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.
Japanese vs Korean vs Chinese // FAQ's
Korean and Japanese are at the top of the “most difficult” level – with Japanese having just a small edge on Korean for it's use of 2 alphabetic structures and use of kanji – Chinese characters (in total 3 alphabets essentially) instead of just one alphabet like in Korean.
Korean is thus the easiest language of these three to learn how to read and write, for which learners of the language will be grateful! What is not so easy is the grammar or pronunciation.
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.
Unlike other East-Asian languages, Korean isn't a tonal language. This means, that the meaning of the word doesn't change, regardless of what your accent is like. This makes learning Korean much easier than Japanese.
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.
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.
Mandarin Chinese
Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the writing system is extremely difficult for English speakers (and anyone else) accustomed to the Latin alphabet.
More than 60% of Korean vocabulary comes from Chinese, and in everyday speech, there are even more common words, called hanja. Korean, like Chinese, consists of short and long vowels. Learning tones is easy because Korean is also a tonal language.
A more detailed analysis using 65 alleles at 19 polymorphic loci was performed on six populations. Both analyses demonstrated genetic evidence of the origin of Koreans from the central Asian Mongolians. Further, the Koreans are more closely related to the Japanese and quite distant from the Chinese.
According to FSI, the Foreign Service Institute, Vietnamese is categorized as Category IV of languages. The difficulty is just below learning Arabic, Korean, and Mandarin Chinese. It normally takes 44 weeks or 1100 class hours to reach fluency.
As we've already mentioned, Japanese is considered the fastest language in the world. It is always mentioned as the first on the list. So, here are 6 of the fastest spoken languages in the world, based on the average number of syllables spoken per second (SPS): Japanese - 7.84 SPS.
Is Vietnamese Harder Than Japanese? The Japanese language is considered a super-hard language to learn, according to the FSI. The Japanese writing system comprises three systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. This makes Japanese writing is harder than Vietnamese because there is only one Vietnamese alphabet.
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?
The writing system is incredibly logical
Because the alphabet didn't naturally evolve but was explicitly created by King Sejong, it functions quite differently from many other languages. The ease and logic behind learning the basics of writing and reading make Korean a language worth learning.
Which means, it's one of the hardest languages to master. They estimate 2200 hours of study before you can reach fluency in Korean. Or 88 weeks of extremely intense study. But if you want a more accurate estimate of how long it will take you to learn Korean, you need to go deeper than the FSI estimate.
While the similarities between the two languages are noticeable, Chinese and Korean aren't mutually intelligible. Korean and Chinese people couldn't understand each other if they only used their native language in a conversation. That's because they're from different language families.
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.
Mandarin. English is taught in Chinese schools, so most Mandarin speakers are familiar with English and the Latin script that makes up the English alphabet. Languages that don't use a Latin script, though, tend to give Mandarin speakers the most trouble. Arabic is a language most Mandarin speakers will find challenging ...
2. Arabic. Arabic is the queen of poetic languages, the 6th official language of the UN and second on our list of toughest languages to learn.
If you want to learn a language for business or travel, then Japanese is probably the better choice. However, if you're interested in Korean pop culture or want to be able to communicate with family or friends who speak Korean, then learning Korean would be a better option.
Anime is a form of Japanese animation whose origins go back before the 1920s. Later, before and during World War II, many organizations for artists and cartoonists were established.
Korean dishes use more meat. Japanese food also tends to use less sugar. However that isn't to say that Korean food isn't healthy — it's brimming with colourful fruit and vegetables — like any country's cuisine, there are healthy options to choose from.