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. Or 88 weeks of extremely intense study.
"HOW TO LEARN KOREAN IN 30 DAYS" aims at being the fastest and most enjoyable method to learn Korean. The purpose is to study one chapter a day, for a total of 30 days. Every chapter starts from a cultural anecdote, slowly approaching a grammar rule, some words and many exercises to test yourself.
You Can Do It!
While it may not be possible to become fluent in Korean in just 10 days, it IS possible to learn the basics of speaking in a short period of time and move on to becoming fluent. Don't be discouraged. You can and will learn Korean much faster than you expect.
Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
Try to adjust your schedule as you go, and if things get difficult or you're too busy, focus on getting at least 15 to 20 minutes every day. If you're learning Korean full-time, aim for 4–7 hours a day.
To summarize, if you do not have high expectations and only aim to study and practice some words and phrases, Duolingo is fine. Beyond, try other resources like teachers, books, video lessons, and Korean language learning podcasts, to name a few.
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.
If you compare both languages, you will notice that both of them are equally challenging. The Korean language's writing systems are hard to learn, whereas the Japanese alphabet is complex to understand. 40 Alphabets, which makes creating and understanding sentences easier. Easier as the writing system is more simple.
It takes about three months or 90 days to learn enough Korean to have at least 3-minute conversations in Korean if you study for 7 to 10 hours per week. Moreover, after one year of looking at this pace, you will become fluent and comfortable with Korean conversation.
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.
In Hangul, it's always considered a vowel. The Y sound, however, doesn't have its own symbol. Instead, it always accompanies one of 6 fellow vowels. This is shown by adding an extra line to the original written vowel. ㅏ(a) becomes ㅑ(ya), ㅜ(u) becomes ㅠ(yu), ㅐ(ae) becomesㅒ(yae) and so on.
They have a private tutor who's sole job is to get them fluent. That being said the successful fluent stars you see most likely were chosen because of their fluency level while the ones who were unable to learn or become fluent probably didn't make it in the end and never debuted.
Generally speaking, we might assert that Korean is easier for an English speaker to learn than Mandarin Chinese. But this is very relative. In fact, the US Foreign Service Institute assigns Mandarin Chinese and Korean the same level of difficulty. Both languages are in “Category Four”.
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.
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 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.
Jimin and Jungkook were born and raised in Busan, so they speak the Busan dialect. Suga and V grew up with the Daegu dialect. J-Hope was raised in Gwangju, and his dialect is Jeolla. Finally, Rap Mon and Jin are both from Seoul.
In fact, I'd put it as one of the hardest languages I've learned. Despite Korean being fairly early to learn how to read, I'd say Korean is quite hard to learn (a 4/5 in difficulty) — harder to get to fluency for an English speaker than French or German, but easier than Chinese or Arabic.
Koreans don't distinguish among breakfast, lunch, or dinner, so it's not unusual to eat rice three times a day. In addition to individual bowls of rice, you may get a single serving of soup. Hot pots (jjigae or jungol), which are thicker and saltier, are set in the middle of the table for everyone to share.
About shower, I and my family take it everyday. In summer, sometimes more than twice a day due to extreme heat and humidity. But as far as I heard ever, some people don't shower even once in a week, especially some men. They're said to be smelly all over their bodies.