式材料都翻譯成日式漢字（註：原文如此，此處應該理解為漢字的日本稱呼），有必要嗎？」
正如我們這些中文日語學習者一樣也很好奇「如此多的、純粹的、沒有意義字符來表達（純音譯）的外來詞，你們日本人是怎麼記住的？」
5.這個字不是這個意思
大陸人運用簡體字，某種意義上就如日本人運用繁體字一樣熟練（別上綱上線，就是一種大概的相對的說法）。所以大陸相當多的漢字都要比日式漢字來得更簡單。絕大多數日本同事兩種版本的漢字都能看懂，但一旦讓他們來寫簡體字，他們會上癮的，包括自己的籤名（可能都會變成簡體字版本）。
我太了解這點了，因為……只需要看一看我公司的會議記錄，看一看混合了平假名、簡體漢字和英文字母的記錄……我們人類天生熱愛容易的東西，不是嗎？
最後我還覺得……
日本的漢語學習者太有意思了！
我真的很感激他們，因為沒有他們的觀點，我會覺得我的母語，這個每年每月每時每刻都在使用的枯燥的語言居然如此得有意思！
（譯者：╮(╯_╰)╭原諒譯者愛用「意思」這個詞，只是因為「意思」這個詞真的太有意思了。）
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David A. LaSpina
Jan 27, 2016 · 3 upvotes including Nell Zhang
I never understood why Japanese takes loan words directly. Translating the meaning to kanji makes so much more sense and I wish Japan did it this way. (Or course I may just be influenced by how hard katakana words are to say for native English speakers. After ten years here I still can't say McDonald's with a correct katakana accent)
我真的不懂，為何日本要直接音譯外來詞。把外來詞翻譯成日式漢字更有意義，我希望日本能這麼做。當然了，作為以英語為母語的我可能是受到假名的影響，覺得假名太難理解了。在日本呆了10年了，我依舊沒法用假名口音發出「麥當勞」的音。
Nell Zhang
Jan 27, 2016 · 3 upvotes
Shake hands!
Actually the only one I can say McDonald is makku. ^^
Mcdonald in Chinese is 麥當勞, maidanglao, a loan word, still the kanji means something like "wheat should work", at least something ABOUT food, not too meaningless...
Its "brother" KFC makes more sense here. It's called "肯德基", kendeji, borrowed from the sound of Kentucky. But it SOUNDS the same to "啃得雞" (eatable chicken), pretty good translation. Just the "side-effect" is when you talk about the state Kentucky of US, 9 of 10 Chinese people would only imagine that Santa-face grandpa. ^^
握手！
事實上我唯一能發出麥當勞的音就是makku。
Mcdonald在漢語裡是「麥當勞」，maidanglao，本地詞彙，用日式漢字來理解類似與「麥子需要勞作」的意思，至少這跟食物有關，不會毫無意義……
它的「兄弟」肯德基的意思更多一些。Kendeji，音譯字「Kentucky」。但它的漢語發音類似於「啃得雞」（可以吃的雞肉），很不錯的翻譯。唯一的副作用就是當你想表達美國的肯塔基州的時候，10個中國人中9個都只會想到那個聖誕臉的老爺爺。
Adam Zhang
Apr 27, 2017
In the past, before WW2, Japanese scholars, who were usually masters of Chinese language, were the main source of introducing foreign knowledge to Japanese society, western loan words did have been translated in Kanji words by meaning. However, after WW2, information introduced by USA was overwhelming and pervasive to every walk of life, common Japanese people didn’t have adequate Chinese language skill to translate foreign words into meaningful kanji words. So they had to transliteralize foreign words by sound.
在過去，二戰之前，日本的學者們通常都是漢語大師，也是為日本社會引進外來語的主要來源，他們將西方詞彙翻譯成有意義的日式漢語詞彙。然而，二戰之後，美國壓倒性的為日本引入了大量信息，它們充斥於日本生活的各個角落，普通日本人無法勝任將外來詞彙翻譯成有意義的日式漢語詞彙。所以他們不得不音譯外來詞。
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Koji Kanao, lives in Japan
Answered Jan 10, 2016
I think signs and lyrics are easy to guess the meanings, but a long sentence is difficult to guess the meaning. In addition, there are words that use the same letters or similar letters, but the meanings are totally different. For example, 愛人 in Japanese means mistress. However, as you may know in Chinese it means sweetheart. In other words, Japanese can guess meanings when they are in circumstances that they can understand easily.
我覺得標識牌和歌詞什麼的都很容易猜測出意思來，但長長的一句話就難了。再者，日語裡一些詞彙字母相同或相似，但意義完全不同。例如，「愛人」在日語裡的意思是情婦。然而在漢語裡的意思則是妻子的意思。換句話說，當你能輕易理解它的時候，你就能猜測出日語的意思。
Patrick Edwin Moran, worked at University of Pennsylvania
upxed Jan 14, 2016
As someone who knows both languages, at least a little, I can tell you that Chinese is very context-heavy. Sometimes if you don't already know what the guy is talking about you can't understand how to construe a sentence. Sometimes Chinese play games with that feature. I was told that somebody had a cup with a string of characters written all the way around the outside, thus forming a circle. You could start from any character, read it and the rest of the characters in series, and it would make a meaningful sentence. So if there were 25 characters around the cup you could have 25 different sentences.
Chinese readers often can get the general idea of a passage in Japanese, but the more kanji the better because they don't know the syllabary symbols unless they've been taught Japanese. So they may miss the negation of a verb. "He is not really my friend," becomes read as, "He is really my friend."
As long as you stick to simple vocabulary items, the two languages are often alike since in the beginning Japanese borrowed Chinese characters to write with, and they also borrowed lots of the technical vocabulary, names for products or technologies that were also being imported. Later on, China often borrowed Japanese kanji terms for English or other western-language vocabulary items because the Japanese were ahead in the English-absorption business. Why reinvent a new kanji compound if the Japanese already had an acceptable one?
Modern Chinese has lots of imports that are "by sound only," i.e., they try to string Chinese characters together to form something that sounds like an English term. So you get "gee poo" for jeep, "Hey lou shweh foo" for Khrushchev.They also do the same kind of thing for Mongolian and Manchurian names in history books and I always feel stupid to realize it is a transliterated name rather than some arcane concept after struggling with one of them for some time. Japanese people trying to figure out "MacDonald's" in Chinese are going to be puzzled too.
I'll leave it to Japanese natives to give real examples of things they've gotten wrong when trying to dredge sense out of, e.g., a Chinese menu or signs in a bank.
派屈克?埃德溫·莫蘭 賓夕法尼亞大學工作（譯註：看頭像是一個教授形象）
作為一個中日語言都了解的人，至少我還是知道一些東西，我能的說是，中文是非常注重上下文背景的。有時候，你完全不知道某個人在說什麼，因為你不知道怎麼去理解這段話。
有時候中國人會玩一些基於文字特點的遊戲。有人曾告訴我，某人又一個杯子，這個杯子上環繞了一圈漢字。你可以從任何一個漢字為頭開始讀，然後串起餘下漢字，並且都是有意義的句子。所以如果這個杯子上環繞了25個漢字，那麼你可以得到25句意義各不不同的句子。
漢語讀者看到日語通常都能理解一個大概，如果日式漢字越多理解起來也越容易，因為他們不懂音節字母。所以他們可能誤解否定性動詞。「他不是我真正意義上的朋友，」會變成「他是我真正意義上的朋友。」
只要你了解一些簡單的詞彙，這兩門語言有很多相似之處，最開始日語借用了漢語字符來做書面語，他們還借用了大量的漢語技術性詞彙，為進口的產品或技藝命名。之後，中國常常為學習英語或者其他西方語言，借用日本的日式漢字，因為日語比漢語更先接觸並吸收英語各個方面的詞彙。所以既然日本已經有了合適的詞彙了，幹嘛還要自己再發明一個呢？
而現代漢語還存在著大量的音譯的外來詞彙，例如，他們試圖用發音相似的漢語來音譯一些英語詞彙。所以，當你聽到「gee poo」意思是「吉普車」， "Hey lou shweh foo" 意思是赫魯雪夫。在他們的史書中，他們也以這樣的方式給蒙古人和滿族人取名字，每每意識到這些看似神秘的概念其實只是音譯的名字的時候就覺得很蠢。日本人要是試圖用漢字來命名「麥當勞（MacDonald）」也會感到困惑。
這是我為日本人舉出的，一些中國人試圖解決詞彙意義時所犯過的錯誤，這還不包括銀行裡的單子或者標記牌。
Misako Fukuda, lived in Japan
Answered Jan 1, 2016
I'm Japanese and I have been to China for business trip. I can't speak Chinese or understand Chinese but I can guess what that mean from Chinese writing. If you know Japanese kanji, you can guess Chinese, too. It's not all of them but most of them. I have many Chinese frineds around me. They are always speaking Chinese and I'm always feel like they are fighting each other. I feel they are speak fast, too.
美沙子·福田 曾生活在日本
我是日本人，也因商業去中國出過差。我不會漢語但我能通過漢語書面語來猜測它的意思。如果你懂日式漢字的話，你也能猜漢語。不是全部漢字都能猜出來，但大部分都可以。我有很多中國朋友。他們常常說的漢語（口氣）總讓我以為他們在彼此爭鬥似得。另外，我覺得他們說話太快了。
Hidesato Sakakibara, former Work and live in Japan at Japan
Answered Jan 3, 2016
I as well as most Japanese people I know believe that Chinese is a totally different language and a difficult one to learn at that. Mandarin Chinese was very popular until a few years back as a third language after Japanese and English. However, with rising political tensions with China as well as the decline of the Chinese economy, its popularity has fallen drastically, with many smaller Chinese language schools having been shuttered.
Although some Chinese characters are used in Japanese, the growing trend is for more usage of kana, both hiragana and katakana. A few years back, during the adminstration of the Democratic Party of Japan, the number of characters tobe taught in the schools was raised by 200. However, this was seen by many as a political pandering stunt to China as the Democratic Party was trying to curry favor with China. This was before the problems with Senkaku Islands and the riots in China against Japan.
Younger people in general prefer to use fewer characters. Because there are no "laws" as to which characters "must be used" and which mustn't, there is no hard-and-fast rule. However, overall the use of characters by the general public is on the downtrend.
Hidesato Sakakibara 曾在日本工作和生活
我與絕大多數日本人一樣的看法，那就是漢語是一門完全不同的語言，它很難學習。普通話成為僅次於日語和英語的第三大流行語言（譯註：指在日本），這持續了一小段時間。然而鑑於與中國不斷上升的政治緊張局勢，以及中國經濟的下滑，漢語的流行度也戲劇性的掉了下來，教授漢語的小型漢語學校也被迫關閉。
雖然一些日本人常用漢字，未來的趨勢還是越來越多的使用假名，平假名和片假名。就在不久前，日本皿主黨執政期間，學校教授的漢字增加了200個。然而，這被許多人視為對中國的政治性迎合，被視為皿主黨試圖巴結中國。這發生在釣魚島事件之前。
年輕人普遍傾向於較少使用漢字。因為沒有那條法律要求必須使用或者嚴禁怎樣怎樣。然而，總的來說公眾使用漢字的趨勢在下降。（譯註：有點拗口，原文如此）
Joseph Bond, works at Mitsubishi Electric Automation
Answered Jan 20, 2016
I'm clearly not Japanese, but I do have several Japanese friends, including one that's studied several languages. We did have a brief discussion on Chinese:
Him: Joe! It's easy! No conjugation! That is great.
Me: While that's convenient, it's a tonal language. Mastering the tones would be absolutely brutal, compared to the effort in speaking Japanese properly. (I took a pass on studying Chinese when I had this fully explained).
Overall, it seems that Chinese requires significant commitment to understanding and enunciating the tones properly. Once you have that, it looks like the learning curve eases quite a bit.
I've noted in the past that native Chinese speakers seem to be somewhat better on average at speaking English compared to other ESL speakers depending on experience. I've wondered if the tonal part of Chinese helps in this regard.
The Chinese written language, on the other hand is quite useful. Another Japanese coworker of mine mentioned she was able to communicate with Thai coworkers by miming the characters with her fingers (no common language except for a smattering of English).
喬瑟夫·邦德 三菱電機自動化工程工作
我當然不是日本人，但我有一些日本朋友，包括一個曾學習過數門語言的人。我們曾簡短討論過漢語：
他：喬！這很簡單的，它沒有動詞詞性變化！這太棒了。
我：雖然這很方便，但它卻是一門聲調語言。要精通聲調真的太可怕了，相比於學習日語所需要的努力。（我有學習漢語來通過一門考試，所以我有充足的理由這樣說）。
總的來說，漢語似乎是需要準確理解聲調及發音。一旦你掌握了它，似乎就要容易的多了。
我曾經提到過，以漢語為母語的人說起英語來，要比其他英語非母語的人說英語的水平要高，這基於漢語的經驗。我好奇這是否是漢語的聲調系統提供的幫助。
漢語書面語，換句話說，它非常實用。我的其他日本同事提到過她能通過用手指來模仿字符的方式跟泰國同事溝通交流（除了一知半解的英語外，沒有共通的語言）。
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