Japanese vs. Chinese vs. Korean: Which is Hardest?

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» Timestamps ⏱️
00:00 Why learn these 3 languages?
02:19 Reading and Writing
07:32 SPONSOR: Paperlike!
08:32 Vocabulary
10:16 Grammar
11:30 Pronunciation
13:12 Learner Experience

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[splex]

I'm learning Korean right now, and I love it. This was a great video and helped a lot with the understanding with what each entails. Thank you!

[ZHENYUANBI]

As a Chinese speaker, I think you pronunciation is really great and I have been learning English for over one decade.I hope you can make greater progress in learning Chinese.

[vocabjourney]

Hi Izzy, thanks for posting this fun and informative video!
My wife is Vietnamese and I’m Japanese. She would blast Japanese as the craziest language because of all those Kanjis, and I would retort roasting Vietnamese as the nastiest language because of those six tones. We don’t get along in terms of languages but our little son speaks both languages with ease😆

[JagVentures]

Thank you for this wonderful video Dr Sealey. I'm also teaching myself Chinese (Mandarin) purely due to my love for Chinese history and my admiration for Buddhism and Daoism. As a British Indian, I relish the spiritual bonds China and India shared throughout history. I hope the two countries can grow side by side. I wish all those reading my comment peace and the best of luck with their studies.

[yokohamakid]

Izzyさん、こんにちは。わたしは、日本人です。 Thank you very much for picking up our languages as the topic. I was amazed to learn how deep you know the differences of three languages such as cultural back ground or grammar which even I don’t know. I felt much closer to you now.
ありがとうございました。

[gigglyhroy]

As a native Japanese speaker I’m glad you introduced our language briefly but correctly!

[tusamec]

One information I miss at 05:35 is that Japanese reading ist divided into kunyomi (the japanese way of reading it) and onyomi (the sino-japanese reading). So yeah, 水 would be みず (mizu) but the onyomi is すい (sui), which is close to the chinese shui. Mostly (but there are MANY exceptions) Kanji+Kanji=onyomi-reading while

[English-yevg]

You arrived at the perfect moment. This year that is coming I have planned to learn Korean :)!

[peachygyuk]

Love this video! I’m Singaporean so I’ve been speaking English and Chinese since I was young. Personally as a native speaker, I remembered struggling a lot with memorising thousands of chinese characters despite already learning it from my parents ever since I was a baby. I think a non-native speaker will struggle with the vocabulary even more than I did.

Secondly, as a person interested in learning a third language, I found korean to be slightly easier than japanese, mainly because i found kanji far too similar to chinese and struggled remembering the different meanings and pronunciation for the exact same character.

On the other hand, the hangul is indeed extremely simple to understand and I’ve been finding it a joy to self-learn so far :)

[paullee]

Hello Izzy, I am Korean-American been living in the US for 4 decades plus since I came here when I was a teenager. There’s much I could say about the Korean language. Yeah, your information is sufficient. I’ve been a subscriber since your last year at Cambridge University. Glad to see that you’re making much progress in different aspects of life.

[w.z.]

Very informative video! Katakana and hirakana in Japanese were also developed from Chinese writing, They are more like radicals in Chinese characters.

[ioenglishworld]

I speak Japanese at near-native level and also speak conversational Korean. (Incidentally, I can also read and write both languages.) I can tell that Dr. Izzy speaks English (and probably Chinese) at a native level, but not Japanese. And Korean probably not at all because I didn’t hear her say anything in Korean throughout the video; however, in my experience (almost 30 years in Asia, mostly Tokyo) all her analysis is spot on. Japanese and Korean are amazingly similar grammatically with Japanese being far, far easier to pronounce. Korean grammar is a bit more difficult. In terms of reading and writing, you should be able to master hangul within a week. As for learning to read and write Japanese, it’s gonna take a while — you will never stop learning all the various readings of the thousand(s) of kanji you need to read the language. But if you wanna get conversational in any of these three languages, Japanese is easily the easiest. Especially if you know Korean.

[iliili]

Japanese and Korean have similarities in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure, whereas Chinese is quite different.

[tamashiinohako]

The mic on the fork 😂
I don't know about Chinese or Korean, but yes indeed Japanese grammar is a lot simpler compared to English or French and if you are indeed a native English speaker (especially if you speak the Queen's English) I feel Japanese pronunciation would feel quite naturally to you once you get into it.

[lehg]

I am Mexican and I am trying to learn these three languages. I would like to know how to learn efficiently since grammar is hard. As a Spanish speaker, I think that Asian languages in the future will be essential to be able to communicate.

[HDJess]

But why are you using a fork to hold your mic?

[stephaniepraud]

Hi! Thanks for your advice 🙏🙏 I'm french and I learn English, Korean and Now Chinese !

[amy_ht]

Thank you for introducing Japanese, my first language.
I watch your videos for English listening practice, motivating myself, or just for fun and now really happy to know you are interested in Japanese language as well as other South Asian languages!

[jacquelynsoo]

Glad to have chanced upon this video! I'm a Chinese Singaporean, learning Japanese and intending to hop onto learning Korean in a couple of years! It is like a family link btw these 3 languages!

[amayaperry]

There’s a few languages I want to learn and with time the list will likely grow… I considered learning Spanish bc it’s the 2nd most spoken language in the US but somehow i fell in love with Korean. I sometimes get criticized for choosing Korean before learning Spanish (which is also on my list) but then i realize that if i follow what everyone else is saying instead of what i want-I’ll learn nothing. Never fully committing to any new language. Plus you never know where life may take you. I might need Korean someday. This video came at a perfect time.
(Also this video has made me feel less afraid of wanting to learn all three of these languages. Actually my brother was a big inspiration bc he taught himself some Mandarin Chinese when we were younger)
❤