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Chinese Characters of Japanese and Chinese Are Not All The Same!

Both 漢字 (Japanese Kanji) and 汉字 (Chinese Hanzi) are translated as Chinese Characters’. At the present time, approximately 70% of the characters share the same meaning in both languages. Let’s take a look at 30 examples with different meanings!

Chinese Character Japanese Meaning Chinese Meaning
hot water, hot spring soup
東西 east and west things
listen smell
切手 stamp cut hand
daughter mother
手紙 letter toilet paper
勉強 study reluctance
高校 high school college
run walk
丈夫 strong husband
大丈夫 no problem, alright gentleman
汽車 train car
to eat food
floor bed
小人  child vile person
愛人 mistress lover
老婆 old woman wife
結束 unity finish
apologize thank
stutter eat
上手 skillful, expert start to know how to do
下手 poor, clumsy start
先生 teacher mister
怪我 injury blame me
desk machine
顔色 facial colour colour
新聞 newspaper news
下水 sewage launch, internal organs
大家 landlord everyone

 

Bonus: Did a pig became a wild boar?

Chinese Character Japanese Meaning Chinese Meaning
wild boar pig

猪 means wild boar in Japanese while 豬 means pig in Chinese. Pig is one of the Chinese zodiac animals and there is a year of the pig in many countries. However, there were no pigs in Japan when the Chinese zodiac was introduced from China to Japan. Therefore, it was translated as a wild boar that resembles a pig.

 

Read about Chinese words that made in Japan.

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