Is Japanese Or Korean Easier To Learn
One does not simply put "easy" and "Kanji" in the same judgement.
Like the majority of people attracted to Japan's culture, I grew up with manga and anime. At that time back in 2006, Korean or Japanese weren't actually popular languages. Chinese, on the other hand, was marketed as THE linguistic communication of opportunity. Many high schools in France, including mine, offered it equally an "extra-foreign" language.
Because I was in a weeaboo denial phase, convincing myself that I liked "Asian civilization in general" and non but the Japanese ane, I chose to study Chinese for my whole three years of loftier school in the hopes that information technology would prepare me for my ultimate weeb goal: study Japanese at university—which I did adjacent.
Everything was going fine until a 3rd element joined the grouping: the Hallyu or Korean civilization moving ridge which spread K-pop, K-beauty, and Chiliad-drama all over the world. My weeaboo-ism, combined with the stress of learning Japanese "the difficult way" (aka you lot must score 100% on all exams otherwise the rest of your life is pretty much doomed), mutated into a koreaboo-ism because of it.
I was stuck between my Japanese major (or at least the end of information technology), barely keeping up with three years of Chinese study then that I could make something of my life AND indulging myself completely in shiny new Thou-culture. My genius solution? Study Korean, Chinese, and Japanese at the same time. They've got to be pretty like, right?
As information technology turns out. Yes and no. Luckily I fabricated it out of that linguistic black hole with a few ideas on which one is easiest that I'yard going to share with you.
Let the battle brainstorm!
Round One: Reading
Kanji, Hanja, and Hanzi. No, these are non the names of The Iii Musketeers translated into Japanese only the labels for logograms—characters that symbolize a phrase or discussion—respectively in Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
Hanzi is the derivative Chinese term for Kanji and Hanja. Information technology literally means the characters of the "Han," the most powerful ethnic grouping at the time when China began to consign its culture across its borders. The Hanzi is a collection of more than 7,000 characters you'll use for everything (if you exclude the variations and ancient forms written in old books that brand the total number over 100,000 characters). You take to larn each of the vii,000 characters one by one to be able to navigate the Chinese globe efficiently.
On the other side of the sea, in that location are 2,136 commonly used Kanji characters in the Japanese linguistic communication, called the Joyo kanji which are derived from Chinese Hanzi. Along with those are the kana, characters for song syllables that include 46 hiragana, likewise derived from Chinese characters but KonMaried to their about minimalistic forms, and 46 katakana (which are mostly there just to make foreigners cringe).
Each Kanji also have two dissimilar readings: the ON-yomi, from Chinese origin, and the KUN-yomi, purely from Japanese origin. An easy style to know when you should use which is to remember that KUN readings are usually used when the word is alone or combined with kana. The ON reading is merely used when kanji are combined together.
That said ON and KUN are not limited to only one reading. For example, a simple kanji like "上 ", meaning above, can take iii ON readings (jo, sho, and shan) and vi KUN readings (ue, uwa, kami, noboru, agaru, tatematsuru). Yup.
Because of these three "alphabet" systems, you tin get abroad with learning only some of the Joyo kanji plus kana and still be able to sympathize what you lot read without going back and forth on your dictionary.
Korean has 24 letters, namely Hanguls, with 14 consonants and ten vowels. That's it! The Hanja are not used as much as before nor taught in school anymore. Y'all'll find Hanja only for abridgement or for stylistic reasons (to relieve space for instance), or in specific professions such every bit law or medicine.
On top of that, the written system has spaces. Y'all can, therefore, expect up a discussion more hands than in Japanese or Chinese where in most cases you lot don't know where the give-and-take ends or begins, or fifty-fifty how to spell it.
Verdict: Korean is the easiest to read
Circular Two: Writing
There is a pop belief that Chinese is the origin of both the Japanese and Korean languages. While it's true that ancient Korean and Japanese texts were solely written in classical Chinese, and Chinese characters were only studied by the aristocracy of both countries for ages, they were actually read in the linguistic communication of each country following the aforementioned grammatical rules we know today.
The current writing systems were simply created later on, for the common people, or to stand up out from Chinese written books. And then, Japanese and Korean populations created their own reading and writing systems completely carve up from the Chinese one.
The first matter you learn when y'all study Chinese is how to write the characters. And I'm not only talking most the stroke orders. When I was studying in school it seemed to me that calligraphy was a huge part of the language equally my teacher spent so much time and try to teach united states nigh the radicals (a setlist of graphical elements that compose a Hanzi), their meaning, how each stroke is traced and most importantly where your pen should begin and stop.
The radicals are actually similar in Japanese, so if you're learning Japanese and want to report Chinese instead, at that place shouldn't be much confusion between the two. You however have the kana on top of the Kanji, information technology only involves a petty bit more memorization. I hateful, at this point, learning 46 more than characters is not going to kill you.
Nonetheless, since Korean is the easiest linguistic communication to read due to its letter-based reading system, that as well ways Korean is the easiest language to write. Yous nevertheless demand to know the grammar, though. Soz.
Verdict: Korean is the easiest to write
Round 3: Speaking
Chinese, or Standard mandarin Chinese, has 25 consonants, 22 vowels and xix diphthongs (a combination of two sounds within the same syllable) that overlap four singled-out tones. Fortunately, you'll exist helped by the pinyin, the official romanization of Chinese characters for your pronunciation and tones like this: mā, má, mǎ, mà.
Still, that is A LOT of sounds for your rima oris to remember and pronounce correctly to make yourself understandable.
Annotation also that Cathay has 56 singled-out ethnic groups and more than than 200 dialects within its massive borders which include Uighurs, Tibetans, Mongols, and Koreans. So it is very, very, very probable that you will encounter regional specificities.
For Japanese, if you were told that it doesn't take intonation similar Chinese, you were lied to. Well-nigh every Japanese word has its own 発音 or intonation, when solitary, and a different i when put together with other words. The rule is pretty easy to understand once you lot get it, but you still have to remember the "tones" for every other word.
It's good to carry in mind that the way yous pronounce Japanese words won't actually affect your communication ability to the same extent that Chinese does. In Japanese, every sound is pure without whatsoever alteration based on surrounding "letters." Exceptions though are things like 新橋 which becomes shimbashi when said aloud.
And what nearly Korean? Well, information technology's non as difficult as Chinese, only you volition definitely feel more than tongue twisters than in Japanese.
Dissimilar Japanese, Korean does take the "L" sound, ㄹ, merely it tin can often come at the end of a give-and-take. It's like starting a classic "L" but stopping your tongue just before you can hear the vowel that follows. There is too something chosen double consonants ㄲ (kk), ㄸ(dd), ㅃ(bb), ㅆ(ss), and ㅉ(jj) which are harder versions of their unmarried counterparts.
In do, it goes similar this: You're at a local market and you lot desire to buy pants. Let'south take 사다 which means "to buy" and 싸다 which ways "to poop." If you're not beingness careful with your pronunciation you might end upward proverb "I want to poop my pants," instead of "I want to buy these pants."
If you're not being careful with your pronunciation yous might end upwardly saying "I want to poop my pants," instead of "I want to buy these pants."
Verdict: Japanese is the easiest to speak
Round 4: Listening
Chinese is hard to speak because of its many sounds combined with its four tones. The other manner around is besides true. Listening to Chinese is hard and when the tones are nonexistent like in songs, it'south almost incommunicable to sympathise what the person means unless y'all read the lyrics—if you can read Chinese well enough!
Japanese is comparably more understandable when listening mainly due to its total xiv basic consonants (one thousand, s, t, due north, h, m, y, r, w, g, z, d, b, and p) and five vowels (a, i, u, e and o).
Perhaps the only trouble y'all'll encounter in Japanese will be with words using "ん", northward, or the long "う", u sound. For instance, 禁煙 , "non-smoking" and 近年 , "recently" or the stardom betwixt a "infirmary,"病院 and a "hair salon,"美容院 .
Following the previous signal about speaking, you lot will find many diphthongs, homophones and subtle sounds in the Korean linguistic communication. The primal is to get used to those new sounds, and I must admit K-dramas and 1000-pop music was a big assist for me merely I still have difficulties producing 송 , 승 and 성 .
The four tones of Chinese are crucial for listening to the linguistic communication calculation a level of difficulty on superlative of the new sounds. With many vowels being close to each other in the Korean language, the pure syllabic sounds of the Japanese language means it wins this round. Is it time to head over to your nearest karaoke to practise? Yep!
Verdict: Japanese is easiest to listen to
Round 5: Grammer
The Chinese grammar system is very similar to Western languages equally it'due south built around a field of study + verb + object structure. And guess what? No conjunctions! The past tense is just one character, 了 . If you already have a fourth dimension indicator give-and-take, like 昨天 or "yesterday," yous don't even need 了 . #dealwithit
The Chinese grammar organisation is very similar to Western languages as it's built around a subject + verb + object structure.
In that location is a dissimilar counter for different objects, but you don't have particles to indicate the subject or the direction like in Japanese or Korean. Such particle concepts can be very confusing for foreigners every bit there's nothing like in virtually Romance and Germanic languages.
In Japanese, depending on which particles you lot choose, the word preceding information technology will have diverse meanings and functions. 海が , 海を or 海に uses the word 海 , the sea, but が volition indicate the subject field of the action, を will exist for the object or the activeness and に will exist the location or the direction of an activity.
That said, if y'all already know some grammar in one language, learning the others should come more smoothly. For me, grammer books in English language for the Korean language similar Talk to Me in Korean were OK, only I constitute that Korean learning books in Japanese were much more effective for re-learning grammar concepts I'd already grasped in Japanese.
Apropos the verb conjugation, Japanese and Korean both have honorific differences and stems when conjugating verbs, but I found the latter much more difficult every bit conjugation rules are influenced past how the give-and-take is written.
For example, in Korean, 마시다 is the dictionary course of "to drink," merely like 飲む in Japanese. Where in Japanese you can use the dictionary form equally it is like 水を飲む ("[I] beverage water"), you can't in Korean. You have to conjugate information technology.
In the case 마시다 , the last letter of the stem 마시 is the vowel "i" so y'all need to add 어 . This is optional here just yous can also add 요 , the polite particle. At that place is a vowel wrinkle when you lot try to put 시 , and 어 together, resulting in the final verb looking like this:마셔요 . Congratulations, you just conjugated the verb "to drinkable" in the declarative nowadays polite grade!
The aforementioned affair happens with most particles such equally 을 /를 , and the を particle in Japanese (the object particle). In the instance, "I potable water,"물 is water. 을 is used only when the discussion before ends with a consonant and 를 when the word ends with a vowel. The terminal letter of 물 is ㄹ (l), a consonant, therefore y'all'll use 을 . The final sentence is 물을 마셔요 .
It's pretty hard at the start to call up outset about how the word is written to be able to put together a sentence or conjugate a verb, just it will come naturally with plenty of practice.
Korean tenses include the hereafter tense, which is non the case for Japanese. They both have unlike levels of politeness in the verb conjugation, which is absent from the Chinese language.
The familiar grammar structure Chinese has makes it easier for united states of america Indo-European language-speakers to understand.
A win for Chinese in the concluding circular!
Verdict: Chinese has the easiest grammar
The upshot?
I regret zippo.
Chinese introduced me to ane of the most difficult aspects of Asian languages: Kanji characters, their writing, composition, and meaning. Learning this pretty early gave me a skillful head offset when I began my Japanese major. On the other hand, studying Japanese helped me a lot with getting a job in Japan and with learning Korean grammar.
Which is the easiest to learn IMO? Information technology actually depends on the particular skill y'all're tackling and what you personally discover stimulating to learn.
I tin can definitely say that there are real benefits to learning Chinese, Japanese and Korean (at the same time, or separately!) and that the languages complement each other actually well. So if you lot're stuck deciding between them, know that you're non actually express to just one throughout the course of your learning.
Of course, here at GaijinPot, nosotros specialize in studying Japanese right hither in Japan. You tin can explore more beneath:
- Learn Japanese with our original study materials on GaijinPot Study
- Questions most studying Japanese in Japan? Accept a look at the Japan 101 section on College Education and Studying Japanese
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- Learn more most the GaijinPot Study Placement Programme
Source: https://blog.gaijinpot.com/japanese-korean-chinese-which-language-is-the-easiest-to-learn/
Posted by: williamsthoom1977.blogspot.com
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