Is Korean easier to learn than Japanese?

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Is Korean easier to learn than Japanese? 고수 10/19/14 (Sun) 10:04:25 457b8c No.2

What do fellow anons think?

Well... 고수 10/19/14 (Sun) 10:14:28 c0c7cd No.3

>>2
If there were more people here, I'd say you would get a ton of varied responses. Both languages are extremely hard to learn and will take years of dedication to do so. This question depends on many different variables. Interest level is probably the most important one though. Do you like Korean language content? I assume you do, but many people who simply like manhwa, or manga, or anime, or whatever, end up giving up eventually from what I have seen. In my opinion you almost need to have an actual need for the language if you are going to be successful at a language like Korean or Japanese. Sorry to be discouraging. Maybe I am just jaded.

고수 10/19/14 (Sun) 11:31:29 12295c No.7

>many people who simply like manhwa, or manga, or anime, or whatever, end up giving up eventually from what I have seen.

This is true. I started learning chinese in university and in my faculty there were obiously korean and japanese classes too.

The japanese classes were made up of almost 80% weeaboos who just had a connection to Japan because of Mangas/Animoo. The dropout quote was ridiculous and for some time the university even thought about stopping the whole japanese language program despite of the high demand.

Korean classes never suffered that particular problem.

고수 10/19/14 (Sun) 11:44:38 739613 No.8

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>>7
I wonder if they didn't suffer because back then there weren't as many people interested in Korea due to pop culture, they were mostly learning it because they needed it. Today though, there are a ton that want to learn Korean for that reason alone, just like Japanese. And personally, I think that's great. Any reason to learn a language is great to me. Even though there are a ton of failures, some still make it through. I want to learn Korean because I love Korean pop culture and want to live in Korea. I am under no illusion about the difficulties I will face though. Which is why I am going to college soon. Even if I am not advanced in Korean by the time I finish, I can at least try to teach English there (thanks to my #privileged country of birth since you can only teach English in Korea if you are from certain English speaking countries) and finally get to experience Korea in first person and learn Korean along the way.:)

Post last edited at 10/20/14 (Mon) 02:16:13

고수 10/20/14 (Mon) 04:47:32 ef5354 No.13

I've never tried to learn Japanese, but Korean seems surprisingly easy to learn to me. Japanese looks a lot more complicated. I'm more interested in Korea so it's a moot point for me.

고수 10/20/14 (Mon) 06:17:54 1dddb7 No.21

I think any language that uses unfamiliar letters will be difficult to learn.

고수 10/20/14 (Mon) 07:33:39 457b8c No.27

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>>21
Well, when it comes to Korean, that isn't really a challenge. Korean uses an alphabet called Hangul and it's pretty easy to learn. It only has 24 letters. The problem with learning Korean for a native English speaker, or for native speakers of almost every language, is that it has no connection to them. Korean is a language isolate. Both Japanese and Korean are incredibly hard to learn, but it's definitely possible. I think a few of the posts above may be a bit discouraging.

Anyway, to help answer the original question, below is a link to the facts as to how Japanese and Korean compare difficulty wise for a native English speaker according to The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Department of State. Spoiler Alert: They consider Japanese to be harder to learn than Korean for a native English speaker.

http://goo.gl/CL4Iwl

Post last edited at 10/20/14 (Mon) 07:37:05

고수 10/20/14 (Mon) 23:13:36 876962 No.47

>>27
Pretty much this; languages with a different alphabet base then your native tongue will be more difficult than those that do.

Learning to speak Korean is difficult, but to read (not understand, but to literally just sound shit out) will take only a few weeks to become proficient.

고수 10/23/14 (Thu) 03:42:41 3fc14b No.100

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>>47
Learning how to type Korean is taking me longer than learning how to pronounce Hangul. It's like learning to use a keyboard all over again. It suuuuuuucks.

고수 10/24/14 (Fri) 02:05:15 5f45c0 No.156

>>27
seeing Romanian listed there as closely related to English (???) and easier for a native speaker of English to learn than German was, well, quite weird

고수 10/24/14 (Fri) 05:07:24 3e1ddf No.161

>>156
Essentially that category should really be closely related to English/easiest to learn. Romanian is a romance language so it still is a lot closer to English linguistically than say Russian, which is in a harder category. German being considered harder to learn than the others in category 1 doesn't surprise me due to the grammar, and that is despite the fact that both English and German are both West Germanic languages.

Mark Twain even wrote an essay titled "The Awful German Language" which mocked the difficulties with learning German, especially in relation to grammar.

http://german.about.com/library/blmtwain01.htm

고수 10/25/14 (Sat) 12:18:28 876962 No.197

>>161
It's because English does not have genders (or neutrals) on their nouns, or bass-ackwards grammatical syntax.

고수 10/25/14 (Sat) 13:34:54 104967 No.202

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>>197
English is really messed up though cuz everything is so irregular in it. The spelling does not match the pronunciation at all either. But, at least there are no noun genders, yeah.:) There are no noun genders in Korean either though, and it is extremely hard to learn.

고수 10/27/14 (Mon) 08:13:50 8e298c No.249

>>27
Except for the kanji, I actually find Japanese katakana and hiragana easier than hangul. Hangul characters look too similar, and it's hard for me to tell them apart, so they look like a mass of circles and sticks to me. I really struggle to read hangul. Whereas Japanese characters look more varied, making it easier for me to recognize them at first glance.

Just MHO.

고수 10/27/14 (Mon) 08:25:44 155017 No.251

>>249
>Except for the kanji

That is, after all, the hardest part about learning Japanese.:P The Kana can be learned in days just like Hangeul, unlike Kanji which take years to learn. Kanji are a big part of Japanese so I guess what I am saying is that it feels weird to compare Kana to Hangeul instead of Kana+Kanji (written Japanese as a whole) to Hangeul (written Korean as a whole).

Just give it time and you will get used to the Hangeul.:) There are only 40 letters after all.

고수 10/29/14 (Wed) 19:07:37 3c0df2 No.291

I know it's not much but I have an N5 certificate in Japanese.
In my experience, writing in Korean is easier than in Japanese and speaking Japanese is easier than speaking Korean. I've only been studying Korean for a few days though, so I'll probably get over the weird sounds eventually…

고수 10/30/14 (Thu) 10:27:05 8e298c No.293

>>251
I've been trying to memorize the Korean alphabet since 2003…my problem is that the symbols all look way too much alike.

I have an easier time of memorizing kanji, because the symbols are more like drawings of what they represent. :)

고수 10/30/14 (Thu) 23:11:12 896a4a No.299

>>293
>I've been trying to memorize the Korean alphabet since 2003…my problem is that the symbols all look way too much alike.

Mhh… it shouldn't take 11 years to learn 24 letters which most people are able to learn within a few days and some within a day. My guess is that by "trying to memorize the Korean alphabet since 2003" you don't mean you have literally been studying the alphabet for 11 years. Am I correct?

I think I know a way that you can be helped. Mnemonics. Check out the Korean courses on memrise.com

고수 10/31/14 (Fri) 19:37:58 3b0506 No.302

>>8
>want to live in Korea.
>I am under no illusion about the difficulties I will face though.
Have you looked up how it is to work in Korea? Overtime, low pay, barely any breaks, are all common there.

>I can at least try to teach English there
If you think you can manage an entire year teaching English in Korea, go for it.
I suggest you look up some videos about this before you decide to teach English in Korea, especially about hagwons (private schools).