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
Japanese has a phonetic alphabet which allows them to just directly lift foreign pronunciations of words without having to dedicate a character to it. Chinese does not, so if you try to use characters you end up creating a double meaning, so might as well just stick to describing the meaning of the word
Latest Answers