Asian Group
Related: About this forumChineasy - clever way to learn some Chinese (and Japanese)
Most of these have the same meaning in Japanese as Chinese but when she gets into the compound words Japanese has some differences.
An example my wife explained to me is that the symbol for hand and paper together means "letter" in Japanese. In Chinese the hand and paper symbols are the same but together they mean "toilet paper".
In a past Olympics the Chinese and Japanese teams tried talking to each other by writing common Chinese symbols. They got into a fight because they inadvertently insulted each other by not knowing the other languages meanings for the same symbols.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)手 hand + 紙 paper = "letter" in Japanese, "toilet paper" in Chinese. For the latter, Japanese uses the English words with a Japanese pronunciation so that it comes out sounding like "toi-retto pay-pah".
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)勉強="study" in Japanese, "effort" in Chinese
湯= "hot water" in Japanese, "soup" in Chinese
先生="teacher" in Japanese, "mister" in Chinese
対象="object" (of something) in Japanese, "lover" in Chinese
汽車=" steam-powered) train" in Japanese, "car" in Chinese
便宜="convenient" in Japanese, "cheap" in Chinese
告訴="indict" in Japanese, "inform" in Chinese
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)No wonder there were so many misunderstandings between the Japanese and Chinese athletes
Interesting that the first character of 告訴, when pronounced "tsugeru", can mean simply "to inform".
Also, is 先生 used only for men in Chinese?
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)The unisex word for "teacher" is 老師."Doctor" is 大夫 or 医生.
And those are just the ones I can think of offhand.
yuiyoshida
(41,818 posts)I would love to learn Kanji...in the same way.