Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Marcilla]

that's complete bullshit

it took me 2 months of studying chinese just to be able to say a few ridiculously simple things "That's my thing. That's your thing. Do you want this? I don't like that." etc

granted, it's not as easy as spanish for us to learn, but it's not THAT hard

[the_beaver]

Who told you that it was the third hardest language? I'd imagine Ju�/hoansi, Ega, Narau, Finnish, and probably Japanese are harder.

But, according to the Monterey fellas (and in accordance with other opinions from the language acquisition field) Korean is a category IV language which puts it in the most difficult category along with a bunch of other languages.

[I_Am_Wrong]

Maybe, you just suck at Chinese??

People who talk about rankings and people who try to discredit rankings fall under the same pile of shit if you ask me.

Chinese is difficult, Korean is difficult. Now shut up.

[Hater Depot]

On the off chance that you are actually being serious.. you did once claim to be fluent in Japanese, yes? Perhaps that's why you find Korean easy.

[mithridates]

One thing always missing is how prevalent a language is. At least in China people who don't know the language always have the feeling in the back of their mind that "damn, 1.5 billion people speak this language and I heard it back home in Chinatown all the time, maybe I should get my ass in gear because it's pretty useful" which doesn't happen as much with Korean. In that sense Korean is harder.
Korean language textbooks are also way worse than those written for Japanese and Chinese. Add to that their slightly better English skill, visa system that doesn't allow people on E-2s to do any work on the side and maybe find a niche for themselves that they like better than teaching, and finding the motivation to learn the language is harder still.

[the saint]

[billybrobby]

click on the OPs name and then scroll through his old posts and check out how many start with "hey dOOds."

[SPINOZA]

I agree with Marcila. Korean is piss-easy to read and learning many basic phrases (doing a little more than merely getting by) in your first few months is achievable with relatively little effort. I had my hair cut yesterday. I had a chat with Ajuma about Korean, where I live, where I'm from, the weather in Korea vs where I'm from, communicated clearly what I wanted done with my hair, made a simple transaction, used all the right manners, more besides. I've been here a little over 8 months.

Obviously, conversations between Koreans totally go over my head a lot of the time, but that'd be the case with any of the easier languages after only 8 months.

In my humble opinion, these people who classify Korean in such a way have probably never lived and worked in Seoul. It's all very well sitting in an office in...where ever they are...coming up with all these trendy theories about languages. Try living in Seoul for a year or two and then come back and tell me how difficult Korean is. God I effin' hate academics.

[Gwangjuboy]

Korean is a very difficult language for English speakers to learn. Once you get past the "how are you" 'how's the weather" "i want an apple" and attempt to construct natural sounding sentences it gets very tough. Try explaining the sentence forms 무릅스고, 더니, and 봤자. Basically they are easy to translate into Engish, but making sentences that sound natural to Koreans using those forms takes a lot of time and effort.

[mithridates]

[DaeSung]

I don't make a lot of posts... but as for Korean being hard or easy I'll throw in my two cents. I guess they are saying it is "hard for the average native English speaker to learn". I personally have seen many people brag about how well they speak Korean but know very few that are that good. Basic stuff you read in a book and memorize about the weather, yeah that�s not really going to be hard in any language. Learning to read and write Korean is easy, well at least at the basic level, but writing like a Korean, or reading as well as a Korean will take you years. Most Korean people are nice about it and want to encourage people to learn more and in turn don�t really push us that hard when it comes to mistakes. If you want to understand what goes in the newspaper it'll take a dictionary to look up most of the words, or if your like me you will know two different words that mean the same thing but get tired of learning the 5th or 6th word for the same thing and just stick to the ones used most commonly. I don't want to sound like I'm being negative but I have only ever heard one or two foreigners that sound Korean when they speak and could really say that they have native speaking ability (I know there are more, but not enough to say that its an easy language. If you think Korean is easy you are either very lucky or highly unaware of your own Korean speaking ability.) I would also bet that very few Korean language students could sit through a business meeting and pick up very much. If you can you probably understand that Korean is a somewhat difficult language. Any how that�s my rant for now.

Korean is a difficult language, some parts are easy but if you want to get into a deep level of speaking, reading, understanding you will need to invest years of study and constant contact with the language for mastery or the ability to speak at a near native level.

[Zark]

For basic communication, Korea has been one of the easiest for me to learn.

I've lived/worked in Botswana, Taiwan, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Korea - and probably became more skilled in Korean than in any of the other languages where I have lived.

[Satori]

I was the one who wrote that Korean was designated as extremely hard by linguists, and obviously it irked the OP enought to start a whole thread about it, I wont go into what that says about the OP. Ive read this fact several times by different linguists, and it ties in with my own experience living in Korea 5 years and working hard on the language, which I do speak quite well, though not fluently, and really enjoy. Chinese is easier because its grammar is much closer to English, and Japanese is easier because its phonetically extremely simple, it has one of the smallest sound sets of all languages.

However, your own personal experience of whether Korean is easy or hard is not really much of a measure. Im much happier to trust a language professional who has dedicated his/her life to studying the subject.

[Hosub]

[the saint]