[Ayyfjicg]

But once you learn it you can read Chinese as well. Most of it at least.

[santorio]

But once you learn it you can read Chinese as well. Most of it at least.

The kanji that the Japanese use is considered "basic" to the Chinese. The Chinese writing is much more complicated and much more difficult to understand. But yes, you will be able to read some Chinese.

[Tapupah]

The kanji that the Japanese use is considered "basic" to the Chinese. The Chinese writing is much more complicated and much more difficult to understand. But yes, you will be able to read some Chinese.

Thing is, don't the Japanese use a mixture of the Traditional and Simplified form?


Another thing is the kanji usually keeps its meaning but if you already know Chinese it can get quite confusing as the pronounciation of the kanji is different with Chinese/Japanese.

[santorio]

Yes the kanji meaning will the be same, but the phonetics and pronunciation will be different than the Chinese. So you could understand the meaning, but unfortunately you couldn't speak it. Some kanji characters have kept the same sounds as the Chinese. I'm not really a historian so that is much as I know about the history of kanji.

Also, the Koreans also use Chinese characters, however, they are phasing it out of their every day lives. If you look at old Korean newspapers, history books, and academic books, you also see Chinese writings commonly used.