Word.ws English Dictionary

pseudo-Chinese

/ˌsuːdəʊ tʃaɪˈniːz/

pseudo-Chinese noun: a Japanese humorous written variant which remarkably resembles Chinese by exclusively using kanji.

Noun

pseudo-Chinese (uncountable)

  1. (neologism) A Japanese humorous written variant which remarkably resembles Chinese by exclusively using kanji.
    • The Japanese caption at the top right of the first image reads, "When I was texting with my husband in pseudo-Chinese using only kanji".2023 July 20, Victor Mair, “Pseudo-Chinese conversation of a Japanese couple”, in Language Log (blog), archived from the original on 05 Dec 2023
    • Pseudo-Chinese has been floating around the Japanese internet since the early 2000s. But its recent popularity can be traced to the 62-year-old former Japanese cabinet minister — and prolific poster — Kono Taro. In 2019, while serving as Japan’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kono — who has...2025 March 3, Sha Qingqing, “The Japanese App Where Everyone Speaks Chinese (But Not Really)”, in Matt Turner, transl., edited by Cai Yineng, Sixth Tone, archived from the original on 30 May 2026
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pseudo-, Chinese. False or fake Chinese.
    • Over several years in the late 1980s, he painstakingly created 4,000 pseudo-Chinese characters—the number of characters required for literacy in Mandarin—and carved them into wooden blocks.2016 August 31, Alex Vickery, “Book From the Sky”, in The Alcalde, archived from the original on 20 Jan 2021
    • Creating Pseudo-Chinese Characters and Exploring Their Referential Meanings [title]2023 August 28, Austin Yip, “Creating Pseudo-Chinese Characters and Exploring Their Referential Meanings”, in Medium, archived from the original on 02 Jun 2026

Examples of pseudo-Chinese in a sentence

  • Pseudo-Chinese has been floating around the Japanese internet since the early 2000s.2025 March 3, Sha Qingqing, “The Japanese App Where Everyone Speaks Chinese (But Not Really)”, in Matt Turner, transl., edited by Cai...
  • Pseudo-Chinese, an emergent online language phenomenon blending Chinese, Japanese, emojis, and emoticons, is examined in this study through a translanguaging lens on Weibo.2026 March 11, Yi Liu, “Abstract”, in Understanding translanguaging creativity on Chinese Weibo: the example of pseudo-Chinese phenomenon:
  • But what exactly is pseudo-Chinese and where did it come from?2026 March 27, Gnome, 0:45 from the start, in Japan's Fake Chinese Language:

Forms of pseudo-Chinese

alternative formpseudoChinese

Origin of pseudo-Chinese

From pseudo- + Chinese, a calque of Japanese 偽中国語.

Questions about pseudo-Chinese

What does pseudo-Chinese mean?
Pseudo-Chinese means a Japanese humorous written variant which remarkably resembles Chinese by exclusively using kanji.
How do you use pseudo-Chinese in a sentence?
Pseudo-Chinese has been floating around the Japanese internet since the early 2000s.
What part of speech is pseudo-Chinese?
Pseudo-Chinese is a noun.
How do you pronounce pseudo-Chinese?
Pseudo-Chinese is pronounced /ˌsuːdəʊ tʃaɪˈniːz/.

Words near pseudo-Chinese in the dictionary

  1. pseudo-autobiography
  2. pseudo-borrowing
  3. pseudo-borrowings
  4. pseudo-cereal
  5. pseudo-cereals
  6. pseudo-Chinese
  7. pseudo-chromesthesia
  8. pseudo-city code
  9. pseudo-city codes
  10. pseudo-Clement
  11. pseudo-Clementine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pseudo-Chinese (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “pseudo-Chinese.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pseudo-chinese. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.