Looking at some 和製漢語 (Vocabulary created by the Japanese using Chinese Characters)

和製漢語 (わせいかんご wa-sei-kan-go) refers to vocabulary that were created by Japanese Scholars based on Chinese Characters during the Meiji Restoration. These words were then re-introduced back into Chinese as well as other East Asian Languages such as Korean and Vietnamese. Many of these words are concepts (Law, Politics …etc) that were taken from the Western countries.

I recently put together a video on **Electricity** **related words**, showing how similar these words are in various East Asian Languages. You can see how, 電池 (a 和製漢語) sounds similar in the other languages.

**Battery**

Japanese: 電池 でんち den chi

Korean: 電池 전지 jeon ji

Vietnamese: điện trì 電池 \[not used\]

Cantonese: 電池 din6 ci4 \[電芯 din6 sam1 is also used\]

Mandarin: 电池 / 電池 diàn chí

Hokkien: 電池: tiān-tî \[電塗: tiān-thô͘ is also used\]

\*You can see from the list above that the word for “Battery” are based on the Chinese Characters: 電+ 池, which means Electricity + Pool.

\*\*It is interesting to note that Vietnam was a French Colony so the word for Battery in Vietnamese, pin or ắc quy, is actually based on French words eg: pin from “pile” and “ắc quy” from “accumulateur” instead.

You can check out the full list + pronunciations here:

[https://youtu.be/5kLbB8RyfGw](https://youtu.be/5kLbB8RyfGw)