Learn Japanese from Simplified Chinese at PBC Languages
Kanji gives Chinese speakers a head start in Japanese, but 手紙 won't get you toilet paper. Practice free 30/30 exchanges with natives at PBC Languages.
Create your free accountNo card needed. Exchanges between members are always free.
If you already read Simplified Chinese, Japanese hands you a shortcut nobody else gets: a huge chunk of nouns are written in kanji you can already guess. 図書館 (library), 電話 (telephone), 経済 (economy) - you might have to mentally add back a stroke or two that got simplified out of the Chinese version, but the logic is sitting right there on the page. Reading vocabulary moves fast when you start from Simplified Chinese, faster than it does for almost anyone else in the room.
What bites is meaning drift. The same characters wandered apart over centuries, so 手紙 means 'letter' in Japanese and 'toilet paper' in Chinese, 愛人 is a mistress in Japanese and a spouse in Chinese, 大丈夫 means 'I'm fine' in Japanese and 'a real man' in Chinese. You can't skim past these - you have to memorize them as traps, one by one. Grammar is the second wall: Chinese has no conjugation and runs subject-verb-object; Japanese is subject-object-verb, glues a particle (は, が, を, に) onto nearly every noun, and changes verb endings for politeness, tense and negation. None of that exists in Chinese, so it won't come from reading - it has to be drilled out loud.
Pronunciation is actually a relief in some ways: Japanese has far fewer sounds than Mandarin and no tones to track. What trips up Chinese speakers instead is vowel length and consonant doubling, both invisible distinctions in Chinese phonology - obasan and obaasan are 'aunt' and 'grandmother', not the same word said carelessly. Vocabulary and reading you can build alone with a kanji list; the particle system, verb endings and listening habits are what move faster with someone correcting you in real time, which is the whole point of the 30/30 exchange.
Words you will actually hear
| Here | Elsewhere | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 手紙 (tegami) | 手纸 (shǒuzhǐ) | Same characters, opposite object: in Japanese it's a letter you write to someone, in Chinese it's toilet paper. Get this one wrong once and you won't forget it again. |
| 愛人 (aijin) | 爱人 (àirén) | In Japanese this means mistress or lover on the side. In Chinese it just means spouse. Do not introduce your husband or wife this way in Japanese. |
| 老婆 (rōba) | 老婆 (lǎopó) | In Chinese, your wife. In Japanese, an old woman - and not always a polite way to say it. Same two characters, completely different target. |
| 汽車 (kisha) | 汽车 (qìchē) | Japanese kept this word for train, Chinese moved it to mean car. If someone tells you to catch the 汽車 in Japan, they mean the train station, not a taxi. |
| 勉強 (benkyō) | 勉强 (miǎnqiǎng) | In Japanese this is the everyday word for studying. In Chinese it means doing something reluctantly or forcing it. The feeling behind the word flipped completely. |
| 大丈夫 (daijōbu) | 大丈夫 (dàzhàngfu) | In Japanese, 'I'm fine' or 'it's okay' - said constantly. In Chinese, a manly man or a real hero. Same three characters, nothing in common day to day. |
| 経済 (keizai) | 经济 (jīngjì) | This one actually helps: same meaning, economy, in both languages. The pronunciation is unrelated, but seeing the characters on a page you'll know exactly what it says. |
| 図書館 (toshokan) | 图书馆 (túshūguǎn) | Library in both languages, matching meaning, matching logic even though two of the three characters are drawn slightly differently in Simplified Chinese. |
| 新聞 (shinbun) | 新闻 (xīnwén) | Close but not identical: in Japanese this is the physical newspaper, in Chinese it's the news itself. Similar enough to guess, different enough to trip you up in a sentence. |
How it works here
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Sign up and say your level
Two minutes. If you do not know your level, we place you in the first class.
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Pick a class or an exchange
Classes are led by a native teacher. An exchange is with another member: half the time in their language, half in yours.
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Join by video, nothing to install
From your phone or your computer. If you cannot make it, cancel and get your place back.
Questions about this
How long before a Simplified Chinese speaker feels comfortable in Japanese here?
Reading picks up fast thanks to shared kanji, but holding a conversation depends on how often you show up to exchanges. People doing two or three 30/30 sessions a week tend to manage a basic exchange within a few months - there's no fixed timeline, it tracks the hours you actually put in with a native.
Is the one-on-one exchange really free?
Yes. It's a swap of time, not money: you spend half an hour helping your partner with Simplified Chinese, they spend half an hour helping you with Japanese, nobody pays anybody. The small group classes with native teachers are the paid part of PBC Languages - the exchange itself never has a fee attached.
What level do I need to start doing exchanges?
There's no test or certificate required, but you need enough Japanese to hold a slow conversation about daily topics, otherwise the 30 minutes gets stuck on hiragana. Complete beginners usually take a few small group classes with a native teacher first to get past that stage.
How does the 30/30 split actually work during a session?
You agree on it with your partner before starting: half the time runs in Japanese for you, half in Simplified Chinese for them, and most pairs use a timer so nobody drifts past their half. If one side needs more corrections than the other, that's normal - save the notes for the end instead of interrupting mid-sentence.
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