Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Dan]

I don't know I agree totally.

I guess if you are going for general understanding it is easier, but the subtleties in the japanese pronounciation are very difficult. I have a flawless english and korean accent (haha bragging) and I was damn close to one in Japanese, but like French I think there is a difference in hearing the small sounds that you cannot pick up unless you are trained to from an early age.

Anyone else able to notice that?

[jaebea]

I'm convinced you could use that argument for just about every language out there, but that doesn't affect the the relative difficulties in picking up certain languages.

I still rate Korean more difficult to learn, purely on a technical, speaking basis than Japanese. As for reading/writing, both are largely phonetic (characters representing specific sounds) but the use of 3 character sets in day to day Japanese raises it in the difficulty stakes.

jae.

[shawner88]

Yeah I was referring more to speaking. There seems to me a lot more hard consonants in Japanese than in Korean. I have a hard time with Korean vowels and the l/r sound. Also, the text books - 90% of them teach you in high level formality, which nobody uses unless talking to old people. And being more formal, the sentences are very long and difficult.


However, I heard Japanese has even more levels of formality?

[shawner88]

By the way, I meant to put this under general discussion. Sorry.