Japanese, Korean or Chinese: Which One to Choose? - BigBong - YouTube
Japanese or… Korean or… Chinese…
Which one should I learn? I don’t know! I love anime but I’m also fond of K-pop and I could never say no to Chinese food. I get it, you love all these countries and you dream about going to each one of them.
Now I’ve received quite a few messages asking which one is the best to learn. First of all, deciding to learn a language is a very personal choice. And secondly, there is no such thing as a language that’s better than the others.
If you learn Mandarin, you’ll get the ability to speak to more than one billion people. If you learn Japanese, you’ll be able to watch anime without the subtitles and perhaps even work in the industry. And if you learn Korean, you’ll finally be able to properly sing “Oppa Gangnam Style.” It really depends on your priorities and personal tastes.
However, if you’re like me and you absolutely want to learn the 3 of them, then keep watching because I’ll be showing you the characteristics and challenges of each. Then I’ll give you my humble opinion on the wisest choice of learning.
Japanese, Korean, and Chinese are completely different languages associated with different cultures, different sounds, pronunciations, and behaviors. Nevertheless, you’ll find similarities that’ll help you in your learning journey just like knowing Spanish helps you learn French or Italian.
For instance, grammar in Japanese and Korean is almost identical. They are both agglutinative languages which means they use a system of suffixes to determine the role of each word in a sentence.
Role:
the degree to which someone or something is involved in a situation or an activity and the effect that they have on it.
Examples:
- The role of diet in preventing disease
- The media play a major role in influencing people’s opinions.
- A key/vital role
In Japanese, what we call the topic particle is [wa]. In Korean, it’s [eun] or [neun]—[eun] after a consonant and [neun] after a vowel. The subject particle in Japanese is [ga]. In Korean, it’s also [ga] after a vowel or [i] after a consonant. The object particle is [wo] in Japanese. In Korean, it’s [eul] or [reul].
I’m not going to list all of them, but I hope you get the idea of the logic. The fundamental structure of a sentence is also going to be the same in both languages. In its simplest form, it’s going to be subject - object - verb.
For example, if you want to say “I eat rice,” in Japanese it’ll be [watashiga gohanwo tabemasu]. In Korean, it’s going to be [jega babeul meogeoyo]. [Watashi] & [je] mean “I,” which is the subject of the sentence. So they’re both associated with [ga].
Now what do I eat? Rice! That’s [gohan] in Japanese and [bab] in Korean. So [wo] and [eul] were added to make that clear. Now in both languages, it’s possible to get rid of the subject when the context makes it obvious. So it would sound more natural to just say [gohanwo tabemasu] and [babeul meogeoyo].
In Chinese, the syntax is closer to English with the fundamental structure being: subject - verb - object. So saying “I eat rice” in Chinese would be [Wǒ chī fàn]. As you might have noticed, there are no suffix particles in Chinese.
By the way, rice being ubiquitous in these countries, by extension, “eating rice” also means just “having a meal.” About Chinese, the 2 main difficulties for English speakers would be the tones and the writing system. In Mandarin, there are 4 tones. So for example, these 4 characters are all read [ma] but with different tones: [mā] [má] [mǎ] [mà] respectively meaning mother, hemp, horse, and scold.
So remember that if you don’t use the proper tone, you might end up saying something completely different from what you had in mind. Secondly, the Chinese language doesn’t use an alphabet or letters but characters. Each character has already a meaning and therefore is a word in itself, but it’s also by combining characters together that we form other words.
So for example, if you combine [shǒu] meaning “hand” and [zhǐ] meaning paper, it becomes [shǒuzhǐ] meaning toilet paper. But the most incredible thing is that if you ask Japanese people to read the exact same word, they would read [tegami]. [Te] means hand and [kami] means paper, so nothing different so far. But together [tegami] means the mail. How interesting!
Anyway, my point is that the Japanese language also uses Chinese characters alongside 2 alphabets called kana, katakana and hiragana to be more specific. Now even if there can be a little bit of misunderstanding for words like toilet paper and mail, Japanese and Chinese people can kind of communicate using their writing system.
My very first job was working in a sushi restaurant and most of the staff was Japanese except for that one Chinese guy. They would write things down to communicate. It was fascinating to watch! No talking, no body language… just a pen and a sheet of paper.
The Korean language on the other hand uses a very simple alphabet called hangul. It was created by King Sejong in the mid 15th century to expand literacy among the people. Hangul is indeed so easy that Korean people often say that even a stupid man can learn it in only 10 days. And it’s true, it usually takes a few hours to learn.
Now what most people don’t know is that before hangul was created, the Korean language was using Chinese characters too! In fact, until the 19th century! So a lot of Korean words are similar to Chinese and Japanese ones. For example, let’s take this character meaning tea. In Japanese, it’s going to be [cha], in Korean too [cha], and in Chinese, it’s going to be [chá] with the 2nd tone.
Now if you take this character meaning “warm” and that other one meaning “degree,” together it becomes “temperature.” In Japanese and Korean, it’s going to be [ondo]. In Chinese, [wēndù]. Chinese characters are very powerful tools for the brain because each one is a mnemonic in itself. So even if you’re just interested in Korean, learning them will help you learn vocabulary faster and more efficiently.
So from my humble perspective, if you want to learn the 3 of them, I would recommend starting with Japanese. Because knowing the Chinese characters will help you learn both Chinese and Korean, and you’ll already be able to kinda communicate with Chinese people. You’ll also understand how an agglutinative language works and making sentences in Korean will be a piece of cake.
That was my personal opinion…
Now these 3 languages sound completely different and sometimes just listening to them can make you realize that you connect more with one.
If you connect with someone, you feel a sense of agreement and familiarity with them because you have the same kind of ideas. (与…)有同感，产生共鸣；
So here are a few clips to give you an idea.