Korean & Japanese

Zero · Tourist Joined: Mar 28, 2004 Posts: 13 Location: Al,USA

Is korean the same as Japanese?

Jon · Korean Citizen Joined: Mar 19, 2004 Posts: 512

Well, in a way some words and the structure are similar, but in all essence their identities are different, its like asking whether Fench and English are the same.
They may share a few words which are similar, but they possess their own identity.

Zero · Tourist Joined: Mar 28, 2004 Posts: 13 Location: Al,USA

How many languages do you speak?
me 1, but I know a little Korean now not much but I'm learning

Zach · Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 5:15 am Post subject:

I dont mean to sound mean... but you say you know a little korean... you should as well be able to identify the differences from korean to japanese. The writing is much different, although many sounds are similar.

Lynn · Beginner Joined: Jun 15, 2004 Posts: 4

well, to me, I realizies that korean is more difficult.

Asthmatic_Ant · Korean Linguist Joined: Aug 03, 2004 Posts: 158

I can speak Japanese pretty fluently, and am a beginner at Korean, but from what I've seen of the 2 languages so far I've concluded that:
Korean and Japanese are very different, once you get past the point that yes, both Japanese and Korean are SOV languages you will find they are completely different animals.
For example, Korean verbs seem to have a lot more inflections than their Japanese counterparts, ideas which would be expressed in Japanese with a combination of individually identifiable words in Korean seems to be built into inflections attached to verb stems which singularly have no meaning.
Japanese uses 2 verb forms for stating that something exists, depending on whether the thing in question is living or dead. Korean uses only 1.
The written languages are totally different.
Vocabulary, while sharing some similarities sometimes, is still alien enough that a Korean and Japanese in the same room wouldn't understand each other. Pronunciation of a similar word is that different in each of the countries.
Japanese and Korean are very different phonetically. In general, Japanese does not allow a string of consonants to be pronounced, giving rise to such words as 'Makudonarudo' for 'McDonalds', Korean however can do this. Also the list of available sounds available for use in each of the languages is very different.
So, to sum up, they aren't the same.
_________________
Itadakisourou shisounourou