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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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marsavalanche
Joined: 27 Aug 2010
Location: where pretty lies perish
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 Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 1:34 am Post subject: Easiest/Hardest out of Japanese/Korean/Mandarin/Cantonese? |
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I plan on studying (hopefully mastering) 2 or 3 of these languages in the future. For only those with experience with 2 OR MORE of these languages, where do you rank them in terms of difficulty?
Also please state the locations you were studying (ie someone studying Cantonese in Boston obviously will have more difficulty as the dude in Hong Kong practicing).
I've studied Japanese in Japan, and Korean in Korea.
I think Japanese is easy compared to Korean. Korean has the easy alphabet, but that's it. The pronunciation is a lot harder imo, and when I'm in Japan I'm able to get by with Japanese very easily as opposed to Korean where the locals barely understand anything I'm saying.
Anyone else? |
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Gorf
Joined: 25 Jun 2011
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 3:50 am Post subject: |
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Any Chinese language. Easy grammar, horrible writing system and tonal as hell. I would never waste my time with a Chinese language. Korean is probably the easiest of the group, then Japanese, then the other two.
I studied the first three in college and Mandarin was waaaay harder than the others simply because it doesn't have an alphabet. Basically unless you're raised around the language it's impossible to memorize everything. If China truly wants to be a global player something about their incredibly inefficient writing system needs to change. |
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jizza
Joined: 24 Aug 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:16 am Post subject: |
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Korean learner (in Korea) for 2 years and American-born Chinese speaker here.
All 3 languages are about the same difficulty level, that is to say, extremely difficult.
Chinese and Japanese have the hardest writing systems in my opinion, but as for speaking I don't see a difference in difficulty between the 3, although I've never studied Japanese.
Japanese and Korean both have the same grammar structure. I'm not sure there is a real difference in speaking difficulty between Japanese and Korean. You may just be imagining things. |
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isitts
Joined: 25 Dec 2008
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:45 am Post subject: |
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| jizza wrote: |
Korean learner (in Korea) for 2 years and American-born Chinese speaker here.
All 3 languages are about the same difficulty level, that is to say, extremely difficult.
Chinese and Japanese have the hardest writing systems in my opinion, but as for speaking I don't see a difference in difficulty between the 3, although I've never studied Japanese. Japanese and Korean both have the same grammar structure. I'm not sure there is a real difference in speaking difficulty between Japanese and Korean. You may just be imagining things. |
Japanese is a syllabic language and pretty monotone, making it fairly easy to speak. Their alphabets (hiragana and katakana) are easy. It's just the characters that are trickier.
Korean is vowel and consonant, and has some pretty odd combinations not present in Japanese. So while Korean is not too difficult to speak, it's still harder than Japanese.
Chinese is in a category separate from Japanese and Korean as far as difficulty goes because of both the writing system and the tones (in every syllable you utter). Add to that the Chinese characters and regional dialects, and you have a language much harder than Japanese or Korean.
Last edited by isitts on Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:59 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:58 am Post subject: |
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I have studied many languages to varying degrees of fluency. French, Spanish, Swedish,
Japanese, and Mandarin I have all become fairly competent in. Nothing, however,
prepared me for the enigma that is Korean. |
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=28128&PN=1
| Quote: |
The various verb and noun endings seem almost infinite, the combinations numbering in
the hundreds, if not thousands, but this is not the reason why Korean is hard. The
sentences are backwards, but this not the reason why Korean is hard. There are a
minimum of two words for every meaning, native Korean and Sino-Korean, oftentimes many
more than two, and using the wrong one at the wrong time will not result in awkward
speech like mixing an Anglo-Saxon or Latin-based word in English, but rather, complete
incomprehension; but even this is not the reason why I find Korean so hard.
After months of thinking about it, the reason why I find Korean so difficult is not the
complex grammar or the massive list of vocabulary -- it is how Korean is spoken.
I cannot identify word boundaries. This is a subtle point that most language learners
overlook because it comes to us naturally. "Je m'appelle Francois", to hear this spoken
in French is not difficult. Even a man who knows no French can hear the word
boundaries, and by that, I mean, even if he does not know what "je" or "m'appelle"
means, he can identify them as words.
With Korean, however, words blend into one another and sounds, very important sounds,
get stifled under the breath of speakers who can mysteriously hear through all the
mumbling. I have listened to hundreds upon hundreds of hours of Korean radio.
Literally, I am not exaggerating this claim one bit. I have been listening to Korean
news radio nearly everyday for three or four years. And even after all that time and
effort I still can only make out a few words per day. That's right, a few words. Not
sentences, not excerpts: mere words. I have listened to Japanese and Mandarin news
radio for a fraction of that amount and can occasionally pick out sentences and can get
the gist of what is being said overall. Not so with Korean. With Korean, I am almost as
clueless as the day I started learning the language, so many years ago. |
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rchristo10
Joined: 14 Jul 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:58 am Post subject: |
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Don't know what you mean by "master"...but I am near fluent in the first three and learned each in the countries of origin (JLPT lvl 1; KLPT 6; HSK 10--old test; HSK 6--new test). I'd have to say that the 4th Cantonese is the most difficult. Whereas Mandarin has 4 tones, Cantonese as 8. And the more difficult problem is that Cantonese has few to any references for study.
In my opinion, the only way to learn Cantonese is via immersion. |
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Bruce W Sims
Joined: 08 Mar 2011
Location: Illinois; USA
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 7:42 am Post subject: |
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Nottaproblem.
Last edited by Bruce W Sims on Sun Jul 10, 2011 8:50 am; edited 1 time in total |
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marsavalanche
Joined: 27 Aug 2010
Location: where pretty lies perish
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 8:30 am Post subject: |
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| Really good replies everyone, keep them coming (except the troll bruce, who has never spent a day in Korea and probably Asia for that matter--sorry buddy, my thread, my rules). |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 8:50 am Post subject: |
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| Personally, I wouldn't study Cantonese, as most speakers of Cantonese also know Mandarin. (The number to whom this applies is continually increasing.) Mandarin is growing in importance, while Cantonese is declining in importance. Ask yourself how many people know Cantonese, but not Mandarin or English vs how many people know Mandarin but not Cantonese or English. (Also, like Korean, Cantonese is only spoken by 1% of the world's population.) |
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rchristo10
Joined: 14 Jul 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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| World Traveler wrote: |
| Quote: |
I have studied many languages to varying degrees of fluency. French, Spanish, Swedish,
Japanese, and Mandarin I have all become fairly competent in. Nothing, however,
prepared me for the enigma that is Korean. |
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=28128&PN=1
| Quote: |
The various verb and noun endings seem almost infinite, the combinations numbering in
the hundreds, if not thousands, but this is not the reason why Korean is hard. The
sentences are backwards, but this not the reason why Korean is hard. There are a
minimum of two words for every meaning, native Korean and Sino-Korean, oftentimes many
more than two, and using the wrong one at the wrong time will not result in awkward
speech like mixing an Anglo-Saxon or Latin-based word in English, but rather, complete
incomprehension; but even this is not the reason why I find Korean so hard.
After months of thinking about it, the reason why I find Korean so difficult is not the
complex grammar or the massive list of vocabulary -- it is how Korean is spoken.
I cannot identify word boundaries. This is a subtle point that most language learners
overlook because it comes to us naturally. "Je m'appelle Francois", to hear this spoken
in French is not difficult. Even a man who knows no French can hear the word
boundaries, and by that, I mean, even if he does not know what "je" or "m'appelle"
means, he can identify them as words.
With Korean, however, words blend into one another and sounds, very important sounds,
get stifled under the breath of speakers who can mysteriously hear through all the
mumbling. I have listened to hundreds upon hundreds of hours of Korean radio.
Literally, I am not exaggerating this claim one bit. I have been listening to Korean
news radio nearly everyday for three or four years. And even after all that time and
effort I still can only make out a few words per day. That's right, a few words. Not
sentences, not excerpts: mere words. I have listened to Japanese and Mandarin news
radio for a fraction of that amount and can occasionally pick out sentences and can get
the gist of what is being said overall. Not so with Korean. With Korean, I am almost as
clueless as the day I started learning the language, so many years ago. |
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Sounds like s/he should learn the Korean alphabet properly. It's sad to see that after three or four years s/he hasn't figure that out. Once you learn the alphabet *properly* that slurring/ blurring/ nauseous guttural feeling goes away.
This is the first time I've ever seen a 4-year long, sad excuse for why Korean is difficult. 
Korean is a sound based language, but if you count up the different sounds the number of different pronunciations pales in comparison to most other languages' (for Korean, it's pretty much a permutation based on the number of alphabets); there are few exceptions to the rule (as in the "o" change in the word "woman" v. "women"...or the silent "t" in "often") and the language is pretty "scientific" as the media likes to claim. And the French comparison is utter BS considering that the person is using a contracted verb with a reflective pronoun, "m'appelle." I wonder how s/he was able to hear the "boundaries." And what of the various letters at the end of French words that don't have pronunciations at all or the infamous "h?" Did this take another 4 or 8 years to work out? Korean has no such contractions, so how is French's "boundaries" easier to distinguish from Korean's?
Perhaps if the guy/gal sat down with a book in hand and a determination to learn, s/he'd realize that language is not as complex as most presume. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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Korean takes FOREVER to master. Trust me. I have been learning it for over four years, including three years of my adult life in Korea. I graduated from Yonsei University Korean Language Institute. The problem is that you have to master literally tens of thousands of Chinese-derived vocabulary words and native Korean words to understand 95%+. I know about 6,000 words personally, and in many newspaper articles in the Joseon Ilbo, that�s only like 80% comprehension. Pretty piss poor. It�s only enough to read easy newspapers like Morning Revolution without a dictionary � anything harder than No Cut News, Morning Revolution, or *MAYBE* Hankyoreh, and I need a dictionary.
I have had about 1,400 hours of classroom Korean, lived with Koreans, worked in non-English-teaching jobs in Korea, and had numerous Korean-only girlfriends. However, the sum of all my work was a mere KLPT Level 5 (advanced-low, 6,000 words, thereabouts).
What I�m saying is that Korean is a killer language in terms of difficulty and people who weren�t raised around it are 99% likely never to become fluent. The only way to become fluent is to live in Korea for many years (Falcon said seven, and that�s a good estimate), and know about 20,000 vocabulary words (I�d say it�s 25,000+, but Falcon was in the right ballpark).
Not only do you need to know words, but there are so many nuances and collocations you can only learn through exposure. I frequently have the problem where I watch a TV show and understand relatively little, but look at Korean captions and realize I knew all the words, just couldn�t understand them when they were spoken. Korean is a bitch to comprehend if you weren�t brought up around it.
If you want to turbo-charge your Korean, move to Korea, study it intensively, get a job that puts you in a Korean office (NOT English teaching), cram ten words a day for the next five years, and then maybe you�ll be fluent. You must be very extroverted. I am an introverted guy, and know full well that this hampered my progress beyond a certain point. |
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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@World Traveller
I guess the problem is how you define fluency I mean if you know 6,000 words and are able to understand 80% of the Chosun Ilbo without a dictionary then I would say you have a functional fluency. You probably couldn't critique confucianism in Korean but you would have the language skills to eventually understand any text presented to you.
The OP talked about learning multiple languages and so knowing 20,000 words in any one langauge is probably not the aim. Functional fluency sounds closer to he mark.
You would be able to become fluent in any language on the planet
as long as you can live in country for an extended period of time. Ideally either learning the language exclusively or in a work environment where you use it every day. |
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joelove
Joined: 12 May 2011
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:45 pm Post subject: |
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| No idea. I believe there's a guy named "Mithridates" who sometimes posts on Dave's, who is quite the language dude. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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I speak 23 languages. Although I am not a translator, I have use for most of the 23 languages in my work. My work is very technical. I speak, read and write most of them well enough to be able to function in each of them as I would in one of my mother tongues. Every language has its own complexities, regardless of what one has as a native tongue. Different does not mean difficult. Writing a language is always more complex than speaking a language. Writing well is difficult in every language, even in one's own. Also, not every one knows their own language well.
I think that Romance languages are probably the most easy language group, French included. Scandinavian languages are also quite easy, apart pronunciation. Scandinavian languages use limited vocabularies. Japanese is also not that difficult for various reasons. It just seems exotic to people who are not from East Asia. Like in northern European countries, there is a lot of communication in Japanese that is not expressed through words. That is difficult for people who cannot understand communicating in that way.
Korean is very difficult. Thankfully the Korean alphabet is easy. Mandarin is not that difficult. Cantonese is more difficult than Mandarin, writing included. |
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jizza
Joined: 24 Aug 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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| isitts wrote: |
Then maybe you're not in a good position to comment on this. Japanese is a syllabic language and pretty monotone, making it fairly easy to speak. Their alphabets (hiragana and katakana) are easy. It's just the Chinese characters that are trickier.
Korean is vowel and consonant, and has some pretty odd combinations not present in Japanese. So while Korean is not too difficult to speak, it's still harder than Japanese.
Chinese is in a category separate from Japanese and Korean as far as difficulty goes because of both the writing system and the tones (in every syllable you utter). Add to that the regional dialects, and you have a language much harder than Japanese or Korean. So not sure how you're coming to the conclusion that they're all about the same difficulty level. |
Korean speaking is monotone. The Japanese writing system is widely-regarded as difficult, even by the Japanese. That's 2 facts wrong there.
Also, why the hell did you start this thread? It seems as if your opinions are already set.
The 3 languages are all regarded as about the same difficulty level by the FSI. I don't know if it's possible to determine which one is the most difficult.
Any discussion here is pointless. What exactly are you trying to find out? |
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