Chinese:
* Logographic: Each character represents a word or morpheme (meaningful unit).
* Simplified and Traditional: Two major character sets exist: simplified (used in mainland China and Singapore) and traditional (used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau).
* Characters are not phonetic: While some characters share common components that hint at pronunciation, there's no direct one-to-one correspondence between characters and sounds.
* No spaces: Chinese writing doesn't use spaces between words, relying on context and knowledge of the language to understand where one word ends and the next begins.
* Widely used: Chinese characters are also used in Korean and Japanese writing systems.
Japanese:
* Mixed system: It combines three writing systems:
* Kanji: Logographic characters borrowed from Chinese, representing words or morphemes.
* Hiragana: Syllabary (each character represents a syllable). Used for grammatical particles, verb endings, and words not found in kanji.
* Katakana: Syllabary used primarily for foreign words, onomatopoeia, and emphasis.
* Phonetic: While kanji are logographic, hiragana and katakana are phonetic, making Japanese writing more phonetically driven than Chinese.
* Spaces: Japanese writing uses spaces between words.
* Simplified characters: Japanese uses a simplified form of some kanji characters.
Key Differences:
* Phonetic vs. Logographic: Chinese is primarily logographic, while Japanese is a mixed system incorporating both logographic and phonetic components.
* Number of Characters: Chinese uses thousands of characters, while Japanese uses a smaller subset, supplemented by phonetic syllabaries.
* Spacing: Chinese doesn't use spaces between words, while Japanese does.
* Pronunciation: Even though Japanese borrowed kanji, the pronunciation of these characters in Japanese can be different from Chinese.
Comparison:
Think of Chinese writing as a vast dictionary where each character represents a whole word or concept. Japanese writing is like a hybrid: it uses Chinese characters (kanji) for common words and concepts, but relies on phonetic syllabaries (hiragana and katakana) to represent sounds and grammatical structures.
Ultimately, both Chinese and Japanese writing systems are complex and fascinating. They reflect the unique histories and evolution of their respective languages.