Are there specific false friends that are particularly tricky for Chinese learners of Japanese

For Chinese learners of Japanese, there are indeed specific false friends that are particularly tricky due to the similarity in written characters (kanji) but differences in meaning and usage between the two languages. These false friends can cause confusion because Chinese and Japanese share many characters, but their meanings, pronunciations, and usage contexts are not always the same.

Key points about tricky false friends for Chinese learners of Japanese include:

• Awareness of false cognates (words that look similar but have different meanings) is very important and has been shown to strongly predict vocabulary learning success among Chinese learners of Japanese. False cognates can lead to misunderstandings and errors during language acquisition. ^{1, 2}

• Morphological and homophone awareness also play a role in how Chinese learners process Japanese words, especially loanwords and kanji compounds. They need to analyze morphemes carefully to avoid confusion caused by these false friends. ^{3, 1}

• Research shows that Chinese learners often experience interference from their native language when learning Japanese, partly due to these false friends. This interference can influence both vocabulary acquisition and lexical processing. ^{4, 5}

In sum, the challenge arises mainly from kanji that appear the same or very similar in Chinese and Japanese but differ semantically or usage-wise, making it crucial for learners to develop strong cross-linguistic awareness to distinguish them correctly.

If needed, I can provide specific examples of such false friends common in Chinese-Japanese learning contexts. Would that be helpful?

References

• Morphological and cognate awareness in L2 Japanese word learning: evidence from Chinese-speaking learners

• Unpacking cross-linguistic similarities and differences in third language Japanese vocabulary acquisition among Chinese college students

• The lexical processing of Japanese collocations by Chinese Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language learners: An experimental study by manipulating the presentation modality, semantic transparency, and translational congruency

• Japanese-as-a-foreign-language acquisition affects native Chinese lexical processing among Chinese learners

• Japanese-as-a-foreign-language acquisition affects native Chinese lexical processing among Chinese learners

• Masked priming investigation of cross-linguistic “false friends” with Japanese EFL learners

• False Friends and other Enemies the Interference of English(L2)in German(L3)Language Acquisition for Japanese Learners

• 2012 International Conference on Information Management, Innovation Management and Industrial Engineering Xml Rule Based Detection of False Friends of Chinese and English

• A preliminary study on ASR-based detection of Chinese mispronunciation by Japanese learners

• Reaction toward false Kanji by native and non-native speakers of Japanese

• A Study on the Mutual Similarity Between Japanese and Chinese for Simultaneous Learning

• Thank You, Stingray: Multilingual Large Language Models Can Not (Yet) Disambiguate Cross-Lingual Word Sense

• Chinese and English : errors in translating by beginner learners

• Avoiding Negative Transfer from Grammar and Culture When Teaching Chinese to Japanese Students

• Factors in cognitive processing of Japanese loanwords by advanced Chinese Japanese-as-a-foreign-language learners

• Chinese JSL/JFL learners’ online perception of Japanese verb conjugations: Evidence from a behavioral study

• On “False Friends” in the Field of Economics

• A Study of Chinese and Japanese College Students’ L2 Learning Styles

• Comparison between Chinese and Japanese Social Media Requests

• Editorial: Second or foreign language learning and cognitive development