Learning Korean?

Yes I know this is a Japanese forum , but since the Jpn and Kor languages are so linguistically similar, I wonder if anyone here is studying (or had been studying) Korean as well. I find the similarities between the 2 languages to be very astounding.

After studying Japanese for a long time, don't you guys want to seek a breather sometime by learning another language instead? Just a thought.

nhk9 said:

Yes I know this is a Japanese forum , but since the Jpn and Kor languages are so linguistically similar, I wonder if anyone here is studying (or had been studying) Korean as well. I find the similarities between the 2 languages to be very astounding.
After studying Japanese for a long time, don't you guys want to seek a breather sometime by learning another language instead? Just a thought.

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Hello Nhk...

Currently I am struggling with the Japanese language... and it seems that that will be so for the following few years...

However, as you say, Korean is very similar to Japanese (I don't know how much, but seems its closest relative) and knowing something of the increadibly clever and logical "Hangul" writing system have been in my mind for some time.

Yes... after reaching an acceptable level in the Japanese language, I plan to study Korean...

Regards.

Two days ago I started learning Chinese for about the tenth time, but I think I'm going to stick with it this time. I've put so much work into learning kanji, and learning another kanji language would give me twice the rewards for my hard work.

I found a live stream of a Taiwanese TV station that has almost everything subtitled in Chinese, so it's easy to follow along with what's being said. The programming doesn't have much variety (they play some shows several times a day), but it's a real gold mine.

I mostly agree about Chinese; the only things that get me are learning even more readings with completely different pronunciations (as in sounds that aren't in Japanese) and the tones, aside from using them differently (sometimes they're the reverse of the Japanese words, etc.).

As far as Korean goes, I can read hangul, so I started reading some Korean pages for practice a few weeks ago, but I found that when I went back to Japanese it took me a while to get what I was looking at. I guess that would go away the more I did it, but I got tired of trying to sift through all that hangul. Of course, if I don't keep it up there's no way I'll ever be able to read it at a decent speed, but anyway...

It is nice that lots of times you can just take a Japanese phrase and map it onto Korean and have a perfectly grammatically acceptable and natural sentence, but Korean verb inflection seems to be more complicated, and so does the honorific system. From what I remember kinship terms are more complex, because not only is it dependent on the age and sex of the referent, but also the sex of the speaker, so that I would use a different word for my older sister than my sister who's also younger than her would.

One noticeable difference between the two languages, though, is that in Korean people you meet and vehicles you board/enter/etc. are marked with 를, which in Japanese is を. That is, *人を会う and *電車を乗る are the grammatical Korean forms of 人に会う and 電車に乗る (except they're in Korean, of course).

Glenn said:

I mostly agree about Chinese; the only things that get me are learning even more readings with completely different pronunciations (as in sounds that aren't in Japanese) and the tones, aside from using them differently (sometimes they're the reverse of the Japanese words, etc.).

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The Chinese pronunciation system itself is a huge challenge for me. It's the main reason I've given up so many times. So many Japanese kanji have multiple readings and meanings that learning extra ones as they pertain to Chinese doesn't seem that hard. And being accustomed to so many characters makes it relatively easy to pick up new ones and variant forms, but what really gets me is the tones, an additional bit of information that I am not used to remembering (or pronouncing, for that matter).

After studying Japanese for a long time, don't you guys want to seek a breather sometime by learning another language instead? Just a thought.

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I would only do a partial course of study if I had to for business, travel or relationship or was in a field of linguistics that it was important to have a comparative perspective. I simply don't see the point in wanting to dabble in a language unless you were bored or had become dissatisfied with your current choice. But that's just me. Of course Japanese is ideal for self-study because of the ease of pronunciation and transfering structures between sentences (no concern with masculine/feminine, singular/plural etc) and most others require much more investment to reach proficiency.. I still may try for it in Spanish someday, though, when my Japanese is at a more comfortable level -- just because I have the bare bones understanding already and it would mean a true break in intensity level.

JimmySeal said:

The Chinese pronunciation system itself is a huge challenge for me. It's the main reason I've given up so many times. So many Japanese kanji have multiple readings and meanings that learning extra ones as they pertain to Chinese doesn't seem that hard. And being accustomed to so many characters makes it relatively easy to pick up new ones and variant forms, but what really gets me is the tones, an additional bit of information that I am not used to remembering (or pronouncing, for that matter).

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Getting used to the four tones (or five if you count the silent one) is indeed one of the hardest aspects of Mandarin Chinese. And since the language is a tonal one, it is absolutely crucial to communication as there are numerous characters with identical pronunciation, with meanings only separated by the difference in tones. To make things worse, there are also many characters with both identical pronunciation and tones. Context is usually not enough to deduce the meaning unlike Japanese, which is not tone-dependent. A well-known example in Mandarin is that a slip in a single tone can convert a phrase from 'Can I ask you?' into 'Can I kiss you?' in meaning.

There is, however, pinyin as a guide for both pronunciation and tones. But to most people, the system is inadequate for picking up tones, resulting in an incoherent mess. I can only say that total immersion/living in China or Taiwan is probably the only way possible to pick up the tones properly. It certainly was the case for me and it wasn't a quick process either within the immersion environment. One would have thought being in Hong Kong would be adequate seeing that China is literally next door.

Writing is a completely different story, and to me, that was even harder than the tones. Kanji aside, it's because of the overwhelming expressiveness of the language and the grammar being highly flexible, i.e. there are a million ways of saying the same thing. For instance, three variants of a single phrase in Chinese can only be translated to an exact same phrase in Japanese.

The following is quite an informative yet witty guide to the difficult aspects: Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard

Ah, I read that article a while ago, and now I find myself enjoying it more the second time through.

Glenn said:

It is nice that lots of times you can just take a Japanese phrase and map it onto Korean and have a perfectly grammatically acceptable and natural sentence, but Korean verb inflection seems to be more complicated, and so does the honorific system. From what I remember kinship terms are more complex, because not only is it dependent on the age and sex of the referent, but also the sex of the speaker, so that I would use a different word for my older sister than my sister who's also younger than her would.

One noticeable difference between the two languages, though, is that in Korean people you meet and vehicles you board/enter/etc. are marked with 를, which in Japanese is 窶堙ｰ. That is, *ﾂ人窶堙ｰ窶ｰﾃｯ窶堋､ and *窶彭ﾅｽﾃ披?堙ｰﾂ湘ｦ窶堙ｩ are the grammatical Korean forms of ﾂ人窶堙俄?ｰﾃｯ窶堋､ and 窶彭ﾅｽﾃ披?堙可湘ｦ窶堙ｩ (except they're in Korean, of course).

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The grammatical structures of the two languages are so similar to the point that it becomes tempting for a learner to want to learn both at the same time.

Pronunciation in Korean is definitely a challenge, since quite a few sounds are similar to each other. Without a native speaker's help it is virtually impossible to learn how to speak like a native. But the killer in learning Korean is probably the fact that many grammatical expressions are reserved for either action verbs (like verbs in japanese) or descriptive verbs (like keiyoudoushi in Japanese). There is virtually no way of systematically telling which type of verbs can go with which expression, except by rote memorization.

JimmySeal said:

Two days ago I started learning Chinese for about the tenth time, but I think I'm going to stick with it this time. I've put so much work into learning kanji, and learning another kanji language would give me twice the rewards for my hard work.

I found a live stream of a Taiwanese TV station that has almost everything subtitled in Chinese, so it's easy to follow along with what's being said. The programming doesn't have much variety (they play some shows several times a day), but it's a real gold mine.

Click to expand...

Taiwanese shows use Mandarin that is quite different from the one used in Mainland, but you probably might know this already. Taiwanese TV's Mandarin tend to be quite flat in pitch, not to mention that it is known for some variation in pinyin (eg. shi -> si)... Most Mainland Chinese dramas/news have subtitles so you might be able to learn via those sources as well... that is, if you are willing to listen to propagandistic broadcasts of PRC president hu jintao's latest news at the beginning of every news broadcast...

nhk9 said:

Yes I know this is a Japanese forum , but since the Jpn and Kor languages are so linguistically similar, I wonder if anyone here is studying (or had been studying) Korean as well. I find the similarities between the 2 languages to be very astounding.
After studying Japanese for a long time, don't you guys want to seek a breather sometime by learning another language instead? Just a thought.

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Hey! I'm learning Korean along with Japanese. I know how to read Hangeul at a decent pace, it's pretty easy to read... Although, I think Japanese is easier to read... and pronunce. Korean pronunciation is confusing,but my Korean friend, Jina, says I'm doing very well and she can understadn what I'm saying ^^ I just need to buy a better book on Korean to learn more. If you're good at Japanese or you speak it, Korean grammer should come quite easily

-Tommy