Differences between Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages (breaking the stereotype of "all asian languages sound the same")

 

 INFOS ABOUT ASIAN LANGUAGES AND THEIR DIFFERENCES (CHINESE, JAPANESE AND KOREAN)

 

Many people say chinese, japanese and korean are similar languages but they have many differences, pronunciation-wise, grammar-wise and even writting-wise (not all of them use "symbols" )

WRITTING:

Chinese has the hardest writting. All of the words have a specific symbol.

Japanese is mixed. They have borrowed some symbols from Chinese (kanjis) but they also created their own syllabic alphabets (hiragana and katakana). The main difference is, kanjis are 1900 of them or more, while there is only 46 hiragana and 46 katakana to learn. Katakana and Hiragana also have way less complicated strokes than the strokes of Kanjis. Hiragana is for japanese grammatical words. Kanjis are used for verbs and important words. As for Katakana, it's used to write foreign words immersed in Japanese language, like "CD" or "Stop" or any word that comes from foreign languages. Also foreign names. Example: My name is French (im french) so its not japanese. So I have to write my name in Katakana. If I was japanese born in Japan, i'd write my name in Kanjis.

All 3 writting systems (kanjis, hiragana and katakana) are important to learn because Japanese language uses all 3 writtings in a one phrase or text. So its important to learn the 3 of them, to be able to read Japanese when going to Japan etc.... Kanas (hiragana and katakana) are at least easier to learn than Kanjis because they're only 46 letters of them. Kanjis are more numerous (1900+ of them). Because kana only work on syllabs (ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, sa, shi etc..) it's like an alphabet with sounds, but syllabic ones. Unlike kanjis, which have one symbol for each word. ( Note: the meaning of a kanji (symbol from chinese writting) can be different depending on if it's Japanese or Chinese. The pronounciation of the same kanji can also be different depending on if you are in Japan or in China. )

The easiest writting between chinese japanese and korean is Korean. They do not use any symbol borrowed from China or Japan. They only have an alphabet with vowels and consonnants, just like latin alphabet. No need to learn 38377272626 symbols lol. Plus, Korean alphabet is very easy to learn and to write, as the letters are very very very basic-like. I mean theres mostly circles and lines. No difficult strokes. Theres one letter that is only written with ONE circle. like this: o <== this is a korean letter. lol. Easier than chinese symbols or japanese with their 3 writting systems.

 

PRONUNCIATION:

Pronounciation-wise, Japanese is easiest. Chinese has too many weird complicated sounds like "xiang, xiu qhui qiang chu" etc... it's a bit cliché but it's mostly sound like that. Japanese, tho, doesnt sound like that at all. Their words always end with a vowel mostly. Arigato, Watashi, Sayonara, etc.. many japanese words have vowels and basic sounding words, unlike chinese with their qiang chzui sounds lol.

Chinese has tones also. Some words are pronounced with higher tone, or lower tone. And if two words are spelled or pronounced the same but has different tones on each other, then both words can mean totally different things to each other. I mean, same word, but if different tone = different meaning. Like "mai" can mean both to sell or to buy, depending on the tone you pronounce "mai" with (higher or lower vocal tone). It's confusing lol.

Korean and Japanese do not have tones at all.

 

 

GRAMMAR:

Grammar-wise, even if chinese has the hardest writting and hardest pronunciation, they have the easiest grammar between japanese and korean. Chinese is subject + verb + object like in English. And theres no conjugations (the verbs stay the same, never change, even if the tense changes. Only the context can indicate if you talk bout past or future tenses, like adding obvious words such as "next week", or "last month" etc

Japanese and Korean tho, have a more unusual grammar. The word order is Subject + Object + Verb. Verb is always at the end. If you wanna say somethin like: "there is bread on this table" Japanese and koreans will say it like this: "this table on , bread, there is" totally different word order, while chinese word order is closer to English.

Easiest writing: Korean
Easiest pronunciation: Japanese
Easiest grammar: Chinese