Which language is easier to learn Japanese or Korean?

Question

To read and to speak.

Answer 1

To read, Korean may be easier because Japanese has those Kanji characters as you can see in Chinese.
To speak, I think both are interesting and not so difficult.

Answer 2

For an English speaker that has no background in either language:

reading - korean

Although it is true that both Korean and Japanese use Chinese characters - in Korea, most people don't use them any more. They still learn them in school, but they mostly only show up on signs of historic buildings, names, and in some newspapers.
And the alphabet, hangeul, is really easy.
Japan on the other hand has 2 alphabets (hiragana and katakana) and they use chinese characters more extensively than Koreans do.

speaking - japanese

From a first glance, both languages would appear to be about the same, but Japanese is definately more easy for English speakers. Japanese only has 5 vowels and all of the consonants are the same as in English with the exception of a few.
Most English speakers that try to learn Korean though have a really hard time distinguishing between some different sounds that are similar, eg. regular vs. stressed vs. aspirated consonants, some of the diphthongs are hard to pronounce for English speakers, and korean has something called vowel harmony - some words change vowel to more closely match the word that it follows...

Answer 3

These two languages are very close. In fact, they are related belonging to a group called ural-altai which includes Finnish as well. There may be easier sounds in Japanese unless you are going to say things like "goenryo naku." That 'r' sound foreign speaker have troubles with. But, over all the sounds in Korean are more complex.
Japanese has only five basic vowel sounds. And, they are almost the same as the vowels in Spanish. If you speak it then you would have a head start in Japanese.
Learning either one of the syllablaries of the two languages is not difficult. Kanji takes some time to learn. As far as I know both Korean and Japanese use these Chinese ideographic characters. You can write either one in the native scripts but it is easier to read if you also use kanji.
It also makes a lot of sense to learn them as they explain where many of the words in these two languages came from.
The grammars are basically similiar and I don't think that one is easier than the other in that resect except that I already know Japanese.

Answer 4

I agree with Mad Chris Cross ... there's probably not much difference!

Korean most definitely DOES use Chinese characters - although they look nothing like the originals now, because they were 'simplified' in a different way by Korean officialdom, but they're still totally different to Roman letters..!

The only REAL difference is availability of classes, books, CDs and software to help you learn the language ... I recommend that you check out classes in your local area and see what's available. It might help your decision! Classes really are essential if you ever want to actually SPEAK to other human beings..!

Answer 5

Japanese has many gramatical rules that you have to memorize and it also has a lot of characters (about 2000), while korean has very hard pronounciation.

right now i'm learning japanese and i think its pretty hard and i have many korean friends.

Answer 6

To read and write: Korean much easier.
To speak: Both rather difficult.

Answer 7

korean