can a chinese person understand japanese writing?

Answer 1

To tell u the truth, yes , I as a Chinese can read very minimium Japanese and understand.

Before I took up Japanese, I can't read most of the Japanese wordings that is in Hiragana or Kitagana but I definately understand the Chinese wordings (also known as Kanji) in the midst of the Japanese sentence.

About close to 70% of the Kanji have similar meaning as those of their Chinese counter part. However, all the Japanese Kanji is in their traditional form so we might have a bit difficulties as we are used to Simplifed Chinese. (China, Malaysia and Singapore adopted Simplifed Chinese after WWII)

My sensei always want to explain the Japanese meaning in English but if he cannot to explain it properly, he would write it in Kanji and most of my classmate and me would immdiately understand what he is trying to explain.

Hope my personal experience helps

Answer 2

Wow, the people above really don't know much about these two languages. To answer your question, yes, but not completely.

The Japanese borrowed their characters from the Chinese but incorporated their own character systems as well, first Hiragana and then as time went by they integrated katakana as well. The "Kanji" or Chinese characters have some stroke differences but can be made out by people from both cultures.

Since characters represent meaning (not all, some are purely functional grammar) Japanese can understand the meaning of stuff while in China and the Chinese can understand the meaning of stuff in Japan. Now to understand abstract sentiment, art, poetry and each cultures own nuances is a different story.

I studied Japanese in college and the Chinese kids had a easy go at the Kanji learning part (this is unfair to us westerners!). Generally they get along better when learning Japanese I feel. It's kind of the same for Japanese but less so. The Chinese learn much more characters for everyday life so the Japanese lack in those. Also, Chinese is grammatically structured like English (subject-verb-object language (SVO) while Japanese is (SOV) like Korean is. So it all depends on ones language learning ability. But yes, when they travel to one another's country they can find the bank or library with ease or towns on a map or directions; even though they may not be able to pronounce it, they know it meaning!

Interesting huh?

Answer 3

To a limited degree, they could. Take into consideration that Japanese has 3 written forms: hiragana, katakana, and Kanji. The first 2 are distinctly Japanese, but Kanji consists entirely of Chinese characters. If you were to write something entirely in Kanji, someone versed only in Chinese dialects would be able to understand it to a degree. The major differences would be syntax and the spoken form of the word.

Answer 4

I don't know any Chinese or Japanese but from the answers posted, this is very interesting and something I've been wondering about for a long time. I naturally can't tell which answer is the best but they all seem well-educated well-informed.

Answer 5

Tropical, it's even more difficult for a Chinese person to read Japanese than it is for us to read French, because the latter two share an alphabet, whereas the Chinese symbols are entirely different from the Japanese symbols, not to mention the languages are completely different, to the point of even favoring certain linguistic sounds over others.

Answer 6

japanese and chinese have SOME symbols in common. so the chinese person may know or probably will know what the kanji characters(pictographs) are but there's no reason for him or her to understand the hiragana and katakana(syllabary(like alphabet characters that combine a consonant with a vowel sound) characters used for spelling japanese and non-japanese words respectively).

hope this helps.

Answer 7

Only if they studied Chinese. The two languages are very different Hope this helps

Answer 8

No more so than you could, unless you happened to also learn Japanese.

Answer 9

Can a person who knows only English read French?

Answer 10

I suppose it would depend on the person. If they were taught it is...but other wise i doubt it. Same goes for any other person.