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Why are Korean and Arabic considered hard | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5180 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 1 of 57 02 January 2011 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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According to FSI, the hardet languages to learn are Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean and Arabic, all of them use Chinese characters except for the two.
In Korean they don't use Chinese characters, but some foreign students are said to learn it (not many thought). As I am learning Korean, I can say something about it... Maybe it's the vocabulary? Unfamiliar, and rather rich, plenty of homophones. In Arabic it could be grammar... So why you think those languages are hard? For example Finnish has very hard grammar too, Thai has complicated writing, but they are seen as not so hard. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5180 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 2 of 57 02 January 2011 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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To show how many homophones are there in Korean definition of two words:
회 and 공원 * 회12 [會][회ː/훼ː]단어장 저장 [명사] 단체적인 공동 목적을 위하여 여러 사람이 모이는 일. 또는 그런 모임. * 회8 [回][회/훼]중요단어장 저장 [의존명사] 횟수를 나타내는 말. 유의어 : 라운드 * 회13 [膾][회ː/훼ː]단어장 저장 [명사] 고기나 생선 따위를 날로 잘게 썰어서 먹는 음식. 초고추장이나 된장, 간장, 겨자, 소금 따위에 찍어 먹는다. 유의어 : 날고기 * 회11 [蛔][회/훼]단어장 저장 [명사] <동물> [같은 말] 회충(2. 회충과의 기생충). * 회9 [灰][회/훼]단어장 저장 [명사] <화학> o 1.[같은 말] 석회2(石灰)(1. 석회석을 태워 이산화탄소를 제거하여 얻는 산화칼슘과...). o 2.[같은 말] 산화칼슘(칼슘의 산화물). * 회2[회/훼]단어장 저장 [명사] <건설> 단청에서, 머리초 끝에 같은 모양으로 두른 오색 무늬. * 회3[회/훼]단어장 저장 [부사] o 1.센 바람이 조금 거칠게 스쳐 지나가는 소리. o 2.숨을 한꺼번에 조금 세게 내쉬는 소리. * 회4단어장 저장 [명사] [방언] ‘횟대(둑중갯과의 실횟대, 알롱횟대, 빨강횟대, 동갈횟대, 눈퉁횟대 따위의 어류를 통틀어 이르는 말)’의 방언(경북). * 회5단어장 저장 [명사] [방언] ‘당혜(예전에 사용하던 울이 깊고 앞 코가 작은 가죽신)’의 방언(제주). * 회6단어장 저장 [명사] [방언] ‘회충’의 방언(충북). # 회10 [晦]단어장 저장 ‘회하다1(밝지 아니하고 어둡다)’의 어근. # 회1[회ː/훼ː]단어장 저장 [명사] [같은 말] 회두리(여럿이 있는 중에서 맨 끝이나 맨 나중에 돌아오는 차례). # 회7단어장 저장 [명사] [방언] ‘효3’(效)의 방언(평북). # 회14 [會]단어장 저장 [접사] * 1.‘단체2’의 뜻을 더하는 접미사. * 2.‘모임1’의 뜻을 더하는 접미사. # 공원3 [公園]매우중요단어장 저장 [명사] 국가나 지방 공공 단체가 공중의 보건ㆍ휴양ㆍ놀이 따위를 위하여 마련한 정원, 유원지, 동산 등의 사회 시설. # 공원1 [工員]단어장 저장 [명사] 공장에서 노동에 종사하는 사람. 유의어 : 공장노동자, 기술자, 직공2 # 공원4 [供源][공ː원]단어장 저장 [명사] [같은 말] 공급원(공급이 이루어지는 본바탕). # 공원5 [貢院][공ː원]단어장 저장 [명사] <역사> 고대 중국에서, 과거를 실시하던 시험장. 당나라에서는 예부(禮部)에, 송나라에서는 각 노(路)에, 명나라ㆍ청나라에서는 각 성(省)에 두었다. # 공원2 [公員]단어장 저장 [명사] <역사> 조선 후기에, 보부상 조합의 실무를 맡아보던 사람. Source: Naver Korean dictionary (국어 사전). Don't think I have chosen words with a lot of homophones, it's natural in Korean for a word to have plenty of meanings - as long as they are from Chinese. Edited by clumsy on 02 January 2011 at 4:44pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Enki Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5835 days ago 54 posts - 133 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written), English*, French, Korean Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 57 02 January 2011 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I tried teaching Arabic to a few people, the biggest problem they had was pronounciation. It takes people a long time to be able to distinguish (let alone say!) a lot of sounds, thus hindering their ability to acquire vocabulary and be understood.
Korean is a strange one. I find the language has *SO* much variety that it's easy to get confused. Sure, all languages have many ways of saying the same thing, but for some reason it seems even more so in Korean. The same could be said of Arabic too, now that I think about it, given the many dialects. Both of those languages have pretty complex grammars, but I think that actually helps rather than hinders. Arabic and Korean have massive amounts of rules to learn, sure, but they are pretty logically arranged and have so few exceptions that once you learn the rules you're pretty much set. Perhaps the biggest reason is cultural. FSI says those languages are difficult for Americans. Korean and Arabic have a much different style than most people would be used to (though I can understand Korean pretty much without any problem, I still struggle to speak "like a Korean"). Unless you want to sound like babelfish, you need to adopt the conversational style of the language you're learning as well. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5537 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 4 of 57 02 January 2011 at 9:23pm | IP Logged | ||
I was about to post something similar to this when I saw the thread topic. People note that Korean grammar is complex as one of the reasons for difficulty. Sure it is complex, but it's also extremely regular. I, personally, find Korean grammar much easier than Spanish grammar due to this fact. This is especially true when you consider how "regular" the "irregular" Korean verbs are. The only really unique verb I've come across is "이다" (to be) and even that verb doesn't even scratch the surface of the behavior of odd Spanish verbs like "ir" (to go). Other Korean "irregulars" really just follow a set of "exception" rules rather than being independently unique. One thing that does make Korean a bit trickier than many Western languages, though, is the word order (unless you already know another language with a similar word order). It's not difficult, per se, but it seriously slows you down when making sentences until you start getting used to re-ordering your thoughts. Many sentences in Korean could be translated literally then flipped end-to-end and the result would make sense in English. Of course that applies to languages such as Japanese, as well, which have similar word orders to that of Korean. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5192 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 57 02 January 2011 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Arabic grammar (Modern Standard Arabic) is easy, so that can't be the reason. I imagine it is mainly the vocabulary which effectively has zero cognates with English. The script is also an issue, because while it is easy to learn it takes a long time to be able to read at a comfortable speed. Also, the fact that you have to learn MSA plus a dialect adds to the difficulty.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sjheiss Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5686 days ago 100 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English*, Basque | Message 6 of 57 02 January 2011 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think the hardest thing about Korean was the abundance of verb and noun suffixes and pre/postpositions or whatever you call them (and that's only a few examples) that can greatly change the meaning of a sentence or phrase. But all in all, Korean is pretty easy. I studied it for a few months last year, and it was very enjoyable. But I stopped learning it because I live so far from Korea, and didn't think it would be useful, not because it was difficult to learn. With the abundance of media in Korean, it is easy to get practice with the language. Lately I've been wanting to start learning Korean again, but I don't know... =P Edited by sjheiss on 02 January 2011 at 10:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6552 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 7 of 57 03 January 2011 at 12:50am | IP Logged | ||
Most members of the forum who have studied Korean to the intermediate level and beyond, and who have experience with other languages, contradict this. They say Korean is one of the most, if not the most, difficult language. I will take their word over someone who played around with it for a few months and quit. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sjheiss Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5686 days ago 100 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English*, Basque | Message 8 of 57 03 January 2011 at 1:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Don't hate me just because I disagreed with you on the language learning advice thread. And just because I'm new to the forum doesn't mean I know nothing about languages, nor that the only language I so far speak fluently is English.
Really, any language is easy if you are determined enough to learn it. Tons of people say Basque is super hard and impossible to learn, but they've never even tried learning it, like you have never tried learning Korean. Don't knock it till you've tried learning it yourself, instead of just listening to people that learn languages differently than you. And it's complete bullcrap that people think it's the most difficult language in the world. If there was such a thing, it wouldn't even be close. "The most difficult language" doesn't even make sense, as a speaker of Japanese or Turkish or any Altaic language (because of the similar grammar and being linguistically related), would find learning Korean much easier than a speaker of English or Finnish or Basque or Hebrew would. So, by "the most difficult language" you mean "the most difficult language, with more than 10 million speakers (or any other arbitrary, high number, as to exclude language families usually considered difficult, like Algonquin, Caucasian, Na-Dené, Salishan, and so on) for some speakers of English, depending on their learning style and knowledge of other languages" then Korean might possibly be in the top 10. But anyways, calling one language more difficult than another means nothing, as you can see with the interpretation of your phrase "the most difficult language". Have a nice day. :) Edited by sjheiss on 03 January 2011 at 1:53am 16 persons have voted this message useful |
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