Which language to learn first Korean or Chinese

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:01 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

1st chinese word=torche(thanks)
1st korean word=biane

hiihihiih

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:21 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 1:34 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

IMHO, Chinese is definitely much harder to learn.

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 9:32 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

I find most Asian languages harder to pick up than western languages, especially English. Seriously, if Chinese and Korean was as easy to learn as English, I think we'd all be speaking it by now Smile

Anyone from a non-english speaking background can learn it with consummate ease, yet an Asian language like Chinese is incredibly difficult to pick up even when you associate with Chinese people all day long.

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 8:41 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

I speak Chinese, Japanese and a little Korean, and I don't think it's right to say that one language is harder than another. Different languages are difficult for different reasons.

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 9:20 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

When I hear people say that Korean is easy, I just giggle. They pretty much just admitted they don't have a clue about Korean beyond being able to read and basic conversation - the difficulty increases exponentially once you've mastered the basics and move onto the REAL grammar, the sheer endless array of vocabulary and hundreds of different conjugations. I've been learning Korean full-time for 6 months now and I can guarantee you it's HARD, and I even speak better than your average person after 6 months. The main problem is the huge vocabulary - it seems like there are always 10 different Korean words for 1 English word.

My original plan to study Chinese after Korean has faltered a little, because by now, I feel much more passion for and interest in Japanese, despite Japanese being far less useful than Chinese. Sad

I just can't bring myself to develop an equal kind of burning passion to learn Chinese I do for Korean and Japanese. I don't know whether I should just force myself to become interested in Chinese for economic reasons, or follow my heart and start on Japanese after another 1.5 years in Korea. Hard.

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 12:24 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Doing anything in life without passion is extremely hard, and learning a new language is no exception. I've been meaning to learn Chinese for over 10 years now, yet I haven't even been able to pick up a single word Tongue

I'm just not interested in it, even though it is the most useful language to know besides English.

Korean however, I'm very passionate about. But I still haven't managed to pickup a single word either. I'm probably too lazy or incompetent. Or both scratch

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 10:07 am Post subject: Post Rating: -1

Hi!

I speak Korean and Chinese, Chinese much better than Korean though. I learnt Chinese first, and I'd probably do it that way again.

Chinese would probably be easier because where I live there are a lot more Chinese speakers. Also, Chinese seems to be more popular, with more resources around for learning it. Seriously, I've found KoreanClass101.com for Korean and not much else.

All the learning 'tricks' that I learnt picking up Chinese meant that I was much better off learning Korean, from limited learning resources. If I had started with Korean, I think it would have been much harder.

Another thing that helped was that more than half of my class in university (in Shanghai) was Korean! That so many Koreans are learning Chinese was a big help.

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 10:40 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

I think it's better to learn the Chinese first because If you can write the tradition Chinese character, you can have a simple communication with the Japanese by writing, but not all Japanese would knew Chinese character only those middle class one or above are more likely to knew it, that's what I've been told.

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:42 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

well chinese or korean first depends on ur needs, doens't it?

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:59 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

i'd learn korean. :]
since i'm so obsessed with the people now.
already know chinese. my mother tongue.

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 5:08 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Depends on which dramas you watch the most, and which're you gonna sub? Hahaha. Just kidding Smile

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 5:21 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

hm, i'm chinese, well taiwanese to be exact, and i may be biased, but i believe chinese to be the easier language to learn because there aren't so many grammar rules as there are in korean and plus, chinese/mandarin has a more direct pronunciation to it than korean does. koreans tends to slur their words when they speak and everything kind of flows together. don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful language, but it seems very hard to learn.

Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 5:13 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

I think it depends on why you would want to learn the language and the urgency of learning it.

I do want to learn the Korean language first so that I can at least get the sense of the conversations in all the Kdramas that I'm watching. Big Smile