4 ms·

Surprised by Korean being in the hardest category - I've learnt Korean & Spanish to a similar level, and found them about the same.

anonova 9y ago
Reading Korean is surprisingly easy: http://www.ryanestrada.com/learntoreadkoreanin15minutes/ http://www.ryanestrada.com/learntoreadkoreanin15minutes/
- malloryerik 9y ago
  ㅋㅋㅋㅋ yeah, until you need to understand what you've read. Try out any newspaper. Without a day of study, you'll understand an Italian news article better than you will a Korean one after even three years of hard work.
mikesickler 9y ago
I'm guessing that for Korean it's mostly the grammar differences, honorifics, and writing system.
- DonaldFisk 9y ago
  Korean writing just looks odd, like funny Chinese characters. But it's just an alphabet with letters grouped into syllables.
- 55555 9y ago
  The writing system is extremely easy compared to Chinese and Japanese. It's just an alphabet.
- Tehnix 9y ago
  >I'm guessing that for Korean it's mostly the grammar differences, honorifics Definitely! And some other differences too. As someone living in South Korea currently, the reading/writing part is trivial, but beyond that it is a lot harder to learn (for an english speaker (although I'm danish)) than, say, French. I definitely disagree that Korean and Spanish would be considered equally hard, and know literally no one here that would say that either.
  - gpetukhov 9y ago
    Maybe that person is the speaker of Arabic. For them, Korean and Spanish should be equally distant.
malloryerik 9y ago
Korean and Spanish, the same? For me, Korean is more difficult than Japanese, though Japanese's writing system will take longer to learn because of the extensive and somewhat odd use of kanji (Chinese characters). But Japanese grammar is generally simpler than Korean's, and sounds are much easier to distinguish. I'm nearly fluent in Korean after years of effort. My Japanese far is weaker, but with far less effort put in. I'm nearly native level in French so biased, but I find Spanish to be almost effortless to learn compared to Korean or Japanese (which are actually closely related). Just, like, memorize a bit, get some simple grammatical rules down, and if you don't remember you can test out the latinate word from English. It's cognate heaven. Korean and Japanese are like from another planet, once you get past the initial hotel-and-taxi stuff.

anonova 9y ago

Reading Korean is surprisingly easy: http://www.ryanestrada.com/learntoreadkoreanin15minutes/ http://www.ryanestrada.com/learntoreadkoreanin15minutes/

malloryerik 9y ago
ㅋㅋㅋㅋ yeah, until you need to understand what you've read. Try out any newspaper. Without a day of study, you'll understand an Italian news article better than you will a Korean one after even three years of hard work.

mikesickler 9y ago

I'm guessing that for Korean it's mostly the grammar differences, honorifics, and writing system.

DonaldFisk 9y ago
Korean writing just looks odd, like funny Chinese characters. But it's just an alphabet with letters grouped into syllables.
55555 9y ago
The writing system is extremely easy compared to Chinese and Japanese. It's just an alphabet.
Tehnix 9y ago
>I'm guessing that for Korean it's mostly the grammar differences, honorifics Definitely! And some other differences too. As someone living in South Korea currently, the reading/writing part is trivial, but beyond that it is a lot harder to learn (for an english speaker (although I'm danish)) than, say, French. I definitely disagree that Korean and Spanish would be considered equally hard, and know literally no one here that would say that either.
- gpetukhov 9y ago
  Maybe that person is the speaker of Arabic. For them, Korean and Spanish should be equally distant.

malloryerik 9y ago

Korean and Spanish, the same? For me, Korean is more difficult than Japanese, though Japanese's writing system will take longer to learn because of the extensive and somewhat odd use of kanji (Chinese characters). But Japanese grammar is generally simpler than Korean's, and sounds are much easier to distinguish. I'm nearly fluent in Korean after years of effort. My Japanese far is weaker, but with far less effort put in. I'm nearly native level in French so biased, but I find Spanish to be almost effortless to learn compared to Korean or Japanese (which are actually closely related). Just, like, memorize a bit, get some simple grammatical rules down, and if you don't remember you can test out the latinate word from English. It's cognate heaven. Korean and Japanese are like from another planet, once you get past the initial hotel-and-taxi stuff.