Can Japanese Speakers Read Chinese?

[@Langfocus]

▶The first 500 people to use my link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/langfocus07241 ◀ Skillshare is awesome for anyone who loves learning. I bet you're one of those people!

[@Al-nx6ot]

Put some Chinese character from Cantonese and they would understand more words. 我們每日在家食飯

[@ki6no9]

@@Al-nx6ot Mandarin:「我們每天在家吃飯」 Cantonese:「我哋日日喺屋企食飯」

[@freyrweglang9317]

there's actually the same usage of “喝” in Chinese as in Japanese, because in Chinese we also say "棒喝“ which means to hit with a rod. ”棒rod“ and “喝(obviously a verb like hit here even though we don't use it this way with the character alone anymore)”

[@وسام.وسام-ق9ط]

I know that this video is not related to the Arabic language, but I saw some of your videos talking about the dialects of the Arabic language...so I advise you to go towards classical Arabic and not dialects...but the closest Arabic dialect to classical is Syrian.🇸🇾

[@estrafalario5612]

For me this video was "will I remember some of the Chinese I learnt in just 4 months, 6 months ago?" I was doing a bit worse than the naive Japanese participants. But it makes me happy that it didn't just faded away, so I could understand or guess the basic sentences...mostly

[@Rio_Up_Carrots]

It was so much fun to be part of this video with my sister! ngl I thought I could do better (๑•﹏•)

[@heroko_z]

Thank you 🙏🏻

[@Langfocus]

Thanks for being a part of it, Rio! Your personality and energy definitely made the video better!

[@나나이로-f9c]

that’s very nice🥩

[@RogerCollectz]

Oh that was you in this?!? Which one was your sister?? I know zero Chinese, and I do know some Japanese, I’m not very good with Kanji yet, and it’s something I’m trying to get more comfortable with. The Japanese have a very beautiful culture and it’s something I fell in love with very early in my life, I’d like to say maybe at 5-6 years old? I wish I could learn more. I’m autistic and it makes it very uncomfortable to speak with others, even with family. My brother and mom were the easiest for me to communicate with. And I had no one to learn it with. But anyway I loved this video, and your part in it! 😅😊

[@norwegian52]

You guys are brother and sister? That must’ve been nice to participate together

[@arrow7440]

I would like to give two examples: Many years ago, I traveled from China to Tokyo. Once, I was shopping in a store, but they ran out of stock. The clerk told me to go to another store and gave me the address, but I couldn't understand. I asked her to write it down in kanji, and as soon as she did, I immediately understood. The second example is when I went to the train station to travel from Tokyo to Yokohama. I needed to take the 田园都市线. The staff couldn't speak English, so I kept repeating "Tian Yuan Dushi Xian" in Chinese. The staff eventually understood and repeated it back to me in Japanese. I realized that the pronunciation of "Den-en-toshi Line" is almost the same in both Chinese and Japanese, with the Japanese pronunciation sounding more like the dialect from the Shanghai area.

[@xXxSkyViperxXx]

in the past years too these past decades, many service staff in japan these days, especially tokyo, know mandarin as well besides japanese. some know mandarin rather than english, while some know english rather than mandarin.

[@NeostormXLMAX]

Modern japanese comes from middle chinese, if you hear the old pronunciation its almost the same

[@NeostormXLMAX]

For example the number system is almost pronounced like japanese vs modern mandarine which is a manchu alteration

[@xXxSkyViperxXx]

​@@NeostormXLMAX those are just sinitic loanwords in japanese on the on'yomi readings. the base proto-japonic words are the kun'yomi and most of the average words and particles... also, there's two number systems in japanese, the native numbers and the numbers they borrowed long ago from chinese languages centuries ago. korean has two number systems too.

[@gorilladisco9108]

@@NeostormXLMAX In Japanese, a same Kanji character can be read differently depending on purpose. For example, the character 水 can be read as sui or mizu. The first reading is often used for the sound of it, for example for names (after Meiji Restoration, Japanese also began to use romaji spellings). The second reading is the actual Japanese word for it.

[@나나이로-f9c]

It was so much fun to participate in this video with my brother🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♂️ I'm so happy🫷🏻👨🏻‍🦲🫸🏻

[@Langfocus]

Thanks for being a part of the video, Nana! I'm sure the viewers will enjoy your moments. I'll check out your channel!

[@나나이로-f9c]

@@Langfocus thank you🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️

[@JonahNelson7]

I'm so happy!

[@나나이로-f9c]

@@JonahNelson7 that's very nice🥩

[@JonahNelson7]

@@나나이로-f9c yesss 🥩🎃

[@IanHsieh]

Native Chinese speaker here. At 6:31, you can see her confuse the simplified version of 話(话) as 活, especially with the way how that radical was simplified (言→讠), it looks almost identical to the radical for water (氵).

[@ilikedota5]

I didn't catch that. In fact 活 does in fact mean "living" like in Zhang Yimou's banned in China but famous movie translated into English literally as "to live" 活著/活着

[@GoldenSuperKamichu]

We Japanese write 氵 as 讠 in 行書体 or 草書体, and we never write 言 as 讠. So, it's quite natural that she read it as 活.

[@paradoxmo]

I grew up reading traditional Chinese and when I first started reading simplified, I made this mistake too. The two really do look extremely similar especially when handwritten.

[@sovietwizard1620]

@@GoldenSuperKamichu This was actually the correct explanation I was looking for, I thought the person who wrote this comment would tell the reason but for some reason they didn't know.

[@bearhhs]

@@na-maste hahaha 美人汁

[@willwang4634]

As a native Chinese speaker (both simplified and traditional) and a Japanese learner, I often understand more complicated Japanese because it contains more Kanji🤣 (Chinese characters). Sometimes even the pronunciation is very close to Mandarin or Cantonese.

[@erink476]

Sounds like a similar situation as exists between English and French because of the Norman Conquest. Except that English already used the Latin Alphabet

[@KabalFromMK9]

Japanese on'yomi readings of kanji is usually more similar to Cantonese because Japanese took the readings from Middle Chinese, and Southern Chinese languages like Cantonese are said to be more similar to Middle Chinese in sound than Northern Chinese languages such as Mandarin.

[@TheHoveHeretic]

​@@erink476Point of Order: Welsh uses the Latin alphabet, yet the majority of Anglophone folks go into near meltdown when faced with comparatively straightforward phonetic transcription.

[@tirs9458]

@@KabalFromMK9 Yes, the pronunciation of southern Chinese dialects retains many pronunciations of ancient Chinese

[@weifan9533]

I think Sino-Japanese pronunciation is more similar to Hokkien or Hakka, whereas Cantonese sounds more like Tai-Kradai languages or Vietnamese.

[@yanghu3974]

I am Chinese and live in New Zealand. My wife is from Germany and learned Japanese at university; she understands katakana and hiragana. We have traveled to Japan twice, and it's interesting that we always help each other during the trip. I can read most kanji in Japan, such as train station, road, and building signs, while she can read out katakana and hiragana, as some of them sound like English or German words. 😆

[@tora1546]

amazing couple

[@noelzhu1986]

有趣

[@jonaspete]

Interesting team work

[@bruceliu9436]

living in germany now. will go australia probably if i got the visa. curious to know how to find the beautiful girls there, are they much opener to chinses compared to here in europe? some suggestions?

[@SFTMoon]

すげぇ！！w

[@bgildersleeve]

After studying Japanese for 10+ years and passing the JLPT N1, I started learning Chinese. This really matches my experience. Knowing kanji really gives you an advantage, but you quickly learn that the languages are fundamentally different at their core and you need to get some beginner Chinese understanding before your reading abilities are "unlocked."

[@Jotun184]

Right? I'm around N2, studying up on some Chinese now for travel and it's so interesting to see familiar characters used in a different way, the way they simplified characters differently, recognizing on-yomi - i.e. 'kan' 看　in Chinese 看看 and Japanese 看護師, 'ta' in 他人, the 'na' in 旦那.. , super fun to have this stuff click in place sometimes and seeing the connection even just studying super basic Chinese

[@weifan9533]

@@Jotun184 旦那 seems to be a native Japanese word that is unrelated to Chinese 他

[@KabalFromMK9]

​@@weifan9533 旦那 is a Sanskrit loanword.

[@jordan.L.]

@@weifan9533 its 檀那 in chinese

[@weifan9533]

@@jordan.L. As a native Mandarin speaker with knowledge in some other Sinitic languages, I've never heard of this word 檀那 in Mandarin or any other Sinitic language. It looks like a native Japanese word to me.

[@na-maste]

When I started learning Chinese, I mistook 美人计(honey trap)for 美人汁(the juice of a beautiful woman), which I thought was a very obscene word😂

[@chihoyuen9892]

I know what u think😂😂

[@dan339dan]

Oh my... 😂😂

[@akabaigei4930]

😂

[@lyhthegreat]

美人计 is still pretty obscene

[@patrickd4358]

lol

[@kjlovescoffee]

5:10 "This is something that others wrote" - technically correct. Which is the best kind of correct :)

[@SuryaBudimansyah]

Technicality so boring

[@2003LN6]

Unless you wrote it, published it, and he bought it so it is his book but you wrote it

[@alejrandom6592]

​@@SuryaBudimansyah haha have some fun bro

[@unvergebeneid]

You couldn't compare Chinese and Japanese writing any better than with the phrase "un poco similar" 😄

[@Langfocus]

Haha, I loved it when she said that. It was perfect.

[@nomadicmonkey3186]

A Japanese native here. As Paul pointed out in the previous video, the more formal and complex the sentences are in both languages the better speakers of each language would understand them; an interesting bit of trivia is that up until fairly recently from a historical standpoint Japanese (and Korean and Vietnamese as well for that matter) intellectuals studied classical Chinese extensively to the point that diplomats in East Asia were able to communicate by writing down classical-looking Chinese sentences. This type of communication via kanji can and does happen today as well, as I'm sure many Japanese and Chinese speakers would have experienced when visiting each other's countries. Another tidbit of historical geekery I'd like to offer is that in the mid 19h century Japan before mass media there were such tremendous differences among dialects in Japanese from across the archipelago to the point they were almost or partially mutually unintelligible. So when anti-shogunate rebel samurais who would later establish the Meiji government were plotting a next coup or two in Kyoto some of them are said to have communicated in written kanjis instead of trying to decipher their Kagoshima (Southernmost Kyushu) dialect or Tosa (south Shikoku) dialect.

[@weifan9533]

I'd like to point out that the reason why formal sentences in both languages are similar is not because of ancient Sinitic influences on Japan, but because in the 19th century after the Meiji reform Japan translated a lot of new western ideas especially terms related to science and politics into Japanese by creating new Sino-Japanese words called Wasei Kango or 和制漢語 to represent these new ideas, and subsequently these new words created in Japan made their way to Korea, China, and Vietnam.

[@nomadicmonkey3186]

@@weifan9533 Yeah I'm aware of newly minted 和製漢語 in the 19th century created by Meiji Japanese intellectuals and that's one of the major reasons why modern Japanese and Chinese speakers can figure out the gist of texts on topics like science and law fairly accurately today. I should've clarified that in the Edo period Japan and in pre-modern East Asia in general Chinese classics like 四書五経 or renowned poetry like 春望 are practically common knowledge amongst educated elites so they could literally write in the pseudo-classical style Chinese and that's exactly how they communicated with each other when receiving foreign guests. That's also the reason behind why in the first place aforementioned Japanese intellectuals were capable of inventing new kanji compound words for Western ideas as they were so well versed in written Chinese. Thanks for additional context😎

[@weifan9533]

@@nomadicmonkey3186 和製漢語 would account for much of the similarity amongst Mandarin, Korean, and Japanese, whereas the ancient Sinitic vocabulary, unless you're studying 文言文 or Classical Chinese, won't offer you much help with Mandarin. But credit where credit is due, the Chinese did create some vocabulary on their own to represent more modern techs, such as 電視 for TV, 電腦 for computer, 手機 for cellphone, 手紙 for toilet paper or bathroom tissue, and 互聯網 or 網絡 for Internet.

[@weifan9533]

@@nomadicmonkey3186 和製漢語 would account for much of the similarity between the 2 languages. Whereas the ancient Sinitic vocabulary won't offer you much help with Mandarin cause they're rarely used in everyday speech.

[@weifan9533]

@@nomadicmonkey3186 But credit where credit is due, the Chinese did create some compound words on their own to represent even newer techs, ideas, or concepts, such as 電視 for TV, 電腦 for computer, 手機 for cellphone, and 互聯網 or 網絡 for Internet.

[@krishnar1182]

My Japanese teacher told us that she uses Chinese subtitles when Japanese is not available. When it's in traditional characters she said that she more or less can understand what's going on, and with simplified much of what's written.

[@Langfocus]

I remember before Finding Nemo was released in Japan there was a bootleg dvd with Chinese subtitles being shared around. lol

[@TheMakoyou]

I think the teacher is a Japanese who knows Chinese. Because as a native Japanese speaker, I could not understand even this simple Chinese example sentence 50% of the time. The English sentence is 100%. It's all English words I learned in junior high school. I am worried if that teacher can understand Chinese subtitles.

[@krishnar1182]

@@TheMakoyou I asked her, and she never studied Chinese. She doesn't understand everything and at times (especially with simplified characters) she understands almost nothing but in general and especially with traditional characters she can usually understand what's going on at a high level

[@gorilladisco9108]

@@Langfocus In the old days, I often read Malays subtitles when I watched bootlegged video movies. 😅 (I'm Indonesian, btw)

[@krnsk563]

@@TheMakoyou In the case of subtitles, there is the context of the show/movie. If there were illustrations or other context in this video you probably would also be able to easily guess the meaning.

[@roastpigeon9511]

"馬上" depicts one is already on the back of the horse, thus "ready to go / about to set off", i.e. "NOW". In Japanese, the character "現" has the similar meaning "NOW" / "CURRENT". It is perfectly fine to substitute "馬上" with "現" in Chinese. "電話" telephone reached Japan first, and the Japanese formulated the kanji "電話" for it. It is then "re-imported" into the Chinese language. Book often is written as a compound "書本", "本" depicts an object of pages arranged and bound, joined together and given a cover. The pages can be paper, leather, fabric, leaves, etc.,. "本" itself in ancient texts could by itself be sufficient to mean a "book". Japan took "本" to mean exactly that. But to be more meaningful and clearly identifying what sort / nature of the "本" is, it is more than often compounded (prefixed) with other characters to give the precise meaning, e.g. "書本", "課本"

[@paradoxmo]

@@roastpigeon9511 本 on its own in Chinese is more commonly used to mean “base/basic” or “foundation”. But the compound word 書本 arose out of the need to differentiate different characters that are all pronounced shū.

[@eddyr1041]

😁 just to show how pictographs work ans logic combined with addition of morphology phonemology... I think is absolutely plausible valid for a written language to evolve that way even when come from just single phenomic model. Just show how language like this can take a very diffrent turn of evolution from sanskrt and or European phenomic abjad based ones... Strange arabic hebrew Semitic is quite studied in western history of language in phenomic hierarchical based on descent morphology that is also quite different. All these there make the user of the language use logic quite differently😊

[@danielantony1882]

@@paradoxmo Same as 基本, 本質, and 本心, I suppose. That’s where the meaning of “true” comes from - because it’s under layers of façade, and the truth is at the “base” or “foundation.” Interesting, isn’t it?

[@カイ-l2b]

さらに面白いことに、日本は明治時代に多くの西洋由来の言葉を漢字に置き換えました。中国の正式名称「中華人民共和国」は全て日本人が作りました。「人民」はpeople 、「共和」はrepublic を翻訳したものです。他にも「銀行」はbank 、「自由」はfreedomを漢字に置き換えました。様々な漢字が近代になり中国に逆輸入されました。

[@spacetime-cc9eh]

@@カイ-l2b 确实有趣

[@zorphorias1523]

I like how you carefully explain a lot of the things viewers might have questions about, like Nozomi's use of Spanish, or how you break the sentences down into their individual components. Really helps to understand how the languages work!

[@mstop4]

喝 can also mean "to shout (at someone)" or "to scold (someone)" in Chinese, especially in Chinese languages/dialects that don't use 喝 for "to drink".

[@孔繁恪]

It is widely used not only in dialects, but also in modern standard Chinese. 喝 (hē) - sucking fluid or liquid food 喝(hè) - shout loudly

[@IR-xy3ij]

Yeah the meaning’s exactly the same in both languages for almost every character, and I suspect the Japanese side still has the other meanings too, just used in different situations

[@蘇鵬宇-k5r]

吆喝

[@nnnnn8173]

And 喝彩 means to cheer someone on too!

[@Kentalot]

They might have a better chance with the Cantonese word 飲 which is also used for beverages in both Mandarin and Cantonese

[@ohtani2024]

If you use Cantonese perhaps they understand better. We use 每日 as everyday, 飲 as to drink and 食(飯) as to eat (meal) We still use a lot of words in the ancient way like how the Japanese and Korean do. We understand these languages easier than Northern Chinese

[@BobTheHatKing]

Taiwanese too

[@Apus-5700]

这些词其实普通话也一样，普通话现在一大特点就是从各种方言里吸收词汇，根本没有固定措辞，每日、每天、天天，喝酒、饮酒等等等等，放普通话里全都能说通。 吾伲上海人就来噻了！我们压根就没有“饮”或“喝”之类的动词，所有从嘴里进去的全部叫“吃”，吃水、吃茶、吃饭等等，不确定是只有上海这样还是整个江南吴语区都这样。 但我们的人称代词就非常有古文风范，我=吾，你=汝，他=伊。还有下雨叫落雨，闪电叫豁显等等。。

[@xXxSkyViperxXx]

oh theyll definitely understand a lot more if using Hokkien. the pronunciations are even close, minus tones and adjustment to japanese phonology.

[@ohtani2024]

@@xXxSkyViperxXx either way would do. Both cantonese and hokkien have long history and they shared common language development background with japanese and korean, which did not do for mandarin. Therefore mandarin does not sound like any of these languages

[@xXxSkyViperxXx]

@@ohtani2024 yeah, hokkien has a special history with japan too. for centuries hokkien people were usually the typical chinese sea merchants spreading across both to southeast asia and the seas across east asia. look up the Japan-Ming trade ship flag, which is an heirloom banner preserved in japan showing how centuries ago hokkien merchants were the typical chinese merchants plying the trade in japan many centuries ago. today, japan just knows it more as taiwanese due to more recent history there

[@henryyang802]

Correction, 考 can also mean to think in Chinese: as in 思考 - To think (about something), or 考虑 - To think/To Consider (Usually a proposal).

[@beneathaphrygiansky3875]

And also means old age like in 寿考 and a dead father like in 考妣 (and in ancient Chinese just father like in 皇考）

[@danielantony1882]

Both 思考 and 考慮 are actually common in Japanese.

[@henryyang802]

@@danielantony1882 The point of my comment was that the Kanji (Hanzi) 考 can also mean thinking in Chinese. Not that these words solely exists there

[@nicktang9679]

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@danielantony1882考虑 are also Chinese words

[@michaeltsui3435]

@@beneathaphrygiansky3875 考、老也，老、考也。

[@nomnaday]

It would be interesting to see both Chinese and Japanese speakers take a look at Classical Chinese sentences. Most Japanese and Chinese meanings are based on Classical Chinese, but some of the Chinese meanings have expanded due to vernacular Chinese.

[@alexyoung6418]

I was at a store in Shin-Osaka when I wanted to bring something back to China for my girlfriend. The owner didn't speak English and I hadn't learned any Japanese at all. She took a good guess and asked me in Chinese "你是中国人？"(Are you Chinese?) As if she had been anticipating that I would nod, she handed me a memo pad and a pen. I wrote down "日本独有"(unique to Japan), which I figured would be understood by a Japanese. She had no problem reading it and went ahead with her recommendations. It got me interested in learning more about Japanese and I would definitely enjoy spending more time in Japan.

[@桁寶寶Baby]

It just so happens that Japan, like Chinese mainland, has simplified the Chinese character "獨" to "独"

[@theonh9365]

We say 独特 or ORIJINARU. Never heard 独有but like you say, probably able to understand it without any problem.

[@alexyoung6418]

@@theonh9365 Thanks!! We have no problem understanding that either. 独特 means exactly the same thing in Chinese. "Doku toku" also sounds quite similar to "Du te". I could have said Nihon original back then but wouldn't have thought of the word "original" as a loanword. Nor am I certain now if it would be understood if not pronounced as ORIJINARU. I might have been able to figure out some of the syllable patterns without learning Katakana, probably landding somewhere in the ballpark, but it still requires me knowing which ones are loanwords. Either way I would be inclined to learn the whole language.

[@garyi.2954]

​@@桁寶寶BabyHowever, Mainland China often simplified characters almost to the point of non-recognition.

[@alexyoung6418]

@@garyi.2954 lol, that's why they are called mutilated characters. I'm not sure how Taiwanese manage to read KZbin comments in simplified Chinese. If they do that without the help of auto translation, then I guess we are still mutually intelligible "on keyboard", but not on paper because we mainlanders lost the ability to write in traditional Chinese. We can read without much difficulty though.

[@max_pin]

This was really interesting. Japanese and Spanish are the two languages I've studied the most, so Nozomi sprinkling Spanish into her English was a fun bonus.

[@achillesarmstrong9639]

Japanese and Spanish are the two languages I've studied the most me too . and also the english

[@azarishiba2559]

I'm a native Spanish speaker who teaches Japanese, so it caught me off guard at first when she said "caballo", then "como" and finally "un poco similar". Japanese speakers usually tend to have an easier time pronouncing Spanish than English.

[@ha-bimora]

I was shocked and blurted out, 'Eh... Unpoko!?' (because the pronunciation of 'un poco' in Japanese is close to 'unko'(poop) and 'chinpoco'(dick)).

[@lainfamia8949]

It's crazy the similarity spanish people and japanese people can talk their languages each other, lol. I mean in pronunciation, but with that you have a lot done .

[@kekeke8988]

@@lainfamia8949 There's not much similarity at all, really.

[@lauraa3992]

Great video, Paul. As a native Romanian speaker who's also been more or less proficient in French since the age of 10, I learned Spanish pretty fast as a young teen, watching telenovelas. Also, when I travel to Italy I have no problem understanding the gist of what people say if they speak slowly. Yet, I'm still struggling with Portuguese.

[@atmxhtl4410]

I am a Spanish and Portuguese speaker, I love to hear Romanian because I barely had contact with it. And yet I happen to understand some things, my father is better in Italian so he can understand better Romanian. It is fun, because Romanians can visit Latin America or Spain. Or vice versa, and the experience is fun and not as difficult as interacting with people of unrelated languages.

[@lauraa3992]

@@atmxhtl4410 the experience is fun indeed. I once taught English to a Spanish lady whose boy I used to babysit. My Spanish was decent enough to make myself understood by the boy but needed real improvement if I wanted to teach a foreign language through it. Therefore, I spoke in French to the mother and she spoke to me in Spanish. That was one of the most accomplishing classes I have ever taught.

[@OM19_MO79]

Learning Spanish with telenovelas is like learning Japanese with anime. You must sound very melodramatic and use slang no one really ever used. I hope you didn’t learn with Thalia’s or Rosa Salvaje.

[@se7550]

Love this video. I’m Japanese who just start to learning Chinese last 2weeks ago and I feel that knowing Chinese is like knowing our identity as Japanese. totally pure fun. I can’t wait to read Chinese books without translation someday

[@テトラポット-r9s]

中国語と日本語は文字が同じだけで言語学的にも全然違います😂 アイデンティティとか考えなくていいです。

[@dusty_giraffe2111]

​​​​​@@テトラポット-r9sNot quite, well I'm not too sure about "identity", but at least even for us Chinese, learning Japanese can also help us connect with our history. Some kanji is no longer used in Chinese while some hanzi is no longer used in Japanese. It really goes both ways. And both 简体字 and 新字体 are (usually) simplified from 繁體字, so learning traditional Chinese could help us understand where the new characters come from and what they originally represent. There are also many cases where Kanji keeps an older form of a character which traditional Chinese did not too. And Simplified Chinese characters often have a surprising amount of history as well. As for me, I grew up with traditional characters, so it's fun to compare how the two groups create their own simplified forms. For instance, 龍 is simplified into 竜 and 龙 in Japan and China respectively, while Japan took the left side component and modified it, China took the calligraphy version of the right side component and modified it.

[@TheFelixKang]

@@テトラポット-r9sit’s like British learning French thinking about being originally French lol

[@alexanderzhang2325]

Love the similarity in our languages, good to see we keep the uniqueness of our languages but also have the common part that we can somehow understand and feels so much fun when we are reading a different language.

[@alexanderzhang2325]

I agree with the identity part, Language is actually a reflection of Culture, many Japanese words might keep the word itself but lost the original meaning, but perhaps it exists in Chinese, when you learn Chinese, you definitely can learn the logic behind some words.

[@JamesKelly89]

6:09 I'm never gonna give you up, my horse. Look at my horse, my horse is amazing.

[@pierreabbat6157]

马 caballo :)

[@rambo8wradio]

lmao

[@SupremeDP]

lmao

[@mingpoyang]

Most Japanese have no problem learning Chinese in one month than any other nationals.

[@user-sh3cf7kd6e]

Paul Rick rolled you

[@ucchau173]

In vietnam we use different hán tự(漢字) word that different with madarin example: library in china is 圖書館in vietnam is thư viện(書院),bye in vietnam is tạm biệt (暫別),không mean zero and no is 空,student in university in china still called 學生in vietnam called 生員, teacher in vietnam is giáo viên (教員),hospital in vietnam called bệnh viện 病院 in china called 醫院,books in china is 書in vietnam is sách (策),thư(書)in vietnam is mail,thank in vietnam is cảm ơn(感恩)in china is 謝謝, accordance,proper,.. china is 合适 vietnam is thích hợp (适合),like in china is 贊vietnam is thích(适), dragon fruit in china is 火龍 in vietnam is thanh long(青龍),fruit in china is 水果 in vietnam is hoa quả(花果)teacher in university in vietnam is giảng viên(講員)china is still 老師... Alot different meaning hán tự(漢字) used every day by vietnam language and madarin,..

[@Hacksilber]

每个汉字都看懂了，像是至少八十年前的讲话风格，非常正式的书面用法。不过今天仍然可以使用，只是放在日常交流中会让别人觉得这个人讲话风格很独特。😂

[@dan339dan]

In Hong Kong, 書院 is designated to meaning college ("college" in Hong Kong means secondary schools, or a teaching unit in a collegiate university). We also prefer using 适合(適合) in Hong Kong. We tend to prefer some words flipped in Cantonese vs Mandarin. 教員 is only used in the teacher's room 教員室 or in faculty 教職員 (職員 is staff), but we typically using 老師, the older generation may use 先生 for teachers. In less common cases, students (outside of academic schools) may be 學員/學徒 but never 生員. (I think in Japanese, students is 生徒.) Lecturers in uni are 講師. Also, I know in Korean, "thank you" uses the Chinese word 感謝, in 감사합니다/感謝합니다.

[@lyhthegreat]

seems like vietnamese retains alot more of ancient chinese than mandarin..空 is also zero in hokkien as well and hokkien is derived from old chinese./

[@明明-t9c]

明朝的影响

[@hsinchowsoo3873]

not策but册

[@louisng114]

As a Hongkonger who knows Japanese, it was fun to guess what would give the participants trouble.

[@michaeltsui3435]

The more vernacular the more troublesome. Write in classical Chinese and it becomes trivial

[@illiiilli24601]

​@@michaeltsui3435half of all Japanese high schoolers explicitly study classical Chinese as part of their curriculum, and I'm pretty sure this is also true for China

[@michaeltsui3435]

@@illiiilli24601 I would say it is 100% at least for reading - and it should be

[@illiiilli24601]

@@michaeltsui3435 I wasn't sure if people who chose sciences (as opposed to humanities) would study classic Chinese or not

[@FOCJCLIN]

As a native Chinese speaker with some proficiency in understanding Classical Chinese (ancient Chinese), being in Japan feels like a time tunnel, for example, drive slowly in Japan is written as 「徐行」,which means gradually move, this is never used in modern day Chinese but I can understand the meaning instantly. In Chinese we usually express it as 「減速」or「慢駛」(“reduce speed” or “drive slowly”). While heavy traffic is 「澁滯」，which kinda means “frictional and lingering”, while in Chinese it’s called 「堵車」or「塞車」 （”blocked traffic” or “congested traffic”). These vocab gave off an ancient vibe to modern Chinese speakers. It’s fun to be in Japan without understanding a single word of katakana and hiragana while being able to navigate around for the most part 😂 While on the contrary, in this video, most Japanese are able to read modern Chinese is precisely because a lot of modern day Chinese vocabulary are of Japanese origin, example: 警察，電話，病院，社會，民主, …化(…ize)…. This list can go on and on

[@CloudHan-han]

Japanese bathhouses still use the word 汤, which is consistent with ancient Chinese. In modern Chinese, '汤' means soup

[@FOCJCLIN]

@@CloudHan-hanmy ancestral hometown is Foochow 福州， we call showering 「洗湯」，our hot spring in also called 湯 😂

[@卓敏飞]

@@FOCJCLINse ton 洗汤

[@ulterior_web]

You can actually use 減速 in Japanese too

[@paradoxmo]

湯 as hot water to bathe in is still widely seen in the compound 泡湯 which is to bathe in a hot spring or a heated pool. Originally it just meant hot or boiling water, and still does in some dialects.

[@xinyuanchen6281]

So interesting to see the other way round! Thank you for posting

[@drpallus]

The two chinese chracters for "right away" are extremely interesting for me as a german because in their literal form they mean "horse" and "up" and in german we have a very similar expression for something similar namely "stehgreif" literally "standing grip" which is something used in horseback to GET ON your HORSE quickly and is more commonly used in modern german as "aus dem Stehgreif" for something that needs to be done right away or is gonna be done right away. Its kindoff a dying expression but very intersting to see something so similiar with a similar meaning in Chinese

[@minchan8805]

中国古代传递非常急的书信，会日夜不间断的骑马传递，当形容一个人非常着急的时候，就会说这个人在马上，形容非常迫切的要做某事！

[@bruceliu9436]

in modern chinese, there is a saying of 'schneller, los gehen wir', that is 'Zeit stehgreifen'_ 'zhua jin shi jian'. 100% gleich wie Deutsch. Bist du deutsches Madchen?

[@ru2458]

The way of word building between German and Chinese is very close. For example, gleichzeitig, in Chinese means 同时. Gleich means same, same as 同, zeit means time, same as 时.

[@andrewxue103]

It's also interesting that some of the Chinese words are "imported or borrowed" from Japanese during 1900-1920s, when Chinese scholars translates western Tech and Culture literatery into Chinese. Some examples might be (if my memory serves my correctly) 電話 telephone，科學 science，物理 physics，民主 democracy，法律 law... just to name a few; this might also be the reason why Japanese today can recognise some Chinese words, because Chinese learnt them from Japan. (I'm from China mainlan)

[@kelvinsixingliu1668]

My wish came true by commenting in the last video. So I'm gonna try my luck again. Have both Chinese and Japanese speakers read classical Chinese. See who can do better. Great video as always!

[@haoyunzhang4094]

probably Chinese speakers because Classical Chinese is part of the school curriculum (at least in PRC as far as I know) I’m sure in Taiwan HK as well

[@Hacksilber]

​@@haoyunzhang4094其实日本也学文言文，他们就叫做“古文”或者“汉文”，我想了想都觉得对学生来说简直是精神折磨，把汉字注上假名，然后还要理解，太难了。

[@haoyunzhang4094]

@@Hacksilber 这样啊，他们是必修吗

[@Hacksilber]

@@haoyunzhang4094 是的，义务教育时期就得学习，大学升学考试里也可能会考到。不过无非也就是古诗词，经典著作什么，深度肯定是没国内那么强。

[@SYL-ym3kt]

@@Hacksilber 中国人中学学文言文，基本每个字/词也都做笔记

[@boium.]

I know a bit of Japanese and zero Chinese. After knowing the character for "he," it was clear what 她 should mean. I'm proud that I figured that out myself.

[@CorrosiveCitrus]

Interestingly in spoken Mandarin there's no difference in pronunciation between 他 and 她 and even 它 (he/she/it), so without context only in writing can you tell.

[@zhu_zi4533]

In ancient times, "她" was an uncommon variant of "姐". It was not until around 1910 that it was re-used during the May Fourth Movement and became "she".

[@zhu_zi4533]

So it seems that before this, Chinese could not tell gender through third-person pronouns. Similar to this is "妳", but it was not used and was only defined as a variant of "你".

[@paradoxmo]

@@CorrosiveCitrus part of the popularization of differentiated pronouns is due to the need to translate foreign sentences that differentiate he/she/it. These are often used in subtitling, where they visually give the required context, but spoken out loud there would have to be a different solution.

[@windows-xy5pb]

@@zhu_zi4533 汝、尔、子、君、卿；伊、彼、斯；

[@theniii]

tbf most of the japanese meanings that's "different" from Chinese meaning are actually still also kept in Chinese, but in slightly more formal words that are not as frequently used in daily speaking, but more in writing.

[@ButterCatz]

4:50 The character "本" also means book in Chinese. We often use them together ("書本") to represent the word book. This is called "compound synonyms (同義複詞)," which means a word consists of two characters with the same or similar meanings. I made up the translation for 同義複詞 since I can't find any. Please let me know if anyone knows the correct translation, and I'll edit the comment. 15:18 "她" is a relatively new word. It was originally an alternate form of the character "姐" and was rarely used. In ~1920, a famous poet began using this character for "she." This is why we also see Mandarin speakers using "他" to refer to women, as this character has no gender connotation.

[@SpenserLi]

Native speaker of Chinese but also speaks Japanese as a second language. I think it’s actually quite easy for me to read Japanese because 1) there are quite a lot of commonly used Japanese loan words in modern Chinese 2) if using modern Chinese to read a Japanese text doesn’t make much sense, trying to interpret each word using Middle Chinese usually does the trick.

[@jaguarxj58]

in history, chinese and japanese exchanged words and phrases many times, so when the sentence is composed by mostly things or concepts, it's possible to understand each other or even share almost the same characters. however, the basic grammatical differences between each other had never changed, so when sentence goes short and basic, on the contrary it loses clues for both sides to guess. I'm Taiwanese. before i learned Japanese, i cannot understand most of the Japanese basic sentence, but somehow I can understood some titles on the Japanese newspapers.

[@BobTheHatKing]

🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼

[@白尾-c2s]

可能是因为，句子里的主要信息以汉字呈现的话，大致意思都能看懂～所以我猜，汉子在日语中用来描述主要信息的比例还是挺多的？

[@notaspider4084]

These kinds of videos are fun. Keep up the great content

[@deakdai9827]

12:22 吃 also has the meaning stutter in Chinese when it's in 吃子(stutterer),口吃（stutter）.As a matter of fact, it is the original meaning of 吃. And the kanji 吃 can also be written as "喫" in traditional Chinese, I'm wondering if shown them this character, the participants might be abled to understand the sentence better😀

[@jiagengliu]

喫茶店 means tea/coffee shop, so people might understand it as drinking.

[@reicul]

喫煙(to smoke) is so.

[@emine2353]

"喫" is a variant of "吃"

[@BobTheHatKing]

As a native traditional chinese user, I have never seen or heard about喫 being the traditional form of 吃, though maybe they do teach it in Taiwan idk I was born and raised in America to Taiwanese parents. I’m currently studying Japanese, and @jiagengliu mentioned 喫茶店 (tea house/café), which I’ve always wondered why it was written that way but now it all makes sense. 喫茶店= 吃茶店, and in Taiwanese, a more old fashioned way of saying to drink tea (especially in a social context) instead of 啉茶 lim tê (啉=to drink) is食茶tsia̍h-tê and meaning-wise 食=吃=喫

[@Haskoph]

台灣應該也不用，我不是台灣人但我很確定。

[@Corsuwey]

Paul, A little follow up from the last video about using simplified Chinese for the train station names on the way to 中部国際空港. I asked a fellow Chinese lecturer at my U who has lived here for about 25 years, and he said that he thought it was an awesome idea and wouldn't be confusing at all. In fact, he said that the use of simplified Chinese would help speakers recognize similarities and differences in the characters. Very interesting!

[@rogernking]

Chinese is a group of languages/dialects which share the same root (Classical Chinese) while vary in vocabulary and pronuciation. it's someting like Latin and the Romance languages. Maybe write those sentences in multiple dialects like wu, cantonese, hokkien would be more interesting for Japanese to guess. Meanwhile, the writting, pronuciation and meaning of a chinese charater can change in history. So, schloars in phonetic said "地有南北，时有古今"( prounciation may vary in different area and time ). Japanese borrowed Chinese characters in different area and era. So they preserved a lot of ancient and local chinese usage. In this video, it is mentioned that -们 is plural suffix for personal pronoun and its Japanese counterpart being -等。Actually -等 is used in Classical Chinese. You can still use it in formal documents nowadays. -属, -侪 could aslo be used for plural personal pronoun but are very rare in modern times. 喝 means "shout" in Japnese and it's the original meaning in Chinese. and for "drink", it's in fact a 呷 in modern chinese. this is totally a mistake in writting but since more and more people made this mistake, 喝 has finally taken the place of 呷. but "喝" remains its original meaning in some phrases and idioms. "喝彩" means "to cheer", "喝止" means "shout aloud to stop someone from doing something", etc.

[@illiiilli24601]

I feel like -等 is only used in pretty casual Japanese now

[@Fawful81080]

Seeing one of your guests using spanish for filling up her english vocab gaps really caught me off guard. Just wonderful (⁠ ⁠´⁠◡⁠‿⁠ゝ⁠◡⁠`⁠)

[@azarishiba2559]

Same here, I'm a native Spanish speaker who teaches Japanese.

[@LuckyBoyJKid]

Really fun to watch as someone who can read and understand Chinese. It was very interesting seeing what Japanese people would be able to understand and what would give them trouble.

[@taopaw485]

11:51 In Chinese, "喝" also has this meaning, like "喝彩" means cheering, "喝止" shouting to stop someone doing sth

[@孔繁恪]

Different pronunciation，hē&hè

[@georgeghleung]

@@孔繁恪 Only in Mandarin - same pronounciation in Cantonese. And that's only modern chinese.

[@xXxSkyViperxXx]

@@georgeghleung in Hokkien too, "喝" (hoah) mostly just mean "shout". "drink" use different word or character. mostly northern chinese languages like Mandarin and Jin uses "喝" for drinking.

[@georgeghleung]

@@xXxSkyViperxXx 飲 right? I guess it's the same situation in cantonese - you may say 口喝, but you are more likely to say 飲/飲水 (or even 飲野) instead of 喝 (and sounds too formal if you do)

[@xXxSkyViperxXx]

​@@georgeghleung yeah in Hokkien, we say it as "lim"/"dim", and "飲" is one of the characters used in older dictionaries, but there's also "啉" in newer dictionaries these days. lim-tsuí/dim-tsuí (飲水/啉水) is the average term for drinking water in Hokkien. "喝" only used if writing mandarin and trying to read it in hokkien by translating in the mind, but "喝" is reserved for "hoah" that means "to shout" by default in hokkien.

[@Marnige]

It's easier the other way round, because the japanese varient Kanji sometimes still hold meaning in chinese. We often use 每天, but 每日 still holds similar meaning because 日 still can mean 'day'.

[@deakdai9827]

True, the Chinese tend to know the lesser uesd meaning of a character due to common education of classical chinese(文言文). And my mothertongue is Wu Chinese, we use 日 as the word for day rather than 天 😀

[@jumpvelocity3953]

⁠​⁠​⁠@@deakdai9827my mother tongue is Yue, so same here :)

[@龙腾洞观]

@@deakdai9827 事实上，这个词语并不适合用来说明古文教育的作用，因为“每日”这个词在非口语环境中非常常用。

[@michaeltsui3435]

@@龙腾洞观 On the other hand this also means if you want Japanese to understand easily you should use a lexicon common to both - 日 i/o 天 for day。

[@龙腾洞观]

@@michaeltsui3435 This is impossible because language constantly evolves with new usage habits of native speakers. If you look back at Japanese usage over the past hundred years or so, hasn't it also changed dramatically? One reason for this phenomenon is that in ancient times, the pace of life was slower, and language evolution was slower. Naturally, Japanese and classical Chinese were used as a common written language for a long time. In ancient times, education was controlled by less than 5% of the population, which meant that written/official language evolved much more slowly than the actual usage habits of the lower classes. (For example, the use of '天' to mean 'day' had existed in colloquial speech for at least several hundred years before entering the written language system.) Today, things are very different. The usage habits and vocabulary of ordinary people are entering written language, so language evolution is faster. Another reason is that in the last century or two, Japanese people have turned to admiring Western culture rather than Chinese culture. This naturally means that Chinese-derived vocabulary in Japanese no longer changes in line with changes in Chinese usage habits.

[@sevruzgar5432]

I was at a coffee shop in Shanghai where they write 珈琲 instead of 咖啡. I thought they made the invention but now I learned that these are Japanese characters. Amazing video as always ❤

[@johnso2399]

而「珈琲」一詞的用法，根據考證是幕末時期一位愛好咖啡的蘭學家「宇田川榕菴」，19歲時曾經撰寫一篇名為「哥非乙説」的論文在介紹這種嶄新的飲料，後來在其所出版的《蘭和對照辭典》中將「珈琲」的用法正式寫在辭典中。 因為咖啡豆和樹枝形狀像極了當時女性流行的髮簪，「珈」是髮簪上的花，而「琲」則是連接著髮簪美麗玉石的繩子或鈕扣。而荷蘭語的 koffie 又跟這兩字的日文發音十分雷同，「珈琲」也就這麼流傳開來，成為日本國內翻譯這種外來飲料的慣用漢字。

[@kennyzeng21]

不要 = don't want (more affirmative) 不想 = don't think but context wise it can be understood as "don't think i want to" (less affirmative)

[@JustAnotherNameYo]

This was so interesting. Thanks for a great video!

[@Langfocus]

My pleasure!

[@mydogisbailey]

Super interesting! It seems like Chinese compound words and particles pose the most difficulty. Most Japanese kanji compound words exist in Chinese, but many Chinese compound words don’t exist in Japanese.

[@andyyang5234]

Chinese borrowed a whole bunch of Japanese compound words in relatively recent history. Since Japanese modernized a few decades ahead of China, many Chinese books (most prominently dictionaries) relating to science, industry, politics and philsophy in the 1800s were translated from Japan, and in order to preserve a more distinct meaning of concepts, terms that are understandable were kept (instead of say, using a phonetic approach like English in Japanese Katakana). These are calld "和製漢語", and included many terms like 科學, 新聞, 精神, 選舉, 知識, 小說, 銀行, 物理, 國會, and actually 電話 too. There were no movement in the opposite direction, so most Chinese phrases that drifted to Japan were much older, and thus more likely to have their meanings warped.

[@wujijianchuqiao]

Compound Chinese words are mostly modern or colloquial Chinese words which didn't appear in Chinese texts when Japan began to adopt Chinese characters more than 1,000 years ago. The reason a lot of Japanese Kanji compound words exist in Chinese is because they were initially created by Japanese when translating Western works and later introduced to China. Just like new words popular in Taiwan can get adopted by mainland Chinese and vice versa. I remember when I was young, we never used the word 「女生」to refer to any female other than a female student. When we first heard Taiwanese use this word to refer to females, we were quite amused. But over the years that meaning started to gain popularity among mainland Chinese, especially overseas mainland Chinese.

[@thenosa87]

More of this!!! Need a sequel!

[@nitorishogiplayer3465]

Ive always wondered how well Japanese speakers would be able to understand Chinese. Glad to see you made a video on thiz topic! The other way round with asking chinese speakers japanese also seems interesting.

[@Langfocus]

I also made a video like this but “the the other way around”: Can Chinese Speakers Read Japanese? kzbin.info/www/bejne/kIjWfZSei7adb9U

[@nitorishogiplayer3465]

@@Langfocus oh yeah i just finished watching it. Very interesting! You mentioned it in the video but didn't link it in the description.

[@Rationalific]

This was so entertaining! I, myself, (or should I say, 我自己) am at a pretty decent level of Japanese (studying for the JLPT N2), and only just barely know any Chinese, so I feel that I was in a similar situation to the Japanese people in this video. I, too, made mistakes when trying to read the first few, but from the "I drink coffee everyday" one, I was able to get them (aside from minor differences like "have lived in China" VS "lived in China"). It was fun to try along with the Japanese people (with me pausing the video before their answers)!

[@AelwynMr]

In fact the sentence does mean "I have lived in China"... but! Chinese doesn't normally convey tense other than by words like "yesterday" or "last year". 了 only makes you know that the action is completed, which may mean "I lived" or "I have lived" depending on context. PS: many languages do not have this distinction, including my native Italian!

[@Rationalific]

@@AelwynMr Interesting! Thank you for the information! 🙂

[@CC-pu3pe]

In Cantonese, we use 每日 in both speaking and writing. Sometimes we use 每天, but only in writing.

[@erics9511]

Traditional characters like 國 are also sometimes used for family names in Japanese, since people chose not to change their personal names when the characters were simplified for daily use. Another one I saw a lot where I lived in Japan was the traditional 澤 instead of 沢, meaning a marsh or swamp.

[@monopalisa619]

The same can not be said in mainland China, simplified chinese went thru two simplifications and the second was abandoned after a few years use. You are required to change your name on your family registry if the hanzi itself got simplified. This caused a few confusions for instance surname 蕭 got simplified to 萧 in the first simplification and then in the second one it got simplified to 肖. A complete different word. So lots of 萧 household kept using 肖 after the second simplification was abandoned. So today if you see people with the surname 肖 their real family name is probably 萧 and they themselves probably don't even know that.

[@白尾-c2s]

刚刚查的：沢（zé）是一个汉字。为“泽”的异体字，而在日本作为“泽”的新字体使用😂……啊原来都是一个意思

[@oxiwanmc]

this is so interesting as someone whos been thinking about learning chinese, but only has history with japanese! it expected a similar outcome comparing them, but its so cool to see it displayed clearly.

[@summersummer1232]

I am a native Chinese speaker in traditional Chinese. I am impressed by how you explain the phrases. It makes great sense. It shows that your Chinese level is so good.

[@sebimoe]

I really like these two videos - I would love to see more similar videos with Chinese and Japanese - perhaps you could try doing a run where you show the same sentences in both languages, comparing how different types of sentences are intelligible in which direction

[@spoddie]

13:17 在家 Japanese has a very similar word, 在宅 at home. 在宅勤務 work at home

[@YingkeLu]

宅 in Chinese has a meaning of "home".(But few people use it for communication) Now 宅 has a new meaning in Chinese Internet,usually we use it as a verb with the meaning of "stay at home(lazily)".

[@alexanderzhang2325]

宅 also represents home in Chinese, but more common as in compound words, eg 住宅 residence. We also use words 宅急送 sometimes these days, which i think is from Japanese 宅急便

[@НикитаЮдин-ы9й]

I need more videos like this.

[@ThePamgy]

Your explanation is perfect! Adding the highlights and clips helps a lot too. Thanks for this video. I've always wondered if both people from these two countries can understand each other's writing.

[@Langfocus]

Thanks! It seems like this video format is working out well (for this one and the previous video of Chinese speakers reading Japanese).

[@hexagon_]

14:45 It's interesting that 完了 can also sort of mean finished in Chinese, like (using the words in the video) 我吃完了 means "I'm done eating". I also think 了 used to mean "to finish" like in Japanese.

[@wpyoga]

14:15 他们在中国住了三年 Now if you are familiar with Singlish, 了 = already. Which makes the sentence easier to understand: They/at/China/live/already/3 years.

[@wpyoga]

It also means other kinds of "finished". For example, when you watch a football match and your favorite team about to lose, you may say "完了，完了".

[@Dr.PicklePh.D.]

Ahh, I'm so glad you mentioned Nozomi's Spanish usage! I got excited when I heard her pull caballo instead of うま or horse. I'm L1 English with better Japanese than Spanish, and I do the same thing sometimes where I accidentally pull a word from my second strongest language (Japanese) when I'm trying to find one in the weakest (Spanish). Very cool!

[@breadshovel]

why is lang focus so peak

[@flofloflofloflor]

fr

[@conlangknow8787]

He just knows what's good

[@michaelashley2855]

Peak

[@norm7312]

Real

[@DannyPotato]

IM SAYING

[@fanjin]

As native Chinese speaker, I find it useful hiragana/katakana and basic grammar (SOV order, common verb endings, negation marker) before my travel to Japan. Using kanji for content words with Chinese origin and katakana for content words of English origin, I was able to recognize a lot of written signs and instructions. Learning negation markers helps avoid critical confusion in safety alerts. I would say this is helpful for preparation, but of course it's not the short cut to learn a foreign language systematically.

[@smithsato710]

Hey Paul. Thank you for your wonderful experiment! As a speaker of both Chinese and Japanese, my experience is that formal + longer texts generally make it easier for speakers of each side to understand each other. I believe that this is due to the following reasons: (1) formality: Chinese and Japanese have very different volcabs and expressions for daily life, while there're much more common vocabulary and phrases in more formal contexts such as Wikipedia and thesis papers (linguistics, sociology, economics, etc). (2) length: the longer the text, the more likely the speakers would be able to guess from the context Would be quite interested if you could do an experiment with formal and longer materials! Anyway, incredible content as always!

[@realxvrw]

It's soooo fun watching this!

[@nimaiiikun]

I like your channel because you have native speakers providing input. There are a lot of linguists who think that because they study a language, they think they know more than a native speaker despite not speaking it.

[@juzcalling]

The word telephone 电话 is definitely of japanese orgin. Most modern chinese term have japanese root. The loan words system from ancient time came back during the industrial revolution, it just went the opposite direction.

[@Zestieee]

I'm really fond of these two videos you've made. Really interesting experiment for real, and extremely enjoyable

[@Langfocus]

I’m glad you like them!

[@Hiiyo706]

A Chinese traveler if he knows English(as a university student at least I know) he just need to spend a few days to remember katakana(片假名),spell them out and match them with English plus the Kanji(漢字) he can read most Japanese texts.People who use traditional characters have difficulty reading simplified characters, but people in simplified areas know quite a lot of traditional characters in traditional literature so they can read it in Japan too.What is more,I have seen some "Shodo（書道）"works in the National Art Center Tokyo,they looks almost the same with Chinese calligraphy(书法).Much of their content both comes from ancient Chinese poetry.

[@peach9265]

this was so interesting to watch! I've been studying Chinese this year and understood all the sentences (except I didn't know the word for "to marry"). I studied a few years of Japanese in college, but have really lost a lot of it, so it would be interesting to see how much I know in your other video.

[@user-o-by-Shanks]

At least, only if Chinese people can write down their destination in their own characters, they can easily travel in Japan. "I wanna go to 伏见稻荷大社, 金阁寺, and 京都市动物园." "Oh, you mean 伏見稲荷大社, 金閣寺, and 京都市動物園? Okay." 伏見稲荷大社: Fushimi Inari Shrine 金閣寺: Kinkaku-ji (Rokuon-ji Temple) 京都市動物園: Kyoto City Zoo

[@kazetarian-614-h6s]

It's the best video I have watched so far on this topic. Just two points want to state: In Chinese 考 also means think or consider, e.g 考慮, 思考, meanings are the same in Japanese. In Japanese 書 also means books, e.g. 書物、書籍。

[@Cerg1998]

Being a native speaker of Russian, you'd expect I find East Slavic languages the most understandable, but for me it's not the case. Reading Bulgarian, a South Slavic language, on the other hand, is somehow, fairly easy, barring some false friends; sometimes it looks hilarious, yet I manage to get the meaning, even if it takes a while. I've also stumbled upon what claimed to be a modern text written in old church Slavonic once, and it was pretty much 100% understandable, easier to understand in fact, than 15-18th century Russian, which made me question whether it was indeed OCS.

[@iriswang5908]

This is also an astonishingly good approach to teach a language. The participants are given increasingly difficult tasks, and managed to use the knowledge from previous task to complete the next task. Both interesting and inspiring, I would say

[@charr6108]

12:00 in Cantonese it's 我每日飲咖啡

[@橘涵]

As a Japanese, Cantonese is easier to understand than Chinese.😮

[@weifan9533]

@@橘涵 Well maybe it's because Hong Kong uses traditional characters. But other than that I think Cantonese is probably harder for Japanese speakers to learn than Mandarin and for several reasons. First Cantonese has 6 tones, while Mandarin only has 4. And coming from a language without tones such as Japanese, it's probably harder to differentiate 6 tones than 4 tones. Secondly Cantonese has a substratum layer of vocabulary related to Tai-Kradai languages, which is completely different from Mandarin and Japanese. Words in Cantonese like 唔 for no or not, 嘢 for thing, 呢 for this and 啱 for just now likely all have Tai-Kradai roots, which adds an extra layer of difficulty.

[@Kentalot]

​@@weifan9533he said it's easier to understand and that's actually probably true

[@思洋胡]

in Shanghai we say 吾每日吃咖啡

[@zxtsteve]

@@橘涵 Mandarin is quite different from lots of dialects in south china, Cantonese is one of them, they are somewhat more close to ancient chinese

[@Jun-qg1fs]

I love your videos! keep up the great work!!

[@2bb334]

I feel like it would be interesting seeing Japanese reading old Chinese literature of poems, since most of the meaning of the kanji in Japan is actually what it meant back hundreds if not thousand years ago in China, like 走 means walk in modern Chinese, but it means run in old Chinese which is the same as in Japan. The equivalent of walking in old Chinese literature is 步, which is same as 歩く. Same goes to 私, you see it being used as "I" in old Chinese literature, which means the same in Japanese. Other example like you mentioned, 喝 does mean shouting in old Chinese literature, and the common word for to drink back then was 饮, which is the same as 飲む, just simplified. As someone who speaks both Chinese and Japanese, the resemblance lies more in older literatures than the modernized Chinese we speak nowadays. I feel like it's something worth experimenting on, especially on works that were written around Tang dynasty.

[@Kentalot]

Not sure if this will blow your mind but half of your examples is exactly what we use in normal modern Cantonese. (We don't use 私 for I (我), nor 步 for walk (行) though)

[@2bb334]

@@Kentalot I happen to speak Cantonese too and that’s where I found a lot of similarities in pronunciations. 我屋企講廣東話，我就覺得學日本話好方便

[@TheHoveHeretic]

At 7'20", the etymology of "phone" employing the characters for 'horse' and 'up' could be the receiver on an old style dial phone taken as resembling a horse (if you're drunk and squint a bit) and placed atop the instrument .... 'up'.

[@simonlow0210]

No, I think you are confused, try rewatch the video. "Horse up" means Immediately/Right away. The word for phone is made up of "electric talk"

[@ucchau173]

18:53 in vietnam the word 自己(tự kỷ)mean autism and depression is 沈感(trầm cảm )or 沉感(trầm cảm)😂😂

[@npcchannel6399]

Trong tiếng Việt tự kỉ vẫn có nghĩa là bản thân mình nhé.

[@roxyhh]

As native Chinese speaker, if I look up a terminology in Wikipedia but don’t want to bother to read the English or German pages and can’t find the Chinese one, I would always look for the Japanese one. Thanks to kanji, I can understand 80%+ in most cases. English is my second language, German the third, and I also had Esperanto and Spanish course at the uni, and lived in Norway for a few months. So both Germanic and Romance languages ​​are not unfamiliar to me. I’m always amazed by how much I can understand a language without learning it while I’m traveling around in Europe. For example in German, hospital is Krankenhaus, literally “sick house“, and in Norwegian “sykehus”. Meanwhile, English seems to like creating a new world for new stuffs, but Chinese and German tend to explain a new word with existing words. For example: fridge/refrigerator🧊 German: Kühlschrank(cold+shelf) Chinese:冰箱(cold/ice+box) Potato 🥔 German regional: Erdapfel (earth+apple) Chinese: 土豆(earth+bean)

[@user-sh3cf7kd6e]

20:37 I am a Hebrew speaker and I know the Arabic script. I can understand most of the words with shared/similar meaning given the context and enough time. Of course I mean Levantine Arabic.

[@mamaharumi]

Very cool video, man. I like that it's different than your videos have been traditionally.

[@weifan9533]

As a native Mandarin speaker who also has some knowledge of Tai-Kradai languages from South China (more precisely Zhuang but also a bit of Tai Lue), I'm surprised at how much they were able to guess the meaning of the Mandarin words and sentences. However they probably won't be able to do it with sentences in Zhuang or Tai Lue. For start neither Zhuang nor Tai Lue uses Chinese characters, Zhuang currently uses the Latin alphabet whereas Tai Lue uses a script derived from the ancient Pali script of India. Zhuang used to have a script derived from Chinese characters called Saw Ndip however it's rarely used nowadays. And secondly the vocabulary in Zhuang and Tai Lue are vastly different from Chinese and Japanese. Take the word for China for instance. In Zhuang it would be Mwengz Gyang or Miengz Gyang, where Mwengz/Miengz means country and Gyang means middle. And in Tai Lue it would be Pathet Jeen, where Pathet means country and Jeen is the name for China.

[@gbzhou529]

Very cool video. I have always wondered this question and this is a really well done exercise. You also showed very good understanding of both languages. Thumbs up!

[@askmaxim]

Awesome Paul!

[@RyuseiYamaguchi]

10:35 Romaji is rarely seen in Japan except for proper nouns such as the names of places and people. Most product and shop names just use English. Coffee in Romaji is "kōhī", but it is found almost exclusively in dictionaries and Japanese language materials.

[@LiSaerSairreBlaserLi]

As i know that Japanese when they are in high school they will learn how to read Kanbun (漢文) in their Kokugo (in english more like the subject teaching language and literature of their language in other country) class, and Kanbun is actually traditional Chinese classics, like text written by Confucius. And due to the difference between our languages, they would develop their own way to analyse the Chinese text, for example like to change the position of Object and verb, and add markers to help them understand the meaning. But indeed, lots of old Chinese words are using in similiar way and having similiar meaning so Japanese could understand it more easily, but it doesnt mean that Chinese dont have the meaning, but because of diachronic deveploment, some words we also dont use. And somehow like Shin said, using more traditional characters or traditional ways to express the same meaning just make it cooler, or eleganter? or what similiar. I dont know if that could be equal with like some shops selling products in europe, but the products name written in Latin. And another thing is that I think for a lot of Chinese speakers (at least the people I know) having no problems reading both traditional and simplified Chinese (no matter they are traditional or simplified Chinese user). Japanese characters somehow also has no problem, but they will always having problems to some characters like 仏 becasue it is so simplified that having seldom clues to know what does it mean when written individuelly. But for Japanese speakers, they would have more problem when recognizing simplify Chinese characters. I thought this is because that the two language functions differently.

[@AlvinYap510]

Learning Latin helps you understand Italian and other Romance languages

[@miamidolphinsfan]

Paul, this was a very interesting video. I always wondered what this connection could be

[@EgnachHelton]

6:02 this is the shibboleth of a polyglot: when you can’t control yourself and can only come up with certain words in certain languages 😂

[@zsqduke]

The “happily” in happily welcome is contained in the word welcome. Well+come

[@tomooo2637]

I worked as the head of data at the European section international scientific organisation. The Japanese staff would communicate with the Chinese staff using written text rather than speaking. Yes there was variation in the meaning in the text, but it was close enough for them to communicate the required work the collaborated on when speaking (common language in science = English) did not solved the problem.

[@AlvinYap510]

Both were in International Scientific Organization but cant speak English? 😮

[@tomooo2637]

@@AlvinYap510 Yes they could but it was easier to talk in "native" language through characters, and much of this was by email (we are talking some15-20 years ago).

[@pngmk2]

For drink, 喝 is usually used by Mandarin Chinese. If you use 飲 instead (which often used in Cantonese Chinese), Japanese will understand much easier since they have 飲む and 飲料 for to drink and beverage respectively. Same for eat, 食 will be easier to understand for Japanese since they have 食べる and 食べ物 for to eat and food. Another example is 每天 & 每日, while Mandarin user uses the former, Cantonese user uses later.

[@rcbrascan]

Two hundred years ago, all educated Japanese could read Chinese characters.

[@lwh7301]

Amazing I can still read all the Chinese characters (traditional) since my last class in Chinese was 60 years ago.

[@AndresLau2004]

16:53 she makes him happy😅

[@Ztama809]

I learned a tiny bit of Japanese a few years ago and it was interesting being able to guess what some of the words in Chinese meant

[@DoUNoHarm]

I am Taiwanese and I got to say Japanese language is quite different from Chinese, but Japanese terminology for modern world has so much influence in so many aspect , for example we use the term like 科學 自然 政治 民主 these are all borrowed from Japanese language. So of course we could understand most of the meaning from Kanji. Japanese has so much to do with Chinese modernization, but not too many people know that.

[@martin5190]

Quality content Paul. Love it!

[@A3C3567]

Actually, the character "書” in the first sentence, also means "write" in the ancient Chinese which is the same as Japanse. In ancient China, they use single character so it is more common to see multiple meaning for 1 character. But in modern China, we use character combinations to avoid misunderstanding. Like "書本" = " book", “書寫” = "write". And it is the same situation with the character "喝” in sentence 3. As a native Cantonese speaker, I guess Japanese can read Cantonese more than the modern mandarin. That's because Cantonese keeps more ancient words. Like "食” instead of "吃" in sentence 4.

[@WendyHuNanNZ]

Paul is a very knowledgeable KZbinr 😂❤❤❤ very impressed!