I can remember some hiragana and katakana characters. If the two languages are similar enough, maybe I could learn Chinese easier…

  • @Samubai@lemmygrad.ml
    3•2 years ago

    I didn’t mean to imply that’s all you need. That was just what a Chinese girl told me. I’m sure there’s more to it than kanji, but she said the only reason she passed(possibly barely) was because she knew the kanji bc they’re Chinese symbols.

    • 洩矢（もりや） 諏訪子（すわこ）
      2•2 years ago

      I don’t think knowing hanzi helps. Simple Japanese words for example 凄い　強い　走る, the pronunciations of them are completely different from Chinese and they are what you need to know to pass the exam. Advanced words have simular pronunciations to Chinese but they don’t often appear in exams. And Chinese see a japanese word wriiten in kanji they will think “oh I can understand it!” so he left without remembering its pronunciation. When Chinese see “走” in Japanese they may think it’s “walk” because this hanzi in chinese means “walk” but in fact 走 in japanese means run. So knowing hanzi is sometimes even a trouble

    • @tisamantis@lemmygrad.ml
      2•2 years ago

      Here is a random text from an online mock JPLT N1 test. It’s a reading comprehension task with some nuance and it’s about corvid intelligence. Even if I if were to check every Kanji don’t I know with a dictionary, I wouldn’t fully understand the text because grammar is hard. I’d have to take a really long time to slowly decipher it and get the answer right. A Chinese student would face similar difficulties. Here are answers, btw. The real test should be way harder.

      There are also listening tasks, where knowing Hanzi literally doesn’t mean anything.

      I think Suwako is correct here, their response to my comment below is informative.

      Knowing Kanji/Hanzi probably only helps with writing them or recognizing rough meaning of words.

      • @Samubai@lemmygrad.ml
        2•2 years ago

        I’m surprised there is so much kana in that sample.

        Also, there is this book with the premise that there is a stem vocabulary, similar to Italian and Spanish that learners can use to gain at least a basic understanding of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean through kanji. I wonder what your opinion is about it. I’m learning Japanese. I’m low level though, probably between N4-N5, but I can understand context cues relatively well. My vocab is low.

        • @tisamantis@lemmygrad.ml
          3•2 years ago

          Doesn’t look like this I can find this book online. Guessing it’s aimed more at learners of Korean tho.

          Wiktionary entries tend to list pronunciations of Chinese characters across multiple languages. (example page https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/丘), but using it is a pain, even if it’s informative.

          I’ve not studied Japanese in a while, but last time I did, I’ve almost completely given up leaning Kanji and went back to learning words instead. Pronunciation in Japanese is a mess. (湯桶読み and 重箱読み words make me want to commit sudoku. also, wtf are words like 白髪 even called?)

          itazuraneko is a good resource btw

        • 洩矢（もりや） 諏訪子（すわこ）
          2•2 years ago

          because this word is from China. But don’t forget that Japan is a independent nation, japanese needed to talk before they touched China, so they had created thousands of words before they could learn from China.凄（sugo,qi1）强（tsuyo,qiang2）人（hito,ren2）夜（yoru,ye4）最(motto,zui4）they are completely different right?and you must learn this words at startup. when you finally find out the original words and grammars, you can learn many advanced words from China.