How to Tell Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Writing Apart

[Queen's Mine]

How to Tell Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Writing Apart

 

 

At first glance, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters may be difficult to tell apart, but there are differences between each of them that can help you. All three are written with characters that are unfamiliar to Western readers, but you do not need to be intimidated by this unfamiliarity. These steps can help you be a lot more sure which of three you are looking at.

 

 

 

 

Steps

 

1

Look for circles and ovals. Korean uses a phonetic alphabet called Hangul, which is distinguishable by the large number of circles, ovals, and straight lines (example: 안녕하세요)If the block of text you are reading has these characteristic round shapes, chances are it is Korean. If not, go to step 2.

 

 

2

Look for simple characters. Japanese writing has 3 main components: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are syllabic systems, while kanji are derived from Chinese characters. Many hiragana characters are curvy, but do not have the neat round shapes of Korean (e.g ã•ã£ã‹). Katakana, on the other hand, uses mostly straight or slightly curved lines in relatively simple combinations (e.g. ãƒã‚§ãƒ³ã‚¸ ). Chinese and Korean do not use either of these systems. Note that Japanese writing uses a mixture of hiragana, katakana, and kanji in the same text, so if you see either hiragana or katakana or both, you are looking at Japanese. The links below show you full lists of hiragana and katakana characters.

Hiragana

some common Hiragana: ã‚,ãŠ,ã‚“,ã®,ã‹

Katakana

some common Katakana: ア,リ,エ,ガ,ト

 

 

3

If you do not see the characteristic shapes of Korean Hangul or Japanese hiragana or katakana, then you are probably looking at Chinese. Chinese writing has complicated characters called hanzi in Chinese, kanji in Japanese, and hanja in Korean. Although these characters are also found in Japanese, if there are hiragana or katakana, it is Japanese. So if you are looking at a small block of text that has only complex hanzi characters, you cannot rule out that it is Japanese. However, if you are looking at a large block of text and see no hiragana or katakana, then you can be pretty sure that it is Chinese.

 

 

 

Source: http://m.wikihow.com/Tell-Chinese,-Japanese,-and-Korean-Writing-Apart

[WonderTwice]

i can tell all asian languages apart from eachother not that hard tbh

[Gyujin]

It isn't hard to distinguish Korean from the other two at all.

[bluesclues]

 

 

i can tell all asian these languages apart from eachother not that hard tbh

 

 

[skcebl]

Korean - Blocky

Japanese - Curvy

Chinese - Dense

[̶p̶̶m̶̶o̶]

this was 1000x easier than telling seohyun,yoona and yuri apart when i started listening to kpop ...

[StarShapedGummy]

this was 1000x easier than telling seohyun,yoona and yuri apart when i started listening to kpop ...

i still can't tell way apart from choa

[Faces]

 

i can tell all asian languages apart from eachother not that hard tbh

 

[Faces]

this was 1000x easier than telling seohyun,yoona and yuri apart when i started listening to kpop ...

I remember being so confused cause I decided Yuri was my bias early on and I was so surprised she had so many lines in MVs 

[Queen's Mine]

 

 

 

 

i can tell all asian languages apart from eachother not that hard tbh

2 of you seem so expert, can you tell nyanmar, thailand, burma, pakistan, india, iran, saudi arabia and mongolia writing?

[Faces]

2 of you seem so expert, can you tell nyanmar, thailand, burma, pakistan, india, iran, saudi arabia and mongolia writing?

I can tell indian, thailand and saudi arabian apart... I just quoted him but I meant eastern asian since I don't know much about middle eastern, SE asian culture.

[Ddeona Oneul Bame]

TBH, I never understood how people confuse these, but maybe it's because I can read Japanese and Korean~ But even before then, people saying Korean was Vietnamese or Japanese was Chinese was so~ 

[Sully]

Korean I could always tell when I first saw it is because it reminded me of crop circles. 

For Japanese I always look for the characters I know.

[jackblack223]

i still can't tell way apart from choa

 

I look for the bust size.  Choa is bustier.

[A Hamster Named Loneliness]

TBH, I never understood how people confuse these, but maybe it's because I can read Japanese and Korean~ But even before then, people saying Korean was Vietnamese or Japanese was Chinese was so~ 

 

lmao what? Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet though   How can anyone even confuse Vietnamese and Korean when they have completely different scripts?

[Cinnamon buns]

 

i can tell all asian languages apart from eachother not that hard tbh

 

[Ddeona Oneul Bame]

lmao what? Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet though 

 

IDEK~ 

[Youngjeezy]

this was 1000x easier than telling seohyun,yoona and yuri apart when i started listening to kpop ...

teas

[jeong jaehyuns boyfriend]

I remember being so confused cause I decided Yuri was my bias early on and I was so surprised she had so many lines in MVs 

 

LOOOL thats so cute

[Heimweh]

not hard at all

I feel more confused to tell other language apart (eg those used Latin alphabet but still cant tell unless you know the languages)

[trang95]

lmao what? Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet though   How can anyone even confuse Vietnamese and Korean when they have completely different scripts?

Exactly my reaction... It's like the Latin alphabet with a bunch of stuff around and attached to the letters.

[Nowhere Boy]

Once I actually started looking at the languages it was easy to tell them apart.

[11:11]

Telling them apart is pretty easy since I know Chinese, and Japanese characters are sharper than Korean characters.

[...!]

Just wanted to add that in Chinese there's Traditional Chinese (ç¹é«”å­—, fan ti zi), as mentioned above and Simplified Chinese (简体字, jian ti zi), which is pretty self-explanatory. (speech is the same, it's just the writing style that's different!) Traditional Chinese is normally used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia while Simplified Chinese is spoken in China and Singapore 

[jackblack223]

I've always wondered... how do they type all those characters on the keyboard?  Is it software related, where typing one key brings up a string of characters to choose from?  Or do they use a different keyboard?