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Passive fluency in Korean | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5082 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes  Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 1 of 5 11 June 2011 at 3:07am | IP Logged |
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Hello, I have been reading this forum and I noticed a lot of people saying that Korean is one of the hardest languages of the world to learn(for westerners).
Some people say that it's easier than Japanese because there's an alphabet (I know about Hanja, but this is not the case), and some people say that it's harder because of the grammar. I have a good passive fluency in English, but I'm still practising the active skills. So, here goes my question: Is it hard to be passively fluent in Korean? Maybe I should ask "How hard is to be passively fluent in it?". I'd like to read your opinion, Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| galindo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5208 days ago 142 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Portuguese | Message 2 of 5 11 June 2011 at 5:55am | IP Logged |
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I haven't studied Korean (yet), but I've read a lot about it and I'm interested to see
what answers you get from people who have learned it. It would definitely be harder to achieve passive fluency in than Japanese. Not just because the grammar is more complicated, but also because it has sounds that you will have trouble telling the difference between, kind of like Japanese people have trouble with r and l. I do think that for a westerner it's more phonetically challenging than many other languages. At least for passive fluency, you wouldn't have to worry about pronouncing it, so that takes away a bit of the difficulty. I think the reduced usage of Hanja is a plus for active fluency, but a minus for passive fluency since it makes vocabulary acquisition harder by obscuring the etymological roots of Chinese loanwords. Overall, I think that if you're a big fan of Korean dramas, Korean music, Korean comics, etc. it would not be too difficult to work your way up to understanding things without subtitles. However, if you only have a passing interest in the language and you aren't very attracted to Korean culture, the lack of strong motivation will make it seem much harder than it is. That's one big problem with rating languages by difficulty levels; a hard language that you love will seem like a breeze, while you will struggle with an "easy" language that you don't feel as strongly about. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5082 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 3 of 5 30 June 2011 at 10:04am | IP Logged |
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I'm not a big fan, but I was just curious about that. I'm a big fan of Japan in general, but I know how hard it is to achieve fluency in Japanese, I mean, reading skill for example. I thought Korean could be easier because of the usase of Hanja.
I'm thinking about studying Japanese seriously. Being able to read Chinese characters might be awesome. I think it's very difficult to pronounce Korean, because I found a Korean girl and I had to say annyeonghaseyo three times, otherwise she would not understand. And I'm not the kind of person who has problems with pronunciation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 5 30 June 2011 at 12:55pm | IP Logged |
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Korean phonology is quite a challenge - from the languages I've tried so far it is the one with least sounds/boundaries/rules governing them in common with any of my other languages. That means that it is a very good idea to learn correct pronunciation from the very start and also learn how to use words. I only can remember conjugations, especially exceptions, when I have memorized the forms for at least one verb and can use them in a sentence or at least have memorized sentences using it. If I don't, I won't be able to understand verb forms using that rule, even if I know the dicionary form of the verb.
I passively pick up vocabulary, grammar points and collocations naturally from subtitled TV shows in Japanese or Mandarin (and other) and did so even as a complete beginner. If I need twenty repetitions of a word or phrase in Japanese, I need a hundred or more in Korean. It's absolutely awesome. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Minya Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4903 days ago 22 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 5 of 5 01 July 2011 at 3:41am | IP Logged |
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Don't worry about it. As long as you want to learn the language enough and you love it, you can do it. Listen to korean songs, Kdramas and anything else you want. Actively listen to the words.
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