[zumu]

The Chinese influence works a lot like the Latin influence on English. Japanese is written in Chinese and some extra derivatives (hiragana/katakana are derived from Chinese characters). English is written in Latin characters plus a few extra (j, w, etc). Words you speak to express emotions, words that move you, words that you speak with your children, etc. are mostly native words (English/Japanese) but open a text book or newspaper and you're met with a wall of passionless loan words (Chinese/Latin) tersely describing precise phenomena.

The English is only for very modern stuff. Think computer technology or business buzz words.

[qingcharles]

I know, I was just trying to crack a joke :) I love that you can walk down a street in Tokyo and read half the signs if you know katakana.