Chineasy - clever way to learn some Chinese (and Japanese)

[Kablooie]

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]

1. Interesting information about "tegami"

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]

2. Other false friends:

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=&quot 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]

3. Oh, my

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]

4. Yes, "sensei/xiansheng" is used only for men

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]

5. She is cute...

I would love to learn Kanji...in the same way.