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”)
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They approach language completely differently. In Mandarin, one phoneme or word can have different meanings depending on how you stress the pronunciation.
Takw the English word ‘can’ for example. I‘m going to use capitalization and repeat letters to indicate where I’m stressing the pronunciation:
Can
cAn
caaaan
CaN
If this was Mandarin, I’ve just listed 4 totally unrelated words.
Japanese makes words out of sounds. I’m not very well-versed in the nuances, but it’s really nothing like Mandarin mechanically. You may as well ask why French and Chinese aren’t similar.
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