On the other hand, Korean pronunciation is far more predictable and straightforward than that of the Chinese language, which involves tones that affect a sentence's intention and meaning and may be hard to master. While Mandarin Chinese has four tones, dialects such as Lukang Township Taiwanese have as many as eight.
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. This means that finding study materials and practice partners would be easier.
Knowing Chinese will help you learn Korean in a few different ways, giving you maybe a 25% advantage over other Korean learners: A lot of words in Korean will sound familiar (as they come from Chinese)
Korean pronunciation is difficult. It uses sounds that are similar to English but not quite. For example, Korean has three sounds that sound like "k" but no "k" sound, and two "s" like sounds but no actual "s". It will require some time and practice to master Korean pronunciation, but it's worth it.
If you're looking for which is easier to learn between Korean or Japanese, Korean wins this round too. There are more sounds in Korean. The sounds in the Korean language (with the exception of the /z/ consonant) are a superset of the sounds in Japanese.
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 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.
When either of these is the final letter of a syllable, they are NOT pronounced as 'S. ' Instead, they are pronounced similar to a 'D' sound. The reason for this is the same as I described earlier, that is, Korean people don't allow that 'breath' of air out of their mouth on a final consonant.
Korean does not have /r/ and /l/ sounds. They have another sound, ㄹ, which seems to fall somewhere between /r/ and /l/. This causes major problems (or should I say 'plobrems'?) for both Koreans learning English and English speakers learning Korean.
Korean doesn't have V and F sounds so they tend to replace them with B and P that exist in Korean. For example, a word like 'vet' might be pronounced as 'bet', and a word like 'fine' might be pronounced as 'pine'.
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.
Korean and Chinese can't understand each other. They have a distinctive language family, Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan (also known as Trans-Himalayan family) while Korean is a Koreanic language (consisting of the modern Korean language collectively with extinct primeval relatives).
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.
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.
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.
In Korean, the “l” and “r” sounds come from the same underlying consonant ㄹ. If you put your tongue in between making an “l” and making an “r,” you're almost there.
You can hear it on the p's in the words “pat” and “pin” in English. Let's break it down with the word 가방[gabang], which means “bag.” Usually, the consonant ㄱ[giyeok] sounds like an English “g.” However, if it's at the beginning of the word, it takes on the English “k” sound; 가방[gabang].
How do I say F and V in Korean? Actually, there are no F or V sounds in Korean. In fact, there's no difference between P and F or B and V. Therefore, the P and F sounds are both pronounced as ㅍ[pieup] and B and V as ㅂ[bieup].
That said, various reasons make Korean more difficult than other languages. 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.
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.
3: DOES KOREAN SHARE SIMILARITIES WITH OTHER LANGUAGES? The Korean language belongs to the Altaic language family. It is related to Turkish, Mongolian, and Manchu (a Chinese dialect). In terms of grammar, Korean is closest to Japanese.