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Korean is hardest!

  Tags: Korean | Difficulty
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
29 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3
Yukamina
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6267 days ago

281 posts - 332 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean, French

 
 Message 25 of 29
29 June 2009 at 8:36pm | IP Logged 
cordelia0507 wrote:
Korean learners / speakers, can I ask exactly why Korean is so difficult? Is it grammar, expressions or what is it?


I find words hard to remember and spell. It really slows down my learning speed. Listening and pronunciation are really difficult too.
1 person has voted this message useful





Jiwon
Triglot
Moderator
Korea, South
Joined 6439 days ago

1417 posts - 1500 votes 
Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1
Studies: Hindi, Spanish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 26 of 29
29 June 2009 at 8:59pm | IP Logged 
cordelia0507 wrote:
Korean learners / speakers, can I ask exactly why Korean is so difficult? Is it grammar, expressions or what is it?




Even as a native Korean speaker, I find Korean a rather convoluted and complicated language.

Firstly, there's the pronunciation which would hinder most of foreign leaners

Secondly, it's extrememly hard to be 100% correct with spelling and "spacing" (yes there is such a thing in Korean writing). This is true even for native speakers.

Thirdly, mastering Korean verbs, adjectives and sentence formation is extremely difficult. Unlike in English where you can say the same sentence with different tones to show different nuances, in Korean you have to change the way you conjugate to reflect your relationship to the listener, attitude towards the subject, etc. This also means that whatever you say could imply a meaning that you may not have intended. There IS a generic sentence formation that supposedly does not reflect any relationship/attitude, but this form is so text-book-like that if you SPEAK it you'll sound very foreigner-ish.

Fourthly, if you want to learn literary Korean, you'll need a fair amount of Hanja knowledge (either the characters or just knowing the meaning and readings).

Edited by Jiwon on 29 June 2009 at 9:01pm

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pmiller
Account terminated
Groupie
Canada
Joined 5677 days ago

99 posts - 104 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 27 of 29
29 June 2009 at 9:00pm | IP Logged 
Tombstone wrote:

I took the 48 week Russian course and still know people there.



The quality of students and the vetting process goe a long way to ensuring successful acquisition of the language.





Is there a way I can take the Defense Language Aptitude Battery to more objectively gauge my language learning ability?

Also, is it possible to learn a language at DLI as a civilian?
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cordelia0507
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5841 days ago

1473 posts - 2176 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*
Studies: German, Russian

 
 Message 29 of 29
30 June 2009 at 6:29pm | IP Logged 
Thanks for the explanations about why Korean is difficult. It sounds like it's not necessarily more difficult than Japanese but that it is more different from Japanese than I thought (for some reason I had the notion they were similar). It's not on my list of languages that I want to study right now, but it might make it on there in the future.


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