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.
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.
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.
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. Japanese has 46 letters in its alphabet. Meanwhile, Korean only has 24.
FAQs. Which language is easier to learn– Korean or Japanese? Korean is considered to be much easier than Japanese. There are more letters in the Japanese alphabet than in Korean. Japanese also contains more complicated Chinese characters and difficult grammar.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
One of the biggest challenges of learning Chinese is mastering the pronunciation. Unlike English, Chinese is a tonal language, which means that the meaning of a word can change depending on the tone used to pronounce it. Chinese has four main tones: flat, rising, falling then rising, and falling.
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.
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 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.
It takes about 4-7 years (roughly 2200 to 4000 hours) to become fluent in every aspect of the language, if you spend at least an hour and a half to study every day. However, it's quite common for learners to become more fluent in some areas than others depending on how they allotted their study time.
The languages that takes the number 1 place in our list and therefore, the most spoken first language in the world is, by far, Mandarin Chinese. Mandarin is only one of the many Chinese dialects spoken in China. However, it is officially considered the Official Language of the People's Republic of China.
According to the Engco Forecasting Model explained above, the 5 most spoken languages in 2050 will be Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi and Arabic. The key drivers behind the continued rise in popularity of these languages include population growth, economic predictions and national language policy.
Mandarin language, also called Northern Chinese, Chinese (Pinyin) Guanhua (“Officials' Language”), or (Wade-Giles romanization) Kuan-hua, the most widely spoken form of Chinese.
How long does it take to learn a language like Korean? It takes three months (90 days) to learn enough Korean to have a 3-minute conversation in Korean if you study for 7-10 hours per week. After one year of studying at this pace, you can become conversationally fluent.
In short, yes, you can learn Korean in a year. However, the effort involved is significant. You would need to study 40 to 45 hours a week – that's roughly 6 hours a day – to reach fluency in Korean. That's intense, even for someone with no job or other responsibilities!
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.