19
votes
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Are 变 and 変 the same?
They are both slightly different simplifications of the traditional Chinese character which is 變.
变 is the simplified Chinese and 変 the shinjitai, i.e. the Japanese simplification.
Often the ...
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16
votes
Can I use my Chinese name as my Japanese name?
Just from personal experience (purely anecdotal), I came across a few Chinese people who all used their original characters hanzi pretty regularly in work scenarios, normally without furigana (name ...
- 7,170
14
votes
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What is the etymology of the phrase 隴を得て蜀を望む?
What is the etymology of the phrase 隴を得て蜀を望む?
We can reorder the characters to get 得隴望蜀, which is a Chinese-language yojijukugo. This phrase may reference a few unrelated historical events.
The ...
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12
votes
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Kun Yomi of Chinese origin, like 竹 (take)
Short answer: probably yes, but we don't know a lot about it.
We don't have enough documentation about the earliest stages of Japanese to be sure, but the consensus is that a bunch of the oldest ...
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12
votes
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Is Japanese に related to the Chinese character 仁?
Yes, the kana に is derived from the Chinese character ([漢字]{かんじ}, kanji) 仁. See also the English Wiktionary page and the Japanese Wikipedia page, among other references.
All kana derived from kanji. ...
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11
votes
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If you learn the 2000 most common kanji, how many of the 2000 most common hanzi would you know?
Using 2,136 as a reference number (total number of Jōyō kanji)
There are 3,079 unique* characters which form the 2,136 most frequent Mainland Chinese + Taiwan Chinese characters.
1567 Jōyō Kanji are ...
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11
votes
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What is the difference between 中国人, 華人, 漢人, and 唐人?
It's like this:
中国人: "a person with Chinese nationality"
漢人:
"a person from the Han dynasty"
"a person of Han (Chinese) ethnicity"
華人: "a person of ethnically Han ancestry living outside of China"
...
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11
votes
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Is kanban (看板) really the same in Japanese and Chinese?
They just look identical in romanizations. A Japanese person and a Chinese person might understand each other with their native readings, but the real pronunciations have non-negligible differences. ...
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9
votes
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meanings of 曖昧{あいまい} between Japanese and Chinese
No, 曖昧 on its own does not mean 曖昧な関係 in Japanese. The following article written in Japanese explains 曖昧 has broader meanings in Chinese.
【中国語】曖昧 àimèi
この中国語の「曖昧」は、日本語より意味が広くて、日本語と同じ意味のほかに、まず「...
- 292k
9
votes
Are on’yomi words loanwords?
As far as Japanese is concerned, loanwords (外来語) usually refer to words brought into Japan from countries other than China and written in katakana. But strictly speaking, it depends on how you define ...
- 292k
7
votes
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What's the story behind 黒 and 黑? Why are they different?
Yes, 黒 is the 新字体{しんじたい} (simplified) form of 黑, which took the two dots at the top and turned them into a straight line. The same simplification can be seen in 曾 -> 曽. This was all part of the 1945 ...
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7
votes
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Can I use a Chinese newspaper to learn kanji radicals and maybe some kanji?
It is not a good idea to learn Japanese Kanji reading Chinese newspapers. Of course, a majority of Chinese characters used both in China and Japan have same or similar meanings, however, the grammar ...
- 2,078
7
votes
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Variations in the "same" kanji, how do you know which one to use?
What is this kind of variation called? Like is there a name for it?
In English they are called "variant (character)", in Japanese 異体字 itaiji. There are different types of variants, often though ...
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7
votes
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Name of レ点 in 漢文
The レ点 means first read the next character (that is the character below since it was written from top to bottom at that time) then read the previous character.
Ex: 帰ル（レ点）国ニ should read 国に帰る.
Before, ...
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7
votes
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Similarity between 挟む and 狭む
1. Why is the verb 狭{せば}む so rare/weird?
As user naruto said in the comments, the reason you don't see 狭{せば}む much in modern Japanese (and that your input method can't handle it) is that this is a ...
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7
votes
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Do the Japanese read Classical Chinese poems in Japanese or in on-readings?
There is always trade-off, as you said. Thus naturally we have both approaches, depending on what policy and objective you have.
Your #1 is called 訓読 ("interpretative reading") in Japanese, and ...
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7
votes
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波比不部保 ([B] sounds) → はひふへほ ([h] or [f] sounds)
On'yomi and Chinese: how sounds correlate
In almost* any discussion of kanji usage in Japanese, do not use the Mandarin pronunciations as any kind of guide to the Japanese pronunciations.
(* The ...
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6
votes
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曜日 and 曜 don't mean the same but xx曜日 and xx曜 are synonyms?
No, 曜 on its own does not mean weekday. Where did you read that it refers to weekdays? The Japanese word for weekday as opposed to weekend/holiday is 平日.
I don't speak Chinese, but both ～曜日 and ～曜 ...
- 292k
6
votes
Shin Kanzen Master has a Chinese element?
Why do these people think that there is some Chinese element to these books?
Because 「语」「测」「试」 are Simplified Chinese. These characters are written as 「語」「測」「試」 in Japanese.
Also, 「测试」("exam, ...
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6
votes
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Does Korean hanja usage correspond to Japanese kun'yomi and on'yomi kanji usage?
For ease of comparison, most Japanese Kanji text in this answer will be rendered in Kyūjitai, which are almost 100% identical to Korean Hanja.
Short answer
No, Korean mixed script (「[國漢文混用]{국한문혼용}」, ...
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6
votes
Accepted
Can I use my Chinese name as my Japanese name?
Yes you can of course, as many have said. However, I am not sure why nobody mentioned that you can also pretty much use the kanji in your name and just associate to them a Japanese pronunciation as ...
- 7,816
6
votes
Specific examples of tonal Chinese words rendered into Japanese
Keywords: MC, Middle Chinese; OC, Old Chinese: MJ: Middle Japanese; OJ,
Old Japanese; 呉, Go'on; 漢, Kan'on; 唐, Tō-on; /(absence of superscript)/ or 平, level tone; /X/ or 上, rising tone; /H/ or 去, ...
- 9,046
6
votes
Kanji etymology of 毎?
According to the Wiktionary entry, the 母 portion is purely phonetic -- that is, it has to do with the [ancient] Chinese pronunciation.
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6
votes
Kanji etymology of 毎?
「每{まい}」(Baxter-Sagart OC: /*mˤəʔ/; Shinjitai:「毎」) was originally a picture of a woman「女」wearing a headdress, indicating the meaning married woman > adult woman, mother.「女」was later phoneticised into「母{...
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6
votes
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What is the etymology of あした?
The word ashita is purely Japanese. The spelling 明日 comes from Chinese.
A note about reading types
For any word where the reading is the 訓【くん】読【よ】み, the word itself as pronounced is (almost always) ...
- 35.8k
6
votes
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Do all な-adjectives come from Chinese?
The answer is no. Some na-adjectives are from Western languages (e.g., スマートな, アバンギャルドな) and some are from native Japanese words (e.g., 朗らかな, 静かな). As an aside, there are also a few i-adjectives coined ...
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6
votes
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Were there any specifics rules that were used to convert Chinese vocabulary into Japanese? Are they still perceptible in Modern Chinese?
Phonemes are not really applicable to the Chinese character system, but there was (and still is) indeed a systematic approach to convert most Chinese characters' pronunciation into Japanese on'yomi, ...
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5
votes
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Origin of the pronunciations of 観音 and 漢音
I can only answer part of your question: the shift from かんおん to かんのん in the reading of 観音 is listed by several sources as due to 連声. (Shogakukan's 国語大辞典, and 大辞林 and 大辞泉)
The Japanese Wikipedia ...
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5
votes
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Shin Kanzen Master has a Chinese element?
The kanjis at the bottom line of the front page (日本语……) are Chinese kanjis. These kanjis are not used in Japanese except 日本, 能力 and 法.
One line above is an English phrase "JLPT Grammar." So they ...
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