Can Japanese really understand deep Hanzi [Kanji]?

[Aepsilons]

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Great share , shows the complexity of the Language.

Unlike Urdu which has "small building blocks" like in English words are constructed by combination of alphabets
it is easy to take sound , put building blocks to make word

Japanese folks here seem to have to memorize whole "Word" as a unique alphabet just how many such words / alphabets they memorize in their school days

My own favorite from comics

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

Sometime I feel ashamed that my Japanese friends know more Hanzi (Kanji) than me.

 

[Rechoice]

Japanese has created huge amount of new Kanzi words, whichs Chinese borrowed back to day in Chinese language.

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

Japanese has created huge amount of new Kanzi words, whichs Chinese borrowed back to day in Chinese language.

We don't have problem with that, in contrary we're glad and appreciate that Japanese friends brought more contribution to the progress of Kanji, only those use Kanji such Chinese and Japanese are the beneficiary of this

 

[Abacin]

Chinese characters, or Kanji, are a two dimensional language and the best for expression of meaning. Even people who never know Kanji can guess the meaning. Chinese documents are always much thinner than documents in other languages in United nations. That's why it helped unifying China but hindered education level of the population due to its two dimensional difficulty. To keep its strong expression advantage while lower its difficulty, simplification is the only way to go. When I use the smartphone, hand writing simplified Chinese is always quicker than typing english since much few characters are needed for the same meaning.

That's why smartphones are very popular in China, compared to computers requiring typing Roman pinyin.

Japanese has created huge amount of new Kanzi words, whichs Chinese borrowed back to day in Chinese language.

This is a rumor. Many those words can be found in ancient Chinese documents. For many modern words, you can see them in Ming Dynasty or Qing Dynasty documents since China always had connection with the West through silk roads in ancient time or sea routes in modern time. Many words created by Japanese are actually not standard in Chinese. Just some Japanese fans like to use them.

For Chinese, you must understand that China is very large. Different areas may use different Kanji. Japanese Kanji is just similar to one of them. That's why we have the standard Mandarin, not just due to pronunciation.

 

[zheng2]

你看得懂我说的吗。
你看得懂我說的嗎。
omae kore yonterukana.

 

[Aepsilons]

Chinese characters, or Kanji, are a two dimensional language and the best for expression of meaning. Even people who never know Kanji can guess the meaning. Chinese documents are always much thinner than documents in other languages in United nations. That's why it helped unifying China but hindered education level of the population due to its two dimensional difficulty. To keep its strong expression advantage while lower its difficulty, simplification is the only way to go. When I use the smartphone, hand writing simplified Chinese is always quicker than typing english since much few characters are needed for the same meaning.

Learning now some simplified characters, Chinese characters, its actually easier ! Tho i agree with you Kanji (Hanzi) is very difficult , as you said, it is two dimensional ! One character can have 5, 20, 30 different meanings! lol.

This is why i think critical thinking is a necessity when learning it. It also cultivates greater critical thinking.....

 

[AViet]

It is quite weird that in Vietnam, people from a far away country (Japan) can read and understand, at least a little, the characters on many temples, pagodas or even churches, written in Chữ Hán (Hanzi/Kanji), while most Vietnamese cannot.

I hope in near future, chữ Hán will become a must subject for primary pupils again.

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

It is quite weird that in Vietnam, people from a far away country (Japan) can read and understand, at least a little, the characters on many temples, pagodas or even churches, written in Chữ Hán (Hanzi/Kanji), while most Vietnamese cannot.

I hope in near future, chữ Hán will become a must subject for primary pupils again.

Japanese are smart they know keep Kanji writing mean keep contact with China, not only they can read their ancestors wrote but what ever the development in China, they will be the first to understand and know such Chinese literature, scientific publication, business development and opportunity. It will be easy for them to interact with 1.4 billions people just by writing.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

So is Chinese / Japanese share anything in common character wise considering we have heard there was migration from main land long time ago

 

[Abacin]

So is Chinese / Japanese share anything in common character wise considering we have heard there was migration from main land long time ago

It is just a sinicization process. In Ancient East Asia with China dominant, many countries incorporated Chinese characters (Hanzi/Kanji) for better accuracy of their languanges such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam. In Korea, legal documents are required to be written in Chinese characters to avoid wrong meanings.

Just as now the West is dominant and Latin characters are very good for pronunciation, even China introduced Latin characters for Chinese pronunciation. Also Arabic numbers and Greek characters are incorporated for better math expression.

Most languages are alphabetic, but Chinese is ideographic. Technically all alphabetic languages can be written in Chinese while keeping its own pronunciation. Chinese first emperor took advantage of this and unified the writing of the whole China as earlier as 2000 years ago. This is one reason why Chinese characters can have multiple pronunciations. Sometimes they also have multiple meaning because characters need to apply to languages of different areas.

The emperor only unified the writing, but not the languages. Different areas of Chinese dialects share the writing, but the spoken languages can be completely different. Later this expanded to Korea, Japan, Vietnam and some ancient countries already incorporated in China.