Eli5: Why does it seem like Japanese often translates from English phonetically (camera = カメラ ‘kamera’) while Chinese seems to translate conceptually (照相机 ‘zhao xiang ji’ is literally “photo taking machine”)

Question

Eli5: Why does it seem like Japanese often translates from English phonetically (camera = カメラ ‘kamera’) while Chinese seems to translate conceptually (照相机 ‘zhao xiang ji’ is literally “photo taking machine”)

In: Other

Answer 1

I don’t agree with the answers that claim tones are a reason for the difference. Tones don’t make any difference.

There are plenty of Chinese words that are translated phonetically, like people’s names.

Many Chinese words tend to be meaningful. Like “happy” consists of the characters “open heart”.

Why not use a meaningful word to describe something instead of random characters?

I think it boils down to philosophy. Chinese language likes to have meaningful words whenever possible. If not possible, then use phonetic translation.