Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cert43]

I tink if you're keen on learning one, then Japanese is the easiest..(

[World Traveler]

[rchristo10]

OP is trolling people.

It's impossible to judge the overall difficulty of languages at the beginner and intermediate levels; there are simply too many external factors to consider (native language, birth place, age, personality, even race...the list could go for pages).

I think that a comparison at the advanced level is how most studies assess the difficulty of these languages, thus making Chinese the hardest.

My comments are on the advanced level--i.e. near fluent level. At that level, you realize that Korean is easiest of them all. The "dialects" and slangs of Korea are more standardized (for lack of a better term) than any of the other three languages. I don't mean to belittle Korean. In fact, I think it's amazing and also believe that their overwhelming pressure on one another to pronounce, say, and write things "correctly" in almost robotic/ tag-team fashion has done a great job of keeping the language relatively consistent (in comparison to the other three proposed). I always giggle at how fast my Koreans will correct other Koreans whenever one happens to slip up mid-conversation. Although, I've seen this habit erupt into fist fights between Chinese-Koreans and Koreans in China. Koreans seem to jump on mistakes by non-natives whenever they visit and speak Korean to Korean-speakers in China. "랭면? oh you mean, 냉면!?"

[World Traveler]

[nate1983]

[Privateer]

[Privateer]

[rchristo10]

[World Traveler]

Look at the official source (page 52). It shows Korean as the most difficult language they teach, even more difficult than Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, or Japanese.

http://fsitraining.state.gov/training/Language%20Continuum.pdf

[happiness]

Ill drop this in.....i speak korean and japanese at a med or maybe hi intermediate level, never been tested, dont care to, but ive used and use both for business, and Ill say it...im struggling...I dont like to speak Korean, because I dont enjoy it, but I do enjoy Japanese. I have a feeling it maybe the people Im speaking to.

korean just seems to turn me into something different. maybe its all the confucian rules of ettiquette and such. not sure

im struggling with it for my sense of self. but i have made a great living by it, so...

[littlelisa]

The answer depends on why you are learning them.

If you are just interested in learning two as a random number applied to random languages, then learn Korean and Japanese as they are the most closely related and you'll be able to use what you know in one to help you in the other.

If you are looking for usefulness, I say the language of where you currently live/are likely to be living in the most. If that is only one place and not two, I'd add Mandarin.

Cantonese is likely to be hardest of them all plus have the fewest resources for learning, and most native speakers will speak some Mandarin anyway.

Just learn whatever is around you and worry about the rest of them later.

From my perspective, Mandarin was easier to learn at the beginning, but is likely much harder when you get very proficient. Also, the writing system is harder to learn, but I bet you knew that already. The plus side, is knowing a lot of Chinese vocabulary plus the characters gives you a big help with Korean vocab if you know some of the hanja. No experience learning Japanese or Cantonese.