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If I didn't know any japanese, could I potentially communicate with Japanese
people just by writing in traditional Chinese? I've heard and seen this in
movies, how true is this?
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kanji chinese
Can a Japanese person understand something written in traditional Chinese
Do you mean words or sentences?

For word, they can understand common words exist in both Chinese and Japanese
and have the same meaning, of course. But there are still words that exist
only in Chinese or Japanese, and words having different (or opposite) meaning
in Chinese and Japanese. Like `娘` means `daughter` in Japanese, but `mother`
in Chinese.

For sentences or passages, no. Classic Chinese is taught in Japanese schools,
but it is still hard to understand for general population. Only well educated
people (in some special research fields) can understand classic Chinese well.
The Chinese language we use today, even written Tradition Chinese scripts, is
a lot different from classic Chinese, and maybe only taught in language
schools ( I guess ). So it'll be nearly impossible for people who have not
learned Chinese to understand.
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2011-12-15T00:48:35.960
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In short, no.

Even for 漢字 that exist in both languages, not all are semantically equivalent.

Consider `勉強`. One of its main meaning in Japanese is "study". [In
Chinese](http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E5%8B%89%E5%BC%BA/1310377) it
means "to force/push oneself (reluctantly)".

Also consider the grammar. `的` in Chinese is similar to `の` (genitive case
marker). In Japanese, `的` produces an adjective from a noun.
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2011-12-15T01:23:56.423
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With well-educated young adults, it's likely that you can.

Japanese junior high and high school students learn kanbun (i.e. ancient
Chinese poems and literature) at school in a very unique way with some special
marks that compensate for the difference in grammar. Those with ambition of
going to top colleges would study the subject very hard, so you might be able
to communicate with it. But again, it's only for entrance exams so as they get
older they might forget it.
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2011-12-15T02:51:35.867
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I would say generally no except for similarly written characters within the
[常用漢字](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji).

Most Japanese can't even make out old Japanese texts in
[漢文](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanbun). In analogy, Kanbun is to modern
Japanese what Anglosaxon is to modern English, whereas Chinese to Japanese
would be like Finnish or Romanian to English.
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2011-12-22T21:30:23.603
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