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Chinese vs Japanese


Japanese vs Chinese


Countries

Countries
China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan  
Japan  

Total No. Of Countries
5  
10
1  
14

National Language
China, Taiwan  
Japan  

Second Language
Republic of Brazil  
Not spoken in any of the countries  

Speaking Continents
Asia  
Asia, Pacific  

Minority Language
Indonesia, Malaysia  
Palau  

Regulated By
Chinese Language Standardization Council, National Commission on Language and Script Work, Promote Mandarin Council  
Agency for Cultural Affairs (文化庁) at the Ministry of Education  

Interesting Facts
  • Chinese language is tonal, since meaning of a word changes according to its tone.
  • In Chinese language, there is no grammatical distinction between singular or plural, no declination of verbs according to tense, mood and aspect.
  
  • In Japanese Language, there are 4 different ways to address people: kun, chan, san and sama.
  • There are many words in Japanese language which end with vowel letter, which determines the structure and rhythm of Japanese.
  

Similar To
Not Available  
Korean Language  

Derived From
Not Available  
Not Available  

Alphabets

Alphabets in
Chinese.jpg#200  
Japanese-Alphabets.jpg#200  

Alphabets
26  
8
99  
40

Phonology
  
  

How Many Vowels
24  
19
5  
2

How Many Consonants
23  
13
14  
4

Scripts
Chinese Characters and derivatives  
Kana  

Writing Direction
Left-To-Right, Horizontal, Top-To-Bottom  
Left-To-Right, Horizontal, Top-To-Bottom  

Hard to Learn
  
  

Language Levels
6  
5
5  
4

Time Taken to Learn
88 weeks  
13
88 weeks  
13

Greetings

Hello
您好 (Nín hǎo)  
こんにちは (Kon'nichiwa)  

Thank You
谢谢 (Xièxiè)  
ありがとう (Arigatō)  

How Are You?
你好吗? (Nǐ hǎo ma?)  
お元気ですか (O genki desu ka?)  

Good Night
晚安 (Wǎn'ān)  
おやすみなさい (Oyasuminasai)  

Good Evening
晚上好 (Wǎnshàng hǎo)  
こんばんは (Konbanwa)  

Good Afternoon
下午好 (Xiàwǔ hǎo)  
こんにちは (Konnichiwa!)  

Good Morning
早安 (Zǎo ān)  
おはよう (Ohayō)  

Please
请 (Qǐng)  
お願いします (Onegaishimasu)  

Sorry
遗憾 (Yíhàn)  
ごめんなさい (Gomen'nasai)  

Bye
再见 (Zàijiàn)  
さようなら (Sayōnara)  

I Love You
我爱你 (Wǒ ài nǐ)  
愛しています (Aishiteimasu)  

Excuse Me
劳驾 (Láojià)  
すみません (Sumimasen)  

Dialects

Dialect 1
Mandarin  
Sanuki  

Where They Speak
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan  
Kagawa  

How Many People Speak
960,000,000.00  
1
1,000,000.00  
28

Dialect 2
Wu  
Hakata  

Where They Speak
China, United States of America  
Fukuoka  

How Many People Speak
80,000,000.00  
1
Not Available  

Dialect 3
Yue  
Kansai  

Where They Speak
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam  
kansai  

How Many People Speak
60,000,000.00  
2
Not Available  

Total No. Of Dialects
10  
10
31  
25

How Many People Speak

How Many People Speak?
1,051.00 million  
2
128.00 million  
14

Speaking Population
16.00 %  
2
1.90 %  
10

Native Speakers
873.00 million  
1
128.00 million  
9

Second Language Speakers
178.00 million  
3
Not Available  

Native Name
中文 (zhōngwén)  
日本語  

Alternative Names
Not Available  
Not Available  

French Name
chinois  
japonais  

German Name
Chinesisch  
Japanisch  

Pronunciation
Not Available  
/nihoɴɡo/: [nihõŋɡo], [nihõŋŋo]  

Ethnicity
Han  
Japanese (Yamato)  

History

Origin
1250 BC  
1185  

Language Family
Sino-Tibetan Family  
Japonic Family  

Subgroup
Not Available  
Not Available  

Branch
Not Available  
Not Available  

Language Forms
  
  

Early Forms
No early forms  
Old Japanese, Early Middle Japanese, Late Middle Japanese and Early Modern Japanese  

Standard Forms
Standard Chinese  
Japanese  

Language Position
1  
1
8  
8

Signed Forms
Wenfa Shouyu 文法手語 ("Grammatical Sign Language", Signed Mandarin (Taiwan))  
Signed Japanese  

Scope
Individual  
Individual  

Code

ISO 639 1
zh  
ja  

ISO 639 2
  
  

ISO 639 2/T
zho  
jpn  

ISO 639 2/B
chi  
jpn  

ISO 639 3
zho  
jpn  

ISO 639 6
Not Available  
Not Available  

Glottocode
sini1245  
nucl1643  

Linguasphere
79-AAA  
45-CAA-a  

Types of Language
  
  

Language Type
Living  
Living  

Language Linguistic Typology
Subject-Verb-Object  
Subject-Object-Verb  

Language Morphological Typology
Analytic, Isolating  
Agglutinative, Synthetic  

Countries >>
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Chinese and Japanese Language History

Comparison of Chinese vs Japanese language history gives us differences between origin of Chinese and Japanese language. History of Chinese language states that this language originated in 1250 BC whereas history of Japanese language states that this language originated in 1185. Family of the language also forms a part of history of that language. More on language families of these languages can be found out on Chinese and Japanese Language History.

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Chinese and Japanese Greetings

People around the world use different languages to interact with each other. Even if we cannot communicate fluently in any language, it will always be beneficial to know about some of the common greetings or phrases from that language. This is where Chinese and Japanese greetings helps you to understand basic phrases in Chinese and Japanese language. Chinese word for "Hello" is 您好 (Nín hǎo) or Japanese word for "Thank You" is ありがとう (Arigatō). Find more of such common Chinese Greetings and Japanese Greetings. These greetings will help you to be more confident when conversing with natives that speak these languages.

Chinese vs Japanese Difficulty

The Chinese vs Japanese difficulty level basically depends on the number of Chinese Alphabets and Japanese Alphabets. Also the number of vowels and consonants in the language plays an important role in deciding the difficulty level of that language. The important points to be considered when we compare Chinese and Japanese are the origin, speaking countries, language family, different greetings, speaking population of these languages. Want to know in Chinese and Japanese, which language is harder to learn? Time required to learn Chinese is 88 weeks while to learn Japanese time required is 88 weeks.

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