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Japanese
Japanese

Chinese
Chinese



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Japanese
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Japanese vs Chinese

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Countries

Countries

Japan
China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan

Total No. Of Countries

15
0 46
👆🏻

National Language

Japan
China, Taiwan

Second Language

Not spoken in any of the countries
Republic of Brazil

Speaking Continents

Asia, Pacific
Asia

Minority Language

Palau
Indonesia, Malaysia

Regulated By

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

Interesting Facts

  • 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.
  • 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.

Similar To

Korean Language
Japanese and Korean Languages

Derived From

-
-

Alphabets

Alphabets in

Alphabets

9926
18 247
👆🏻

Phonology

How Many Vowels

524
0 32
👆🏻

How Many Consonants

1423
9 60
👆🏻

Scripts

Kana
Chinese Characters and derivatives

Writing Direction

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

Hard to Learn

Language Levels

56
2 12
👆🏻

Time Taken to Learn

88 weeks88 weeks
3 88
👆🏻

Greetings

Hello

こんにちは (Kon'nichiwa)
您好 (Nín hǎo)

Thank You

ありがとう (Arigatō)
谢谢 (Xièxiè)

How Are You?

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

Good Night

おやすみなさい (Oyasuminasai)
晚安 (Wǎn'ān)

Good Evening

こんばんは (Konbanwa)
晚上好 (Wǎnshàng hǎo)

Good Afternoon

こんにちは (Konnichiwa!)
下午好 (Xiàwǔ hǎo)

Good Morning

おはよう (Ohayō)
早安 (Zǎo ān)

Please

お願いします (Onegaishimasu)
请 (Qǐng)

Sorry

ごめんなさい (Gomen'nasai)
遗憾 (Yíhàn)

Bye

さようなら (Sayōnara)
再见 (Zàijiàn)

I Love You

愛しています (Aishiteimasu)
我爱你 (Wǒ ài nǐ)

Excuse Me

すみません (Sumimasen)
劳驾 (Láojià)

Dialects

Dialect 1

Sanuki
Mandarin

Where They Speak

Kagawa
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan

How Many People Speak

1,000,000.00960,000,000.00
1.5 960000000
👆🏻

Dialect 2

Hakata
Wu

Where They Speak

Fukuoka
China, United States of America

How Many People Speak

127,000,000.0080,000,000.00
700 274000000
👆🏻

Dialect 3

Kansai
Yue

Where They Speak

kansai
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam

How Many People Speak

127,000,000.0060,000,000.00
2 230000000
👆🏻

Total No. Of Dialects

3110
0 188
👆🏻

How Many People Speak

How Many People Speak?

128.00 million1,051.00 million
0 1200
👆🏻

Speaking Population

1.90 %16.00 %
0 89
👆🏻

Native Speakers

128.00 million873.00 million
0 873
👆🏻

Second Language Speakers

3.00 million178.00 million
0.01 400
👆🏻

Native Name

日本語
中文 (zhōngwén)

Alternative Names

Nihongo
Zhongwen, Hanyu

French Name

japonais
chinois

German Name

Japanisch
Chinesisch

Pronunciation

/nihoɴɡo/: [nihõŋɡo], [nihõŋŋo]
[ʈʂʰíŋ] [huà]

Ethnicity

Japanese (Yamato)
Han

History

Origin

1185
1250 BC

Language Family

Japonic Family
Sino-Tibetan Family

Subgroup

-
-

Branch

-
-

Language Forms

Early Forms

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

Standard Forms

Japanese
Standard Chinese

Language Position

81
1 120
👆🏻

Signed Forms

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

Scope

Individual
Individual

Code

ISO 639 1

ja
zh

ISO 639 2

ISO 639 2/T

jpn
zho

ISO 639 2/B

jpn
chi

ISO 639 3

jpn
zho

ISO 639 6

jpn
zho

Glottocode

nucl1643
sini1245

Linguasphere

45-CAA-a
79-AAA

Types of Language

Language Type

Living
Living

Language Linguistic Typology

Subject-Object-Verb
Subject-Verb-Object

Language Morphological Typology

Agglutinative, Synthetic
Analytic, Isolating

Japanese vs Chinese Speaking Countries

There are plenty of languages spoken around the world. Every country has its own official language. Compare Japanese vs Chinese speaking countries, so that you will have total count of countries that speak Japanese or Chinese language.

  • Japanese is spoken as a national language in: Japan.
  • Chinese is spoken as a national language in: China, Taiwan.

You will also get to know the continents where Japanese and Chinese speaking countries lie. Based on the number of people that speak these languages, the position of Japanese language is 8 and position of Chinese language is 1. Find all the information about these languages on Japanese and Chinese.

Japanese and Chinese Language History

Comparison of Japanese vs Chinese language history gives us differences between origin of Japanese and Chinese language. History of Japanese language states that this language originated in 1185 whereas history of Chinese language states that this language originated in 1250 BC. 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 Japanese and Chinese Language History.

Japanese and Chinese 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 Japanese and Chinese greetings helps you to understand basic phrases in Japanese and Chinese language. Japanese word for "Hello" is こんにちは (Kon'nichiwa) or Chinese word for "Thank You" is 谢谢 (Xièxiè). Find more of such common Japanese Greetings and Chinese Greetings. These greetings will help you to be more confident when conversing with natives that speak these languages.

Japanese vs Chinese Difficulty

The Japanese vs Chinese difficulty level basically depends on the number of Japanese Alphabets and Chinese 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 Japanese and Chinese are the origin, speaking countries, language family, different greetings, speaking population of these languages. Want to know in Japanese and Chinese, which language is harder to learn? Time required to learn Japanese is 88 weeks while to learn Chinese time required is 88 weeks.