at one point, all these languages only wrote in chinese characters. today, japanese is the only non-chinese language that writes in chinese characters in everyday life. chinese characters, or "kanji" in japanese, can be used to write both native japanese words and chinese loanwords. today, korean uses chinese characters, or "hanja" in korean, only for chinese loanwords (when writing only in hangul is too ambiguous) and writing out one's own name. today, vietnamese does not use chinese characters at all, but only uses the latin alphabet, or "chữ quốc ngữ" in vietnamese. chinese characters are only used as a decoration in vietnam today, and they are studied by only a few vietnamese.