Korean vs Japanese vs Chinese Languages! Can They Understand Each Other?!

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Do you think East Asian Langauges are similar?

Can they understand each other's language?

Hope you enjoy the video

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🇰🇷 Seong-ji @bloohour
🇨🇳 Niki @ni._.kiiii

[zlz]

Fun fact: Korean and Japanese are similar in grammar, Japanese and Chinese are similar in Chinese characters / Kanji, Chinese and Korean are similar in the pronunciation of Chinese-origin words (one syllable for each character and a fixed way of pronunciation). But for other aspects, they are totally different from each other😂

[isalutfi]

Thank you for sharing these three east asian languages 🇰🇷🇯🇵🇨🇳

[xjmmjbnqfstjdijoj]

Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese words were borrowed from ancient Chinese and they are mainly found in academic writing and often sound more formal (just like words of Latin origin in English) but the vast majority of everyday vocabulary comes from different language families (native Korean and native Japanese words have nothing in common with each other and with Chinese) so it's like asking an English speaker if he is able to understand Arabic just because some words might have the same root. When writing, Japanese and Chinese might have a clue since they both use 漢字 (Korean used to have them as well) and they might infer meaning from them, but it depends on a lot of factors since they have extremely different grammatical structures

For example in the following sentence
私の趣味は絵を描くことです。
Watashi no SHUMI wa e o kaku koto desu.
The only Sino-Japanese word is SHUMI, the rest doesn't come from Chinese so it is completely unintelligible when spoken to Koreans and Chinese people. However, as I said Japanese uses 漢字, which means that Chinese people can probably infer the meaning by "reading" those letters in their language, but this is not always the case.
For example these very easy sentences do not have any Sino-Japanese words so Koreans and Chinese people would have no clue:
Sakana o tabeteimasu.
Sakana o tabemashita
Sakana o tabetai desu
Sakana o tabemasendeshita
Sakana o tabesasemashita
Sakana o tabesaseraremasendeshita.
Kono sakana o tabetewa ikemasen yo


If I wrote them without kanji, still no clue
さかなをたべています
さかなをたべました
さかなをたべたいです
さかなをたべませんでした
さかなをたべさせました
さかなをたべさせられませんでした
このさかなをたべてはいけませんよ

If I write them with 漢字 suddenly Chinese people would be able to infer we are talking about "fish" and "eating", but they wouldn't be able to understand the grammatical differences even in simple sentences
魚を食べています I am eating fish
魚を食べました I ate fish
魚を食べたいです I want to eat fish
魚を食べませんでした I didn't eat fish
魚を食べさせました I made someone eat fish
魚を食べさせられませんでした I wasn't forced to eat fish
この魚を食べてはいけませんよ
You must not eat this fish

But even sentences with many 漢字 can be very misleading for Chinese speakers, I guess
For example
馬鹿げた話はいい加減にしなさい
Bakageta hanashi wa iikagen ni shinasai
I wonder if Chinese speakers can understand this sentence

[Razialia]

It's pretty awesome that they all understand and speak Korean and use that as their “universal” language! Versus a lot of other videos where the common language is English.

[EderPagliotto]

I'm brazilian and I don't know how I came across this video, but it is funny.

[jaganata]

Knowing a lot of Chinese character-based words in East Asia is exactly the same as knowing a lot of Latin-based words in the indo-European languages system.
When learning the language of a country in East Asia, it is fast to learn words if you know a lot of Chinese characters, and when learning a new language in a neighboring country, the pronunciation changed slightly in the style of each country, but there are many words of the same origin, so you can learn it much faster when studying words.

[WatchrOfTheSkies]

The similarities between languages that have a common history is always so fascinating. Languages contain so much history in them.

[MazinLuriahk]

can you do Malaysia, Indonesia & Philippines together? that's must be fun to see Austronesian people sitting together doing tongue twister, guessing each other words..

[siusiu]

In ancient times, Japan and Korea had many exchanges with China. They often sent people to China and learned "kanji/한자" (Chinese characters).
Therefore, the pronunciation of many vocabs in Japanese and Korean is very similar to Mandarin, but in fact, it is more similar to Cantonese. Because Cantonese has been used for long long long time, and the Mandarin is relatively new, the characters used in mandarin are quite different from the "kanji/한자" (Chinese characters) learned in ancient times.

[kevwang]

Fun fact: For most Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese terminology that can be written in Chinese characters in each language (i.e. Hanja in Korean and Kanji in Japanese), the pronunciations in Korean and Japanese approximate how these characters were pronounced in Middle Chinese, i.e. the language spoken in and around the "Central Plain" (Zhongyuan/中原) of the Yellow River, where the courts of the Tang and Northern Song dynasties were based more than a thousand years ago. For linguists reconstructing Middle Chinese, one of their methods is to compare the phonology in Korean and Japanese. 

Modern Mandarin Chinese pronunciation has been influenced by peoples and nations that invaded the Central Plain from the north, which forced mass migration of Han Chinese to southern China throughout the last millennium, and therefore dialects/languages originating in Southern China often preserve older pronunciations. One example is the character 瑞 (roughly meaning "auspicious"), which is pronounced "ruì" in modern Mandarin Chinese, but is generally pronounced something like "sui" or "zui" in Japanese using the on'yomi (音読み) reading, and something like "seo" in Korean; in modern dialects/languages in Southern China, for example in Cantonese, Min/Hokkien, or Wu/Shanghainese, the pronunciation is closer to "sui" or "zui", with a initial sibilant as in Japanese and Korean. This is why the country names of Switzerland and Sweden are translated as 瑞士 (ruì-shì) and 瑞典 (ruì-diǎn) in Chinese—these names originally came into Chinese via translators working in Southern China in the late 19th century, who used their local pronunciations of these characters, but for Mandarin speakers the pronunciations might not make sense.

Also, during the 19th century, Japan borrowed many terms from Classical Chinese but gave them new meanings, in order to translate concepts transmitted from the West, and these then trickled back into Chinese through Qing dynasty foreign students studying in Japan. These include terms like 經濟/经济 (economy) and 社會/社会 (society).

[vitorh]

Finally the video I was expecting is here ! < 3 Very enjoyble.
They are nice girls and as expected respectful; not mocking others main language as we have been seen in some other videos.

[theurbanwalk]

I just moved to Japan this month after almost 5 years in Korea and I pretty much don't understand a thing In Japanese. I came on here to give myself a boost in confidence since my Korean skills are up there lol. Hopefully, I can learn Japanese as quick as I did Korean since some words seem to overlap. Thanks for the video!

[henri]

Oh yeah, the old gold trio from Asia, long time noneee these three in a video together, makes me remember the old times when World Friends wasn't so great as today, Nikki ❤

[DeanMMJ]

Mariko's cuteness is the BEST she's like a marshmellow so cute ✨✨

[thegreenmattress]

색 is pronounced the same way in southern Chinese minan dialect. You can find some Japanese and Korean words that are similar to Cantonese and Minan. The vietnamese language also has many words that are similar to Chinese, especially the southern dialects.

Other similar words between the 3 cultures are

수리, 修理 ，すり
준비, 准备， 準備

[questionmarkyim]

Before the 15th century AD, Korean only had language but no characters, and used Chinese characters as writing tools. Since Korean and Chinese are completely different language families, it is not easy to use Chinese characters to record Korean. In addition, ordinary people do not understand Chinese, which is very detrimental to cultural exchange and development. In order to solve the problem of Korean writing, in 1443 King Sejong of the Joseon Dynasty organized a group of scholars to create a writing system suitable for marking Korean phonetics - Hangeul. These characters were called "Hunmin Zhengyin" at that time, which means "teaching the people the correct pronunciation of the characters." The "Hunminjeongeum Haenyeobo Jijie" discovered in 1940 (published in 1446, the 28th year of King Sejong of the Joseon Dynasty) states that the consonants and vowels of Korean characters were created based on the structure of the human oral cavity, the ancient Chinese thoughts of heaven, earth and man, and the Yin and Yang theory.

[phuonglinh-fsuv]

As a Vietnamese, when I learned Chinese, it was kind of easy. We have a lot in common in terms of pronunciation and grammar, but the characters are very different. It would be easier if we still used "chu nom" now. However, we use the alphabet now and it can't be changed.( sorry for my bad english)

[kenchong]

I speak Mandarin and I'm learning Japanese and Korean at the moment so I really enjoyed this. ^^

[Gush]

I love those 3 girls together. I need more of them!

[adamP]

While Korean and Japanese borrowed some old words and the written characters, the 3 languages are in completely different languages families. Although, Koreans and Japanese can learn each others language pretty quickly as the grammar is surprisingly similar. It's possible that both languages descended from a long list common language a really long time ago.