Chinese vs. Japanese?

Question

Whats the major difference in the two? Are the symbols generally the same? Are the symbols read left to right or top to bottom?

Answer 1

There are several differences. Hundreds of years ago, Japanese and Chinese used the same symbols (pictograms). Then Japan became isolationist, with the result that Japanese Kanji (pictograms) today are a subset of the pictograms that are used today in Chinese. Also, over the centuries, Japan has also adopted two phonetic alphabets, Hiragana for domestic words and Katakana for foreign words. So, to read Japanese today, you need to know all three...Hiragana, Katakana, and a subset of the Chinese Kanji.

All modern Chinese is written in pictograms...there is no phonetic Chinese alphabet.

Both languages can be written either horizontally or vertically. When written vertically, they are usually read top to bottom, right to left.

Answer 2

- Chinese have 2 kinds for writing , they are chinese (Simplified) and chinese (traditional). Japanese use chinese (traditional) and it be called "kanji" injapanese.
+ the diffrence of them is the way of pronouce and in some way the meaning and the using a word is the same , in some way , they also used diffrent.(it depend on grammar structure and meaning in each language )

Nowadays, both almost chinese and japanese modern text is read from left to right. But some text is read from top to bottom, at that time we ll read it from right to left.

Answer 3

the difference of them are the language
yes there symbols look the same because japanese are using chinese character in there writings called kanji
but japanese are not using only the chinese character
they have 3 ways to write hiragana, katakana, and kanji
there symbol can be read in many different ways
but you have to look at it to see which way it is going

Answer 4

Japanese is top to bottom, chinese is left to right.
two diffrent countries two diffrent cultures