Is it true that every Chinese word can also be a Japanese word?


I have heard that Japanese has the largest number of words of any language
because every Chinese word can also be a Japanese word. Is there any truth to
this statement?




Although it's true that there are a very, _very_ large number of kanji
compounds imported from Chinese to Japanese, it's not as direct as that
statement. There are Chinese words that don't exist in Japanese, and many
Chinese Kanji have different meanings or pronunciations, as well as
occasionally being written slightly differently. These differences are
particularly profound in words with grammatical significance:

  * 你 (cn: nei5; jp: ni, ji, nanji) - Chinese for 'you'. Very common in Chinese, rare in Japanese (other words are used instead)
  * 我 (cn: ngo5; jp: wa, ware) - Chinese for 'me'. In Japanese carries a connotation of referring to yourself as a representative of a larger group, and is therefore somewhat uncommon.
  * 的 (cn: dik1; jp: teki) - Chinese possessive particle; has a function similar to の in Japanese. In Japanese, this is a suffix meaning 'the essence of'. You see this used in, eg, 攻撃的 or 積極的, but it is not used the same way as in Chinese at all.

There are also differences in usage patterns for modern inventions - eg,
Chinese uses 电脑 for 'computer', but in Japanese the katakana コンピューター is more
common.

As for whether there are more words in Japanese than other languages, I
couldn't say. I would suspect, though, that if you looked at the set of
_commonly used_ words, it would be about the same; if you were to include
classical words, loanwords, and rarely used native equivalents for loanwords,
you might see a bit more than the average language.




Although it's true that there are a very, _very_ large number of kanji
compounds imported from Chinese to Japanese, it's not as direct as that
statement. There are Chinese words that don't exist in Japanese, and many
Chinese Kanji have different meanings or pronunciations, as well as
occasionally being written slightly differently. These differences are
particularly profound in words with grammatical significance:

  * 你 (cn: nei5; jp: ni, ji, nanji) - Chinese for 'you'. Very common in Chinese, rare in Japanese (other words are used instead)
  * 我 (cn: ngo5; jp: wa, ware) - Chinese for 'me'. In Japanese carries a connotation of referring to yourself as a representative of a larger group, and is therefore somewhat uncommon.
  * 的 (cn: dik1; jp: teki) - Chinese possessive particle; has a function similar to の in Japanese. In Japanese, this is a suffix meaning 'the essence of'. You see this used in, eg, 攻撃的 or 積極的, but it is not used the same way as in Chinese at all.

There are also differences in usage patterns for modern inventions - eg,
Chinese uses 电脑 for 'computer', but in Japanese the katakana コンピューター is more
common.

As for whether there are more words in Japanese than other languages, I
couldn't say. I would suspect, though, that if you looked at the set of
_commonly used_ words, it would be about the same; if you were to include
classical words, loanwords, and rarely used native equivalents for loanwords,
you might see a bit more than the average language.

