The truth is that Korean is one of the easiest Asian languages to learn for English speakers. Although Korean ranks as one of the most difficult languages by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), you'll feel incredible ease when it comes to learning Korean grammar compared to other “difficult” foreign languages.
Grammar can get complicated because of honorifics and speech levels since these are engrained in Korean culture. However, you don't need to spend a lot of time on them at first. Just get the basics down and note the speech levels as you go.
It wouldn't be accurate to say that Korean grammar is difficult or easy. Like many Asian languages, the grammar is quite different from English. But like the grammar of any foreign language, Korean grammar follows rules and sentence structure that makes sense. In fact, Korean grammar is pretty straightforward.
Apart from its very different grammar style from other languages, it also uses extremely foreign vocabulary. Plus, there are honorifics and delicate nuances to its conjugation. As a result, this makes it more confusing. All this takes effort, a lot of time, and patience to grasp.
Meanwhile, Korean grammar is likely the hardest, while tones in Mandarin are notoriously difficult for native English speakers to hear, and Japanese is the fastest spoken language in the world at over 7 syllables per second.
Korean vs Chinese: Which one's the easiest to learn? In conclusion, the Mandarin Chinese writing system is far more complex than its Korean counterpart. Hangul is far easier to learn than Hanzi. But, while Chinese grammar is rather predictable and stable, Korean grammar has some extra layers of difficulty.
Relatively, Korean would be an easier language to learn. Thanks to its phonetic alphabet and more simplistic grammar rules, Korean is not the most challenging Asian language to learn. Chinese on the other hand is much more widely spoken.
Korean has a lot of loan words from Chinese, and they're often the same ones that Japanese has. But the major roadblock to learning Korean words is that so many of them sound so similar to each other. And since there are no characters, it's harder to build mnemonic building blocks in your mind.
After the Hungarian grammar, the Finnish language has the most challenging grammar. It sounds and looks a bit similar to English because of its pronunciation and lettering. But the grammar makes it far more complicated than the English language.
Well, for native English speakers, Korean may be particularly challenging due to: The complexity of the Korean writing system, Hangul. The different word order in Korean compared to English. The various levels of formality in Korean that dictate which words and grammar structures are used.
How long does it take to learn Korean fluently? It will take about 1200 hours to reach a high intermediate level. You'll need additional practice, so you may want to double that number to 2400 hours to get towards fluency. That would be about 23 hours of study per week for two years.
Korean is last on our list of most difficult languages because it might not be the toughest yet it is the trickiest language with complex grammar rules, own alphabets, sentence structure, and pronunciation. Although learning Korean is on every K-Pop lovers' list these days, it is not a language you can learn easily.
The FSI puts Korean as a Category V language. Which means, it's one of the hardest languages to master. They estimate 2200 hours of study before you can reach fluency in Korean.
The Korean grammar system is very different from English, and the use of honorifics can get very confusing. Overall, it will come down to the time a beginner dedicates to their learning. With the correct dedication, Thai will be the easier language to master in a shorter amount of time.
Wrapping Up: Should I Learn Korean Or Japanese (2023)
Korean and Japanese are both similar and different from each other in certain aspects. Both languages share Chinese characters but have different pronunciations and vocabulary. It is easier for people to learn Korean if they already know Japanese and Chinese.
The Russian language is easier when you look at their writing style. On the basis of Sounds: There are more sounds in the Korean language as compared to the Russian language.
Arabic might be considered the richest language in words based on its complexity. According to The National - the United Arab Emirates' leading English-speaking news outlet - on average, a single written word in Arabic has three meanings, seven pronunciations and 12 interpretations.
1) Esperanto.
We say “artificial” because it was invented in the late 19th century to become a universal second language, in order to encourage peace and international understanding. Because of that goal, Esperanto has a simple grammar, easy rules and a lot of words that resemble words from other languages.
Well, the obvious answer is Esperanto. But in terms of natural languages, the easiest language grammatically, is also the most common language: Mandarin Chinese.
The sounds /f/, /v/, /ð/, /θ/, and /z/ do not occur in Korean. Therefore, Koreans tend to make substitutions for these sounds. For example, they might use a /s/ sound for /θ/, a /d/ sound for /ð/, a /dʒ/ sound for /z/, a /p/ sound for /f/, and a /b/ sound for /v/. especially at the beginning of words.
And it ranks as 18th in the most used languages in the world. This makes the language useful for travel, or business. If you plan on doing any sort of business in the country, you will need to know Korean.
8. How long will it take to become fluent in Korean? In general, it will take about 1200 hours to reach a higher intermediate level of Korean skills. You will need additional practice, so you may want to double that number to 2400 hours to get towards fluency using this simple math.
As such, from a reading and writing standpoint, Japanese is likely much more difficult to learn when compared to Korean simply because of its many writing systems and the fact that there are literally thousands of kanji to memorize.
Indonesian or Malay is the easiest Asian language to learn. Moreover, with 77 million speakers, it's certainly worth considering learning as the easiest Asian Language! Thus, what makes the language so simple compared to other Asian Languages?