China and the West

Kang Youwei und Liang Qichao über Übersetzungen :
"In the thirty years since the Meiji reform Japan has been seeking new knowledge from all parts of the world. The Japanese have translated and written as many as several thousand books, particularly on political science, economics, philosophy, and sociology. They are all necessary in expanding our knowledge and empowering our nation. The Japanese language is similar to ours, the Japanese have translated all the bood books of new learning on politics, literature, and the military. The Japanese language is 80 percent Chinese. Therefore, translating books from Japanese takes less effort and time. If you want to be able to read books on politics, economics, and philosophy in Western languages, the fastest way may take you at least five or six years. If you study any of those languages in a usual and gradual way, you must spend over ten years, but you may simply spend a few months achieving decent success in learning Japanese."