I don't know a single word in Chinese but I'm almost sure it will be easier than starting "from scratch".
Kanji are Chinese characters adapted to the Japanese language. Knowing Chinese meaning should make it easier to remember those as from what I heard 80% has the same meaning in both languages.
Kanji also have two or more readings, onyomi and kunyomi where the former is based on original Chinese pronunciation.
The writing should also be easier because if you can write Chinese that means that you will only have to learn hiragana and katakana.
But why just not give it a try? You don't have to commit to it right away. Even learning a little should bring you a new context and look to another culture. Those hours definitely won't be wasted.
this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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Very good points, I might just dedicate 15-30 minutes to it.. it's still hard for me to get past that it could be time spent on Chinese instead. But tbh I know it's illogical as so could 16 hours of my day be.
I get it so well. I try to spend more than 30 minutes a day learning Japanese but it's just so hard to do more than that. I honestly don't know why. But back in the day I couldn't do more than 15 minutes so I guess that's an improvement.
Chances are if you know Chinese you still need to learn some kanji. China uses simplified characters but Japan still uses the older characters.
Luckily I'm way more comfortable with traditional characters :) Still, it's true that Japan uses some even older forms than the ones seen in the traditional character set of Taiwan or Hong Kong sometimes.