Beginning Perspectives on Korean Language From One Who Has Learned Japanese
So, something that my college, Middlebury College, has is “Midd on the Globe” which consists of language classes run by students. One of these classes is for Korean and since I have studied Japanese for a long time, I decided to take this class to see how similar Korean is to Japanese.
I’ve only taken one class this past Monday, but I can say that the alphabet doesn’t look too difficult. Although there seem to be a lot more vowels than the 5 vowel sounds in Japanese, having an alphabet sure beats having to learn thousands of Japanese characters. So far the alphabet seems pretty regular, too.
As for vocabulary, there seems to be a lot of similarities. Often the word is not exactly the same but similar enough that it makes it easy for me to remember it. Now I understand why the Korean students always had such an easy time in my Japanese class. Also, the vocabulary seems to be similar in that it often follows a consonant-vowel pattern like Japanese. Although this isn’t strict: it’s possible to have a consonant-vowel-consonant pattern. However, the rhythm seems to be similar to Japanese and the second consonant usually seems to be soft.
Grammar also seems to be very similar to Japanese with the subject-object-verb order. Also there seems to be particles that are similar to the Japanese ones. Again, now I see why the Korean students always had such an easy time in my Japanese classes. At least now I have an advantage over everyone else in my Korean class since I know Japanese sentence structure and vocabulary. It’s good to finally be ahead for once!
I’ll be sure to write more about my observations between Korean and Japanese in the future as I learn more. For now though, if you want to learn tips, techniques and tricks for the fastest language learning around, please check out my Learn That Language Now book. I have a free sample up now, so go check it out!