Quick Question

[Toot]

I know that Japan pulled the Chinese writing system to their culture (Kanji) or something like that. But is there a distinct difference between the two? Or are the Kanji used in Nihongo exactly the same as the Chinese symbols? I'm just curious.

 

[nekojita]

Quick answer: no, kanji are not exactly the same as hanzi (it also depends whether you're talking traditional or simplified hanzi), although there is a fair bit of overlap.

Long answer: Kanji - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Toritoribe]

In additon:

Traditional Japanese kanji and traditional Chinese, which is mainly used in Taiwan, are basically the same, or at least very close. As for the Modern Japanese kanji form "Sinjitai" and simplified Chinese which is mainly used in Mainland China, some of them are completely different. See the examples in the page linked below.

窶愿ｺ窶怒窶堙固?ﾂｿﾅｽﾅ｡窶堙??吮??ﾂ坂?倪?堙固?ﾂｿﾅｽﾅ｡ﾂ（ﾅ?ﾃ遺?佚固ｽﾅ｡ﾂ）窶堙娯?佚寂?ｰﾅｾ

 

[dsvlee]

Before 1900s, most of the east asians used traditonal Chinese. But now most of the country, even Chinese themselves change the writing of these charactors. But people from Hongkong, Taiwan and Singarpore still use traditional Chinese. Traditional Chinese standard was made by Kangxi Emperor in 1600 some. He asked Chinese scholars to public Kangxi dictionary. And the dictionary collected more than 40000 Chinese traditional Hanzi in it.