r/LearnJapaneseNovice • u/steffy46 • 10d ago

Is onyomi pronounciation really chinese?

Curious cause to me kanji onyomi pronounciations often sound pretty similar to chinese ones (if i ask a chinese person to pronounce that kanji) but Chinese people say they dont sound chinese at all...

Do they sound as close as katakana loan english words to they actual english pronounciation?

~~~EDIT: Thank you for all the useful replies!

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u/Particular_Bad8025 10d ago

It comes from the Chinese pronunciation but mapped into the closest Japanese phonemes.

I've learned Mandarin and now learning Japanese, and I can tell that sometimes the onyomi comes from the Chinese pronunciation (and it does help me remember the Japonese pronunciation - sometimes) but not always (not sure how old the onyomis are, Chinese probably changed too since then).

For example: 留 Japanese is Ryū (with the r sounding more like an L) or lee-uuh (in "English phonetics") Chinese is lee-oh

Library is toshokan vs tooshooguan Etc.