Why can Koreans learn Japanese so quickly?

[Corybobory]

Thanks Petit

I actually don't believe they're isolates, I think they should be grouped together hehe. I dont know a lot about Korean, but my syntax teacher was Korean and we looked at the sentence structure a bit and it had so many similarities. Korean also has a bunch of borrowed words from Japanese, and with their closeness, I'm sure Japanese has exposure in Japan, with dramas and tv and stuff... Maybe I should get my masters in linguistics proving they're part of the same language group!!

[norain]

RAIN doesn't speak Japanese!?!? O_O I thought he did, which was why he released a Japanese album. That's crazy. Rain appears to able to speak quite a little bit of English fluently though. I had no idea Rain couldn't speak Japanese, but for the most part, he gets his pronunciations right? Hmm...

Maybe I should go to Japan and force myself the language like BoA. BoA's quite fluent, and she's going English fluent.

[ayu_fan929]

^Well being able to sing in Japanese is different from being able to talk fluently in Japanese....

[*Petit*]

Yep,

Japanese is a very easy language to sing in.

[Corybobory]

I wish being fluent was as easy as being able to sing in it!! :p hehehe

[jiro_ejlr]

because they both are cousins in the way of their cultures.. even Chinese too.. and I think they are some similar accent of words in every words that they say or they speak off.. but both of them are so unique.. someday i will learn how to speak Japanese and Korean.. Actually I'm studying right now.. ehehehehe..

[Corybobory]

Chinese is as different from Japanese as English is from Japanese.

[hopeorpain]

Japanese derive "on" kanji sounds from the Chinese...so sometimes words sound very familiar..

and, when I listen to Koreans speak it really sounds similar to Japanese, but of course, not the same.

[Dustie]

Like I've heard so and like other's have said too, Korean and Japanese have similar grammar... being considered as isolate, I guess it's indeed odd when you find so many similarities...

I agree that BoA has a funny/weird accent, but it's no wonder, becouse Korean has different sounds than Japanese (I think), and if you watch some clips of BoA learning pronounciation you will see that she couldn't really pronounce some of the sounds, not even close enough.

As for Koreans speaking better English - I guess the teaching system must be better in this area than it is in Japan... kinda like in China, where I've heard young people can communicate on the basic level quite well.

[Corybobory]

Korean has a larger range of sounds in their repotoire than Japanese, so they might have an easier time with pronunciation at first. But I'd disagree that Koreans are better at speaking English, or that it's because of the teaching system.

[*Petit*]

^
Cory, I was just wondering, do you think that Katakana might actually be hampering the english learning in Japan, as the english words appear to be quite different from the real ones in Katakana "disguise"? I know it's mostly used for foreign words as a part of japanese "native" vocabulary, the same way many english and french words have become a part of other languages, but at least the words appear somewhat similar or identical in most languages because the same letters are used even though pronouciation is different (like "komputer" is more similar to "computer" (also pronouciation) than konpyuuta would be..)

[Corybobory]

Just to clarify... do you mean is it harder for Japanese to learn English because katakana words are different than the English word they borrowed from?

I can see your point at how they might mix them up sometimes. I'm studying French and I mix up words that are similar sometimes... but it's never really a problem. So I'd say no, I dont think that it would make much difference. It's like how when we learn Japanese we dont say "krrrrawdeee" in a Japanese sentence for "ka-ra-te". I think if anything the English influx is helpful for introducing familiar vocabulary... the brain is pretty good at separating the differences between what is the 'borrowed word' and what is the 'foreign word'.

I took a class on second langauge aquisition and it was pretty interesting looking at what errors you'd EXPECT one learner to make in learning English... but the results were often quite suprising, and usually errors can't be predicted at all!

Did I understand what you were asking right?

[*Petit*]

^
Yep, it's kind of different not just in pronounciation, but also more in the way it is written and the sounds that the "letters" refer to. I think you answered my question. =P

Sometimes the subtle differences are really difficult, even though they have no real influence on the pronounciation, like.. umm. I can't really think of a good example french english, but a close example would be "garderobe" and wardrobe (about equal meaning in norwegian/english). What's even more confusing to me is the name of certain things like "paprika" and "pepper". It took us about ten minutes to work out the differences with our bilingual canadian french teacher. Paprika would be the round sweet pepper /Capsicum in norwegian and I think also in french, but only the seasoning in english. Our teacher tried to explain that it was referring to the vegetable in french, but most thought so already as they probably didn't know that it was something different in english. In norwegian "pepper" is referring to "poivre"/peppercorns, paprika the vegetable as mentioned and chilis the hotter and smaller types (chili pepper) to add to the confusion.. =P

It's really surprising sometimes to discover what type of errors that really are common. I remember attending a french class in Cannes with russians and koreans mostly and some of the koreans had huge problems with the "ou" sound in "vous". Voulez-vous turned out "veulez-veut" (in french), which seemed strange to me. I also remember a chinese lady who managed to say "r (not the french "r" but rather the rolled one found in spanish and swedish) in the beginning of certain words, but she had no chance pronouncing it correctly within words. O.o

[oro77]

I think Japanese language has very few pronunciation possibilities, so I think for Koreans, it may be easier to learn Japanese.

For Europeans, it is the same, the Japanese pronunciation is not a big deal. But Koreans have a very similar grammar, it may help a lot.

But pronunciation and grammar are not enough to be able to learn a new language, you need to learn vocabulary. It should take a lot of time even if some words may be similar, I think most of the words are quite different.

But somehow Koreans people can learn very fast, a friend of mine can understand fluent Japanese after learning in 4 months only, and can speak very well too (not fluent yet)

[FeNgZhEnG]

coz korea and japan is very close. many japanese in korea also and vice versa..thus making it easier.. unlike us who lives aboard..hardly or difficult to find someone to speak japanese with. Very hard to improve..

[The_Swede]

I think Japanese and Korean are pretty similar too, even though I don't know any Korean... But I have seen examples when they compare it with Japanese and it's exactly the same...

When you live in Japan for a while you learn Japanese pertty fast. I have been in Japan for 6.5 months now and I speak it like fluently XD

And I can't forget that Japanese is really easy to sing XD Especially for Koreans since the pronounciation is pretty similar.