What is the difference between sino Japanese and native Japanese?

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1. Hey there! TLDR: The Japanese adopted Chinese characters from China, and since each character has a Chinese pronunciation, they use the Chinese way of pronouncing the character. Additionally, since each character expresses an idea, the Japanese also used their native language (pre-Chinese influence) for these characters. Think of the analogy of English and Latin where:

   mizu (native Japanese) = water (native English) ; sui (Sino) = aqua (Latin)

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   Here’s the longer answer:

   Think of it like comparing this to English. In English, we have “native” (Germanic) words (eg. “water”) and we have words that are borrowed from Latin (eg “aqua”). So even though we use the word “water” for the noun, we also know that “aqua” is a word that *pertains* to water like the word “aquarium” or “aquatic” right? But we would never say a sentence like “I’d like a glass of aqua please” because the native English word for water is, well, “water’. Instead, the word aqua is a word that attaches to others to create a compound word to express a new idea. So instead of saying “Water Building” we say “Aquarium”.

   This is similar to how Japanese is. Think of Chinese having been the “Latin” of Eastern Asia (although Chinese, Korean, and Japanese etc. are all unrelated compared to English and Latin in the language family tree).

   Basically, Chinese Characters were developed to have only one syllable, since this is how the Chinese languages naturally work. So the Chinese Character for water, for example, was pronounced more or less like “sui” in the Chinese language (over 1000 years ago). When the Japanese adopted using Chinese Characters into their language, they also consequently adopted new words from China and even combined characters together to create new words that wasn’t originally in their language. But this also meant they used the same pronunciation as the Chinese.

   So, the native Japanese word for water is “mizu’ and is used when you talk about the actual noun (much like how we use the word ‘water” in English). The Japanese word for aquarium is “**Sui**zokukan” which is comprised of three Chinese characters, each pronounced in the “Chinese Way” (called *on-yomi*). Sui = water, zoku = tribe/family, kan = institution.

   Now, if we were to pronounce this in the native Japanese way (without Chinese influence), then it would probably be like: Mizu no Tate (Water Building), which doesn’t mean aquarium at all. Inversely, you wouldn’t use the word “sui” to mean water in Japanese (ie. I’d like to have a glass of **sui** please). Instead, you use the word “mizu”.

   The post is getting long, but I hope this analogy and explanation was useful. Think of it again like English and Latin and that is the *general* idea of how Sino- (Chinese) and native Japanese words are like (there is more to it). If you have an example you’d like me to clarify, let me know!