Chinese vs Korean
How to tell Chinese from Korean
Chinese and Korean are unrelated, but Korean absorbed a large Sino-Korean vocabulary that once was written in Chinese characters (Hanja). Grammar and sound systems differ sharply: Chinese is tonal and analytic, Korean is non-tonal and agglutinative.
The short answer
Korean uses Hangul, rounded and square syllable blocks (안녕하세요) with spaces between words; Chinese uses dense characters with no spaces. Formal Korean may include a few hanja, but Hangul dominates. In speech, Chinese has pitch contours on every syllable, Korean does not.
The verdict
Blocky round syllables (한국어) mean Korean. Dense characters mean Chinese.
Closeness score
6 / 30
Mutually intelligible?
no
Shared vocabulary
Roughly 60% of Korean dictionary vocabulary is Sino-Korean, though less in everyday speech
Which first?
Chinese first unlocks Sino-Korean vocabulary.
Kungfucius says: Korean borrowed the vocabulary and returned the characters.
Side by side
diànhuà전화 (電話)
jeonhwaSino-Korean reading of the same compound.
xuésheng학생 (學生)
haksaengKorean keeps the final -k that Mandarin lost (學 hak vs xué).