Japanese ⇔ Korean

日本語⇔한국어

1) I studied Japanese what language do I study next?

2) I learned Korean, do I do Chinese or Japanese?

3) I am planning to study double-major in university, what's the best 'combo'?

First, try to answer these questions yourself.

Done?

Well check out the following answers:

1) I studied Japanese what do I study next? ⇒ Arabic.

2) I learned Korean, do I learn Chinese or Japanese? ⇒ Neither, do French.

3) I am planning to study double-major in university, what's the best 'combo'? ⇒ Linguistics and Spanish.

Those might not be your ideal answers, nor the answers you'd expect from me (as I am well known for going around like Arigatou!! Annyeong haseyo~).

However, one thing I am sure of, is that they don't have 'one right answer', because it’s simply a matter of personal preference.

Actually those answers were inspired by people around me, I got that one friend who just loves French as much as Japanese and studies both languages simultaneously.

Another started off by English Language and Literature as a university major, French language courses since she did some back in school, and lastly Korean because of “K-Pop & K-Drama”.

An intern I met was studying a double-major programme in the UK which was Linguistics and Japanese.

Everyone has their own views about this matter, it’s like one preferring vanilla for chocolate, or simply likes both together.

In fact I am interested in all languages, but interest isn’t enough because the effort of actual studying is required.

So in this post I will be writing about Japanese and Korean languages as choices that made me, and might, make you pick them as a package.

Here are the two main reasons that have made this 'combo' perfect for me:

①  Kanji/Hanja: China has given Japan and Korea the Chinese characters for them to use back in the time, but what happened to those characters?

Japan: They received Kanji, but gave each character two readings; Kun-yomi, the Japanese reading, and On-yomi, the Chinese reading (I will write in more detail about those readings in a separate post). After some time the Japanese had derived their own writing systems, Hiragana and Katakana from Kanji. Now the normal Japanese sentence contains all three which requires the learner to know all, Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji.

Korea: What happened in Korean was that the Koreans used Hanja for some time until they made up their own alphabet 'Hangul', which only requires the learner to know Hangul to read Korean text. And now Hanja is only something to know for cases like names, and linguistics for better understanding of Korean.

Many words in both languages resemble each other in their readings and when going back to the Kanji/Hanja origin it explains the resemblance.

Kanji/Hanja	Japanese Reading	Korean Reading	Meaning
約束	やくそく yakusoku	약속 yagsog	Promise
到着	とうちゃく touchaku	도착 dochag	Arrive
運動	うんどう undou	운동 undong	Exercise

②  Language syntax and grammar rules: Japanese and Korean work much like each other which makes an advantage because if you knew one language before the other your way of thinking and processing the language is ready to receive the other. One example is the 'syntax' or sentence order: "Subject – Object – Verb".

In addition to the particles that are grouped and work the same (I will write about the particles in a separate post).

	Japanese		Korean
Example Sentence	I have a cat.
	私は猫を飼っています。	저는 고양이를 기르고 있어요.
Reading	watashi wa neko o katteimasu.	Jeo neun goyangi reul gireugo isseoyo.
Word Order	Pronoun "watashi" + Topic Particle "wa"	Pronoun "jeo" + Topic Particle "neun"
	Object "neko" + Object Particle "o"	Object "goyangi" + Object Particle "reul"
	Verb "katteimasu" (conjugated to the formal present continuous)	Verb "gireugo isseoyo" (conjugated to the formal present continuous)

One more grammar example is the noun maker in Japanese こと/koto and in Korean 것/geot.

	Example Verb 1	Noun (Gerund)
Japanese	行く　"ik-u"	行くこと "ik-u koto"
Korean	가다  "ga-da"	가는 것 "ga-neun geot"
Meaning	To go	Going
	Example Verb 2	Noun (Gerund)
Japanese	食べる　"tabe-ru"	食べること "tabe-ru koto"
Korean	먹다  "meog-da"	먹는 것 "meog-neun geot"
Meaning	To eat	Eating

           

This post is to make you think and do your own research on these two languages, and see if you want to learn them simultaneously or master one followed by the other. Not only Japanese and Korean, but also any other language of your own choice.