I'm Still Learning In Korean

This is my answer to the question "How hard is Korean for English speakers?" after three years of learning, including spending fourth dimension in Korea.

In early 2020 I began learning Korean in earnest. It was originally in training for a planned three-month trip to Korea, which happened in late 2022.

I originally wrote this later a few months study, then updated it later on a yr and at present after nearly iii years. My level now is "beginner conversational". My classes are nearly entirely in Korean (other than if I really go stuck), and I practice all everyday things (food, marketplace shopping, hobby classes) in Korean. I oftentimes don't understand things, though!

In the process of studying Korean, I've learned a lot about the Korean language, especially a bunch of things I didn't expect (that I wrote a whole article about — things nobody told me well-nigh learning Korean).

As planning out how much I'd have to study Korean every twenty-four hour period to become conversational I began to wonder was: how hard is Korean, really? Specifically for English speakers, and maybe for someone who already knows Chinese? (Which is me, but is likewise another ~i.five billion people.)

The short answer: Korean is non as well hard. In fact, I'd put it as one of the hardest languages I've learned. Despite Korean being fairly early to learn how to read, I'd say Korean is quite difficult to learn (a 4/v in difficulty) — harder to get to fluency for an English speaker than French or German, but easier than Chinese or Arabic.

The capital of Korea, Seoul, as an image for the article on How hard is korean

For each of the below aspects — alphabet, grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary — I rate every bit on a one-5 betoken difficulty scale: "Very piece of cake, Pretty piece of cake, Moderate, Kinda hard, Very hard".

[Read all nigh how we decide what languages to learn hither and see how Egyptian Arabic and Swahili fabricated it to the meridian of the list!]

Note: I'm withal learning Korean, and am roughly at the "Intermediate" phase. Korean was harder than I expected. Information technology's not a linguistic communication to larn casually on the side unless you don't await to get very far.

"How difficult is Korean" overall: 4/5, or "Moderately Difficult"

I'm giving it this rating based on assessing:

Alphabet: 2/5, "Pretty piece of cake"
Grammer: four/5, "Moderate" (I realised this was harder equally time went on)
Pronunciation: 3/5, "Moderate"
Vocabulary: 5/5 "Very hard" (Note: I have revised this after learning a few thousand words)

What does this rating of "moderately difficult" mean in reality? It means that if y'all are planning on getting very far in learning Korean in a year or and then, an average learner should dedicate around two to four hours a twenty-four hours every twenty-four hour period to studying it intensely, with at least a few hours of form time a calendar week, plus homework drills.

How hard the Korean alphabet is: two/five, "Pretty easy"

Let's first with the skillful news… Korean is moderately easy to read (and write, but I'm not focusing on that).

In fact, y'all could definitely learn to read information technology in an hour or two, and get good at it with simply a few days of practice.

Korean is written in its ain alphabet, chosen Hangul (sometimes written Hangeul). At first blush, if you accept no thought how Hangul works, it looks like Chinese — similar characters.

On closer inspection, y'all'll come across far more common traits than Chinese characters have. (Chinese characters share a pool of ~250 "radicals" that make them up, but that's for some other fourth dimension — see the commodity on Chinese linguistic communication facts, if y'all're interested.)

Korean type and print, showing how to write Korean, for Korean learners — Korean type and print explained

Korean is written in little parcels of messages. Each one is a consonant block. They commonly are standalone, simply some of them are pronounced together, similar to French liaison.

Each consonant block in Korean is made of two to five elements, ordinarily two or three. It'south usually as simple as a consonant and a vowel, or perhaps two consonants sandwiching a vowel. These are combined into one consonant element, and then those consonant elements are grouped into words.

Some examples:

가 – combination of a ㄱ(Grand) and a ㅏ(A) to become GA
바 – combination of ㅂ(B) and ㅏ(A) to become BA
보 – combination of ㅂ(B) and ㅗ(O) to goBO. Note these stack vertically

Some slightly more circuitous examples:

밥 – combination of ㅂ(B) and ㅏ(A) and another ㅂ(B) to become BAB
랑 – combination of ㄹ(R), ㅏ(A), and ㅇ(NG) to go RANG
없 – combination of ㅇ(silent earlier a vowel), ㅓ(EO), ㅂ(B), and ㅅ(Due south) to become EOBS

There is a discrete number of combinations possible (it's not space), and not that many messages to learn.

Korean is written left to correct. The writing system is standardised with few exceptions (a few words are slurred for ease of use, simply who'south going to complain virtually that).

In that location are a few complications with Korean reading / writing.

Firstly, information technology'south not entirely phonetic. In modern spoken Korean, there are a few vowels that sound identical, like 에 and 애, both of which have an open "east" sound.

Secondly, sometimes consonants aren't pronounced, or change in pronunciation depending on the following letters. For example, the give-and-take "석류", if you were to use basic phonetic rules, would be pronounced "seok-lyu", only you lot actually have to morph it to "seong-yu". Luckily in that location are rules for this, and they're nearly 100% consistent (just very few rare exceptions).

Finally, in that location are consonants which to the learner'south ear sound similar. I go tripped up between the multiple K-sounding letters, ㄱ, ㄲ (which is the double, but sometimes hard for me to hear), and ㅋ. Same goes for hearing the difference between ㅂ, ㅃ, and ㅍ.

Those things make reading Korean non as easy as, for instance, reading a romanized Korean word. But it's yet a lot easier than Chinese or Japanese!

How to larn reading/writing: An app is a good start for Hangul, like Memrise or Duolingo. (Learning to read is the only affair I similar apps for.)

How hard Korean grammar is: four/v, "Quite difficult", and so practice lots of drills

I initially idea Korean grammar is bully. But the devil is in the detail considering as I've gone on with my study, I've learned that Korean grammar is incredibly nuanced. So I've upgraded this from iii/five to 4/5 as I got deepers into written report.

To outset with, there'southward some good news. There are a few things that are easy in Korean grammer. These mean that as a beginner, it'south very easy to get started and make yourself understood without beingness overwhelmed and worried most errors. These things are:

Korean Verbs don't conjugate much. Information technology's even more simple than in English language. You lot just say "I eat, you eat, she eat" etc. By and future tenses are easy to construct. For past tense, y'all add the particles "~았/었다" to the end of a word. For futurity tense, you add together "~겠다" to the stop of a give-and-take. You likewise don't have to worry about gender or number when conjugating, as I mention beneath.
Passive and causative verbs are easy to form. Like "Information technology has been written" vs "I wrote information technology". These get pretty hard in some languages, like Standard arabic or Hebrew.
Plurals are easy…ish. You only have to add ane particle, "들", to make a noun a plural. Yous can actually omit it and be understood. The simply complexity with plurals is that you lot have to use a "counter" word, similar to Chinese.
There's no grammatical gender, dissimilar most languages (simply similar to English language or Chinese)
At that place'south no "case": Y'all don't accept to apply a different verb or noun form depending on where in the sentence information technology is (like if it's a subject or object). This is mutual in German language (for verbs) or Russian (for nouns), for example.

These simpler aspects of Korean grammar hateful it's like shooting fish in a barrel to get through the beginner phase of Korean. You can express many things without getting stuck in "nuance", which is the hardest bit of Korean.

OK, here are the hardest $.25 of Korean grammar. I'll salvage the hardest bit for last.

Sentence structure is backwards: The basic sentence structure is "subject-object-verb". This takes a footling re-thinking, if you're not used to it from another language. To indicate whether a substantive is an object or a subject, you have to use the right particle… this takes getting used to. It gets harder the more elements there are in a sentence.
- 1 tip I heard on how to make it easy is to imagine you're speaking similar Yoda. "On the table, the bag I put!"
- Another tip I employ personally in most languages: apply extremely uncomplicated sentences. "The bag, on the table, I put it." (fugitive the "it", which always makes things harder)
Adjectives are descriptive verbs: There'south a distinct verb that ways "to be big" or "to be interesting". If you say "the dog is big", you use it in that way. However, when you lot say "the big canis familiaris", you lot rearrange the adjective to just use the particle. It'due south a weird concept, and so you accept to go used to it.
Particles: Korean is called an "agglutinative" linguistic communication. This means you stick things onto words (at the terminate, for Korean) to modify the way the give-and-take is used. You use a unlike particle to determine whether it's a subject or object substantive. You use a different particle to make a verb future, present or past tense, or to alter formality. Korean is a very simple adhesive language.
Formality levels: At that place are three distinct formality levels. 1 teacher described them as "very breezy, informal and formal". A lot of basic resource (similar Duolingo or Memrise) don't distinguish and just teach yous formal, which is too formal for most situations. They're not hard to larn, requiring more often than not to stick things on the end of words, but y'all accept to get used to the idea and to hearing them.
Dash. This is the scrap that'south really quite avant-garde — more on this below.

On formality levels: a simple fashion of understanding information technology is that you change the ending of a verb depending on who you're speaking to and the tone you desire to convey.

The formality ending of a sentence changes depending on

The person'south age — even if they're jsut one year older or younger than you (this is different to Castilian or French, where you often call up "am I quondam enough to be their child/parent" before choosing a formal or informal course)
The person'due south seniority — for example if they're your parent in constabulary, or your boss, or a government official; or conversely someone's child, or an intern
The person'south familiarity — how well you know them

The rules are complicated and quite hard to explain succinctly. Frankly, I learned a lot about formality rules from watching just a few Korean Dramas. In that location's always some chat like "Hey, why are you addressing me and then informally? I'k older than you!". In every unmarried drama. Information technology's that common.

OK, onto the hardest bit of Korean grammar — Dash.

I'm still learning this, years into study. Arguably, nuance is hard in every language, simply what'due south hard in Korean is that you express nuance through subtle particles and conjugations. In many other languages, people express tone through calculation extra words, or just through tone of voice / gesticulation.

As a random example, wait at these two sentences.

오후에 비가 올 테니까 우산을 가지고 가세요
오후에 비가 올 텐데 우산을 가지고 가세요

I've boldfaced the function that's different.

The ii sentences both say "It volition rain later on, so have an umbrella". But in the first one, the speaker is sure information technology'due south going to rain, only in the 2d, the speaker suspects it's going to rain. Those "테니까" and "텐데" aren't words — they're particles that convey dash.

Luckily, there is a finite corporeality of nuance you can larn, simply merely remember that this is ahead of y'all.

How hard Korean pronunciation is: 3/five, "Moderate"

On the i hand, the majority of Korean is easy to pronounce. This is helped by the fact that the writing system is basically entirely phonetic.

Think of pronouncing Korean — mostly — like pronouncing Spanish. The vowels are predictable (even though most are slightly dissimilar to what y'all're used to), and almost consonants are familiar.

However, it'southward not a walk in the park. I definitely had a few lessons where my instructor but got me to pronounce words and she fabricated certain I got them (mostly) correct!

Things that are like shooting fish in a barrel to pronounce in Korean

Most vowels and consonants are easy, and there are few surprises. There are no strange aspirated sounds similar you lot might find in French or Arabic, and there is no tonality.
There are besides no consonant clusters – they avoid them, spacing words with vowels, like in Italian.
In that location are no tones (due east.chiliad. unlike Chinese languages)

Hither's what's hard to pronounce in Korean consonants:

All the double/aspirated messages. There is a double G audio (ㄲ), double P sound (ㅃ), double J audio (ㅉ) and double M audio (ㅋ). These are pronounced kind of as a hard letter and while information technology's non hard to do when simply making the alphabetic character sound, it'south hard to alloy it into a sentence.
50/R (ㄹ): This letter is variably pronounced as either an 50 or an R. The L audio is similar to the english Fifty, just the R sound is a rounder R, closer to an L. You tin can either learn the rules, or go used to where it sounds similar either depending on the give-and-take.

Here's what's hard to pronounce in Korean vowels:

Double vowels: Pronouncing sounds like 'eu' is a little unintuitive. You might be familiar with this sound from French or other languages, but of course, it's slightly different in Korean.
Tripthongs: Sometimes an unusual vowel is combined with another one, like "eui" (in 의사, "Doctor"). I never got these quite right in the beginning, and my instructor made me drill them.

One other matter — like in every language, some words are "slurred", peculiarly those that are in extremely common use. This is actually formalised in pronunciation, besides, information technology's not just the "slangy" style of speaking. This is piece of cake to learn — it's for the most common words — and one of the outset things you'll pick upwards.

How hard Korean vocabulary is: Difficulty 5/5, "Very hard"

I've revised this function of this article on "How hard is Korean" after really trying to learn a lot of Korean vocabulary and realising how difficult it is!

The vocab is where the rubber hits the road for learning Korean.

For the beginning learner, most words audio unfamiliar. At that place are almost no words mutual with English language, autonomously from a few loan words like "computer" or "tv set".

If you speak Chinese or Japanese, y'all have an advantage over your average English language speaker. Korean has a lot of loan words from Chinese, and they're often the same ones that Japanese has.

But the major roadblock to learning Korean words is that so many of them sound and then similar to each other. And since there are no characters, information technology's harder to build mnemonic building blocks in your mind. I ever have a tough fourth dimension differentiating similar sounding words. The merely style, for me, is to learn whole sentences using a tool like Glossika.

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What's easy about Korean vocabulary:

The words are fundamentally non difficult say. This puts you ahead of Chinese or Arabic, where you accept to larn new phonetics just to learn a new word. Instance in indicate: "bread" in Korean is pronounced ppang, which isn't difficult to say (you kind of pause on the 'p' for longer), vs in Egyptian Arabic where it is pronounced 3aysh (requiring a whole new consonant, the ayn represented by the 3), or Mandarin where it is pronounced miànbāo, requiring you to know tones.
Words are built up out of smaller discussion elements. This is conceptually similar to Chinese, where "computer" is "electrical brain". In Korean, you lot assemble related words out of shared building blocks. For example, early in the piece I learned the word for school was 학교 (hak-kyo), and the word for educatee was 학생 (hak-seng). Detect annihilation in common?

What's harder about Korean vocabulary:

The words are unfamiliar. Unless yous speak Chinese or Japanese, nearly every word is going to seem new to you (and even those simply give yous a fractional advantage). You have very few mnemonics to build.
There are very few loanwords. Yes, there's "Konglish", but nowhere nearly every bit much as in informal languages like Egyptian Arabic.
The words tin can get quite long. Chinese words are unremarkably (and on average) ii characters long. Korean words, when fully expressed with formality, can go much longer, and information technology gets worse when particles are thrown on them and then they can be used in sentences. This makes it harder to assimilate and recall them at kickoff.

As English speakers, we evaluate difficulty of the Korean language on the Alphabet, Grammar, Pronunciation, and Vocabulary. Know what to expect if you're considering diving into this language.

Adventure Traveller

Take a chance traveller, language nerd, and coffee addict. I can deadlift a motorcycle, speak 9 languages (including at to the lowest degree one that will surprise y'all), and know i cracking card trick.