Japanese vs Korean

Should I learn Japanese or Korean?

Japanese and Korean have strikingly similar grammar (subject-object-verb, particles, honorific verb forms) and both have a large Chinese-derived vocabulary, but no proven genetic relationship. Korean writes in the Hangul alphabet; Japanese mixes kanji and kana.

The short answer

Choose Japanese for the larger media ecosystem and life in Japan; choose Korean if K-dramas, K-pop or Korea itself draws you and you want a script you can read within days. Both are in the FSI's hardest category, so pick the culture you will still care about in year three.

🥋 The Dojo · five rounds

Kungfucius asks Korean and Japanese to come to the Dojo!

Five rounds, two choices each. Click what you would pick. No thinking allowed.

Round 1: music · click one

The verdict

Pick Korean if you want a quick start (Hangul in a day); pick Japanese if you want the bigger body of media and a script that helps with Chinese later.

0 / 5Family

0 / 5Script

3 / 5Vocabulary

4 / 5Grammar

2 / 5Pronunciation

0 / 5Intelligibility

Closeness score

9 / 30

Mutually intelligible?

Shared vocabulary

Roughly 60% of Korean dictionary vocabulary and about half of Japanese is Chinese-derived; many such words correspond

Which first?

Either order works; grammar transfers almost 1:1.

Kungfucius says: Grammatical twins raised by different scripts.

Side by side

shared word · library図書館
toshokan도서관 (圖書館)
doseogwanSino-Japanese and Sino-Korean readings of the same characters; Japanese writes the shinjitai 図.

shared word · preparation準備
junbi준비 (準備)
junbiOne of the cognates where Japanese and Korean readings coincide exactly.

giveaway · topic markerは
wa은/는
eun/neunBoth languages mark the topic with a particle after the noun; Korean picks 은 after a consonant and 는 after a vowel.

shared word · promise約束
yakusoku약속 (約束)
yaksokA clear cognate pair: same characters, closely related readings.

The two questions that decide it

The data above tells you how the two languages compare. It cannot tell you which to learn. In Kungfucius's view the deciding questions are these: what is your goal, and what is your why?

The goal is the concrete thing. A year in Seoul, a job with a Japanese company, reading manga without a translation, passing TOPIK Level 4 for a degree. The why is what keeps you going on a wet Tuesday in month fourteen: a partner's family, a fascination with one country, a body of films or music you cannot leave alone.

Both languages take thousands of hours for an English speaker. Over that distance, small differences in difficulty are noise. A clear goal and a strong why are what carry people to the end, and their absence is the usual reason people stop.

Matching goal and why to a language

Your goal is a place. If you will live, study or work in one of the two countries, the question is already answered. Learn the language of the pavement outside your door.
Your goal is a career. Look at the actual employers or universities you have in mind and see which language they ask for, and which certificate: JLPT or TOPIK.
Your why is media. Choose the one you already consume without being told to. Japanese has the deeper back catalogue of books, comics, games and animation. Korean has drama and music with enormous international reach.
Your why is people. A partner, friends or in-laws outweigh every other argument on this page.
You have no goal and no why yet. Try both for a month. Learn Hangul and kana, take a few lessons in each, and notice which one you return to when nobody is checking.

A clear goal can also overrule difficulty. Korean is the gentler start, since Hangul takes days and kanji take years. That advantage is worth little if everything you want to read is in Japanese.

Kungfucius says: you can change textbooks every month. Change your why and you start again.

If you still cannot choose

The grammar of the two is close enough that the first makes the second much cheaper, so this is less of a lifetime decision than it feels. Start with the one that has the nearer deadline, and read about learning Japanese and Korean at the same time before you attempt both at once. If you want help putting your reasons into words, begin with setting language goals.

Keep reading

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