Should you learn Korean or Japanese? 🇧🇷 OptiLingo (2023)

FAQs

What is better to learn Korean or Japanese? ›

Which language is easier to learn– Korean or Japanese? Korean is considered to be much easier than Japanese. There are more letters in the Japanese alphabet than in Korean. Japanese also contains more complicated Chinese characters and difficult grammar.

If you are working hard and have a good Korean language sense, you may be able to pass the test, but it may be unrealistic to expect to pass the TOPIK level 3 or above with Duolingo alone. This is because the app makes you practice vocabulary, phrases and sentences without emphasizing grammatical components in detail.

Not only that the countries are close to each other geographically, Japanese and Korean cultures are different yet similar. Learning both languages can be absorbing as you will also learn the similarities and differences of both cultures.

If you compare both languages, you will notice that both of them are equally challenging. The Korean language's writing systems are hard to learn, whereas the Japanese alphabet is complex to understand. 40 Alphabets, which makes creating and understanding sentences easier. Easier as the writing system is more simple.

Unlike other East-Asian languages, Korean isn't a tonal language. This means, that the meaning of the word doesn't change, regardless of what your accent is like. This makes learning Korean much easier than Japanese.

Plus, many users noticed that they would study and keep their streak up for days and days, and still not be able to speak the language or could only speak at an intermediate level. And this comes from a lack of human interaction and real speaking practice. So, no, you can't become fluent with Duolingo alone.

The FSI puts Korean as a Category V language. Which means, it's one of the hardest languages to master. They estimate 2200 hours of study before you can reach fluency in Korean. Or 88 weeks of extremely intense study.

Can Duolingo make me fluent? Research shows that Duolingo is an effective way to learn a language! But the truth is that no single course, app, method, or book can help you reach all your language goals.

As with Japanese, Korean uses the Subject Verb Object word order. Many people agree that Korean is much easier than Japanese to read and learn, however, since there are no Chinese characters. Actually, I find that this makes it HARDER since I enjoy learning Chinese characters, and they make sense to me.

Is studying Korean language worth it? ›

Korean is an incredibly versatile language that is spoken fluently by more than 75 million people. It's within the top 18 most useful languages in the world, making it a great language to learn regardless of whether you travel for business or pleasure. Plus, the Korean alphabet is super easy to learn.

Learning the Korean language is certainly a good hedge. It could help make your career or business more relevant in the future. Korea is already one of the strongest economies in Asia, and if trends continue, learning Korean could be just as important as learning Mandarin for business and career prospects.

Both analyses demonstrated genetic evidence of the origin of Koreans from the central Asian Mongolians. Further, the Koreans are more closely related to the Japanese and quite distant from the Chinese.

Can Japanese understand Korean? No, Japanese and Korean are completely different languages. There are some related words which both languages share (which is natural since Japan and Korea are right next to each other).

Generally speaking, we might assert that Korean is easier for an English speaker to learn than Mandarin Chinese. But this is very relative. In fact, the US Foreign Service Institute assigns Mandarin Chinese and Korean the same level of difficulty. Both languages are in “Category Four”.

Korean is the clear-cut easiest to read and write when compared to Japanese and Chinese, as its alphabet is easier to remember and more logical to Western language speakers.

Relatively, Korean would be an easier language to learn. Thanks to its phonetic alphabet and more simplistic grammar rules, Korean is not the most challenging Asian language to learn. Chinese on the other hand is much more widely spoken. This means that finding study materials and practice partners would be easier.

1. Mandarin Chinese. With over one billion Mandarin Chinese speakers in the world, of course it tops the list of most important languages to learn in 2021.

Without a doubt, Spanish is one of the most valuable second languages if you're in the United States-even if you never plan to travel outside the country. That's because it's the most common language in the US aside from English. It's also the most “in-demand” language among US employers.

What is the longest Duolingo streak? ›

Congrats to John Arnold, who has the highest-ever Duolingo streak of over 2000 days! He's a horse farmer and chemist... A missing shipwreck, a trail of unanswered questions, and two best friends. Starting today, the Duolingo Spanish Podcast...

At Duolingo, we're developing our courses to get you to a level called B2, at which you can get a job in the language you're studying. Reaching that kind of proficiency requires dedication, varied practice opportunities, and a lot of time.

It means they've gotten the word right every time it has been shown. Anyway, based on this linear regression, French is definitely the hardest language, insofar as it takes more instances of seeing a certain word before reaching the same number of correct productions as one of the other languages.

It takes about three months or 90 days to learn enough Korean to have at least 3-minute conversations in Korean if you study for 7 to 10 hours per week. Moreover, after one year of looking at this pace, you will become fluent and comfortable with Korean conversation.

How many hours do most South Koreans sleep? Most teenagers I know get no more than 5-6 hours of proper sleep. Needless to say, this is far less than what people in their age need (scientists suggest around 8–9 hours) so most of them doze off during classes.

Korean language has a lot of connectors and sometimes the sentences can get really lengthy with so many connectors. Your poor brain will be busy figuring out the connectors in the first half of the sentence while your Korean friend would already have spoken 5 more sentences.

If you have previous experience with a language and feel that lessons are too easy, you can scroll to the next locked unit and tap the circle that says “Jump here?”. If you pass the test, you'll unlock that unit!

We have a team of PhDs dedicated to this. According to an independent study conducted by the City University of New York and the University of South Carolina, an average of 34 hours of Duolingo are equivalent to a full university semester of language education. You can see a full report of the study here.

You may take this test as many times as you like, but there is a limit on how many times you can fail the exam. The only condition is that one cannot take the DET more than twice in 30 days. Duolingo exam validity is unlimited, and also if you fail multiple times, you can retake it as many times as you deem necessary.

Meanwhile, Korean grammar is likely the hardest, while tones in Mandarin are notoriously difficult for native English speakers to hear, and Japanese is the fastest spoken language in the world at over 7 syllables per second.

Why is Japanese hard to learn? ›

The Japanese language is considered one of the most difficult to learn by many English speakers. With three separate writing systems, an opposite sentence structure to English, and a complicated hierarchy of politeness, it's decidedly complex.

Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.

Korean Is Useful

There are more than 75 million people who speak Korean. And it ranks as 18th in the most used languages in the world. This makes the language useful for travel, or business. If you plan on doing any sort of business in the country, you will need to know Korean.

Learning the Korean language is certainly a good hedge. It could help make your career or business more relevant in the future. Korea is already one of the strongest economies in Asia, and if trends continue, learning Korean could be just as important as learning Mandarin for business and career prospects.

Korean is really easy to pick up after knowing Japanese. The grammar is the same, and the alphabet is phonetic which is much easier than having to continuously learn kanji. The vocab is analogous too, since Japanese and Korean both take the main body of their vocab from Chinese.

How long does it take to learn Korean fluently? It will take about 1200 hours to reach a high intermediate level. You'll need additional practice, so you may want to double that number to 2400 hours to get towards fluency. That would be about 23 hours of study per week for two years.

The FSI puts Korean as a Category V language. Which means, it's one of the hardest languages to master. They estimate 2200 hours of study before you can reach fluency in Korean. Or 88 weeks of extremely intense study.

As I mentioned previously, age plays a very important role within South Korean society. The culture utilizes a system of honorifics based on age and the Confucian idea of respecting one's elders. Therefore, there are certain niceties and behaviors one must adhere to if they are the younger party.

It's recommended that you spend an hour a day studying the Korean language to become fluent. However, keep in mind that each individual will have a different learning experience. Depending on your circumstances, it may take you less time or more time.

There are lots of social benefits of learning Japanese. Being able to communicate with more people means you are able to meet and get to know more people. If you know how to speak Japanese, you'll find it much easier to make Japanese friends than someone who doesn't speak Japanese.

How many hours a day does a Korean student study? ›

Well-known for its high-achieving students, South Korea's education system is quite demanding. Students spend much of their time, often between 12 to 16 hours per day, at school or at a special after-school academy called a hagwon.

Another challenge that international students face is the importance of class attendance in South Korea. Generally, students with 10% (or two sessions) unexcused absence automatically fail the course. Also, in some universities in Seoul, students lose some points for each time they miss the lectures.

Most people have embraced the 10,000-word vocabulary as the ideal word count for being fluent in Korean. With this level of language mastery, you will be able to read Korean web pages comfortably and effortlessly. Active memorization requires some effort and practice.