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
2 reasons:
First
Because Japan has been under heavy western influence multiple times in the post industrial age, not always voluntarily, and actively copied and adapted what they saw of the west during their own technological revolutions. If you look at most of the near-cognates they tend to be post-industrial inventions or concepts.
China, by contrast, has actively fought western cultural influence tooth and nail, erasing or repackaged it where they can.
Second
as mentioned by AtroScolo Chinese is tonal which does make the dissemination of western words more difficult, though hardly impossible. I will also add that written Chinese is still pretty strongly attached to its logo graphic roots, where written words string together concepts rather than strictly sounds, while Japan developed a phonetic character set from the Chinese one more than 1000 years ago and has continued to use them, in multiple forms, ever since. This makes it easier to write foreign words into the language, not just speak them.
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