Learning japanese, synergy from chinese?

[shivan]

I already studied chinese for two years, both written and oral.
But I really want to study some japanese as well. Can anyone tell me how much my chinese will help me in that? I saw that some of the characters are the same or similar, but are there other similarities? My research indicates that they are from difference language groups.

If someone has a link to something like "Guide to mandarin speakers learning japanese" then I will send many kind thoughts to that person.

[james1254]

I've heard it helps a lot with learning the kanji but the grammar and syntax are very different。

[anrakushi]

some 50% of Japanese vocabulary has its origins in chinese.. you will in many cases be able to see the similarities in pronunciation but the pronunciation will not be the same. As for characters, the majority of those used in Japanese are traditional chinese, along with some simplified characters (some the same as simplified chinese and some different) and there are also japanese origin characters as well.

[Nagoyankee]

If I were to evaluate the synergy effect based on my conversations with the store clerks and restaurant employees who are Chinese here in Tokyo, I doubt if you can expect much.

Chinese speakers may know more kanji but that doesn't directly help you with Japanese grammar. Many of the Chinese around me seem to have a hard time conjugating Japanese verbs, choosing the correct particles, putting words in the right order, and pronouncing words. All of these are very important if you need to communicate in Japanese.

Your knowledge in Chinese will help you read written Japanese silently (as the kanji pronunciations are usually very different). Yet I honestly don't see any other advantages. As you said yourself, the two languages are simply not related to each other to begin with. It won't be like a Spanish speaker studying French or Italian, in which case you can expect unlimited synergy effects.

[shivan]

i think some of the reason for those chinese not being able to conjungate verbs is because verbs are not inflected in Chinese. But i am native speaker of an indoeuropean language, so im more used to it.
You are right about the thing with read kanji silently, i can do that myself sometimes now.