【轉帖】海外論壇關於日語和韓語對比的一個貼子

忍者

(一) Although both the Korean and Japanese writing systems look bizarre to westerners at first sight, the Korean system is easier for westerners to learn than the Japanese. No doubt about it. However since Korean and Japanese are both basically agglutinative type languages, I think that they would be equally difficult to learn for anyone who does not speak an agglutinative language. That includes even a Chinese speaker. Japanese is easier to pronounce than Korean I think.

(二) I am fluent in both Korean and Japanese, and I must say, Korean is a heck of a lot harder to pronounce (I would especially say so for English-speakers).
Korean is so precise. You have to have a very good ear to be able to learn it.
For example, the vowels have very subtle differences compared to Japanese:
Japanese: ?(A) ?(I) ?(U) ?(E) ?(O). (The pronounciation of vowels are identicle to Spanish.)
Korean: ?(A) ?(EO) ?(O) ?(U) ?(EU) ?(I). (Somewhat like French.)
Grammer between Japanese and Korean is pretty much identicle. However, Korean vocabulary is much closer to Chinese.
When written, Japanese uses a combination of two phonetic alphabets and Chinese words (thousands of them). Korean uses one phonetic alphabet.
Speaking Korean is like aerobic excercise. Its pronounciation more angular and dramatic. It's almost like "speaking from the stomach". I find it much more fun to speak.
Japanese speaking is more like the Romance languages. It has a smoother flow and it is more in the mouth.
All in all, I find that Korean would be a more challenging language to learn than Japanese.

(三) Both the Japanese and Korean inventory of sounds are shockingly small, haha. They're both very pleasant to listen to though!
On this topic, I think Japanese would be easier for a Chinese person to learn but Korean would be easier for a westerner. This opinion derives from my personal aversion to "learn the dialogues and hiragana, and forget about the kanji" approaches. If you're going to learn Japanese, then by god you SHOULD learn the kanji too. Otherwise, opt for Korean.
The one wrote:
"i think that if Japanese and Chinese people change their letters, the languages will be much respective...Here, at that time will everyone be interested in that question."
Well, here in Taiwan there is a lot of Japanese text on Japanese products and books and such. I guess we (Chinese) can generally infer the meaning of kanji-rich Japanese text, but it's definitely not respective.
It's as if an Englishman tried to read French, I guess? Lots of similar words, but grammar and structure and lots of basic constructions are different. So they're not mutually intelligible.
This analogy works because Japanese borrowed lots of words from Chinese, just as English borrowed from French and Latin. But English and French belong to different language groups, and so do Chinese and Japanese. It's not like French and Italian both being Romance Languages.

(四) Korean used to be written with kanji. Only in the last fifty years did Korean begin to be written entirely using hangul (the Korean alphabet).
For most of the last six hundred years, Korean writing was a mix of kanji and hangul, just as Japanese is a mix of kanji-hiragana-katakana. Before hangul was invented during King Sejong's reign, the Koreans wrote in Wenyanwen Chinese (not sure what the Koreans called it).

传教士

I think so,too.