Which language to learn first Korean or Chinese

Hi,

I know there are lot of people at this forum with Korean and Chinese native language and also those who learn it.
I am also taking a step to learn Chinese and Korean, i am working at my Chinese but i wanted to know if

1- I learn Chinese first will it help to learn korean easier or Vice Versa?
2- Or learning Chinese or Korean don't help each other any way?

Thanks.

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 2:59 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

I don't think that they help eachother, and learn chinese first because it's much useful than korean nowadays. Smile

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:11 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Thanks lifo, my wife is Chinese Roll Eyes

i was trying to learn chinese at my own but it is very difficult to be dicipiline while lerning at one's own. I thing i will join university to learn Chinese and my father-in-law can teach me writing stuff Smile

.
Korean i wanted to learn more for my movies and drama reasons Smile

.

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:27 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Yeah, if korean is only for drama reasons, chinese is definitely the better option. It will prove much more useful in life imo. I myself am about to start learning chinese. Feel nervous already.

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:30 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Kotae,

if you need chinese learning software PM me, i will put at FTP so that you can download to learn it Smile

. Then we can share our experience Smile

.

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:37 pm Post subject: Korean Vs Chinese Post Rating: 0

I took some Chinese classes, and it is very hard... especially when you start writing and memorizing characters... and then we had to learn Traditional or simplified characters... AHhh
But it is a good language to learn career wise.

Korean is an easy language to learn. I speak Korean, but many of my friends took Korean and learned very fast... especially reading and writing. It is easy to master~
It is also a good language career wise, because not as many people speak it (compared to Chinese- the most spoken language in the world)

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:40 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Christine,

You learn Korean from some institute or yourself Unsure

.

For Chinese i can practise at home with my wife Roll Eyes

.
Thats true, people in most of the companies appreciate if one is master of Chinese and English Smile

.

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:44 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

although korean has borrowed many words from chinese, both languages don't really have anything in common
the grammar is totally different and as a not-native speaker you will not be able to even recognize the chinese origin of many words

korean uses a few chinese characters in newspapers and such, but it's not really important

so after all, it doesn't matter which language you learn first because they don't really complement each other

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:04 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

i don't think it really matters which you take first, they're pretty different from each other. i'm taking Chinese right now, learning both Simplified and Traditional Chinese. it's pretty easy. i think korean is pretty easy too, I just haven't gone much into depth in terms of learning it. all i know is the alphabet and a couple of random words!

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:47 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

No matter what i need to learn and master Chinese (my kids going to have 2nd language as Chinese so can't skip that Smile

).

For korean, i am more interested to learn due to dramas/movies. I am glad to see comment of you all.

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 9:05 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Even if its for drama reasons I would learn chinese...with chinese you will be able to watch all asian dramas since they all get released with chinese subs.
And everyone who says korean is easy is either korean...or just learned writing and reading korean till now(because that really is easy) or is a genius...besides that korean is a pretty difficult language. Ok not more difficult than chinese but still Roll Eyes

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 9:10 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

since most of you ppl who are learning or do know chinese, recommend on learning chinese first...
question is...are you taking about mandarin or cantonese?
which langauge is more spoken or used?

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 9:21 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

I have always found the majority of chinese ex-pats speak canto here in UK... maybe because HK used to be part of the Commonweath and a lot of natives came here with their British passports before 1997. I'm not sure about the rest of the world though.

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 9:29 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Mandarin is the official dialect of China now, so i think maybe it's better to learn Mandarin. but in Hong Kong or something, it's Cantonese all the way! =) it's just that cantonese is harder to learn, because there are more tones, and it's more slang. if you were to write down a phrase on paper, it might not be the same way you say it in normal speech. whereas in Mandarin, its the same thing on paper and speech. (well, a lot more than Canto anyway!) plus, finding Canto teachers might be harder, since i've found that most universities (if they offer Chinese) will be offering Mandarin.