Mandarin and Japanese

[Flying Pigeon]

Hi,

I've been living in Japan for the past year and have been studying Japanese since I arrived. Recently I began taking Chinese classes and I have a couple of questions.

In Japanese there are many levels of speech: casual, neutral (polite), honorific and humble. I'm wondering if the same levels exist in Chinese, particularly Mandarin. In Japanese one has to constantly be thinking about one's social status as it relates to the people they are speaking with. It's kind of taken the fun out of learning the language and speaking it. So I'm wondering if Chinese is more laid back than Japanese in that sense.

Also, there are many English loan words in Japanese. They get annoying after a while, especially when there are Japanese words that convey the same meaning. Are there many in Chinese?

Anyone studied/currently studying both? Thoughts, opinions?

Thanks in advance.

Peace,

Dean Swanson

[Quest]

Modern Chinese/Mandarin is a casual language much like English. (classical Chinese is another story though). When there's a native word, the the native word tends to be used. Usually, new words are invented for new things and ideas using native root words.

[studentyoung]

In Japanese there are many levels of speech: casual, neutral (polite), honorific and humble. I'm wondering if the same levels exist in Chinese, particularly Mandarin. In Japanese one has to constantly be thinking about one's social status as it relates to the people they are speaking with.

In Chinese, the kind of concern is not so strongly appears in the level of speech, but just embodies on tone and polite words (which won’t cause grammatical changes).

Also, there are many English loan words in Japanese. They get annoying after a while, especially when there are Japanese words that convey the same meaning. Are there many in Chinese?

As to those English loan words in Japanese, I understand how you feel completely. Hehe. Yes, there are some English loan words in Chinese, but they are not as many as those in Japanese. For example, 迪斯科 is disco.

Anyone studied/currently studying both? Thoughts, opinions?

Please pay more attention on the differences between Chinese and Japanese. For example, there are some Chinese characters do look like Japanese ones, sometimes they might share the same or similar meaning with their Japanese counterpart, but sometimes they don’t share any meaning with their Japanese counterpart.

Anyway, good luck!

Cheers!

[fireball9261]

In Japanese there are many levels of speech: casual, neutral (polite), honorific and humble. I'm wondering if the same levels exist in Chinese, particularly Mandarin. In Japanese one has to constantly be thinking about one's social status as it relates to the people they are speaking with.

In a more formal setting or talking to someone who is your elder or your boss or your teacher, Chinese also use certain words that are more respectful and formal. For example, use "您 nin2" instead of "你 ni3". However, in everyday life, Chinese are pretty relaxed about it. I doubt any Chinese would be offended by a foreigner who is just learning how to speak Chinese. We are a very understanding people. Just make sure you know your Chinese "please", "thank you", and "sorry" and maintain respectful manners, you will be fine.

Also, there are many English loan words in Japanese. They get annoying after a while, especially when there are Japanese words that convey the same meaning. Are there many in Chinese?

Not as much as Japanese. A lot of early words from English were actually translated into well thought out Chinese phrases. For example: Telephones became "electric words". Trains became "fire cars". Automobiles became "air cars". The newer words sometimes got brought in whole, like disco or party. However, Coke was translated into "able to be happy", so I think Chinese have not lost the creativity to adopt and change the language of China yet.

Anyone studied/currently studying both? Thoughts, opinions?

I heard a story of a Chinese student who went to Japan in early 20th century. He couldn't speak a word of Japanese. When he first went into a hotel, he saw the sign of the word "湯". He thought, "Great! I am hungry for soup. I will order some." He pointed at the sign and indicated he wanted to have some "湯". Soon after, he was brought to a big tub filled with hot water for taking a bath! It seems to be the same word, but it means differently in Chinese and in Japanese.

There are some phrases that mean the same in both languages -- maybe pronounced a little off. And there are also some phrases that look the same but mean totally different things in these two languages. In addition, the writing forms sometimes are a little bit different also. Those are the things you need to pay attention on.

[studentyoung]

I heard a story of a Chinese student who went to Japan in early 20th century. He couldn't speak a word of Japanese. When he first went into a hotel, he saw the sign of the word "湯". He thought, "Great! I am hungry for soup. I will order some." He pointed at the sign and indicated he wanted to have some "湯". Soon after, he was brought to a big tub filled with hot water for taking a bath! It seems to be the same word, but it means differently in Chinese and in Japanese.

Hehe. In fact, one of the meanings of “汤 / 湯” in ancient Chinese (古代汉语) does mean “hot bathing water”. You can easily find“香汤沐浴 bath with hot fragrant water” in many ancient Chinese story books.

Of course, “汤” means “soup” in modern Chinese.

Cheers!

[fireball9261]

Actually, I think it might be good to bath in some of the Cantonese herbal soups.

[Flying Pigeon]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. It's nice to get some feedback on this.

Peace,

Dean

[nipponman]

I study both and I must say that even though Japanese is harder than mandarin to study, don't sleep on mandarin cuz it'll get you with subtlety and nuance.

[zozzen]

This is an interesting topic. While honorific and humbles tones are less common, which dialects reserve most of these ancient expressions and tones in modern china?

From time to time i can still hear the words like:

小弟(fairly common for cantonese)、

勞駕(heard it only in mandarin textbooks but never in real life)

犬兒 (in movies only)

大爺(sometimes in mandarin)

千金 (sometimes in cantonese)

少爺 (very common in cantonese)

內子(mostly in written form)

I'm wondering if hokkien, fujian and teochew would do better job at reserving these ancient expressions.

And when I was young (and i'm still quite young ), the official letter was written in the style such as "某某先生敬鑒" 、"晚某某人拜上" . Does anyone still use this today?

[atitarev]

Nipponman wrote: I study both and I must say that even though Japanese is harder than mandarin to study, don't sleep on mandarin cuz it'll get you with subtlety and nuance.

I personally, don't find Japanese harder, despite inflections, politeness levels and more grammar rules. My reason is - it's much easier to break up sentences into meaningful parts and link words into sentences.

My observation is about reading intermediate to advanced texts. I still have to segment mentally words, which can be sometimes difficult in Chinese long sentences.

Perhaps my readings skills are slowed down by having to deal with much more characters compared to Japanese but I feel that after spending more time with Mandarin than I spent with Japanese, my Japanese is still a little better than my Mandarin. The worst thing that stresses me out about Japanese, though is some colloquial forms I don't understand, I find it much easier to read formal or standard texts.

[SChinFChin]

I studied Japanese for a year, and then practiced for a while with my favorite "sushi chef" speaking it. As my Japanese tutor also studied Chinese, I was taught the lanaguage as a Chinese speaker rather than an English speaker.

First, Chinese is more casual, and does not contain the caste and sex differentiation as in Japanese. My Japanese tutor mentioned the worst thing for a "man: is to be taught Japanese by a girl since he'll start talkiing like a girl.

The one thing to be aware of in Chinese is to be able to refer to others correctly based on their age. You'll address and older man or woman different from a younger one, or those of the same age.

As to loan words, for me, that's one of the more interesting aspect of Japanese that the tutor and I discussed being both a Chinese and English speaker. His theory is the Japanese likes to borrow things from the best. They borrowed from China when China was at it's height. Then it was the French before the Franco Prussian war, and then the Germans after they won. In the 20th century it was the English, due to the dominace of the UK and the USA.

As an example, the words for "telephone" (den wa = electric talk) and railroad (tet su - iron road) are Chinese loan words. It's interesting these were inventions of the 19th century. Note that the pronunciation is 10th century Chinese, when the words were borrowed, akin to Southern dialects. Words "Den wa" is a southern pronunciation as compared to "dian hua" the modern Mandarin pronunciation.

Contrast this the the word for television (terebi), a bad pronunciation of television. The English "L" becomes the Japanese "R". This word is borrowed in the 20th century, taken from English rather than Chinese.

[nipponman]

I personally' date=' don't find Japanese harder, despite inflections, politeness levels and more grammar rules. My reason is - it's much easier to break up sentences into meaningful parts and link words into sentences.

My observation is about reading intermediate to advanced texts. I still have to segment mentally words, which can be sometimes difficult in Chinese long sentences.

Perhaps my readings skills are slowed down by having to deal with much more characters compared to Japanese but I feel that after spending more time with Mandarin than I spent with Japanese, my Japanese is still a little better than my Mandarin. The worst thing that stresses me out about Japanese, though is some colloquial forms I don't understand, I find it much easier to read formal or standard texts.[/quote']

The reason I say Japanese is because I come from an english-speaking background and chinese has many superficial similarities with english which make the learning process easier for a native english speaker imo. Japanese oth, has weird sentence order (to an american), particles, reverse-modifier order ("no" clauses) etc. The characters for me were a non issue. I learned to read/write Chinese in six months, it took me one year to do that with Japanese.

[Mugi]

As an example, the words for "telephone" (den wa = electric talk) and railroad (tet su - iron road) are Chinese loan words. It's interesting these were inventions of the 19th century.

Actually, 電話 is a Japanese coined term which Chinese has since borrowed (along with countless other terms for modern objects and concepts).

And the word for "railroad" in each language differs slightly: In Chinese it is 鐵路/铁路 tie lu, while in Japanese it is 鉄道 tetsu dou.

[SChinFChin]

>>Actually, 電話 is a Japanese coined term which Chinese has since borrowed (along with countless other terms for modern objects and concepts).

And the word for "railroad" in each language differs slightly: In Chinese it is 鐵路/铁路 tie lu, while in Japanese it is 鉄道 tetsu dou.

None the less, they coined them with Chinese terms. But in the later half of the 20th century, things are coined with English terms. If the telephone was invented in 1960, it wouldn't be called 電話, but something closer to telephone.

[atitarev]

I learned to read/write Chinese in six months, it took me one year to do that with Japanese.

Characters go hand-in-hand with vocabulary, you can't learn a character if you don't learn at least a word using it. I just can't comprehend how you can master ALL or 3,000-4,000 (even 2,000) characters in 6 months.

[Mugi]

None the less, they coined them with Chinese terms.

In a similar way that English has coined a myriad of words using Greek or Latin 'stems' (Greek, in the case of telephone). I doubt you'll find too many people that would agree that the word "calculator" is "borrowed" from Latin. The stem of this word has existed in English for centuries and become thoroughly internalized. In the same way, 電 and 話 have existed in Japanese for over a millenia already.

I understand what you're trying to say - that one difference between Mandarin and Japanese is that where Japanese in the past would have coined new terms based on Chinese stems, these days it tends to use transliteration, while Mandarin tends to still employ translation - I just think that some of your comments are a little over-simplified and misleading. The reasons for this difference are a lot more complex than could be described in a forum like this though.

If the telephone was invented in 1960, it wouldn't be called 電話, but something closer to telephone.

Probably true. Indeed, we have テレホンカード (terehon kaado) for 'telephone card', but interestingly 携帯(電話) (keitai (denwa)) for 'mobile/cell phone'.

[SChinFChin]

>>The reasons for this difference are a lot more complex than could be described in a forum like this though.

Agreed.

The tutor I used was trying to employ the best methods for me to learn Japanese both as an English speaker, and Chinese speaker. The purpose was not a "tour de force" exploration of Chinese influence on the Japanese language, etymology etc, but rather to make sense why some words are borrowed from Chinese, and some from European languages.

I find it interesting that some Chinese words assumed totally different meanings in Japanese, others retained the same meaning but in new combinations formed totally different meanings, unique to japanese. For instance, one variation for wife, 家内, is never used in Chinese in this way, only Japanese. But the meaning of the words themselves, someone staying at home, makes perfect sense.

As to Japanese vs Mandarin, actually, the pronunciation from the Chinese is closer to those of the Southern Chinese dialects. as Chinese was spoken during the tenth century, when this interchange started.

[Mugi]

For instance, one variation for wife, 家内, is never used in Chinese in this way, only Japanese.

I wonder if there isn't a Chinese dialect that also uses this term? (閩南語 has 家後 (ke1-au7), which is similar.)

[SChinFChin]

>>I wonder if there isn't a Chinese dialect that also uses this term? (閩南語 has 家後 (ke1-au7), which is similar.)

In the Cantonese dialect, one way of saying "wife" is 內人 ( "noi6 jan4" in Jyutping romanization).

There are dozens of main dialects, and hundreds of sub dialects, and some of them have unique terms of their own.

For instance, for telephone, while Mandarin and Cantonese calls it 電話, it is called "hom sen" in the Taishan dialect, a sub-dialect of Cantonese. As it does not have a written language, I can surmise that "sen" is 線 (wire) while I'm guessing "hom" is 喊 from the word to "yell" or "call". So 喊線 is giving someone a holler through a wire.

Your observation on cell phones 携帯(電話) is interesting. Originally, when cell phones first came out, I hear it called 手提電話 in Cantonese, same concept as Japanese. But lately, it's simply called a "手機".

It may well be that in many of the subdialects, words are simply put together to form new terms pretty much the way Japanese has done it.

[fireball9261]

內人 (nei4 ren2) is not limited to any Chinese dialects. It is the official and traditional term for Chinese to refer to their wives to other people.