Lan, tell us about your cultural experiences! April 2022 Issue
更新日:2022年4月27日
Similarity between the Vietnamese and Japanese languages
In one of my previous articles, I talked about the difficulty of the Japanese language but surprisingly, there are some similarities between Vietnamese and Japanese. This is because many Vietnamese words have Chinese origins. Before romanization became popular in the latter half of the 19th century, Chinese characters were the main writing system in Vietnam. Even now, its influence still remains, as 60~70% of Vietnamese vocabulary is Sino-Vietnamese. In addition, many Sino-Vietnamese words are similar in pronunciation and meaning to those in Japanese, so you can’t help but feel the familiarity when learning Japanese. For example, “chú ý” (caution), “liên lạc” (contact), “lịch sử” (history) are words that have similar pronunciation and meaning as in Japanese. Vietnamese and Japanese look completely different, but they feel very familiar due to the influence of Chinese characters on both.
ベトナム語と日本語の類似点
漢字の看板があるお寺 Chinese-character-sign on a pagoda
以前、日本語の難しさについて話しましたが、ベトナム語と日本語は意外と似ている所があります。なぜなら、ベトナム語も漢字由来だからです。ローマ字表記が普及する19世紀後半まで、ベトナム人はずっと漢字を使っていました。現在でも、その影響が強く、「
ベトナム語と日本語は全く違うように見えますが、漢字と関わりの深いという点で親しい言語ですね!
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