I can almost see it if you start with Chinese since you know all the Hanzi/Kanji. I can accept that you eventually get a grip on the sentence structure. But the conjugation? The vocabulary? You could probably say things are warm, big, and intense. You'd know all the family members, a lot of anatomy, and a couple different types of buildings.

You would never be able to hear the word kimochii. Every time someone asks you how you are - really every 5th word you hear would sound like an innuendo.

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Japanese kanji are pretty different from hanzi, even if you're coming from traditional hanzi. They also have multiple readings which make it a pain to learn lol

[–] Kumikommunism@hexbear.net 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Japanese kanji are pretty different from hanzi

No, they are extremely similar. It's the same system. The hardest hurdle for speakers of other languages is getting used to a different type of word recognition, which Chinese speakers do not have to do. Even the ones that have been simplified differently are very recognizable with a tiny amount of exposure. And the multiple reading thing is way overstated. I usually just see it used as an excuse for not actually reading or listening to the language.

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

We have our thesis and our antithesis, now for the synthesis: kanji and hanzi are simultaneously more and less similar than you think

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago

Quantum linguistics