The US government classifies both of
them as languages which are very difficult to learn, based on how many hours it
takes a native English speaker to gain fluency. How does Hangul stand up
against Hiragana and Kanji? I'm going to cover some of that in this post.
Since
I have been studying them both for a time I can say this out of experience. If
you start with Japanese later on Korean will be more easy and I think it's the
same vice versa. I will introduce both of the writing systems to you.
Korean;
Hangul
consists of 14 consonants and 10 vowels which are all combined in syllable
blocks. As an example 한글
(hangul) is divided into two syllable blocks. The first one is divided into
three letters; ㅎ
'h' + ㅏ 'a' + ㄴ 'n' which spell 한 'han'. The second block 글 'gul' also consists of three letters; ㄱ 'g' + ㅡ 'u' + ㄹ 'l'.
I can say for sure Korean is more difficult in terms of pronunciation. For example the use of 'ㅂandㄱ.
'ㄱ' or 'ㅋ' is pronounced as 'ㅇ'(ng), when the latter word is started
by 'ㄴ,ㄹ,ㅁ'
'ㄱ' is pronounced as 'ㅋ'(K) when the latter started by 'ㅎ',
'ㅂ' is pronounced as 'ㅁ'(m), when the latter started by 'ㅇ', and the latter is a compound word.
'ㅂ' or 'ㅍ' is pronounced as 'ㅁ'(m), when the latter word is started
by 'ㄴ,ㄹ,ㅁ'
'ㅂ' is pronounced as 'ㅍ'(p), when the latter started by 'ㅎ
But, you only have to memorize 24 characters. How great does that sound compared to the Japanese writing system which has three alphabets!
Japanese;
The
Japanese writing system can be divided into three 'alphabets'
-Hiragana
ひらがな
-Katakana カタカナ
-Kanji
漢字
When I studied Japanese I always explained the Japanese writing system simply like this.
Kanji
is based on the Chinese Hanzi characters and is used for nouns. This means
every Kanji character has a own meaning and even multiple meanings sometimes.
Katakana is used for foreign words adapted in Japanese like ラジオ which is the
Japanese word for radio and is pronounced as 'rajio'. Hiragana is used for
everything else, for example particles like の.
These
three alphabets can be combined in one sentence. I will give you an
example again;
私のラジオ = (watashi no rajio) = My radio
Kanji
= 私 (watashi) = I
Hiragana
= の (no) = states possesion
Katakana
= ラジオ(rajio) = radio
As
you can see I used all three alphabets in one sentence. Also 私
means ' I ' but together with の it becomes ' my ' . I think this is
what makes the Japanese writing system beautiful but also shows how difficult
it can be.
There are a lot of particles like の and if you don't understand the particles, making sentences can be really difficult.
In
comparison to Korean particles I think Japanese has the advantage in easiness.
While in Japanese the particle ' は ' is only written as this, in Korean
you have to choose between ' 은 ' or ' 는'
. For the character ' を ' it can be either ' 을 '
or ' 를'
Conclusion;
I
think they are both equal in terms of difficulty. The downside on Korean is
mostly pronunciation and the difficulty of the particles. The upside is you do
not have to learn any Chinese characters. Many people say you can master Hangul
in a week, I only agree to this concerning the writing part for the
pronunciation you need a lot more time.
Then
the downside to Japanese is of course learning all the Kanji. Again I hear a
lot of people who say the Japanese pronunciation is really easy. I also read
this everywhere and I really have to disagree. One of the things I thought was
really important while learning Japanese was perfecting my pronunciation. I
have seen so many people who studied Japanese for many years and even if you blindfolded
me I could hear their pronunciation was not good.
You
should not take both of them lightly but it's very rewarding speaking either
one of these languages.
I wish you a lot of luck.
~Mei
mei
