List of Chinese–Japanese false friends

There are many false friendships between the Chinese and Japanese languages. These are words that look or sound similar to those in another language but have a significantly different meaning. The majority of these false friends result from the use of Chinese traditional characters in the Japanese script.

History

Main article: Sino-Japanese vocabulary

Chinese characters are said to have been invented by Cangjie, one of the bureaucrats under the Yellow Thearch. Cangjie coined symbols known as "zi" (字) following a study of the landscape, animals, and galaxy in the sky. "Zì" (字) is the first Chinese character created, and Cangjie related it to a mythical story of the day these characters were created.

Japanese kanji borrows some words from the Chinese language. These form the relationship between the Japanese kanji and the Chinese logograph. Chinese words and characters were introduced to Japan through letters, coins, swords, and seals imported from China. As far as is currently known, King of Na gold is the earliest import bearing Chinese characters. This gold was presented to Yamato by Emperor Guangwu of Han. The Japanese of this era most likely had no knowledge of scripts and seem to have remained illiterate until the fifth century.

The earliest known Japanese documents were written by Korean officials and bilingual Chinese employed at the Yamato court. Afterwards, a group of people known as the fuhito were organised under the monarch to read and write Chinese characters. The Yamato court began sending full-scale diplomatic missions to China, leading to increased literacy within the Japanese court. Japanese kanji could be stencilled onto thin rectangular strips of wood, which aided communication during this time.

As a result of the aforementioned lack of a Japanese writing system, Chinese was used almost exclusively in texts. The Heian period (794–1185) facilitated the emergence of a system known as kanbun, which involved the use of Chinese text with diacritical marks that allowed Japanese speakers to read and restructure Chinese sentences. Chinese characters also came to be used in writing Japanese words, resulting in modern kana syllabaries. Japan adopted a writing system known as man'yōgana and used it to write the ancient poetry anthology Man'yōshū. This anthology used a number of Chinese characters.

Adaptation of kanji

In modern Japanese, kanji is integrated into writing systems through content words such as adjective stems, noun and verb stems. The growth experienced in the integration of kanji in writing systems has increased the number of false friends existing between the Chinese and Japanese languages. In some instances, kanji is considered difficult to read relating to the context applied. For instance, hiragana and katakana are writing systems that descend from kanji and have characters that are used to write phonetic complements, adjective endings, and inflected verbs used to disambiguate readings and give simple definitions to some miscellaneous words that are hard to comprehend in the writing systems.

Chinese characters are among the most widely adopted and oldest writing systems. In addition, the Chinese characters are integrated into the learning systems of most nations in East Asia and predominate in China and Japan. Consequently, most of the characters used in Japanese kanji adopt their meaning from the Chinese logographic characters. Functional literacy in written Chinese requires knowledge of between three and four thousand characters, as clearly shown in Chinese studies. Japanese kanji and Chinese logographic characters have been simplified through World War II era simplifications in kanji and China, respectively. There are numerous national standard lists of characters, pronunciations, and forms distinctly defined by Japanese kanji and Chinese writing systems. In the Japanese language, common characters are written in post-WWII Japan simplified forms. Most uncommon characters are written in Japanese traditional forms that are nearly identical to Chinese traditional forms.

Following the simplification of the characters used in Japanese and Chinese, most characters are used with similar pronunciation and structure but have different meanings according to the respective languages.

Cultural effects

False friends in writing systems occur when words in two distinct languages resemble each other in structural appearance or sound but have a different meaning. False friends can be identified as homophones, although they are culturally bound since they are defined in two particular languages. False friends have impacts on the cultural definition of the societies using the languages. For instance, the Chinese language uses numerous characters that define its language. Japanese kanji that emanate from Chinese traditional characters define the Japanese language. Consequently, the Japanese language has most of its words borrowed and developed from the Chinese tradition. The two distinct languages tend to share a similar linguistic history, which is characterised by the use of homographs in the language. However, the fact that the two languages share a similar linguistic history has motivated the usage of similar words in the languages that have distinct meanings. The Chinese and Japanese languages use words that are similar but have different pronunciations in their respective languages.

Therefore, while writing, individuals tend to be very careful with false friends, especially for the Chinese and Japanese languages that use similar words with different pronunciations and meanings in relation to the respective language. The Chinese and Japanese languages have numerous false friends. The following is a list of some of the most common false friends that individuals must be mindful of when writing them. Some words and expressions are similar but have different pronunciations and meanings in their respective languages. False friends present linguistic homographs and synonyms based on the culturally and societally bound languages.

Among the cultural effects are contresense, which occurs when a writer uses a false friend in a context whose meaning is the opposite of the original meaning as presented in the related language. In current and modern society, writing systems have been improved following the increased number of characters integrated into the systems. Writers and learners of the languages, both Chinese and Japanese, need to be very conscious of false friends in order to deliver the exact meaning in the written context. The difference in pronunciation and meaning indicates homograph elements in false friends. This supports the fact that the Japanese language was developed from literary Chinese.

While writing contexts, some characters might seem familiar to the writers, and they tend to assume they have similar meaning across different cultures. However, such characters might have different meanings across different cultures due to different definitions. For instance, Chinese linguistic analysis demonstrates different contexts that have varying meanings from the Japanese kanji, despite the fact that it is the source of most Japanese characters. Consequently, readers and writers must be careful while applying such samples of false friends.

The existence of false friends in languages governs every effort towards generating conversation across dynamic cultures. For instance, Chinese and Japanese cultures have distinct social and cultural activities that define different terminologies that determine the nature of the context to be published. A bilingual writer seeking to publish context in Chinese and Japanese needs to be aware of false friends in order to present context that draws similar meaning to both languages. False friends have an impact on the context presented by speakers. While presenting a speech in a bilingual society, speakers need to be aware of false friends to avoid embarrassment.

Most language learners fall into the false friends trap in the learning process. They give insight on how language changes. Speakers move away from certain meanings towards others, considering the meaning of words and characters used in their context. Most of the Chinese and Japanese false friends arise through various actions of semantic change. Since most of the Japanese language characters are borrowed from the Chinese language, there is a shift that defines the similarity of the context presented. This motivates the need to be careful while writing since the meanings between the paired languages have very different raising definitions that differ in very distinct contexts. Therefore, false friends have a cultural impact on writing and learning bilingual languages whose characters have some defining similarities.

List of false friends

This list highlights some commonly encountered false friends.

Characters		Gloss
Chinese	Japanese	Chinese	Japanese
私	私	private, selfish or personal	I, me, myself
娘	娘	mother; woman	daughter; girl
湯	湯	soup (in Classical Chinese: hot water)	hot water; hot spring
侍	侍	to wait upon; to serve	samurai; servant
走	走	to walk (in Classical Chinese: to run; Cantonese: to run, leave)	to run
王妃	王妃	princess consort	queen
棚	棚	shed	shelf
腕	腕	wrist	arm
鳥	鳥	bird	can refer to either a chicken or a bird (dependent on context)
豬	猪	pig	boar
手紙	手紙	toilet paper	a letter (of the postal variety)
勉強	勉強	the action of forcing somebody to do something	study
汽車	汽車	automobile and motor vehicle	a steam locomotive
先生	先生	sir, mister or teacher	teacher
愛人	愛人	a lover or mistress; a spouse, wife or husband (PRC only)	a lover or mistress
連帶	連帯	to be related; to be involved; to be entailed	solidarity
老婆	老婆	wife	old woman
小人	小人	villain	little people
丈夫	丈夫	husband or brave gentleman	a hero, durable, unbreakable or robustness; health
風船	風船	sailboat	balloon
邪魔	邪魔	a demon; wicked spirit; the devil	a hindrance, obstacle or nuisance
非常	非常	very; extremely (in Classical Chinese: something extraordinary; unusual)	something unusual; extraordinary; emergency or unusual
前年	前年	the year before last year	last year; the previous year
方面	方面	aspect	direction
情報	情報	intelligence; information (of a military or espionage nature)	news, information or gossip
檢討	検討	self-criticism	research; study; investigation; discussion
新聞	新聞	news	newspaper
約束	約束	the act of restraining; a constraint	an appointment or promise
暗算	暗算	scheme; to plot against	mental arithmetic
人間	人間	the material world; human society	the personality; the character of human beings in general
說話	説話	to speak	a folktale or story
交代	交代	to hand over; to explain; to confess	alternation; change; relief; (work) shift; taking turns
格式	格式	format; model	formality; social rules; social standing; math expression
應酬	応酬	social activity; dinner party	a retort; an angry response
人參/人蔘	人参	ginseng	carrot
放心	放心	to be at ease	to be in a trance
旅館	旅館	hotel	a Japanese traditional-style inn
風俗	風俗	social tradition	social customs; the sex industry (euphemistically)
天井	天井	atrium or courtyard (in Classical Chinese: patio)	ceiling
中古	中古	the Middle Ages	a second-hand item
樂	楽	happiness; fun	ease; comfort
標榜	標榜	the act of advertising; to parade; to brag or to boast	standing for someone; advocacy
浴衣	浴衣	a bathrobe	yukata, a type of light robe mainly used for casual wear
親友	親友	close friends and relatives collectively	a close friend
文句	文句	syntax and wording in a given manuscript	a complaint
手心	手心	hollow of one's palm	consideration
醫生	医生	medical doctor	medical student
扁桃體	扁桃体	tonsil (chiefly PRC)	amygdala
電車	電車	tram	electric multiple unit train