What two items did the Japanese borrow from the Chinese writing system?

(3) Roman letters and Arabic numbers borrowed from the West. Chinese books were first brought to Japan between the 3rd and 5th centuries A.D. Subsequently, the Japanese borrowed the Chinese writing system in its entirety by adopting Classical Chinese as the official written language.

Why do you think Japan uses Chinese characters as part of their writing system?

Prior to this time, Japanese was only a spoken language. Then the Japanese began using Chinese characters to transliterate their own spoken tongue. Eventually they adapted Chinese written characters to create a set of syllables, called kana, that would fit the Japanese language.

Did Japanese kanji come from China?

And although it is a very big part of the Japanese language and writing system, kanji did not originate from Japan, but from China, as the word itself means “Chinese (kan, 漢) character (ji, 字)”. In Mandarin Chinese, the word “kanji” is pronounced hànzì.

What’s the difference between Japanese and Chinese writing?

Chinese is written entirely in hanzi. Japanese makes use of kanji (mostly similar to hanzi), but also has two syllabaries of its own: hiragana and katakana. So whilst written Chinese looks like a series of regular block-shaped characters, Japanese also has a lot of squiggly bits thrown in: Chinese: 我的氣墊船滿是鱔魚。

Why do kanji have different pronunciations?

Because of the way they have been adopted into Japanese, a single kanji may be used to write one or more different words—or, in some cases, morphemes—and thus the same character may be pronounced in different ways. From the reader’s point of view, kanji are said to have one or more different “readings”.

Why are Japanese and Chinese languages similar?

The only major commonality between Japanese and Chinese is a common writing system, which the Japanese adopted in the 3rd Century. Previously, the language had no written form. The adoption of Kanji (Chinese characters, called Hanzi in their language of origin) carried with it the adoption of some Chinese loanwords.