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| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6438 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 25 of 49 12 December 2009 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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After making numerous attempts to study Korean over a period of 10 years and never making much progress at all, I will give you my experience.
Note that despite my failure, I still think Korean is a beautiful language and I still enjoy listening to it being spoken and I still enjoy listening to Korean music.
For my western ear, hearing the distinct vowel sounds and the differences between different versions of the same consonants (k/kk/k', t/tt/t', s/ss, etc). Korean has M's that sound like B's, and N's that sound like D's. It wouldn't be so bad but when I hear a "D" sound, I wonder to myself "was that actually an N? Or was it one of the T's (t/tt/t') which actually sound like D's)? By the time I decide which it was, the speaker is like 4 sentences later. It's like another poster here said in another thread, [paraphrased] "the first Korean word I learned was 'de' (yes)... until I realized that it was actually 'ne.'
Learning Hangeul (the writing).
Yes. The only sense in which Korean is easier than Japanese is the writing. Everything else is more difficult. Here, I will compare aspects and say which is more difficult: Writing: Japanese (no spaces between words, kanji, Japanese is harder) Pronunciation: Korean (Japanese has 5 vowels, Korean has 24, and different versions of the same consonant, and everything slurs together worse than in Spanish) Grammar: Korean (Korean grammar is like a more difficult version of Japanese) Understanding spoken language: Korean. The first time you learn a new word in Japanese you will probably be able to write it correctly, and repeat it back correctly. Not so in Korean. Not even if you hear the word 5 times, slowly, in a row. For example, I heard the word "weather" in Korean a lot, and for weeks I thought it was "dal-shi." It wasn't until I saw it written that I realized it was "nal-ssi" (날씨). I had both consonants wrong for weeks yet I could not tell because it really, truly sounded like "dal-shi" to me. To give you an example of the implications of this, I never would have been able to find it in a dictionary because I would've looked through the "D" section over and over but wouldn't have ever found it. Then I would've checked the "TT" and the "T'" section and still never found it. Who would've known it actually started with an "N"? Not my western ears!
From what I hear, Chinese grammar is pretty easy. Obviously the writing is going to be a challenge. I'd say learning to speak Korean is more difficult, but if you're talking about developing a complete mastery of the language, they're probably about the same overall. Korean will take you years and years to be able to pronounce, Chinese will take you years and years to learn all the kanji.
Impossible for me. 2 or 3 versions of most consonant (that still sound the same to me after years of listening to Korean on a daily basis). 24 vowels or so, many of which are diphongs, but sometimes they change pronunciation for no reason, like the particle "ui" is sometimes pronounced "eh" and sometimes "ee", which wouldn't be that bad if there weren't already a vowel "eh" and a vowel "ee." Korean pronunciation slurs together. There are many clusters of vowels that, to my ears, all sound the same, yet I cannot reproduce them.
Extremely far. I know a lot of respected members of this forum tout the virtues of learning hanja, but in my years of watching Korean TV, buying Korean CDs, and buying Korean magazines, I have never seen any hanja used ever. It may be in newspapers and academic texts, but I've never seen any of those.
Probably if you learn hanja.
As has been mentioned in this thread, Koreans are TOO forgiving of mistakes. It's nearly impossible to get a correction. Every Korean I have attempted to speak to has been so ecstatic at my effort that they were too busy cheering to correct me. I remember one woman, I couldn't remember the informal word for "you" and I asked her what it was and she would just say "don't even worry, just call me [her name]!"
99% of them are horrible, which is why I had so much trouble in the beginning. The FSI one is dry and boring, WAY too formal, and looks like it was typed on a typewriter and then photocopied before being bound. The recording quality on the tapes isn't too good, either. "Colloquial Korean" and "Teach Yourself Korean" about both horrible. Avoid them at all costs. The old Pimsleur 10 lesson one was awful. It didn't even sound like Korean. But now they have a comprehensive one with 30 lessons (and another 30 lessons in level II, I believe) that is much better. It's common speech with -yo endings and it actually sounds like the Korean you hear on TV. I enjoyed "Elementary Korean" by Ross King and Jae-Hoon Yeon. No clue what the difference is between the first and second edition. I also thought Integrated Korean by Carol Shultz and Hyo Sang Lee was very good. "Elementary Korean" and "Integrated Korean" are not perfect, but they are lightyears better than anything else I've tried. I used to have a bookshelf full of Korean programs but they were all awful so I sold them on eBay ~8 years ago. The only ones I kept were these two and the new Pimsleur ones.
No.
A few with Japanese. Like "yakusoku" in Japanese and "yaksok" in Korean both mean "promise." Questions in Japanese end with "-ka" and sometimes in Korean end with "-kka" so that may be a similarity, or it could just be a coincidence. I don't know any Chinese to answer the question.
It's a more difficult version of Japanese. Where Japanese has one particle, Korean has two (usually depends on if the preceding word ends with a vowel or a consonant). I think later one in your studies, some Korean verbs conjugate differently than Japanese ones, but to be honest I was never able to get very far so I'm not sure.
You can *read* it after you learn hangeul. You won't know what you're saying for a long time, though. It's kind of like with Russian. You can learn the alphabet and read pretty much anything written in Russian, you just won't know what you're saying.
Easy. They're very dramatic (and some are quite good). They often have a good soundtrack, too, which helps convey mood. You'll have no idea what the specific details of the plot are, however, until you can understand Korean (or unless it's subtitled, lol).
Elementary Korean Integrated Korean New Pimsleur Korean
No clue. My hat is absolutely off to any westerner who has mastered this language. I hear reports of it taking 10-15 years of living in Korea in order to become comfortable with it. That's incredible to me. I can remember being 16 and 17, watching Korean TV shows on TV, and thinking "this language is awesome, I'm going to study it, become fluent, and move to Korea and get a job as a popular American on TV." I could tell from the way their gameshows and pop culture was set up that they loved Americans, so I figured a cool American male like myself who could speak Korean fluently would easily become super famous over there. My first plan was to do that with Japanese, but I figured the Japanese market was already saturated with pop-culture Americans. I hardly ever saw Americans (white people) on Korean TV so I thought it would be perfect. There was one dude on Korean gameshows sometimes who was American (white) and they LOVED him. Every time he spoke everyone went crazy. I wanted that. But then I eventually saw a few other white people on Korean TV speaking Korean and they were always subtitled in Korean. I thought that was odd. It wasn't until I really tried to study the language that I realized why they subtitled non-Koreans: it's because speaking Korean is almost impossible and they have to subtitle because the people trying to speak it are failing so hard and the Koreans probably can't understand them. There was one other older guy who was on Korean news sometimes who was white and fluent, I don't think they subtitled him, and he even had a Korean name which I assume he adopted or they gave him (I forgot what his Korean name was, though). Maybe someone here knows who I'm talking about. I remember another show where this white guy went touring the Korean country with a Korean guy and it was a pretty popular show. The white guy spoke Korean pretty well. I remember one time he got in an elevator and it said "Man-won" and the white guy pulled out his wallet thinking there was a fee of a thousand won to ride the elevator, but it turns out "Man-won" also means like "too heavy" or "out of service" or something like that. It was funny. Geez, I'm long-winded, huh. Anyway, I'm 28 now and still can't speak Korean AT ALL, so my dream is gone. lol. Edited by IronFist on 12 December 2009 at 11:03pm 10 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| vientito Senior Member Canada Joined 6339 days ago 212 posts - 281 votes | Message 26 of 49 13 December 2009 at 12:04am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I have spent a month travelling all over south korea. I can quickly tell you one thing. the chance to find someone who speaks English in small towns is absolutely close to nil. even in bigger city such as Suwon I could only find someone in a banking institue who could muster a half-decent level of English out of a group of 20 staffs. So, if you decide to explore this country you really need to equip yourself with a basic level of korean.
sometimes you may find young staffs in a tourist information who could manage English but never take it for granted. there is no guarantee. However, situation is immensely better in seoul. If you already know chinese, korean is definitely much easier to pick up. You will discover a lot more mnemonics to retain those words you hear everyday. I think it is fair to say that to follow a movie in any language is not an easy feat for most learners. Movies consist of a lot more familiar expressions and slangs that you won't learn by books. These things are picked up in life. Until you trudge through this by living the language it is very hard to really understand movies. As always, you also have to develop enough maturity with the language to understand imperfect speech. What i mean by imperfect speech is conversation uttered with carelessness, slurring and background noises. All these conspire to impede your understanding. You hear not only by your ears. You work through the blanks by your brain and your heart. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6187 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 27 of 49 13 December 2009 at 1:28am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I'll give a response that is essentially the opposite of what IronFist posted. Even though I started Korean about 2 and a half years ago I had an 8-month break where I had to focus on other things so right now I can say I've been studying Korean for 21 months. I just finished the first half of the 5th year course at the University of Hawaii.
1. What are the most difficult parts of learning Korean? The phonetics pose a problem for English speakers due to the double consonants and some similar sounding vowels. The honorifics system can take some getting used to. But so many other languages have tougher phonetics and honorifics. I find the most difficult aspect of Korean is LISTENING. The words become all strung together due to their consonant assimilation. It's very difficult to recognize a new word in speech since it will rarely sound as it's written; it will vary depending on the particle or word that follows it. It gets easier over time but I doubt it will ever become effortless. 2. What is the easy part of learning Korean? Words are short. The language is pretty phonetic. And the alphabet makes a lot of sense. 3. Is Korean more difficult than Japanese? Linguistically, I would say yes. I've talked to a lot of people who studied both languages, many of them studied Japanese first, and most people agree that Korean is tougher. BUT in a cultural sense, Japanese is incredibly difficult. Learning how to use Japanese in different social situations and how Japanese people use it deserves a dissertation or three. Learning Korean in a cultural context is much easier. 4. Is Korean more difficult than Chinese? No idea. 5. How hard is it to pronunciate Korean correctly? On one hand it's tough since it's a new sound set. On the other hand I find that Korean flows from the mouth easier than English does. Once you get the hang of the double consonants and similar vowels then it's simple. Talking faster takes a good amount of practice though. 6. How far can you get with the Korean alphabet? It takes only a few hours to learn it and keep it in your head. After you learn it you can read 99% of what you see. The other 1% is Chinese characters but you could see more or less of them depending on where you go or what you watch or read. 7. Will a knowledge of Chinese characters help you with Korean? Definitely. 8. Are Koreans forgiving of the mistakes you can make in their language? Very often. They know we're foreigners so they'll acknowledge our cultural mistakes and teach us the proper way, although once you learn it enough that you don't make mistakes they'll be a bit harder on you when you mess up. Don't expect the same punishment that a Korean person would get though. If you make a mistake in the language you probably won't hear about it unless you ask or you said something strangely. Grammatical errors get almost no attention. 9. Are there any quality Korean language self-study program with many tapes? The Sogang series is very respected and comes with CDs. Other universities that published textbooks comes with CDs too but I have little to no experience with them. 10. Is Korean a tonal language? No. 11. Are there common words between Korean and Japanese or Chinese? They say that Japanese and Korean have 70-75% borrowed words from Chinese. Some are hard to recognize, but sometimes between any of the languages a word will be so close that you'll hear it in the middle of a sentence in a language you don't even know. 12. How difficult is Korean Grammar? Take the difficulty of Japanese grammar and increase it. Korean has more sentence endings and agglutinations. There are also more speech levels in common use and many,. MANY more irregular verbs. 13. How quick can you begin to read a Korean newspaper? As soon as you can read hangul you can read a newspaper. If you want to understand it you'll need... well I've got 2 years on me and I can read some newspaper articles with ease, although most of them are still a bit over my head. My vocabulary is probably around 6000+ words if that gives you any sort of an estimate, but I also find TOPIK 4 (out of 6) to be kind of difficult. 14. How difficult is it to follow a Korean movie? Depends on the movie. I think a good judge of practical Korean ability can be measured with a film like "Attack the Gas Station" because it lacks political undertones and long mushy expressions found in romantic films and specialized jargon. Other films have those elements or may make heavy use of a dialect, and so on. 15. If you can buy only 3 books to learn Korean, what should they be? (books that supplement a program with tapes) Sogang, KLEAR (audio is only in the first 4 books I think), and Yonsei's Korean Grammar for International Learners. The latter is for when you reach the intermediate stages and need a resource for much of the grammar Korean offers. In the advanced stages you should buy a Korean grammar that is written in Korean. 16. How useful is it to speak Korean when travelling or doing business in Korea? Can you get along with English? Relying on English will not get you far since most people do not speak English. This will change in the next 10 years or so once the younger generation gets into respectable positions in the workforce, but in the meantime learn Korean or bring an interpreter. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6438 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 28 of 49 13 December 2009 at 2:07am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This is part of what makes it difficult, for me. Words are so short and they all sound so similar that I cannot tell what word I'm hearing. Especially when the words are mostly vowels.
What is TOPIK? Is that like some sort of Korean TOEFL or JLPT? This thread makes me want to start studying Korean again. *sigh* 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| sebngwa3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6165 days ago 200 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Korean*, English | Message 29 of 49 13 December 2009 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Could you give some examples of Korean expressions that defy translation? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6187 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 30 of 49 16 December 2009 at 6:08am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The TOPIK exam is the Korean equivalent to the JLPT. There is also a KLPT but it's not as prestigious and has slightly different content. Based on what I know, most books published in Korea are geared toward passing the TOPIK exam. Level 6 is the hardest.
Since the Professor is busy these days and will probably not see this thread for a very long time if ever (it's not in his forum) I will go ahead and give a few examples. 정 (jung) is the Korean expression for a certain sort of generosity many Koreans possess. If a Korean takes you into his home and prepares you a meal and bedding at no cost to you, that is 정. To give someone a product or service at a lower cost or no cost and expecting nothing in return is 정. The proper response in the context of restaurants is to eat there again and perhaps bring friends. You can wind up receiving a number of discounts or freebies, and sometimes sponsorships if you're a school club. Helping a stranger on the street with something even though it may cost you a train ride is 정. The loanword 맨트 (menteu) comes from the English word "comment" and is used to describe a brief introduction or prologue speech or summary for the following presentation. It doesn't defy translation so much as it doesn't have a concise expression in English. That or I'm to used to using the word myself. 형 (hyung), 누나 (nuna), 오빠 (obba), 언니 (eonni) are all kinship terms used for people who are older than you. Each one depends on the gender of the user and the gender of the receiver. But they can also be used to reference your older siblings, again taking gender into account. 오빠 is also used by girls as a pet name for their boyfriend or husband. Other kinship terms that are tough to translate: - 이모 (emo) aunt, or often the female cook at a restaurant - 아줌마/아주머니 (ajuma/ajumeoni) middle-aged or older married woman, but this is usually an assumption and some women don't like to be called this and will request 누나 or something else - 아저씨 (ajeossi) a man usually at least in his 30s, if you don't call him by name or are too young to call him 오빠 or 형 you will probably call him 아저씨 - 선생님 (seonsaengnim) teacher, doctor, or any person working in a profession where you rely on their expertise and knowledge, but I THINK you can use it on strangers too Some of the vulgar language is difficult to translate. And some of the inappropriate, though not vulgar language is too. For example the word 꽐라 (ggwalla) is non-vulgar slang for "highly intoxicated" but you are not allowed to use it on TV. I have yet to meet anyone who was offended by my use of the word, including older people and teachers. It's a word from Mandarin with about the same meaning but describes the person as being a dog, if I recall. Words like 말씀, 어쭙다, 드시다, etc are honorific versions of words as you would find in languages like Japanese. It's tough to translate the nuances of these words sometimes without switching to some form of Shakespearean English (an exaggeration of course). In fact the word for "hello" literally means "do you exist peacefully?" The two words for "good bye" are similar in that way. I hope that answers your question. Some of the examples are a bit weak for your question but I think you get the idea. No doubt there are languages with more difficult-to-translate words. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| nhk9 Senior Member Canada Joined 6805 days ago 290 posts - 319 votes Speaks: English* | Message 31 of 49 08 January 2010 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I find redundancies quite fascinating... to the point where I consider them as translation-defying:
eg. 이월 달 ... literally 2month month = february month = february 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5819 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 32 of 49 09 March 2010 at 12:25am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I'm not gonna answer all of these questions about Korean because I would just be poorly repeating what many learners have already shared but I will recommend some resources to everyone who's reading this.
There are many, many, many terrible resources out there (Teach Yourself is especially bad, as is Korean Through English. I wasn't impressed by the FSI version as well due to the hideous romanization) but luckily in recent years (the last 3-4 years) some quality resources have started to become available. These are the books/series' I (really) wish I'd had when I first started: - Active Korean 1-4 (Elementary to Intermediate depending on the number) by the Seoul National University Language Education Institute: - a relatively new series but definitely my favourite. It's a very friendly book, with no romanization, only teaches/uses the -mnida/sumnida - ㅂ니다/습니다 when it has to and it's all arranged in a really simple but usable manner. For example, in one chapter in the first book you learn how to tell the time and express the days of the week. Sounds generic but then in the same chapter it will tell you how to express 'when something happens' and 'when something was supposed to happen but didn't' which in most books would be in a completely different chapter/book but in this book you learn it together. It's not overwhelming and it's all nicely connected. Each book is quite cheap and comes with a good cd and the book has exercises you can do with a class or partner so it's quite flexible. The only problem with this book is that I think you can only find it in Korea but in today's day and age it shouldn't be impossible to get a hold of. - Elementary Korean by Ross King and Yeon Jae Hoon: - Quite well known by some Korean learners (also the Korean co-author is a SOAS Professor and the book is used in the course). I have the 2nd edition (not massively different from the first but there are some tweaks). It's a good book with lots of example sentences/exercises, mistake warnings and pronunciation nuances. It's quite big (and a tad expensive) with about 1000 pieces of vocabulary if I recall. It has a CD and an accompanying support website and is part of a 2-part series (the next is Continuing Korean by the same authors). My only criticism is that the book doesn't allow for much interaction if you were to do this in a class/with a partner. It seems more for the individual learner than anyone (and quite the intensive individual learner at that) but it's still miles ahead of the competition for quality-level and wealth of knowledge/material. - Korean Grammar in Use: Beginning to Early Intermediate by Darakwon Publishing company (a name to keep an eye on). I picked this up a few days ago (it's a 2010 book) and it's a very solid grammar reference book. It's concise yet informative, has an accompanying CD, exercises and very handily explains the differences between some grammar points in a useful manner. It covers the grammar (particles, endings, forms etc) for the TOPIK (the Korean language test) 1-2 levels. Again getting this book outside of Korea might prove tricky but give it time. - I'd also recommend the spaced-repetition flashcard software Anki to help you memorise the vocabulary. It's free to download and if you're a language learner that doesn't have this then you're missing out. - Randomly, I'd also recommend avoiding Korean movies for language learning until you're at a higher level and just stick with the dramas (you'll have more time to get used to their voices for one thing). The most difficult part of learning Korean for me is the listening (easiest is learning how to read/write the alphabet). I never knew consonants could sound so similar, let alone taking into account speed, accents and regional dialects. Sometimes getting over the sheer magnitude of the task of learning Korean gets me down truth be told (I honestly think I could perfect my Spanish and learn French and German by the time I become anything approaching fluent in Korean). Luckily against all odds I've started to make some progress recently thanks to these resources and some new techniques. Good luck if you decide to learn this language, it will be a challenge so I hope your motivation is high. Edited by crafedog on 09 March 2010 at 5:16am 10 persons have voted this message useful |
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