Quote:
Originally Posted by KyleGoetz
I am comfortable speaking English (highly-educated native), Japanese (conversant), and Spanish (literate). I find Spanish much easier as far as languages go (and I can quite often invent a Spanish word and be correct thanks to my English nativity), but I've devoted a lot less time to it, which is why I consider myself better at Japanese (but I can read scholarly works in Spanish and cannot yet in Japanese, thanks to the marvelous Latin connection between Spanish and English). My spoken Japanese is much better than my Spanish, but that's because I spent a year in Japan speaking only Japanese. Were it not for kanji, my Japanese would be unassailably better than my Spanish.
On a different note, the notion that Chinese does not help dramatically with Japanese because they share few complete words is silly. That's like claiming that because Greek and Latin share few actual words with English that knowing them does not help you dramatically in English.
Kanji work like Greek/Latin affixes. For example, knowing the Greek prefix "pseudo" helps you understand a lot of new words like "pseudopod," "pseudoephedrine," "pseudo-anglicism," "pseudomorph," "pseudonym," "pseudoscience," with very littel addition effort.
Similarly, knowing tele, micro, scope, visio, audio, phono, etc. will explode your English vocabulary. Having studied Chinese and Japanese (my Chinese is atrocious, though), I can attest to the fact that learning new hanzi will improve your grasp of Japanese, too.
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I speak Cantonese (native), English (native-level), Mandarin and Japanese. As for my Mandarin and Japanese, casual conversation is okay. But I will surrender if I am to speak these two languages in a debate or to persuade an uninterested customer to buy. And I have difficulty understanding non-Tokyo accent.
Let me suggest the definition of "I can speak xxxx language":
When you encounter a new German word, you ask a native German speaker in German what the word means. The native speaker answers in German. You understand it fully and thus learn that word. If you can do all these, you can speak German, because you have the ability to build your German vocabulary with German input only.
Let me tell you more about Kanji.
The Japanese imported Kanji from China more than 1000 years ago. Kanji at that time did not have phrases, because paper was very expensive. Each Kanji had an independent function. Phrases like 進行 and 生命 did not exist. But when the Japanese met the advanced Western culture 100-150 years ago, they used Kanji to translate Western concepts by combining two Kanji into a phrases. Examples are 民＋主＝民主(democracy),科＋学＝科学(science) and 電＋話＝電話(telephone). Phrases like these three had not existed before in Japan or China. And the Japanese invented a LOT of Kanji phrases! The Chinese did not invent their own version but simply imported the Made in Japan Kanji phrases into their daily conversation. Because of export and reimport, modern Chinese vocabulary and Japanese vocabulary in fact share a lot of words. When I say a lot, I mean at least 50%.
For you reference, in the official Chinese name of the People's Republic of China, i.e. 中華人民共和国, 人民(People) and 共和国(Republic) are Made in Japan Kanji phrases.