Which is harder? Japanese or Korean?
In my previous post, I compared the difficulty of Japanese and (Mandarin) Chinese by looking at several aspects of the two languages. As I suspected, this drew out a large number of responses (or at least larger than what I’m used to in any case). However, I was surprised to see how civilized and thoughtful the comments turned out to be. So, I decided to do another language comparison, this time with Japanese and Korean. Before I start, I’d like to mention what I write here is strictly my observations and may not be entirely accurate.
Pronunciation
It is often said that Japanese and Korean are very similar languages. Now this is true to some extent but you can’t forget that Japanese and Korean have completely different writing systems and more importantly, the sounds that go along with them.
With the exception of the /z/ consonant sounds (which Koreans usually can’t pronounce), the sounds in the Korean language are a superset of the sounds in Japanese. This means that in order to learn Korean, you not only have to learn most of the sounds in Japanese but also additional sounds, many whose difference I can’t even tell. This, I think, is the strongest argument for Korean being the harder language to learn. Because anytime somebody wants to try out a Korean phrase learned from a friend, I need to have it repeated about 5 or 6 six before I can tell what he is trying to say. And even then, it’s an educated guess at best.
With Japanese, though you sound like crap without the proper pitches, you can still make yourself understood with even the worst accents (most of the time).
The writing system
Now the comparison get more difficult because Koreans have invented an ingenious little writing system called hangul to cleverly handle all those different sounds in Korean.
For Japanese, you have to memorize 46 separate characters (not including the obsolete characters) for each individual sound. Since you have both hiragana and katakana, that amounts to a total of 92 characters that you have to memorize just to write 46 sounds. If you count the voiced consonants, small 「や、ゆ、よ」, etc., you only get a total of 102 sounds for learning 92 characters. That’s not a lot of mileage.
With hangul, you learn consonants and vowels separately and match them up like legos. You can combine up to a maximum of three consonants and one vowel. For example, if you learn 4 consonants and 4 vowels, you can combine each consonant to the vowel to get 4×4=16 letters. You can also add yet another consonant to each of these letters to get an additional 16×4=64 letters. You can even add yet another consonant though the possible combinations are a bit limited for the fourth consonant. If you consider the fact that hangul has a total of 19 consonants and 21 vowels, you can appreciate just how many sounds Korean has over Japanese. In fact, I don’t even know the total number of letters in hangul. Imagine what a nightmare it would be if you had to memorize a separate character for each sound!
A sample of hangul
Consonants: ㄱ(g),ㄴ(n),ㄷ(d),ㄹ(r)
Vowels:ㅏ(a), ㅓ(uh), ㅗ(o), ㅜ(u)Possible combinations include:
가(ga),거(guh),고(go),구(gu)
나(na), 너(nuh), 노(no), 누(nu)
다(da), 더(duh), 도(do), 두(du)
라(ra), 러(ruh), 로(ro), 루(ru)
각(gag), 간(gan), 갇(gad), 갈(gar)
각(gag), 간(gan), 갇(gad), 갈(gar)
곡(gog), 곤(gohn), 곧(gohd), 골(gohr)
국(gug), 군(guhn), 굳(guhd), 굴(guhr)
낙(nag), 난(nan), 낟(nad), 날(nar)… etc.
Hangul, like the English alphabet allows you to write a lot more sounds with a smaller number of characters while still maintaining the unambiguous 1 letter = 1 sound aspect of Japanese. You may be thinking that in the end, all this means is that there are a lot more sounds and more letters to go with them. How does this make Korean easier than Japanese, which doesn’t need to deal with all these extra sounds to begin with? And my reply to that is, you don’t need hanja (kanji) in Korean.
In Japanese, due to the limited five-vowel, consonant+vowel sounds (with the only exception of 「ん」), a lot of words end up with the same pronunciation. For instance 「生」 and 「正」 are both 「せい」 in Japanese. However, the original Chinese pronunciation for 生 is “sheng” and “zheng” for 正. Similarly, in Korean 「生」 is “생” (seng) and “정” (juhng) in Korean. Japanese doesn’t even have a “uh” or “ng” sound. Let’s compare more kanji with the 「せい」 reading with the Korean version.
| Kanji | Japanese | Korean |
|---|---|---|
| 生 | せい | 생 |
| 性 | せい | 성 |
| 姓 | せい | 성 |
| 製 | せい | 제 |
| 正 | せい | 정 |
| 精 | せい | 정 |
| 勢 | せい | 세 |
As you can see, out of seven characters that have the same reading in Japanese, you get a total of five different pronunciations in Korean, three of which do not even exist in Japanese. Most importantly, Korean has just one letter and one sound for each character just like Chinese. In Japanese, you often get two or even three letters because one wasn’t enough to pronounce all the consonants and vowels. What you end up in Japanese is a bunch of repeating, long, and hardly decipherable text without kanji.
I get a headache from just looking at this
しょうがくごねんせいにしんきゅうしたさいだいのメリットは、おとなのつごうでちゅうがくせいともこうがくねんともよばれるちゅうぶらりんのよねんせいからかいほうされて、どっしりこうがくねんのざにこしをすえられることだった。Even with spaces, it’s not much improvement
しょうがく ごねんせいに しんきゅうした さいだいの メリットは、おとなの つごうで ちゅうがくせいとも こうがくねんとも よばれる ちゅうぶらりんの よねんせいから かいほうされて、どっしり こうがくねんの ざに こしを すえられることだった。
With hangul, because you have a lot more letters, the visual cues are a lot more distinct and there are fewer homophones. However, because the visual cues are not quite as clear as Chinese characters, you do have to learn where to put spaces. I think it’s a small price to pay for not having to learn 2000-3000 Chinese characters, don’t you?
You don’t need kanji/hanja in Korean because of the increased visual cues. But you do need spaces.
외모가 뛰어난 학생들이 그렇지 않은 학생들보다 학업 성적이 뛰어난 것으로 밝혀졌다고 10일 선데이 타임스, 데일리 메일 등의 언론이 이탈리아 연구팀의 연구 결과를 인용 보도했다.
(from naver.com)
I think it’s ridiculous when Japanese teachers don’t teach their students kanji or when somebody says that you don’t need to learn it. Yeah, you don’t have to learn it if you don’t mind being illiterate. Books, signs, restaurant menus, computers, everything has kanji in it and you don’t get the furigana either. But in Korea, you really don’t need to learn Chinese characters at all. Sometimes you might see it in parantheses on signs next to the hangul and newspapers may use some very simple characters such as 大 or 現 but it’s a supplement to hangul instead of the other way around. Just compare Yahoo! Korea to Yahoo! Japan. Not a single Chinese character in Yahoo! Korea. Yahoo! Japan? Too many to count.
Bottom line: In terms of simplicity in writing and reading the language, Korean wins hands down. Well-played Sejong the Great, well-played.
Grammar
So far, it seems like Japanese and Korean are totally different. So what the heck was I talking about when I mentioned that they were similar? Well, why don’t we take a look at how to say, “I went to school at 7:00.”
Japanese: 私は７時に学校に行った。
Korean: 나는 7시에 학교에 갔어.
Can’t see the similarity? Ok, why don’t we add spaces to the Japanese, replace the Korean with hanja, and use the same style for the characters.
私は ７時に 學校に 行った。
나는 7時에 學校에 갔어.
As you can see, the sentence structure is exactly the same. Indeed, Korean and Japanese grammar has the same general ideas including particles and the main verb always being at the end of the sentence. However, that’s like saying French and English grammar are the same. Once you get into the details, you’ll find all sorts of stuff that are completely different. Let’s take a look at a few examples.
Particles
Particles in Korean are what you get if a bunch of people were to get together and say, “Hmm… Japanese particles are just too easy to understand. How do we make it harder to yet again confound those silly foreigners.” Then one of them will go, “I got it! Let’s change the particle depending on what comes before it!” Then the rest will go, “Oooh, that’s good.”
That’s basically how Korean works. The 「が」 particle in Japanese is either “가” or “이” depending on what it is attached to. The 「は」 particle is “은” or “는”, 「を」 is either “을” or “를”, and 「で」 is “로” or “으로”. Japanese students can now proceed to laugh at fellow students who chose to learn Korean instead.
Conjugations
Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about Korean conjugation rules to really accurately compare the two languages in this regard. However, I do know one big difference is that Korean does have a future tense unlike Japanese. Also, I give you this entertaining excerpt from this site.
Past tense is another easy verb tense. Here is the basic pattern.
1.Take the dictionary form, drop the 다
2.Add the ending 어 or 아, which makes it the casual form (everything but the 요 at the end)
3. Add ㅆ under the last syllable
4. Add 어요 on the end.먹다
먹 + 어 - 먹어
먹어 + ㅆ - 먹었
먹었 + 어요 = 먹었어요.마시다
마시 + 어 - 마셔
마셔 + ㅆ - 마셨
마셨 + 어요 = 마셨어요
마시 + 어 = 마셔? I mean 마시 + 어 = 마시어 makes sense but 마셔? I don’t think my math is good enough to understand that. Also, notice how it says, “Add the ending 어 or 아” but neglects to mention how to decide which one to add. I’m sorry but this doesn’t look easy to me at all. But then again, when you have Japanese conjugation tables that look like this, maybe I shouldn’t complain.
Counters
Yep, both languages have them. And yes, it’s totally confusing for both languages.
Conclusion
In terms of difficulty, I think Japanese and Korean are at about the same level. Some parts are harder for Korean while other parts are harder for Japanese. However, considering the larger number of sounds and the different particles in Korean, Japanese is definitely the easier language to start in. If you’re not good at distinguishing new sounds and pronunciations, you’re definitely going to have a hard time with Korean.
In particular, that fourth consonant can get really silly. For instance, the word for chicken is “닭”, made up of ㄷ(d),ㅏ(a), ㄹ(r), ㄱ(g), and it’s supposed to sound something like “darg” but I can’t even hear the /r/ sound. And “없어” is supposed to sound like “uhbs uh” but to me, it sounds exactly the same as “uhb suh” (업서). Really, it’s just ridiculous.
However, once you master all the sounds and the basic grammar in Korean, you’re in for smoother ride the rest of the way. While Japanese students will be struggling with four different types of conditionals, looking furiously in the dictionary for the readings of 「大人」, 「仲人」, 「気質」, and 「問屋」, and trying to remember if it was 「静かな」 or 「静な」, you’ll be just sailing right by enjoying the benefits of having only one letter and reading for each Chinese character. You don’t even have to learn them, if you don’t want to.
- 
August 12th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
So I just had to go look at Yahoo Korea for fun. I did see one kanji (er, hanja) there: 美. Also, I wonder what the state of hanja use is in North Korea and the Korean-speaking population in China.
At any rate, interesting article. I’m constantly tempted to learn the basics because there’s so much material for learning Korean here in Japan, and the grammar must certainly be easier for someone who’s studied Japanese.
August 14th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
I think N Koreans are taught 1800 hanja and S Koreans ~600
August 16th, 2006 at 12:28 am
I don’t know about North Korea I believe that South Koreans are taught hanja now. But there was a period where it wasn’t taught at all for nationalistic reasons. In any case, you don’t need to know any to get by in everyday life.
August 16th, 2006 at 2:19 am
I haven’t been to this site in a month or so and I was quite excited by your post. I have learned Chinese, Korean and Japanese to varying levels within the past 3 years, so I feel that while I am slightly inebriated at the moment, I can give you folks an idea of a few of the differences. This may take a while to spell out and probably won’t be as clear as it sounds in my head as I type it, but a few of you may find it interesting. Seriously, this will be a long post. If you are really into languages, read on. Really though, this will be super long! And possibly incoherent at times…sorry.
First, some background. I have lived in Thailand for about 3 years now. I had gotten interested in languages a year or 2 before that, but I hadn’t gotten serious until I got here. I spent much of my free time (which was almost all of my time) in the beginning studying Thai. After a couple months I signed up with a friend for a 3 hours (1.5 on sat/sun) Japanese class that was supposed to be for kids. It used the “Japanese for Young People” book (same people who made J for Busy P). After about 9 months I entered a uni that had just opened an international program. I was feeling serious about Japanese and I wanted to learn in an environment that was closer to full-time. I signed up at the uni and took an exemption test to skip the first semester of Japanese and I entered Japanese II with a bunch of other international students. I was a bit ahead of the class, but I still picked up a lot that term.
Speeding things along, the next semester, the teacher was simply amazing. Whereas Japanese II had 15 people, J III had 3. Of the 3 of us, 2 really wanted to learn. The teacher was flexible on schedule, learning styles, and anything else that we came up with. I took in so much that term. For the mid term, we had to write an essay on how we would teach the class if we were the teacher. So we wrote essays that fit our learning-styles and she incorporated a number of my ideas in later lessons.
Fast forward - I got accepted to a study abroad prog from Thailand to Australia (I’m American). I went to Melbourne and studied every language the school had: Chinese, Arabic and Indonesian. On top of that I frequented out English clubs and Japanese clubs so I could keep up with other stuffs.
Sorry - I just realized how long this was becoming. In Australia, I learned to read/write hangul in about 2-3 hours one day in Melbourne. It is so easy and efficient! I was singing Korean karaoke the same night! Admittedly it took a little while to learn the exceptions and the way that the last part of a ‘character’ can often carry over to the open vowel of the next… but thats nothing compared to the time involved in learning to read/write Chinese and Japanese.
Um - Sorry again for this being so long. I just was just trying to establish some credibility.
I speak, albeit at varying levels, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Three years ago, I didn’t know a word of any of these languages. I haven’t studied Korean nearly as long as I’ve studied Japanese, but I have noticed a number of important points.
First, as was mentioned in the above post, Korean is considerably harder to pronounce and therefore beging to register those foreign sounds for the listener. That took me a while. The sounds of Japanese are easy. However, reading and writing require quite a bit of time. Korean grammar is much like Japanese grammar. The order is the same. My time studying Japanese has made Korean a cinch to learn. There are exceptions, but **Wait! I am getting off my points!
Every language is easy!!! That is what I have discovered. This is what I want to stress to you. Method is key. Everybody wastes time and money in crappy situations with crappy schools and crappy teachers. Even if one of those 3 is good, it isn’t always enough to really show you how to learn a language.
I have never been to Japan or China, but I speak Japanese and Chinese. I wouldn’t say fluent, but I would say I could handle a number of situations to the point where I can fake fluency. Or talk myself out of a situation which also ends up faking fluency.
I have discovered that fluency is an endless process. I feel I am fluent in Thai sometimes, but I know deep down that I’m not. The definition of fluency is pretty strict. I speak 5 languages, but I am fluent in 1. I often refer to myself as a language monkey. I am often pressed to perform as people can’t believe that I can speak all of these languages. But it is my firm belief that anyone can do as I have done (with or w/o multiple languages) in the same period of time (or less).
Our first opponent is ourselves. That isn’t entirely true. Let me say it differently. The biggest obstacle is that it gets pounded into our minds by others in the ‘language community’ that such and such language is hard to learn. That is crap. Tonal languages for example. It will take some time to get used to the added dimension to a language, but the grammar of all tonal langauges (that I am aware of anyways..) are far less complicated in grammar than any Western language. It takes time to make up the difference, but the time required doesn’t compare to what it takes to learn to read and write Chinese characters. China, Korea and Japan…they all write/use them differently. But if you can learn one (language) the rest come easy.
**Now I focus on Chinese and Korean as far as classes go and I am on break from Japanese classes (because I can’t find a teacher that doesn’t suck…) while I work through Heisig’s RTK Book 1 (I’m in the 700s). My Chinese teacher is decent, and my Korean teacher is great. Why? Because they listen to my suggestions. I speak Thai fairly fluently, and all the students are Thai aside from me. Since the books tend to be Eng/Chin or Eng/Korean…or Eng/Jap.. I am the guy that has to figure out how to explain how to back translate a concept from Chin/Eng to Eng/Thai or what-not.
The Heisig method for learning kanji has been both a boon and a bane in my Chinese studies. On one hand, when I encounter a character that Japanese doesn’t use but has obvious primitives, I give the class a quick story and they all laugh and think I’m crazy, but they all remember the character. The other times are when the teacher points out some new character and asks what it means…I respond with the Heisig keyword to everyones suprise (thought not always - the meaning doesn’t always apply to Chinese). The problems arise when I try to Chinese-ify the stories from Heisig. It works often, but I feel like I reach overload status.
On the other hand,
Since I got back from Australia, my Uni has yet to offer a language class anywhere close to my level. I am forced to study part-time and privately to progress. But I don’t have the discipline to do it alone. Few of us do. If we can’t find the ideal learning environment, we must create it!
I apologize for the length and general incoherence that may have arose from this post.
I hope that somewhere in the above mess, someone noticed or was curious about where I was going with a point before it became lost in alcohol. If that is the case, please respond. I have much to say, but I am drained for now.
Language is easy. The problem isn’t you. The problem probably isn’t your teacher or your background/education/family/whatever (but these do matter!!!). The problem comes from your methods.
Finally, I apologize profusely for this slightly drunken post. I could go on, but I think its safer to stop here so you can rest your eyes.
August 20th, 2006 at 12:55 am
Gwindarr -
I completely agree with what you are trying to convey. Learning a language is simple if you look past all the crap people tell you about it being difficult/impossible. What really gets to me is when a teacher tells the class “this is going to be really hard and you guys probably won’t understand this…” This kind of teaching gives the students an excuse to slack off and tell themselves that they aren’t smart enough to learn the language in the first place. Complete BS. If a teacher really wanted his or her students to succeed, he or she would encourage discipline and emphasize the need to study and begin talking with native speakers.
August 23rd, 2006 at 3:22 am
Very interesting!
I am curious about Korean, and this post and the comments have given me an interesting insight on the language - it seems rather easy to learn with a background in Japanese.
In order to help improve my Japanese at the same time, I think I will research and study Korean a little, through Japanese. Unfortunately, I’m not good at searching the web in Japanese yet, so if anyone knows of any Japanese sites about learning Korean, 教えてください！
Gwindarr - I agree with your views.
Your post was very informative, do not apologise for the length! Short posts like mine are disappointingly informationless :p
August 25th, 2006 at 7:22 am
i was going to try learning korean while learning japanese, then i was like, nah i like japanese better, i ll just focus there.
August 27th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
I see no need to apologize for this post. The last was drunken in a guilty state of mind. This one is sober (so far anyways!).
Anyways, in about 6 months with a private teacher (3 times a week for 1-2 hours) my level of Korean, in regards to conversational ability, is about the same as my Japanese after 1.5+ years. As for reading/writing and vocabulary, Japanese certainly wins out due to the sheer number of hours spent.
I could probably argue either way whether Japanese or Korean has harder grammar, but whats the point of that? You shouldn’t study a language because other people tell you its easier or more useful. Study a language because you want to be able to speak it. Because you want to communicate in the native language of your friends, g/bfriends or it will help you progress in your particular career, lifestyle, hobbies, etc.
The first thing I tell any of my students or anybody else who whines that learning a language is difficult is that if a Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Thai/Burmese/ Etc baby can learn the language, then so can you!
While learning a new language, you will inevitably fine your previously confident self reduced to the babbling incoherence of an infant learning to speak. There isn’t anything wrong with that. The baby/child goes through the same process. Of course, it has no anxieties or past experiences to compare it to, nor does it have any other language to fall back on other than nonsensical sounds (unless baby-talk is a valid language anyways).
The second thing I point out is that no language is truly difficult. No matter which one you learn, it will take a while. It will take forever. You will probably die before coming anywhere close to a native speaker in terms of fluency. But is that really enough to stop you? You don’t need to be the best. In fact, you can’t! With all the time I spend on these other languages in a country where the level of English tends to be a bit below par to say the least (Thailand), I know that I can never equal to a native speaker. But the rewards for even covering a fraction of that distance are immense.
Which of the following is most important in learning a language?
-perfect pronunciation
-perfect grammar
-mastery of vocabulary
???
None of those of course. Communication is the key. If I understand what you are trying to say, then you are already on your way. You can fix up your inabilty to sound native over time.
If you can’t find your own way, then try everybody elses until you find something that works. Once you’ve learned a 2nd language, the rest come much easier. All your previous mistakes become clear.
August 28th, 2006 at 9:55 pm
Here is a good link site of japanese language
http://www.japan-japan.com/j-lang.htm
September 5th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
To CajunCoder:
Here’s a Japanese site on Korean you might want to take a look at.
http://www.alc.co.jp/korea/index.html
September 8th, 2006 at 11:10 pm
I would be interested to see the comparisons between Japanese and English.
September 9th, 2006 at 1:38 am
Here’s a not so serious one:
http://nihongo.3yen.com/2006-01-24/you-think-japanese-is-hard/
September 10th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Hi Tae Kim,
Great article again.
I couldn’t agree with you that you don’t need to learn any hanja to learn korean.
Frankly speaking the visual cue in a pure hangul Korean article is so much less than any average Japanese article. The reason for this is obviously the kanji or hanja. Due the kanji, I can immediate have a clue about the article at a glance without attentively reading it. However, for Korean, I got less clue with just a glance, I have to put in more attention to get the same amount of information. Conclusion, if the koreans have used a mixed of hangul and hanja, it will be so much easier to read. This is the case, when I read korean articles with hangul and hanja mixed together, it is really fantastic, really, I love it. We can’t deny the fact that hanja give a lot of visual cue. Having said that, does chinese langauge with a bunch of hanzi give me more visual cue? The answer is no, it probably give me the same amount of visual cue as japanese. Because visual cue usually come from the gist of the article, and if those gist words are written in kanji, than the rest of it are not so important. Whether or not it is written in kanji is no longer important.
Why do we need to learn hanja if we learn korean, here is one example: 배, this is pronounced as “pae”, nearly the same as the english pronouciation of “pear”, and it means pear also. However, it can mean “ship”, “x times(倍)”, “cup(杯)”,”embryo(胚)”, without the hanja, 배 is just so ambigious and more importantly, there is no visual cue.
Another reason to learn hanja, if you go to korea, you will see a lot of hanja here and there on those ancient buildings, without learning it you will not know the meaning of it . Also to have a good grasp of korean language and history, you better know hanja.
Sorry to say this, but Korean nationalism can be extremely annoying sometime. Japanese language uses kanji don’t make it less Japanese, it is still 100% Japanese. However, it seems that a lot of nationalistic korean people don’t see it this way.
September 10th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
I agree that learning hanja can be very helpful for learning Korean especially if you already know them from Japanese or Chinese. However, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s not absolutely essential. Sure maybe you won’t be able to read hanja on ancient buildings but I think it’s a sharp contrast to Japanese, where you can’t read a simple menu or a map.
While you make some valid points on the advantages of hanja over hangul, that doesn’t change the fact that almost everything is currently written in hangul in S. Korea. Unless that changes, hanja is simply not necessary to learn Korean.
After all, the same things can be said about English. It’s not as easy to scan and the visual cues are not as strong but people still use it. And you can get better at scanning with practice, speed reading techiniques, etc.
September 11th, 2006 at 2:49 am
Hi Tae Kim,
You are right. Almost everything is written in hangul now. One can really get away with it without any knowledege of hanja.
Sometimes, I feel sad for Korean people, because a lot younger Korean people couldn’t read hanja effectively. This makes them unable to understand and appreciate their own culture effectively.
Here is one example. One time, I saw a Chinese caligraphy in my Korean friend house. I thought it was from China. So I asked him if he got it from China. But he told me he got it from Korea. The next thing he said was what really struck me. He said those words there have no meaning, and are simply created for the sake of writing it only. I was shocked when he said this. I told him that every words there has a meaning to it, and every words there is really a hanja. He seems to feel embarassed and shocked when I said this. So I took sometime and explain every words there for him.
When he told me that caligraphy was from Korea, I was actually expecting him to explain it to me in the Korean context, from the Korean point of view. Unfortunately, it was the other way round. That is why I feel sad.
September 13th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Wonderful post.
I am going to read it again later this evening. I am looking forward to reading more of your stuff.
October 27th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
In response to an email I received, I’d like to clarify that at no point do I claim that Korean comes from Japanese. I was joking about people getting together, taking Japanese particles, and making them harder for Korean. Of course, nobody got together to invent particles for Korean. And I didn’t mean to imply that the additional Korean sounds were built on top of Japanese. In all likelihood, the additional sounds are probably more related to Chinese and the sounds in Japanese were probably simplified. I am, in no way, a linguistic historian however so my opinion is as good as anybody else’s.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:11 am
I think Korean is easier to learn, since i AM south korean. but, korean and japanese has VERY similar pronounciations, and i know cuz my mom whose s.korean took japanese for five years. but i think writing korean is way easier to write than japanese and chinese, cuz korean, it’s just circles, squares, and just sticks. my american friends can copy my korean very well(like a first grader, but, hey, its their first try!)
February 2nd, 2007 at 5:24 am
hey who ever wrote this well tell u the truth i learned korean then japanese well both of them r same cuz the grammaire and vocabulary and how to make phrases r the same so yeah
February 5th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
haha, you’re article made me laugh xD
I took 4 Japanese classes before starting on Korean, and I agree hands down on your point on comparing particles hahaha
Whenever I learn a new one in class, I’ll go “oh, this is like で” but noo I scroll down the page and it changes with the consonant/vowel! D:.o
The other thing that bothers me in Korean is reading. You can sorta scan something with a buncha kanji, but with hangul you sorta gotta READ it. But, it’ll all come in time =) just like the English language scanning ^.-
I’m also intersted in taking up Chinese too so, I’m gonna go read your Chinese comparison now. Thank you for blogging, Tae Kim! =D
July 18th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
I can sort of explain the past tense conjugation. If you a verb stem ending in ㅗ or ㅏ, then 아 is added. For everything else, 어 is added. For the verb 하다, 여 is added. Now the tricky part: If the verb stems ends with a consonant, like 읽다, you simply add the 어 and it becomes 읽었어요. But if the verb stem ends in a mono-vowel, like 마시다, you fuse the vowel sound of 어 with the 시. Notice that if you say these vowel sounds in succession really fast (shi-o, shio, shyo), it turns into the shyo sound, or 셔. Therefore, its 머셨어요. Hope this helps!
July 19th, 2007 at 6:00 am
Thanks Ben for the effort, but I still don’t get it.
For 하다, why does to vowel change to ㅐ? -> 했어요
Or why is the past tense of 보다 become 봤어요? Is this a fusing of ㅗ and ㅏ? All this fusing of vowel sounds is confusing.
By the way, I think you meant to write 마셨어요.
November 5th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Actually there 3 verb types ,
Type 1 verbs - ㅏ and ㅗ
Type 2 verbs - all other vowels
Type 3 verbs - ㅎ(해)
Simple present tense of these verbs
Type 1 Simple present tense
가다 = to go
when you add 아요 , it makes the verb present tense
(drop the 다) 가+아요 = 가아요 which CONTRACTS to 가요 because there are 2 ㅏ vowel sounds
Korean is very logical and so easy to learn
살다=to live
(drop the 다) 살+아요 = 살아요
It doesnt not CONTRACT to 살요 because there is a final consonant( ㄹ ) . It makes the sentence sound like music and smooth . That is why everything is modified because Hangul wants you to enjoy the sounds , so this is music .
(o da)오다=to come
(drop the 다) 오+아요=오아요 which contracts to 와요 ( see the two vowels that you can put together~? )
(오+아=와 )
and 와 is a COMPOUND vowel in Hangul~!! so its sound is WAH.
So its Wah yo .
type 2 simple present tense
배우다= to learn
( drop the 다 ) 배우+어요=배워요 ( 우+어=워 )
워 is a COMPUND VOWEL so its sound is Weo( wuh )
마시다=to drink
( drop the 다 ) 마시+어요=마셔요
시 sounds like Shi
어 sounds like Eo ( uh )
셔 sounds like Sheo ( shuh )
so 마셔요
다니다=to attend
(drop 다) 다니+어요=다녀요
니 sounds like Ni
어 sounds like Eo ( uh )
녀 sounds like Nyeo ( Nyuh )
so 다녀요
Type 3 verb simple present tense
Anything that ends with the consonant ㅎ whether it be 하호혀혜
it changes to 해
공부하다= to study
공부해요= studying,study,studys
OKAY HOPE THIS HELPED~!!
November 7th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
That’s great!! Why can’t somebody put something like that in a book somewhere?
January 9th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Da jia hao. Great articles ne. It looks like everyone is a linguistic! I was so surprised you guys making comparisons between chinese, japanese and korean in [[english]]!Amazing! Mr.Gwindarr, your articles make a lot sense. I wonder what is the next step I mean your goal of the languages you are learning. Yes, there is no limit of learning a extra language.But when it comes to you have no place to use them (except you move to the country which speaking that language you want to master), what is the thing (reason, purpose)to stimulate you to carry on? I’ve been living and studying in Japan for 6 years and working at a company where i can rarely speak chinese (my native language) and english. Wait a minute, i forgot my point… Um, my point is to learn a foreign language is easy but to keep on attracted to it is TOO difficult. I may sound ‘xi xin yan jiu’, but can any body tell me the 秘訣 of learning a foreign language?
For me, personally i think japanese language is very easy but it also depends on what level you want to be. The reason is japanese is a mixed language. It has kanji(漢字）(imitated chinese character), katakana(カタカナ）(imitated the pronunciation from english), only hiragana(ひらがな）is original… Wait, I dont mean to take a critical attitude toward 日本語, im just trying to say it is easy to learn for a person from 漢字圏…sorry, 何を言いたかったか忘れた。I’m lost again…
February 10th, 2008 at 2:20 am
When I watch a Korean movie I find it much easier to understand what they’re saying than when I watch a Japanese movie. Sometimes I wonder why this is…
March 6th, 2008 at 3:05 am
Knowledge of 漢字 is essential to really understand spoken and written Korean, and the gradual ‘abolition’ of 漢字 in Korea is calamitous.
March 16th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
About Japanese advantage
I think Japanese language is easy to get the infomation from the book.
there are meny gairaigo.
for example 電脳 in chinese.
it is easy to change it the katakana.
so i think it is difficult to study ultra-fine field in chinese and korean.
hangul does not have a concept like kanji.
they must read the sound because of phonetic symbol
that is why i think there is a Japan’s success for modernization.
It is easy for Japanese language to get the chinese and western concept.
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I just feel that Japanese is a pretty language and too smooth sounding. Korean, I feel that korean is a much easier language because the grammar is more structured and the pronunciation is better. Not to rough , not too smooth. And hanja and kanji….. Japan uses more chinese characters than korea does…
July 10th, 2008 at 11:02 am
One thing that I think should be taken into consideration as well is the amount too which we have been exposed to these languages throughout out lives. Weather or not you like anime or manga or are even interested in foreign cultures, everyone knows at least a handful (if not more) words in Japanese due to the country’s excellent way of marketing it’s products and culture to the world, whereas those same people might only be able to spout of ‘Kimchi’ and ‘Hyundai’ when asked about Korean…
From personal experience, I have been exposed to Japanese since I was a child and grew up listening to it in movies (Even American ones like Last Samurai, Letters from Iwojima, etc..) and anime. But how many American films feature the Korean language? I can only think of a tv show, and that’s ‘lost’ (badass, by the way!)
Because of this, memorizing a japanese word when I hear it is much much much easier to do than memorizing a Korean word.
Well,I mean, now is ok because I’ve been studying Korean for a year and a half and never really dabbled too much in Japanese, so Korean is much easier for me to hear, but still! I think this lifelong exposure is definitely worth considering when analyzing a language’s perceived easiness.
Please give me some feedback~
-Brad