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Can Japanese People Read Chinese? (Kanji)

That Japanese Man Yuta · explainer · Watch on YouTube

Language & linguistics

What it is

Yuta, a Japanese YouTuber, explains whether Japanese speakers can read Chinese text. He shows how shared kanji let people guess meanings while the two languages remain completely different.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Cited in threads on writing systems and CJK characters as an entertaining test of how much Japanese people can understand of Chinese.

  • 1 people recommended it
  • 1 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2020, last 2024

What HN commenters said

  1. “I found these videos quite entertaining”

    Entertaining look at Japanese people reading Chinese words with mismatched meanings.

    scaladev, 2021-03 · Recommendation · in “Japanese typography: Kilograms of sinograms”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: kanji, japanese, chinese, writing systems, linguistics

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