Kanji Symbols

Secrets to Kanji Symbols Chinese symbol character has existed for thousands of years and is probably one of the oldest surviving symbolic writing systems in history. It is widely estimated that the first Chinese symbol character came out about 4,000 years ago. As a complete writing system, Chinese symbol character has exerted a tremendous influence on the formation of Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese writing systems. Many Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese characters were considered to be adapted from the traditional Chinese characters, though there is no definite genetic affiliation between these oriental languages. In Chinese, the symbol character is written as "漢字" (The traditional character used in Taiwan, Hong Kong areas) or "汉字" (The simplified character used in mainland China). Many people feel there was some confusion about "the title" of Chinese words. Some people call them Chinese symbols while others might call them Chinese characters. But Chinese symbols, Chinese characters, Chinese words, or even Chinese symbol characters are actually different terms for the same thing, except for the Chinese alphabet. Even both Kanji symbol and Chinese symbol are still the same thing. Kanji in Chinese is written as 漢字. Kan in Chinese means "Chinese race" and Ji means Words. So Kanji means "Chinese words" and Japanese Kanji symbols actually originated from Chinese. Many Korean characters' roots were also from Chinese words. A big portion of Japanese's characters were taken from traditional Chinese symbols. Some Japanese and Chinese words are exactly the same and even share the same meaning, although the pronunciation is totally different. For example, the English word "Japan" in Japanese is written as 日本. Translated in Chinese, it is still written as 日本. But Japanese call 日本 "Nippon", while Chinese call 日本 "Riben". The symbol 日本 remains the same, but its Japanese pronunciation of "Nippon" and its Chinese pronunciation of "Riben" sound miles different. The interesting point is Japanese and Chinese people can not comprehend each other's conversation but can understand each other by reading some of the information.

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