新字体 and simplified chinese
 

lately, i've realized some correlations between japanese 新字体 and simplified chinese characters. e.g. 学, 体, 写, and 与 (and many others) are exactly the same in japanese and simp. chin. Interestingly, 關 (traditional) and 关(simplified) "morph" into 関.

why is that? did the japanese study simp. chin. characters and choose a list of which they liked (as they did with traditional chinese thousands of years ago)? or did both systems develop simultaneously and irrevelantly, yet become so similar? (though wikipedia is very thorough in explaining how both came about, it doesn't compare/contrast the two.)

From what I remember learning about this, the Japanese initially adapted the Chinese writing system. Hiragana was later developed by court women during the Heian Period in Japan. Before then, Chinese kanji was used. Japanese pronounciation is different, though, obviously.

I've heard that Japanese pronounciation is based off classical Korean, which supports the idea that the first Japanese came from Korea. There's some controversy about that, though.

Basically, if you know already know kanji through learning Chinese, you will understand the meaning (but not pronounciation) of Japanese words that are written in kanji

cool- thanks!

yeah, i knew that (i'm a native speaker of mandarin learning japanese)

i'm actually wondering why some japanese shinjitai characters look like chinese simplified characters. i'm aware that most kanji are still traditional, but why are some of those shinjitai identical to simplified chinese?