Is Chinese easier than Korean?

What the comparison leaves out: people and material

Difficulty tables compare grammar, sounds and scripts. In Kungfucius's experience, what decides whether a language feels easy after the first year is something else: how often you get to use it, and how much there is to listen to that you actually enjoy.

On the first count Chinese has the advantage. It is typically easier to find Chinese speakers around the world than Korean speakers. Chinese-speaking communities, students, restaurants and shops exist in most large cities on every continent, so a learner in Lisbon or Lima can usually find someone to practise with in person. Korean communities are concentrated in fewer places. Outside Korea and a handful of cities abroad, your Korean conversation partners will mostly be online, through tutors on italki or exchange partners on HelloTalk.

On the second count Korean has caught up, and in some corners overtaken. The Korean wave has increased both the number and the quality of Korean music, films and series available worldwide. Dramas arrive on the big streaming platforms with good subtitles, the music comes with lyrics and fan translations within hours, and much of it is made to be watched abroad. That is listening practice you do voluntarily, which is the only kind that reaches the hundreds of hours a language needs. Chinese-language film and television is vast, but less of it travels, and learners often have to go looking for it.

Kungfucius says: the easier language is the one you are still listening to at midnight.

How to use this for your decision

• If you have Chinese speakers around you, at work, in the family or in your city, Chinese will feel easier than the tables suggest, tones and characters included.
• If Korean dramas and music are already part of your week, Korean will feel easier, and Hangul lets you read the subtitles' original within days. Start with Hangul.
• If neither applies, the short answer above stands: Korean is quicker at the start, and the two even out later.

For the wider choice between the two, see Chinese vs Korean.