中文漢字和日文漢字的區別

舒紅　趙東明

【摘要】文章通過作者用淺顯易懂的英文描述了中文漢字和日文漢字的區別，并舉實例闡述了 中文漢字和日文漢字在寫法，發音，意思三個方面的不同。比如中文“氣壓”的日文漢字寫 法是“気圧”。中文和日文里都有“娘”這個漢字，中文的意思是“母親”，而日文的意思卻 是“女兒”。通過不同語言的比較，提示我們在學習外語時不要太受母語的影響，避免中國 式英語或中國式日語。

【關鍵詞】Chinese； Japanese； shape； sound； meaning

In this thesis， we will simply introduce the difference between the shape， sound and meaning of certain Japanese and Chinese kanji.

Japanese consists of kanji， hiragana， katakana and romanised alphabet. Chinese only consists of kanji， so we can see there is a common feature， namely kanji is used in both Japanese and Chinese .Many kanji are very similar in these two languages， but some kanji quite different in Japanese and Chinese.

There is a difference between the shape sound and meaning of certain Japanese and Chinese kanji. First of all， I would like to give some examples of shape differences. 紹介（Introduction） is Japanese、介紹 is Chinese. 気圧（air pressure） is Japanese，氣壓 is Chinese. About two thousand years ago， kanji was introduced to Japan from China. Why is there a difference between the shapes？ One reason is many kanji were simplified in mordern Chinese because of the cultural revolution in China during the 1970s. For example， 鳥（bird） is Japanese 鳥 is Chinese， 勝（win）is Japanese， 勝 is Chinese. 書 （book）and（書），暦（career） and歷， 影響（influence）and 影響 etc. the former is Japanese， the latter is Chinese.There are also other reasons， such as some kanji have been invented by Japanese. For example， 俵（a straw bag）， 辻（a street corner）， 畑（a field） etc. These kanji are very strange for Chinese people.

Secondly， the sound is also different between certain Japanese and Chinese kanji. Most of Japanese kanji have both on-yomi（音読み） and Kun-yomi（訓読み）. The “on”（音 meaning ‘sound） of a kanji is a Chinese reading or “word” associated with the kanji at the time when it was introduced to Japan and assimilated to the phonetic possibilities of Japanese. The “kun”（訓 meaning “explanation”） is a native Japanese word originally attached to the kanji in an explanatory way and thus having a meaning similar to the“on”. eg； “美”（beautiful） is sounded “bi” in on-yomi， and [utsukushi] in Japanese reading （kun-yomi）. I would like to emphasis the on-yomi is not like present-day Chinese readings. It is an old Chinese reading. China was the most prosperous country in the world during the Sui and Tang dynasties. Many Japanese were sent to China to study by the government and they are called 遣唐使 （kentoshi） in Japanese. They brought Chinese culture， techniques and art，etc. to Japan after they came back. Kyoto was modeled on Chyouan（長安）， the capital of the Tang dynasty， so the on-yomi is also the sound of kanji of that time. Now 內 is sounded “nai” in Japanese and “nei” in Chinese. 漢 is sounded （kan） in Japanese， and （han） in Chinese， 道 is sounded （dou） in Japanese and （dao） in Chinese. Thus when I do not know the reading of Japanese kanji， I always look it up in the dictionary according to the stroke count and radical just like western students.

Lastly， the difference between the meaning of certain Japanese and Chinese kanji is very interesting. The same kanji does not guarantee the same meaning. For instance， 丈夫 means “healthy” in Japanese， but means“husband” in Chinese. 真面目 means “earnest” in Japanese and means “real face” in Chinese. 勉強 means “study” in Japanese， and means “bit off” “more than one can chew” in Chinese. 娘 means “daughter” in Japanese， but means “mother” in Chinese. If you say 私の娘は小學生です（My daughter is a pupil of an elementary school）， Chinese people will feel very puzzled， they will question why your mother is studying at an elementary school， and how old your mother is. This kind of kanji is called a heteronym， it creates a situation that we easily misunderstand. It seems that it is easy for Chinese students to study Japanese or for Japanese students to study Chinese. Because there is kanji in these two languages. Maybe kanji is helpful for both Japanese and Chinese students to study language each other， but if we do not take care of the differences between the way they use kanji correctly， we will make many mistakes.

參考文獻；

[1]Japanese Characters （English Edition） James W.Heisig（著）， 2014.5.

[2]笹原 宏之.日本の漢字[M].東京巖波新書社，2006.1.

[3]東京大學.Essential Japanese kanji volume 1 （英語） ペーパーバック，2015.1.

作者簡介：

舒紅（1968-），女，重慶人，碩士學歷，海外留學和工作數年。主要研究方向：商務英語和日語，國際貿易。

趙東明，男，云南昆明人，日本成蹊大學碩士畢業，主要研究方向：市場營銷和日語。