Is Korean easier to learn than Japanese? Yes, Korean language is easier to learn than Japanese. To be able to read and write Japanese, you must memorize hiragana, katakana, and over 2000 Kanji (Chinese characters). Memorizing Japanese Kanji takes years of daily cramming.
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.
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.
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.
According to studies, Japanese is reportedly the most difficult language for native English speakers to learn. It is important to note that this study is based on ENGLISH native speakers – since your native language definitely influences how you learn other languages.
Is Japanese or Korean More Used? Japan has a larger economy and a population of 127 million people speaking the Japanese language. The combined population of North and South Korea totals about 75 million people.
Japanese is one of the most difficult languages for English natives to master. This is because it does not have a lot of likeness in structure to English. Approximately it will take 88 weeks, or 2200 hours of studying, to become fluent.
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.
Korean is a fun and relatively quick language to pick up and use. Assuming you study for 1-2 hours a day, you could be using basic Korean within a couple of months, and you could be making simple conversation within six months. Above all, it's absolutely essential to understand your goals.
Is Korean easier to learn than Japanese? Yes, Korean language is easier to learn than Japanese. To be able to read and write Japanese, you must memorize hiragana, katakana, and over 2000 Kanji (Chinese characters). Memorizing Japanese Kanji takes years of daily cramming.
However, considering the larger number of sounds and the different particles in Korean, Japanese is definitely the easier language to start in. If you're not good at distinguishing new sounds and pronunciations, you're definitely going to have a hard time with Korean.
According to a genetic distance measurements from a large scale genetic study from 2021 titled 'Genomic insights into the formation of human populations in East Asia', Koreans are genetically closest to Japanese, followed by a larger margin by Northern Han on FST genetic distance measurements.
Both Japanese and Korean languages have similarities in terms of grammar, but there's a difficulty of studying in their Vocabulary building. This analysis proves that Korean and Japanese languages are not recommendable to learn at the same time.
Conclusion. As we can see from the topics discussed above, Japanese and Korean share strong similarities in sentence structure and the use of particles. There is also some similar sounding vocabulary with the same meaning in both languages due to the historical influence of China on Japan and Korea.
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.
It's recommended that you spend an hour a day studying the Korean language to become fluent. However, keep in mind that each individual will have a different learning experience. Depending on your circumstances, it may take you less time or more time.
Duolingo's Korean course covers a good amount of basic words, which is a good starting point. But this course fails to go beyond beginner level, so users shouldn't expect to achieve high level fluency by only using this app.
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.
It is never too late to learn something! We hope to be of help in your achieving your language(Korean) goals.
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.
Con #2: Some Grammar is Not Entirely Correct.
Even though Duolingo Japanese has been released for some time now, there are some phrases that do not seem correct or sound natural. This usually happens with plurals, particles, and certain inconsistencies that happen during translation.
In fact, Japanese is one of the most difficult languages to learn for a native English speaker. If you want to speak enough Japanese to make friends in Japan and carry on simple conversations, you can master casual Japanese in under a year, especially if you are skipping over hiragana and katakana.