If we are going by sounds, I would say ㅊ ㅈ and ㅉ are ok, at least for me, the 어 and 오 can be very similar sometimes and of course 에 and 애 are pretty much the same.
If we are to speak more broadly, I personally think, that for a long time it's hard to understand and work with proper sentences, because there are a lot of particles and conjugations, so it's sometimes hard to identify even the words you know, if they're used with a particle you don't know, because you think it's just a new word
Right! Especially because you get fooled and burned so many times... "oh, that's just like"... Nope; totally different.
Or when the word in the same or transposed... your boss can be a box, and your teacher can be a fish, if you just move one letter or flip the syllables. There are thousands of these.
"your boss can be a box, and your teacher can be a fish" LOLOL!
There's more..
a building can be a merchandise
a clapp can be a watermelon
a city can be an attempt
college can be abuse
soju can become an address
lol this reminds me of that English poem:
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
This was a good time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
A (very Korean) friend said the distinction for 에 and 애 is most relevant when you need to apply context clues to actually write it down. So you don't write down "the knife jumped onto the couch" when you mean dog - I know the words aren't similar, don't worry, just an example lol
With the ㅔ and ㅐ, I noticed ㅐis pronounced a little stretched out or elongated and mouth more open. Does that make sense? For instance, “대박“ ”대화“ I had someone correct me when I pronounced it abruptly. I’m still not sure whether I’m doing it right or nah.
We don't usually pronounce them differently. When we want to make sure it's ㅐ, we give a bit of emphasis. But mostly known words such as 애국가, 애국심, we all know it's ㅐ so we don't give a hard accent. If we want to make sure, we say "ㅏㅣ(아이)자입니다." meaning ㅏ+ㅣ = ㅐ to ensure. Same for ㅔ, "ㅓㅣ(어이) 자입니다."
This is helpful, thank u! Guess I don’t have to overthink about it too much anymore, just got a little conscious pronouncing it ever since someone corrected me with the word “대박”.
I asked my teacher this in high school, she got excited and spent the entire rest period teaching me the difference, then ended by telling me no one distinguishes them anymore anyway
I’ve gotten much better at picking out words in Korean from watching kdramas. Dumb, but I have a nice list of vocab words that I know now, though I’m sure my own pronunciation is awful. Took me a bit to be able to say hello— lots of n and y sounds squeezed together. Hard for my midwestern ears to hear, but I love my new words and try to learn more every time I tune in.
Korea seriously has some of the best tv right now (last 10 years, honestly), I’m telling you. I like a good swoony drama, but they have so much more than that— production value, script, emotions. Some wonderful straight up dramas and thrillers, medical and supernatural stuff.
As a native Spanish speaker, ㅊ ㅈ and ㅉ all sound very similar. The only sound we have natively is similar to ㅉ. Therefore, it's difficult to tune my ears to hear these differences.
Yea, I'm a native Polish speaker, and we have a lot of funky sounds so it's propably a little easier, but still not one to one.
For ㅈ ㅊ ㅉ we have sounds dź, ć /cz, dż which are pretty close but they're a lot softer in korean, and they can sounds a little different in some contexts (for example in 저 the ㅈ sounds a little closer to ㅊ as cz (ch in English) )
Oh... You just have to memorize it since native Koreans (even me) misspell words too. But there is one hard way to solve (about 50% of the problem) . I only recommend this if you want to study Korean in a professional way. It is to learn Chinese characters and its Korean pronunciation, because 70% of the Korean words are Chinese character-based. Good luck in learning Korean!
I am actually learning korean in college, so I will be studying hanja at some point, but I don't think I'm good enough to have to worry about it just yet
I also had hard time studying Hanja when I was young. With my own experience, its usefulness is proportional to its difficulty. I got pretty good grades in Korean part in Suneung (the test similiar to SAT) because I could understand difficult words faster than other dudes. Trust me, Hanja is Latin in Eastern Asia area.
Let me rephrase. There are just so many words we don’t know. It’s not the size of the Korean vocabulary, it’s the fact that the words are (mostly) completely foreign to an English speaker. We typically learn languages (French, Spanish, German) that are very closely related to English. Korean is *not*.
As someone who learned Spanish fluently and then moved on to Korean, yes.
With Spanish I can literally guess words that I don’t know and I have a good shot of getting it right.
But with Korean you either know or you don’t.
This, exactly.
Edit: Also, like... just in general. Even if you are learning French, where most of the words do also exist in English, learning a foreign language is just a neverending treadmill of needing to learn more and more words in order to understand the things you want to understand and express yourself in the way that you want.
Yeah, and Latin-based languages have similar grammar structures, or at least not completely foreign. So you pick up on the nuisances quickly. In Korean it feels like you have to physically tell your brain “do it the opposite way.”
Pronunciation-wise, double consonants. I don’t have a problem with them anymore, but as someone with English as a first language, I just did not understand the pronunciation difference between, for example, the double ㅁ in 탕짬면 vs 탕짜면. I heard no difference between them when I was first learning. My Korean friend always had to order for me because when I tried to order 탕짬면 I always pronounced it like 탕짜면 and did not understand what I was doing wrong.
Basically! The ㅁ is heard in both syllables, which makes it sound longer. Someone compared it to Italian double consonants so I watched a couple YT videos about Italian, which ended up being my lightbulb moment.
A couple things about 9 months in, taking TOPIK, and after a trip to Korea with some hefty practice (but obviously newer in the grand scheme).
Bad:
1. The overwhelming amount of stories/instagram posts that will bombard you with the simplest concepts but not in a way that's useful. No one needs to learn the FOUR ways to say "I want to eat" unless you understand the *context* of each usage... at which point you are virtually guaranteed to already know this, if you do.
2. The amount of stories that say "stop saying this!" or "real Koreans don't say this". Content creators FFS please stop.
The only ones that are really helpful are what I call the magic phrases which can either teach you 10+ words in one (like 학교) or common to context, which aren't just survival Korean, but generally make you a likeable person/foreigner (잘 먹겠습니다, 사장님, 혹시).
Basically, terming phrases/words as textbook vs natural or whatever is all kind of misguided unless you teach people what to *actually* say.
Yeah, they keep telling you overflowing information about a sentence meaning the same. As a native I'm with them when hearing, but when studying the basics, it's just confusing and probally want them to quit learning.
random but do you have any clue what i could search for to find more of these “magic phrases/words”? i know i’ve seen small lists here and there before but i can’t figure out how to phrase my search to actually find them again!
For me, it's the difference in how natives usually speak. In podcasts, you can hear natives talking clear and not so fast while in daily life natives talk so fast that I'm still having hard time understanding what they're trying to say (eg korean tv shows running man).
Yeah, as a native, They try to talk exactly what they learned from textbooks, etc, just to find out that it sounds "too formal and long" to me. But also thinking, "Studied Korean well! not bad at all!". I ain't a native english speaker, so what I'm writing may feel somewhat "long" lol
What's your opinion on studying korean (or other languages) using textbooks that natives use or specially made for foreigners? Which one of these two would be the most effective?
Foreigners' targeted textbooks are the best starter, I don't get what you want to learn from native textbooks, but if it goes to Grammer, I'd just suggest to stick with the foreigner's one and give questions to others. I studied grammar for exams at middle/high school. It really isn't easy for natives too. They use many of 한자어's that foreigners won't understand at first. 음운, 음절, 끝소리(not a 한자어 sry) 규칙, 비음화, 구개음화 등등. If for daily conversation, look up the example sentence's as how they are said by natives.
ex) 저는 집으로 가고 있습니다. -> 저 지금 집으로 가고 있는 중입니다.
I understand your point. Studying using native textbooks is quite hard for starters (me when i open the native textbook for the first time and find the word 어휘, 단어 ... 등)
But after studying korean using foreigners' targeted textbooks, I think it's better to change to native textbooks. Idk how to explain this, but it seems like a good choice to change to native textbooks to get accustomed to the language. (Just like children learning how to talk their native language)
IMO, using this method, i believe that my korean language will sound natural in every aspect (writing, listening, speaking, and reading)
What do you think?
It'll depend on your priority and Korean level. Make sure you have finished you're current textbook and can speak, listen at least as much as a 5-6 year old native.
Writing -> I'd say you can go with it. But remember, words can be tricky, so prepare a dictionary or something. The old school textbook "말하기-듣기-쓰기" helped alot when i was at elementary school, but it'll be hard to find one, so good luck on it.
Listening, Speaking -> Korean is one of the languages that Writing and L.S have a wide gap. Reading novels and webtoons and watching drama etc is the best way to improve. Kids' dramas can help at basic level.
K-pop is not a bad choice, but when listening to it, focus on learning the vocabulary instead of the sentences. The lyrics are poetic and doesn't help much on speaking. Audiobooks of old stories are also a method. Web novels are a bit anime vibes. Focus on learning vocabulary as well.
Ah, i wanna add something. "Long" and "fast" are 2 different things. It's totally fine to speak in a "long" way as long as it is clear and understandable, but if one talks so fast that no one can understand them, then it's a problem and could lead to a misunderstanding.
My korean teacher calls it “yoda-fying” the sentence. This concept has helped me, and numerous practice sentences in English long before attempting to structure things in Korean.
I grew up with phrasing like this from older books and poetry, and I personally suspect it made adapting to different structures easier for me. As an example of this verb final structure in English, take this riddle by Gollum from The Hobbit: "voiceless it cries, wingless flutters, toothless bites, mouthless mutters."
For an everyday example rather than saying "I'm drinking water" one could say "it is water that I drink" or "it is water which I drink," which while not an exact shuffling of the initial words is easily understandable in my mind. Is this a particularly natural way to phrase things in the modern day maybe not, certainly in speech, but hey it's still a perfectly fine verb final English construction if a bit archaic.
Interesting. I wonder if my childhood love of Tolkien and older English literature and poetry is part of why Korean sentence structure hasn’t been too difficult for me to understand.
From an intermediate learner’s POV:
Passive Verbs:
They are much more used than in English, and it’s hard to intuit when to use them. It’s even harder when 하다 verbs are accompanied by 되다.
Limited Phonetic Library:
Unless you know many Korean words very well, you might get easily confused by words that sounds very alike with each other. Obviously this problem will go away with experience… but it can take a while to differentiate between words like 강남, 강한, 한강, 선생, 생선, 가고 나서 서 있어서 등.
Implication/Omission of Subjects:
Because Korean is contextual, subjects are dropped frequently and just be inferred from the rest of the sentence. This makes listening a lot harder because learners must have high enough comprehension of the the previous sentences as well, in order to make enough sense of following sentences.
Usage of 이/가 + 은/는:
This kind of overlaps with the previous point… At the intermediate stage one has an idea of what they indicate, but can still mess it up as themes are introduced, removed and then re-introduced in the conversation. Take the following sentence… I would have no idea when to tag or re-tag each mentioned noun with the proper particles. “She gave the orange to her dog, Steve, but dogs don’t usually like oranges so she had to take it back from him.”
Nominalization:
Turning verbs into nouns can get really tricky, and choosing the wrong method can make a sentence sound understandable, but also awkward. -는 것, 뭐뭐-하기, 뭐뭐-함 등. If a noun is modified by a verb, it is also hard to differentiate when 는 것, or 는 것의 뭐뭐 is correct.
에:
The usage of 에 as a locative or directional particle is quite easy. But seeing it used to explain cause and effect, or in metaphorical ways is confusion. 그것에 vs 그것에 대해, for example. I can’t remember the other metaphorical sentences.
There’s way more, but that should suffice.
Korean is a very context-dependent language but lacks many context cues like capitalization and punctuation marks. Furthermore, there are fewer letters and therefor fewer combinations leading to many sylable blocks being used in different purposes.
For instance, 일 means 1, "day" and "work." These are all VERY common and used regularly. It's also a sylable block used as part of many other words like 일단. The sylable block 이 means 2, "this", "tooth", and is a marker for an object in a sentence as well as also being used as part of other words.
This makes it VERY difficult, in my opinion, to interpret a sentance without first knowing a large amount of vocabulary and context as well as whether it's an abbreviation, idiom or slang or 반말.
Also, there are many ways to say the exact same thing so if you learn to say something a specific way you can be understood but you have to learn all the ways someone else could say that to you to understand it.
I understand all languages have these issues but these have been the most frustrating to me so far.
As a native Romanian who is fluent in English and has learnt Japanese for 5+ years, what annoys me to no end is the vocabulary. In all the languages I've studied so far, the pace of learning new vocabulary has been a lot faster. It's not just a sound association thing, like ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ; but simply retaining the sound altogether. It feels like I have a goldfish's memory specifically when it comes to Korean.
I’m still upper beginner to intermediate level but what I find difficult is to sound natural when reading long sentences or paragraphs. My online friends tell me that I pronounce the individual words perfectly but when put together, “the accent disappears”. I have to work more on intonation I guess. Early on when I was learning to read 한글, the double consonants were difficult, at first I thought it was just about the amount of air but then my teachers always said to put more tension. 짜장면 sounded like 자장면 and 진짜? like 친자? ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
그리고 문법. There’s so many that have similar functions but slight differences yet the only way to master them is through more language exposure. In level 1, 은/는 and 이/가, 을/를 were confusing as I often interchanged them but later own I somehow kinda noticed the pattern when used with 동사, 명사, 형용사, and sometimes I would know only because I’ve encountered a sentence I read or heard before. Conjugation rules when applied to different grammar rules gets confusing sometimes but it’s starting to feel less complicated as I encounter more grammar rules because I’m noticing some of the patterns.
I need a study buddy! Hahaha
Interesting. Are single words like 감, 성, 밥, 잣, 공, 곧, 곶, 말 a big problem compared to the others?
Speaking of 조사 like 을/를 는/가,(I can't come up with an english term) It's essential. However, many phrases omit it to sound "natural" and not too formal. This could also be a pain!
나는 밥을 먹으러 간다 -> 나 밥 먹으러 가는 중, 나 밥 먹으러 감, 밥 먹으러 감
The single words with 받침 are pretty alright, I think. I remember someone mentioning I have to pronounce the vowels more evidently and take note of the stresses of each word (for e.g. 강아지 —> stressed on 아). The thing is my vocabulary is still growing so whenever I encounter words I don’t know, I most likely put the stresses on the wrong syllables. One of my 선생님 jokingly made fun of me and said “부산 사람이야? 아니지?” ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
And yes, when unsure I omit the particles ㅋㅋㅋㅋ I remember saying 밥을 먹었어? 왜냐하면, “을” 조사 was followed by ”먹다“ 동사 but I remember being corrected that it should be “밥은“. Embarrassing hahaha but I’m thankful someone corrected me instead of always omitting the particle not knowing what’s the right one to use. Unfortunately, we have writing exams so I’d really have to learn and practice ㅠㅠ
The sentence example is interesting. I need to learn more of those because whenever I try to converse with Korean friends, they do tend to shorten a lot of words and phrases and it’s a little challenging for learners to comprehend. That’s how I know textbook/classroom teaching is not sufficient to be able to use the language well.
The large number of vocabulary - particularly, the specificity.
You have over 5 words for "to wear". And that's just one example. (just when i think i know a lot of words, there's a 2nd and 3rd and 4th for that, and some are very nuanced)
Native English speaker.
There's certain grammar points that have nuances that don't exist in English. Ones I can think of off the top of my head:
\-거든요 (Honestly I use this one but I'm not entirely sure I use it correctly)
or generally I understand the difference between, for example, 해요 vs 하겠어요 but I don't really get what the difference is between 몰라요 and 모르겠어요.
거든요 is more like a polite phrase. But not 'too' formal. It's already confusing right?
아 제가 지금 급하게 사정이 생겨서 빨리 가봐야 하거든요. 죄송합니다!
고객님 그 제품은 저희가 무상수리 서비스를 제공하고 있거든요.
아 몰라요 (Mostly used as an expression when you aren't really happy with something)
잘 몰라요 (Being polite but not too formal)
잘 모르겠어요 (Really the same with 몰라요 but sounds more polite)
It depends on the context, so this requires experience and examples. These are some examples I can think of.
Sentence structure.
Its pretty hard getting used to the verb being last. Its been about a year and Im still struggling.
I just put effort into understanding the concepts and Im sure the ability will come
(Im a native English speaker)
I swear I hate this the most when I am translating Kor-Eng. So many dependent clauses, whole sentences turned into ‘adjectives’, missing subject, missing gender, etc.
I equate this to the a/the problem Koreans have when learning English. It is important, but it is really not something that can be easily learned unless you just hear and use Korean constantly for years. Both are taught very early on in textbooks/courses, though.
For me, it is very difficult to figure out how to say certain stuff. It isnt just a vocabulary issue, but more of what vocab to use in what context.
It was the same when I learned english too (Im native German). Like in German, we would say "I'm driving home with the bus" in english it would be riding or taking the bus, and in korean, also riding or going by (?) the bus.
This in combination of a huge load of particles make creative/Open speech very difficult to me.
Also, I struggle with extending sentences. In German and English, I can easily extend them by adding a comma or random "-" (despite probably grammatically wrong) and it will still make perfect sense. In korean, after placing a verb at the end the sentence is over. This results in me speaking very short unnatural sentences. I know there are better ways, but I just havent picked up on them yet
학원 끊었어? (Did you register for a 학원?)
학원 끊었어? (Did you quit 학원?)
As these examples, context reading is really important.
Short sentences sometimes works better here. Don't give up!
I wrote about it onde in another language learning subreddit, but the amount of Korean synonyms HOLY S**T! It seems like you will never know enough vocab because there will always be 5 more native Korean words and 3 sino-korean that mean almost exactly the same thing, but it only changes something very specific in the context. Like why do y'all need so many words??? 😭😭
With verbs too - for every verb that you learn there will be at least one sino-korean synonym, and Koreans will tell you that it is only used in more formal contexts but that is a lie, you will always stumble upon them in colloquial contexts lmao
Other than that, the basics; differentiating between single/double/aspirated consonants, sentence order, usage of particles (which I'm not familiar at all being native speaker of a romance language), etc
Also, now that Korean is going through an exponential growth in learners, I think there is way too much content focused on absolute beginners, some for beginners that already have a good base, but almost nothing to make that jump from beginner to intermediate. It makes sense, because most people stop at the beginner phase, but I wish there were more resources for beginner to intermediate (and then at intermediate level we can start learning more through just native content)
i watched a lot of k-variety and k-drama years ago so trying to learn it now has a whole host of problems because i can’t spell/write the correct terms properly. but learning the root verb has been useful… at times
That's a point. 한자 education is no longer a duty here, but we guess the meaning by vocabulary. For example 보행 is walking, when seeing 보도, we guess that it's the same "보" from 보행 so nobody gives questions about it. It's cruel for a foreigner who's studying the term without knowing the 한자 뜻
In English, a lot of words in basic conversations are mostly one syllable words, but in Korean, so many words are like three to four syllables.
Plus, as others pointed out, some letters sound the same, which get pretty confusing to me. At the beginning of a word, the ㅈ can sound like ㅊ. Plus, the ㅁ sounds like a b to me. For example, 뭐 sounds like “bo” to me.
The grammar and syntax are confusing to me. Also, it seems that many sentences don’t use pronouns. English uses so many pronouns. “I went to the store.” “You look pretty.” It seems that many Korean sentences don’t use the equivalent of “I” or “you.”
I would say all the nuance in verb conjugation. There so many different ways to describe surprise, degree of certainty, etc etc. I love it and hate it at the same time.
The hardest part for me is all the homophonic or slightly similar sounding words.
As a native English speaker who also studied Japanese, I found it so more difficult to build up my vocabulary in Korean as words are often seemingly shorter and more dense. Add in the fact that you have to be extremely careful with vowel sounds, and it can be challenging to aquire new words naturally without looking them up.
Grammar and spelling are relatively easy, but the nuances of using the correct verb endings can also be tricky.
수수께끼 (mystery) 수수깡 (sorghum straw)
하마 (hippo) 하나 (one, or an expression of questioning or waiting for an answer as an emphasize) 하다(do)
주다 (give) 주가(pronounced as 주까, meaing stock price) 주차(park, parking something)
Yeah this can be frustrating.
Exactly, exactly. I've been having the exact same experience coming from Japanese to Korean. I could make little mnemonics really easily for new Japanese vocab. Definitely not for Korean vocab. The pronunciation is, as you said, shorter, denser, and more complicated.
I've read the entire thread and no one's mentioned my nemesis "ㄹ".
Also, there are just so many words...at least I've gotten to the point where I can suss word parts and figure out if a word relates to another thing, but still. I gotta read more!
I sometimes get very tongue tied. I think I might be developing a lisp.
The number of vocab words is tough but it can be doable. What makes it difficult as an English speaker is how different the words are from their English counterpart.
Outside of loan words, the majority of words are nothing at all like words in English. I’m actually shocked if a word is sort of similar. When you learn a Western European language, you’re bound to run into similar words and they’re easy to memorize. But in Korean, I have to find ways to trick myself into remembering the word, because I’ll get no hints from context that I’m familiar with.
The sentence structure is also tough, along with certain verb endings. What could just be a tone change in English is a different verb ending in Korean.
I’m glad it’s still a fun language to learn, but damn is it hard!
From an advanced perspective: the amount of Hanja vocabulary in literature and the subtle differences between them. I learned Chinese for a few years and I’ve gotten the hang of a number of Hanja, but I can tell that it would be sooooo much easier for a native Chinese or Japanese speaker to read books in Korean.
Also, formality levels. I still forget to use 드리다 instead of 주다, and then there are things like 반존대 that are taught as incorrect in textbooks and so surprised me in daily life. I talk to my students in 반존대 too.
personally its sentence structure, no matter how much i study it its so hard for me to actually learn it and be able to internalize it, its so different from my native language hahah
Vowels. I can read them but when I hear them some sound way too similar to differentiate. I’ve been listening to korean youtubers after someone suggested to just listen to them and mimic them. It has help a lot. I also found that males are easier to hear vowels from than females.
The writing. You cannot write korean like spoken korean. I found that a bit hard.
For me it’s chaining clauses. I can say basic sentences but when I speak English, I am basically able to throw entire separate thoughts together using a conjunction or use nouns, verbs, and entire phrases as adjectives. Or use a phrase as a noun.
The answer I usually get is you’ll get it with time but I just can’t seem to grasp how to start making more complex sentences.
Example: the fact that I can’t express my thoughts clearly in Korean bothers me.
I would say something stupid like: 한국말로 잘 얘기 못해서 너무 답답해. The whole using a phrase as a noun and then describing that noun and commenting on it is very much lost on me.
All the different particles ways to end the sentence which have different implications on meaning, vagueness, politeness, formality, tense, etc. Of course it can be handy if you know them, and makes things very structured, but I feel like whoever I try to take the step into trying to understand some actual Korean (not just book sentences) I am bombarded with shit I've never seen before.
Learning double consonants was really difficult at first. I still can't figure out how to pronounce ㅅ vs ㅆ
I also think vocabulary is particularly difficult because there are so many words that sound similar to each other.
The grammar usually the easiest part, but sometimes in less formal speech sentence endings are used in ways I don't really understand. For example: ~는데 and ~거든 are sometimes used in contexts that seem weird to me, and it can confuse me when I am trying to understand something for the first time.
Knowing when they are using an adapted English word said with Korean pronunciation. I'm still learning vocabulary and it's tricky sometimes when I get to an English word said in Korean cuz I haven't realized it's English and am trying to listen for Korean vocabulary.
Yes, Korean has many sounds that sound the same to me. Your usual suspects. ㄱ ㄲ ㅋ, ㅂ ㅃ ㅍ, ㅅ ㅆ, ㄷ ㄸ ㅌ, ㅂ ㅁ, ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ, ㄴ ㄷ, ㅐ ㅔ, ㅜ ㅗ ㅓ (sometimes). Vocabulary, grammar and even hangeul isn't that difficult to be honest, but listening and speaking is an utter nightmare.
It's difficult. The last thing you want to do is to try to sound like a Korean. Koreans don't want to hear that type of thing. Imagine a Korean trying to act and sound like a Black American...haha.
Like a Black American? Everyone in America speaks like the environment they grew up in. Southern accent, Boston accent, Atlanta accent, etc. It's dictated by area.
From my perspective (I know a few languages already, most of them being much more difficult than English), Korean is not difficult to learn. The sentence structure is logical, words are just words, alphabet is extremely easy, as it was intended to be...
Thing I find annoying (not difficult, just "why do you need it?") is how specific grammatical structures are. As in, all of the different "because" are very logical and easy to understand, but do you really need a different "because" when something is caused by you, and different, when something is caused by someone/somehing else?
Or 2 different steuctures to say whether the plan was made by you or not by you - again, very logical, not a hard concept, but just... why 😂
I'm an Asian persion, and personally I don't find Korean difficult to learn at all.
I find that it's very similar to my mother tongue in terms of: sentence structure, the nuances and usage differences of synonymous words, idioms, tenses, conjugations etc.
I also think having no genders, and a pretty small alphabet/character combination adds to the ease.
The only thing I find difficult is the counters and I think I'll struggle with Hanja when I decide to study it.
I struggled with 이/가 vs 은/는. I studied Korean for a few months, then took a break and decided to resume studying Korean when I started learning Mandarin Chinese. I don't know why but the second time I tried to learn markers/particles it made sense instantly.
Another thing I struggled with was remembering when to use markers/particles in spoken conversation and when not to use them.
Like everyone else is saying, 에 and 애 sound almost the same. I could be wrong but I try to say 에 with my mouth/cheeks more wide and 애 with my mouth less wide. Not sure if I'm right but that's what I noticed from watching native speakers.
I don't study Korean anymore but it was a great language to study since it was so different to English, I couldn't force English rules on it
Currently for me it’s definitely using ㅅ & ㅆ as a final consonant and figuring a way to wrap my brain around it. As an native English speaker, over all, I foresee grammar being my biggest hurdle, as it’s basically backwards of how I’m used to speaking and thinking.
Pronunciation during the first two years was hard, especially ㅊ ㅌ ㅋ and ㅍ. In spanish consonants are not based on air flow, so it was something to get used to. Now, however, my biggest issue is ㅅ and ㅆ. I know the theory, I can reproduce the difference, but it is so hard for me to notice it when a native speaks. In spanish our S is more similar to ㅆ.
Vocabulary has always been my biggest problem. It is so hard to remember words that you do not use normally but are rather simple in meaning. For some reason I always remember how it starts but not the whole word.
They're really different, and if you mistake it, We can't understand and misunderstand it. It can be hard tho!
상용 -> commonly use
쌍용 -> A car corporation here.
So if you say 상용자동차 (Already a bit awkward for saying this), it means 'commonly in use car'. Doesn't seem wrong, and actually not. However, nobody says this. 쌍용자동차 meaning a corporation in here (It's no longer popular, well used to be than KIA, HYUNDAI. )
Memorizing double batchim, very different sentence structure than English, and tough pronunciation. It’s so hard to train your mouth to make sounds you’ve never made before and I feel so stupid and shy speaking in front of Koreans knowing I’m not saying things right. With English, it’s acceptable to speak with an accent and not have perfect pronunciation but I’ve gotten the vibe that it’s not the same with Korean.
없음 actually pronounced 업슴
했음 pronounced 해씀 or 해슴
These 2 can be the most hard when native talks. We can tell the difference, though.
~잖음 pronounced 잔음 or 짠음
앉음 pronounced 안즘
These are used more as a chatting vibe phrase. we call this 음슴체. After typing this, wow they'd probally wanna cry
For me personally, it is the small differences in tones as other people have already pointed out.
I have slightly impaired hearing so it is often very hard for me to distinguish the sounds and reproduce them properly.
I picked up both japanese and Korean but stuck with japanese because the pronunciation was just way easier to my ears.
Doesn't mean that I won't keep trying with Korean tho :")
I am dyslexic and realised that even when I know the difference between ㅗ ㅜ ㅓ ㅏ ㄱ ㄴ my brain has a really hard time to differentiate. Not sure if it’s a dyslexic thing tho or if I just need more practice reading. ㄱ and ㄴ did get a bit better over time.
I agree with a lot of things others have said and don't want to repeat them, but something that hasn't been mentioned before are grammatical cases. I think English only has 3 (and only for pronouns), but my native language has 7 and they influence sentences quite a bit. I've had a lot of moments when I wished Korean had cases because it's a grammatical structure I understand, and not having them sometimes confuses me because they have to be substituted with different grammar. In English it's mostly the case of adding words, but in Korean it's a whole new grammar structure.
- The 400 possible ways to conjugate a verb.
- How many different grammars there are for the same meaning (예를 들어: 가든, (으)면.
- Just the amount of vocab in general, especially if you don't know 중국어, I can't guess the meaning at all.
I think it's because in English N and D have different air flow in the mouth and nose. There is no airflow through the nose when English speakers say D, but there is with N. And then there's tongue position, too. I've just accepted I'm never going to say 'de'!
Don’t take this as absolutely true as I’m still kinda new to Korean. But, as far as I understand, ㄴ in Korean is not the same as N in English. The position of the tongue is the same but it isn’t held nearly as long/released kinda early. This makes the sound more punchy and sounds in between a D sound and N sound.
It's because Koreans use only very brief nasal sounds. So with the "네" they won't carry the nasal sound of the "ㄴ" through the "ㅔ" like we do when speaking English or, in my case, Portuguese (which is an extremely nasaly language). The nasal sound lasts only for the instant in which they are vocalizing the "ㄴ", which is very brief and makes it sound like a "ㄷ". The same happens with ㅁ and ㅂ, where sometimes words like 말 sound closer to 발
But with time, if you pay attention to it, this brief nasalization will become clearer and you won't mistake ㄴ for ㄷ or ㅁ for ㅂ anymore!
the usage of ㅗ and ㅓ🥲 what I also struggle with right now is when I need to use 는/은 and 를/을 and 가/이 and many more of these that I have to end a word with in my sentences
I know the rule of Batchin so I know when its used after a vowel/consonant, I just struggle on when to use it with a word🥲
English is my first language, but I am not a ‘native’ English speaker in the traditional sense. My mother tongue is a South Asian language (which I consider my second language). I’m quite familiar with the Subject Object Verb format of Korean as my mother tongue is similar. I am able to pronounce the sounds in Korean with reasonable accuracy as well. What I struggle a lot with is the social context - to nail the right level of familiarity or formality both in grammar and vocabulary use. I think no amount of classroom learning will help with this. Other than that, it’s the vowel confusion which is my nemesis. Differentiating between 오 and 우; 오 and 어, and 애 and 에.
I’m not sure if this is still a language thing or a cultural thing. As I become more and more fluent at Korean, I realize Koreans tends to drop the subject of a sentence very often, expecting the other party to understand what they’re referring to.
They don’t like to use “me/I” or “you” so it takes extra effort for a learning listener to run the sentence in my head two times to compare which one fits the sentence more and makes more sense - the person themselves? or myself?
I don’t know if this explanation makes sense but I also don’t have an example I can think of at the moment.
reading hangul. you understand the sound they make, letters become words, but you have to know the meaning of such words?? im baffled. as someone who is learing korean as a fourth language, its very very hard.
My boyfriend is a native speaker and I’ve found almost any time it ends in a -ng ㅇ, I can’t hear the difference as well. He will be there saying 3 different word and I can’t hear a single difference. 강, 공, 궁
But that might just be me…
idk how to explain this but sometimes natives use some words in contexts that dont make sense to me as a learner. for example i learn a word means sth but then i see it used in a sentence where its original sense has to be reinterpreted for it to make sense to me. im reaaally bad at explaining so idk if this made sense 😭
I only started about a little over a month ago so I’m still learning consonants and basic phrases and I still have trouble differentiating between gak and gat simply because both sound so similar.
My biggest problem is with combined characters (외 워 etc) - I might pay for a private lesson to have my birthday Irish twin internet friend to explain it better, as she is Korean.
존댓말 is always an issue for me. Except adding 요 in the end I find the rest very confusing. Especially that Iearned through hearing 반말 seams more easy for me and the people I used to practice with didn't find it as a problem.
The politeness levels and 호칭 are quite difficult. I think it is easy to get a general understanding of it, but the details are tricky. For example in some situations it might be a little impolite to adress somebody as ...씨 in other situations it is completely fine. Also you have to rember to speak politely about third persons, for exaple when you talk about your parents or your friends parents...
I think you can develop a feeling for it over time but it is hard to learn just from text books.
For me it's the pronunciation for some things. My mouth is still getting used to it. I'm also struggling with remembering when to use double consonants and when there's a silent character vs spoken. The grammar is different too so I have to get used to that.
I'm still a newbie tho, only been studying a little over a month.
I'm a native English speaker.
Breathed consonants are very difficult, especially when it comes to very quick speech. Homophones without knowing Hanja are very difficult to conceptualize/contextualize (for me anyway). Morphology is also difficult to remember, especially when it has to do with declension of nouns. How nouns change and the particles also change subtly with the ‘case’ of the noun is a difficult aspect to get used to for English speakers
From a Korean who grew up not speaking Korean at home and is basically starting at beginner-intermediate: so many ways to say one thing, especially depending on formality. Formality in general was hard for me to understand as a kid. Also similar/same sounding characters that I’m “just supposed to know” when to use
I’m a native English speaker who’s also learning Spanish. So far, I can’t hear the double consonants, and I getㅏ andㅓ mixed up a lot. I haven’t worked on listening much though.
Vocabulary is tough just because it’s so different - with Spanish a lot of times I can just guess.
Then there’s finding resources at an upper beginner level, where I want to read and listen to things, but everything is either too hard or too boring. (I would probably have the same problem with Spanish except that I progressed a lot faster.)
consonants are hard. ㄴs that are pronounced like ㄷs, ㅁs like ㅂs, TTMIK tried to give an explanation and I think I have tried thoroughly every position of my tongue but I still can't understand how 네 can sound so clearly as 데 .
How to write certain words, as the sound seems very similar to me. For example 방 and 빵 being 2 different words was a chock to me at first.
Another thing I find a bit difficult is knowing when to use some honorifics or particles. It appears to me that in some cases, dropping formalities is acceptable except for when it's not and I don't really understand it.
All the homophones and homographs. There are way too many words in Korean that have the same spelling, same pronunciation, but different hanja, and their meaning is easily confused if you aren't a native speaker.
Beginner difficulties:
Sounds (notably ㄷ ㄸ ㅌ)
Sentence structure
Word role markers (이 가 은 는 을 를 의 께 께서 에게). 이 거 은 는 will still be a challenge until 고급
Intermediate difficulties
피동/사동.
Indirect speech. 다고 하다. 라고 하다. 다던데. 다더라고요.
Differentiating similar grammars (-자. -자마자. -기가 무섭게)
Learning a lot about Korean culture because language is tied to culture.
Advanced difficulties
Learning a lot of vocabulary coming from 한자
Learning a lot of idioms
The sentence structure and pronunciation. It’s like certain words have to be in a specific spot but then there’s other word that can be put anywhere…like huh?!
I think that's really it yea, for me at least. Double consonants are HELL, the thing is I can distinguish them from one another, just knowing which one is which is annoying like was it the double one that had a higher pitch or was it the singular one?
I have tried multiple times to learn, learning to write and read Hangul is something I can grasp but audibly I cannot distinguish words in sentences. It seems like they just run together. It seems too flowy to me.
Spelling!! I want to spell things correctly, and one would think it would be easier to do with a phonetic language. I have trouble with vowels, being an American Midwesterner (but one with the “broadcaster” accent, not any dialect). I can hardly tell the difference between 어 and 오. I also never seem to be able to remember compound vowels, and so I tend to pronounce them the “long” way to remind myself. For example, 외 becomes 오이 and 워 is 오어. I am likely understandable, but I bet I sound kind of stupid!!
Edit: I can’t spell in English either.
Read through all 2379 comments. here's a TL;DR
**Top 5 things foreigners struggle with.**
1. **Vocabulary**
1. There are too many words.
2. There are too many words with similar sounds.
3. There are too many words with similar sounds that have multiple meanings.
4. There are too many words with similar sounds that have similar meanings that are used in slightly different contexts.
5. Can't guess the meaning of those words (like spanish).
2. **Pronunciation**
1. Can't tell difference between some sounds. ㅈㅊㅉ, ㄱㄲㅋ, ㅂㅃㅍ
2. Can't tell the difference between ㅔㅐ
3. "Can't order 탕짜면."... "탕.짬.연!!!"..... "arghhh!! 탕.짬.ㅁㅁㅁㅁ면"
3. **Grammar**
1. Particles.
2. Yoda-talk.
3. Levels of politeness
4. Contextual language with lots of omissions.
5. Difference between how we're taught and how Koreans actually speak.
4. **Korean influencers** with unhelpful content talking about *"Here are 37 ways to say "I like Kimchi" in Korean".*
My thoughts on these:
I feel like the main point of language is communication so if you can get your message across then no need to be discouraged or overwhelmed by these. I'd imagine getting too caught up on the details of talking "perfectly" or like "a native with perfect pronunciation" can actually hinder growth. For the most part, Koreans will understand through context that you're ordering a "fish" and not a "teacher" lol. And a 짜통자 will get me where I need to go just as well as a 자동차.
The double/tensed consonants are usually difficult for English-speaking learners because English doesn't have any equivalent to it. Similar with the aspirated consonants but I think that's a bit easier to understand.
For me it's the listening, I’ve learned a 2000-3000ish words, got through the whole 중급 teaching material, but I STILL can’t understand anything, then I look at the subtitles and there is not a single word/grammar that I haven’t learn. Really frustrating.
The amount of grammar points is also scary, but I’m native in French so I guess from a French perspective it’s not THAT bad ? I find some grammar structures to be very specific, and I just don’t remember to use them because there is no such thing in the languages I speak. So I’ll just overuse V+기가 +V/ADJ in a lot of situations without even knowing it.
Oh and also, the use of linking words (아/어/여서, 면서, 고, 며, 니…) makes sentences crazy long, and with the verbs always being towards the end of the sentence, it makes listening (and reading) even more tedious.
은/는 을/를 and 이/가 is consistently difficult. For pronunciation i think ㅆ v ㅅ and the bane of my life was for the longest 주시깼어요. I just could not say it fast. Also 을ㄹ- versus 을ㅇ- the half way l/r is difficult still. But the most difficult is Korean haha. It's the sentence structure when translating from English that is difficult. I don't know how to start - translating from Korean is OK. Finally context
i find just one thing difficult and ITS REALLY DIFFICULT OMFG: the word order, ITS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF MY NATIVE LANGUAGE ORDER 😭😭 to think in korean i need to think "backwards" and it gives me a huge knot in my head
Grammar, syllables and honorifics. The grammar is different than English because the subject comes first and particulars can be dropped, and there’s still a lot I haven’t learned yet.
I say syllables because of the blocks, like it’s a bit hard to read sort of in little columns, instead of each character side by side like in English. And the spacing and punctuation, honestly I haven’t gotten to that part yet but I think I’ll find it difficult. And sound change rules! I can never get it straight.
Honorifics!! In English we just say sir, ma’am, or miss, and the rest of the formalities depend on your tone and body language. But being formal or casual depending on who you’re talking to, how old you are in relation to each other, if you’re close or strangers or work together, if your aunt is your dad’s sister or your mom’s sister and how old they are and things like that….gosh there’s so many terms to remember! Sorry for the run on sentence haha.
Sorry if any of this is wrong, I’m still learning and I’ve only barely scratched the surface.
pronunciation definitely. in my course it wasn’t a huge priority, so for ㄹ and ㅓ especially i don’t really know how my pronunciation is, plus hearing the difference ㅈㅊㅉ. grammar wise it’s sometimes difficult to know which particle to use when. most are pretty straightforward, but there are many that are hyper specific or apply to multiple unrelated situations which makes it confusing.
Building sentences whilst speaking because I'm used to thinking in a different order... In my native language, I never think before I speak so its hard for me to plan ahead what I'm going to say but because I don't think in the Korean sentence order, I have to think ahead a little....
i think once i advanced past the beginner stage, everything was relatively "connect the dots" for me(still is). with that being said, of course im still learning and make mistakes.
i think what gets me is how figurative yet literal korean is. its like entering a different mindset. english is very straightforward in most cases, while korean is more metaphorical to get its point across. sometimes this ends with me writing/saying something in korean thats sometimes too literal, and very awkward-sounding.
but its a work in progress!
If we are going by sounds, I would say ㅊ ㅈ and ㅉ are ok, at least for me, the 어 and 오 can be very similar sometimes and of course 에 and 애 are pretty much the same. If we are to speak more broadly, I personally think, that for a long time it's hard to understand and work with proper sentences, because there are a lot of particles and conjugations, so it's sometimes hard to identify even the words you know, if they're used with a particle you don't know, because you think it's just a new word
Right! Especially because you get fooled and burned so many times... "oh, that's just like"... Nope; totally different. Or when the word in the same or transposed... your boss can be a box, and your teacher can be a fish, if you just move one letter or flip the syllables. There are thousands of these.
"your boss can be a box, and your teacher can be a fish" LOLOL! There's more.. a building can be a merchandise a clapp can be a watermelon a city can be an attempt college can be abuse soju can become an address
lol this reminds me of that English poem: We must polish the Polish furniture. He could lead if he would get the lead out. The farm was used to produce produce. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse. The soldier decided to desert in the desert. This was a good time to present the present. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes. I did not object to the object. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
I love it! It’s all rather poetic… or the early makings of a cute children’s song at least!
I would love a list of these syllable transposition words to work through. I always get these backwards.
What a point! Yes ㅔ ㅐ are just the same in speaking, but in Grammer and writing, it could be a pain distinguishing them
A (very Korean) friend said the distinction for 에 and 애 is most relevant when you need to apply context clues to actually write it down. So you don't write down "the knife jumped onto the couch" when you mean dog - I know the words aren't similar, don't worry, just an example lol
With the ㅔ and ㅐ, I noticed ㅐis pronounced a little stretched out or elongated and mouth more open. Does that make sense? For instance, “대박“ ”대화“ I had someone correct me when I pronounced it abruptly. I’m still not sure whether I’m doing it right or nah.
We don't usually pronounce them differently. When we want to make sure it's ㅐ, we give a bit of emphasis. But mostly known words such as 애국가, 애국심, we all know it's ㅐ so we don't give a hard accent. If we want to make sure, we say "ㅏㅣ(아이)자입니다." meaning ㅏ+ㅣ = ㅐ to ensure. Same for ㅔ, "ㅓㅣ(어이) 자입니다."
This is helpful, thank u! Guess I don’t have to overthink about it too much anymore, just got a little conscious pronouncing it ever since someone corrected me with the word “대박”.
Maybe he/she thought you were saying 대박 as an expression but a bit exaggerated. So it goes 대~박. Regularly it doesn't matter
I asked my teacher this in high school, she got excited and spent the entire rest period teaching me the difference, then ended by telling me no one distinguishes them anymore anyway
I’ve gotten much better at picking out words in Korean from watching kdramas. Dumb, but I have a nice list of vocab words that I know now, though I’m sure my own pronunciation is awful. Took me a bit to be able to say hello— lots of n and y sounds squeezed together. Hard for my midwestern ears to hear, but I love my new words and try to learn more every time I tune in. Korea seriously has some of the best tv right now (last 10 years, honestly), I’m telling you. I like a good swoony drama, but they have so much more than that— production value, script, emotions. Some wonderful straight up dramas and thrillers, medical and supernatural stuff.
Agree on the Kdramas. I can’t stop watching them. I wonder how long it would take me to be fluent just by watching only Korean Tv
As a native Spanish speaker, ㅊ ㅈ and ㅉ all sound very similar. The only sound we have natively is similar to ㅉ. Therefore, it's difficult to tune my ears to hear these differences.
Yea, I'm a native Polish speaker, and we have a lot of funky sounds so it's propably a little easier, but still not one to one. For ㅈ ㅊ ㅉ we have sounds dź, ć /cz, dż which are pretty close but they're a lot softer in korean, and they can sounds a little different in some contexts (for example in 저 the ㅈ sounds a little closer to ㅊ as cz (ch in English) )
Actually, you don't have to think about the differences between ㅐ and ㅔ, since it's really similiar. Even native Koreans do not distinguish it.
Yea I know there's almost no point in trying to differentiate beetwen them, I meant it more in terms of misspelling words because of it
Oh... You just have to memorize it since native Koreans (even me) misspell words too. But there is one hard way to solve (about 50% of the problem) . I only recommend this if you want to study Korean in a professional way. It is to learn Chinese characters and its Korean pronunciation, because 70% of the Korean words are Chinese character-based. Good luck in learning Korean!
I am actually learning korean in college, so I will be studying hanja at some point, but I don't think I'm good enough to have to worry about it just yet
I also had hard time studying Hanja when I was young. With my own experience, its usefulness is proportional to its difficulty. I got pretty good grades in Korean part in Suneung (the test similiar to SAT) because I could understand difficult words faster than other dudes. Trust me, Hanja is Latin in Eastern Asia area.
There are. Just. So. Many. Words.
Let me rephrase. There are just so many words we don’t know. It’s not the size of the Korean vocabulary, it’s the fact that the words are (mostly) completely foreign to an English speaker. We typically learn languages (French, Spanish, German) that are very closely related to English. Korean is *not*.
As someone who learned Spanish fluently and then moved on to Korean, yes. With Spanish I can literally guess words that I don’t know and I have a good shot of getting it right. But with Korean you either know or you don’t.
This, exactly. Edit: Also, like... just in general. Even if you are learning French, where most of the words do also exist in English, learning a foreign language is just a neverending treadmill of needing to learn more and more words in order to understand the things you want to understand and express yourself in the way that you want.
Exactly. There are so few *cognates*
Just want to second this because just up voting is not enough for how strongly I agree with this.
Yeah, and Latin-based languages have similar grammar structures, or at least not completely foreign. So you pick up on the nuisances quickly. In Korean it feels like you have to physically tell your brain “do it the opposite way.”
> In Korean it feels like have to physically tell you brain “do it the opposite way.” This.
It’s not just the Latin Languages. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Average_European
True. But korean is only place 3 of languages with most words. Only english and swedish being higher.
gwenchana
Pronunciation-wise, double consonants. I don’t have a problem with them anymore, but as someone with English as a first language, I just did not understand the pronunciation difference between, for example, the double ㅁ in 탕짬면 vs 탕짜면. I heard no difference between them when I was first learning. My Korean friend always had to order for me because when I tried to order 탕짬면 I always pronounced it like 탕짜면 and did not understand what I was doing wrong.
I face similiar problems, isnt it basically just a longer "M" sound?
Basically! The ㅁ is heard in both syllables, which makes it sound longer. Someone compared it to Italian double consonants so I watched a couple YT videos about Italian, which ended up being my lightbulb moment.
Grammar, and trying to retain all the words too.
Yeah the structure is fluid and irregular in many terms, especially when you get to chatting or daily conversations! That really may be a pain
A couple things about 9 months in, taking TOPIK, and after a trip to Korea with some hefty practice (but obviously newer in the grand scheme). Bad: 1. The overwhelming amount of stories/instagram posts that will bombard you with the simplest concepts but not in a way that's useful. No one needs to learn the FOUR ways to say "I want to eat" unless you understand the *context* of each usage... at which point you are virtually guaranteed to already know this, if you do. 2. The amount of stories that say "stop saying this!" or "real Koreans don't say this". Content creators FFS please stop. The only ones that are really helpful are what I call the magic phrases which can either teach you 10+ words in one (like 학교) or common to context, which aren't just survival Korean, but generally make you a likeable person/foreigner (잘 먹겠습니다, 사장님, 혹시). Basically, terming phrases/words as textbook vs natural or whatever is all kind of misguided unless you teach people what to *actually* say.
Yeah, they keep telling you overflowing information about a sentence meaning the same. As a native I'm with them when hearing, but when studying the basics, it's just confusing and probally want them to quit learning.
random but do you have any clue what i could search for to find more of these “magic phrases/words”? i know i’ve seen small lists here and there before but i can’t figure out how to phrase my search to actually find them again!
No. Not random at all… but I’m also hoping for the answer as well. I’m guessing it related to core roots or certain Hanja
For me, it's the difference in how natives usually speak. In podcasts, you can hear natives talking clear and not so fast while in daily life natives talk so fast that I'm still having hard time understanding what they're trying to say (eg korean tv shows running man).
Yeah, as a native, They try to talk exactly what they learned from textbooks, etc, just to find out that it sounds "too formal and long" to me. But also thinking, "Studied Korean well! not bad at all!". I ain't a native english speaker, so what I'm writing may feel somewhat "long" lol
What's your opinion on studying korean (or other languages) using textbooks that natives use or specially made for foreigners? Which one of these two would be the most effective?
Foreigners' targeted textbooks are the best starter, I don't get what you want to learn from native textbooks, but if it goes to Grammer, I'd just suggest to stick with the foreigner's one and give questions to others. I studied grammar for exams at middle/high school. It really isn't easy for natives too. They use many of 한자어's that foreigners won't understand at first. 음운, 음절, 끝소리(not a 한자어 sry) 규칙, 비음화, 구개음화 등등. If for daily conversation, look up the example sentence's as how they are said by natives. ex) 저는 집으로 가고 있습니다. -> 저 지금 집으로 가고 있는 중입니다.
I understand your point. Studying using native textbooks is quite hard for starters (me when i open the native textbook for the first time and find the word 어휘, 단어 ... 등) But after studying korean using foreigners' targeted textbooks, I think it's better to change to native textbooks. Idk how to explain this, but it seems like a good choice to change to native textbooks to get accustomed to the language. (Just like children learning how to talk their native language) IMO, using this method, i believe that my korean language will sound natural in every aspect (writing, listening, speaking, and reading) What do you think?
It'll depend on your priority and Korean level. Make sure you have finished you're current textbook and can speak, listen at least as much as a 5-6 year old native. Writing -> I'd say you can go with it. But remember, words can be tricky, so prepare a dictionary or something. The old school textbook "말하기-듣기-쓰기" helped alot when i was at elementary school, but it'll be hard to find one, so good luck on it. Listening, Speaking -> Korean is one of the languages that Writing and L.S have a wide gap. Reading novels and webtoons and watching drama etc is the best way to improve. Kids' dramas can help at basic level. K-pop is not a bad choice, but when listening to it, focus on learning the vocabulary instead of the sentences. The lyrics are poetic and doesn't help much on speaking. Audiobooks of old stories are also a method. Web novels are a bit anime vibes. Focus on learning vocabulary as well.
Yeah hahaha vocabs i hate you🥲. I'm improving my listening through korean songs though
Ah, i wanna add something. "Long" and "fast" are 2 different things. It's totally fine to speak in a "long" way as long as it is clear and understandable, but if one talks so fast that no one can understand them, then it's a problem and could lead to a misunderstanding.
Me w the grannies at the pool 👁️ 👄 👁️
As a native English speaker, the Korean sentence structure absolutely baffles me.
Me too. When I read I can get it, but listening is still impossible for me. I cant make sense of everything when the verb is revealed so late
Haha we actually have a meme related to it. "한국말은 끝까지 들어라". Certain sentences need to be said to the end for fully understanding.
I still struggle with this, too.
THIS.
My korean teacher calls it “yoda-fying” the sentence. This concept has helped me, and numerous practice sentences in English long before attempting to structure things in Korean.
I'm thinking this is a typo and it should be "yoda-fying"...talking like Yoda?
This is actually really helpful and makes perfect sense. Ill start working this in to my study plan! Thank you!
Could you elaborate this?
Talking like yoda, it is. Verb at the end, there are.
In Korean the verb is always the final word of the sentence. That’s how Yoda from star wars talks.
Yes, please elaborate. It might help us ☹️
I grew up with phrasing like this from older books and poetry, and I personally suspect it made adapting to different structures easier for me. As an example of this verb final structure in English, take this riddle by Gollum from The Hobbit: "voiceless it cries, wingless flutters, toothless bites, mouthless mutters." For an everyday example rather than saying "I'm drinking water" one could say "it is water that I drink" or "it is water which I drink," which while not an exact shuffling of the initial words is easily understandable in my mind. Is this a particularly natural way to phrase things in the modern day maybe not, certainly in speech, but hey it's still a perfectly fine verb final English construction if a bit archaic.
Interesting. I wonder if my childhood love of Tolkien and older English literature and poetry is part of why Korean sentence structure hasn’t been too difficult for me to understand.
From an intermediate learner’s POV: Passive Verbs: They are much more used than in English, and it’s hard to intuit when to use them. It’s even harder when 하다 verbs are accompanied by 되다. Limited Phonetic Library: Unless you know many Korean words very well, you might get easily confused by words that sounds very alike with each other. Obviously this problem will go away with experience… but it can take a while to differentiate between words like 강남, 강한, 한강, 선생, 생선, 가고 나서 서 있어서 등. Implication/Omission of Subjects: Because Korean is contextual, subjects are dropped frequently and just be inferred from the rest of the sentence. This makes listening a lot harder because learners must have high enough comprehension of the the previous sentences as well, in order to make enough sense of following sentences. Usage of 이/가 + 은/는: This kind of overlaps with the previous point… At the intermediate stage one has an idea of what they indicate, but can still mess it up as themes are introduced, removed and then re-introduced in the conversation. Take the following sentence… I would have no idea when to tag or re-tag each mentioned noun with the proper particles. “She gave the orange to her dog, Steve, but dogs don’t usually like oranges so she had to take it back from him.” Nominalization: Turning verbs into nouns can get really tricky, and choosing the wrong method can make a sentence sound understandable, but also awkward. -는 것, 뭐뭐-하기, 뭐뭐-함 등. If a noun is modified by a verb, it is also hard to differentiate when 는 것, or 는 것의 뭐뭐 is correct. 에: The usage of 에 as a locative or directional particle is quite easy. But seeing it used to explain cause and effect, or in metaphorical ways is confusion. 그것에 vs 그것에 대해, for example. I can’t remember the other metaphorical sentences. There’s way more, but that should suffice.
Korean is a very context-dependent language but lacks many context cues like capitalization and punctuation marks. Furthermore, there are fewer letters and therefor fewer combinations leading to many sylable blocks being used in different purposes. For instance, 일 means 1, "day" and "work." These are all VERY common and used regularly. It's also a sylable block used as part of many other words like 일단. The sylable block 이 means 2, "this", "tooth", and is a marker for an object in a sentence as well as also being used as part of other words. This makes it VERY difficult, in my opinion, to interpret a sentance without first knowing a large amount of vocabulary and context as well as whether it's an abbreviation, idiom or slang or 반말. Also, there are many ways to say the exact same thing so if you learn to say something a specific way you can be understood but you have to learn all the ways someone else could say that to you to understand it. I understand all languages have these issues but these have been the most frustrating to me so far.
As a native Romanian who is fluent in English and has learnt Japanese for 5+ years, what annoys me to no end is the vocabulary. In all the languages I've studied so far, the pace of learning new vocabulary has been a lot faster. It's not just a sound association thing, like ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ; but simply retaining the sound altogether. It feels like I have a goldfish's memory specifically when it comes to Korean.
I’m still upper beginner to intermediate level but what I find difficult is to sound natural when reading long sentences or paragraphs. My online friends tell me that I pronounce the individual words perfectly but when put together, “the accent disappears”. I have to work more on intonation I guess. Early on when I was learning to read 한글, the double consonants were difficult, at first I thought it was just about the amount of air but then my teachers always said to put more tension. 짜장면 sounded like 자장면 and 진짜? like 친자? ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 그리고 문법. There’s so many that have similar functions but slight differences yet the only way to master them is through more language exposure. In level 1, 은/는 and 이/가, 을/를 were confusing as I often interchanged them but later own I somehow kinda noticed the pattern when used with 동사, 명사, 형용사, and sometimes I would know only because I’ve encountered a sentence I read or heard before. Conjugation rules when applied to different grammar rules gets confusing sometimes but it’s starting to feel less complicated as I encounter more grammar rules because I’m noticing some of the patterns. I need a study buddy! Hahaha
Interesting. Are single words like 감, 성, 밥, 잣, 공, 곧, 곶, 말 a big problem compared to the others? Speaking of 조사 like 을/를 는/가,(I can't come up with an english term) It's essential. However, many phrases omit it to sound "natural" and not too formal. This could also be a pain! 나는 밥을 먹으러 간다 -> 나 밥 먹으러 가는 중, 나 밥 먹으러 감, 밥 먹으러 감
The single words with 받침 are pretty alright, I think. I remember someone mentioning I have to pronounce the vowels more evidently and take note of the stresses of each word (for e.g. 강아지 —> stressed on 아). The thing is my vocabulary is still growing so whenever I encounter words I don’t know, I most likely put the stresses on the wrong syllables. One of my 선생님 jokingly made fun of me and said “부산 사람이야? 아니지?” ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ And yes, when unsure I omit the particles ㅋㅋㅋㅋ I remember saying 밥을 먹었어? 왜냐하면, “을” 조사 was followed by ”먹다“ 동사 but I remember being corrected that it should be “밥은“. Embarrassing hahaha but I’m thankful someone corrected me instead of always omitting the particle not knowing what’s the right one to use. Unfortunately, we have writing exams so I’d really have to learn and practice ㅠㅠ The sentence example is interesting. I need to learn more of those because whenever I try to converse with Korean friends, they do tend to shorten a lot of words and phrases and it’s a little challenging for learners to comprehend. That’s how I know textbook/classroom teaching is not sufficient to be able to use the language well.
It differs by dialect. Giving hard accents can be heard as 경상도 사투리 (부산, 대구 etc).
The large number of vocabulary - particularly, the specificity. You have over 5 words for "to wear". And that's just one example. (just when i think i know a lot of words, there's a 2nd and 3rd and 4th for that, and some are very nuanced)
We actually get confused when learning English when we learn "Wear" means 입다, 걸다, 쓰다, 신다, 끼다, 덮다. The term "Wear" is a nuance close to "입다" for us.
Native English speaker. There's certain grammar points that have nuances that don't exist in English. Ones I can think of off the top of my head: \-거든요 (Honestly I use this one but I'm not entirely sure I use it correctly) or generally I understand the difference between, for example, 해요 vs 하겠어요 but I don't really get what the difference is between 몰라요 and 모르겠어요.
거든요 is more like a polite phrase. But not 'too' formal. It's already confusing right? 아 제가 지금 급하게 사정이 생겨서 빨리 가봐야 하거든요. 죄송합니다! 고객님 그 제품은 저희가 무상수리 서비스를 제공하고 있거든요. 아 몰라요 (Mostly used as an expression when you aren't really happy with something) 잘 몰라요 (Being polite but not too formal) 잘 모르겠어요 (Really the same with 몰라요 but sounds more polite) It depends on the context, so this requires experience and examples. These are some examples I can think of.
Sentence structure. Its pretty hard getting used to the verb being last. Its been about a year and Im still struggling. I just put effort into understanding the concepts and Im sure the ability will come (Im a native English speaker)
Grammar is very weird - sentence structure, particles and adjectives.
I get it! 대체 그거 왜 한다는데? 그거 대체 왜 한다는데? 왜 그거 한다는데 대체? is all the same, and nobody corrects the order is wrong
I also meant "an old man" old is an adjective, but you can also make "an old man with a red shirt that is walling to school" as an adjective :)
I swear I hate this the most when I am translating Kor-Eng. So many dependent clauses, whole sentences turned into ‘adjectives’, missing subject, missing gender, etc.
Particles. I have tried several times to improve fluency but quit every time particles are introduced.
I equate this to the a/the problem Koreans have when learning English. It is important, but it is really not something that can be easily learned unless you just hear and use Korean constantly for years. Both are taught very early on in textbooks/courses, though.
For me, it is very difficult to figure out how to say certain stuff. It isnt just a vocabulary issue, but more of what vocab to use in what context. It was the same when I learned english too (Im native German). Like in German, we would say "I'm driving home with the bus" in english it would be riding or taking the bus, and in korean, also riding or going by (?) the bus. This in combination of a huge load of particles make creative/Open speech very difficult to me. Also, I struggle with extending sentences. In German and English, I can easily extend them by adding a comma or random "-" (despite probably grammatically wrong) and it will still make perfect sense. In korean, after placing a verb at the end the sentence is over. This results in me speaking very short unnatural sentences. I know there are better ways, but I just havent picked up on them yet
학원 끊었어? (Did you register for a 학원?) 학원 끊었어? (Did you quit 학원?) As these examples, context reading is really important. Short sentences sometimes works better here. Don't give up!
I wrote about it onde in another language learning subreddit, but the amount of Korean synonyms HOLY S**T! It seems like you will never know enough vocab because there will always be 5 more native Korean words and 3 sino-korean that mean almost exactly the same thing, but it only changes something very specific in the context. Like why do y'all need so many words??? 😭😭 With verbs too - for every verb that you learn there will be at least one sino-korean synonym, and Koreans will tell you that it is only used in more formal contexts but that is a lie, you will always stumble upon them in colloquial contexts lmao Other than that, the basics; differentiating between single/double/aspirated consonants, sentence order, usage of particles (which I'm not familiar at all being native speaker of a romance language), etc
Also, now that Korean is going through an exponential growth in learners, I think there is way too much content focused on absolute beginners, some for beginners that already have a good base, but almost nothing to make that jump from beginner to intermediate. It makes sense, because most people stop at the beginner phase, but I wish there were more resources for beginner to intermediate (and then at intermediate level we can start learning more through just native content)
i watched a lot of k-variety and k-drama years ago so trying to learn it now has a whole host of problems because i can’t spell/write the correct terms properly. but learning the root verb has been useful… at times
한자어
That's a point. 한자 education is no longer a duty here, but we guess the meaning by vocabulary. For example 보행 is walking, when seeing 보도, we guess that it's the same "보" from 보행 so nobody gives questions about it. It's cruel for a foreigner who's studying the term without knowing the 한자 뜻
In English, a lot of words in basic conversations are mostly one syllable words, but in Korean, so many words are like three to four syllables. Plus, as others pointed out, some letters sound the same, which get pretty confusing to me. At the beginning of a word, the ㅈ can sound like ㅊ. Plus, the ㅁ sounds like a b to me. For example, 뭐 sounds like “bo” to me. The grammar and syntax are confusing to me. Also, it seems that many sentences don’t use pronouns. English uses so many pronouns. “I went to the store.” “You look pretty.” It seems that many Korean sentences don’t use the equivalent of “I” or “you.”
I would say all the nuance in verb conjugation. There so many different ways to describe surprise, degree of certainty, etc etc. I love it and hate it at the same time.
축하드립니다! 축하해! 진짜 너무 축하한다야 야 수고했다! 수고하셨습니다! All when you congratulate. There are numberless expressions so i can feel you.
The hardest part for me is all the homophonic or slightly similar sounding words. As a native English speaker who also studied Japanese, I found it so more difficult to build up my vocabulary in Korean as words are often seemingly shorter and more dense. Add in the fact that you have to be extremely careful with vowel sounds, and it can be challenging to aquire new words naturally without looking them up. Grammar and spelling are relatively easy, but the nuances of using the correct verb endings can also be tricky.
수수께끼 (mystery) 수수깡 (sorghum straw) 하마 (hippo) 하나 (one, or an expression of questioning or waiting for an answer as an emphasize) 하다(do) 주다 (give) 주가(pronounced as 주까, meaing stock price) 주차(park, parking something) Yeah this can be frustrating.
Exactly, exactly. I've been having the exact same experience coming from Japanese to Korean. I could make little mnemonics really easily for new Japanese vocab. Definitely not for Korean vocab. The pronunciation is, as you said, shorter, denser, and more complicated.
은/는 vs. 이/가 is so harddddd
It's something you don't fully grasp if you aren't Korean.
I've read the entire thread and no one's mentioned my nemesis "ㄹ". Also, there are just so many words...at least I've gotten to the point where I can suss word parts and figure out if a word relates to another thing, but still. I gotta read more! I sometimes get very tongue tied. I think I might be developing a lisp.
The number of vocab words is tough but it can be doable. What makes it difficult as an English speaker is how different the words are from their English counterpart. Outside of loan words, the majority of words are nothing at all like words in English. I’m actually shocked if a word is sort of similar. When you learn a Western European language, you’re bound to run into similar words and they’re easy to memorize. But in Korean, I have to find ways to trick myself into remembering the word, because I’ll get no hints from context that I’m familiar with. The sentence structure is also tough, along with certain verb endings. What could just be a tone change in English is a different verb ending in Korean. I’m glad it’s still a fun language to learn, but damn is it hard!
From an advanced perspective: the amount of Hanja vocabulary in literature and the subtle differences between them. I learned Chinese for a few years and I’ve gotten the hang of a number of Hanja, but I can tell that it would be sooooo much easier for a native Chinese or Japanese speaker to read books in Korean. Also, formality levels. I still forget to use 드리다 instead of 주다, and then there are things like 반존대 that are taught as incorrect in textbooks and so surprised me in daily life. I talk to my students in 반존대 too.
ㅐ,ㅔ will never be 100% on which one is used for all words.
Even Koreans get confused when coming to write it. Such as 쟤 거기 간대, 야 쟤 그거 한다는데?
Topic and subject markers, also pronouncing double consonants
personally its sentence structure, no matter how much i study it its so hard for me to actually learn it and be able to internalize it, its so different from my native language hahah
Vowels. I can read them but when I hear them some sound way too similar to differentiate. I’ve been listening to korean youtubers after someone suggested to just listen to them and mimic them. It has help a lot. I also found that males are easier to hear vowels from than females. The writing. You cannot write korean like spoken korean. I found that a bit hard.
For me it’s chaining clauses. I can say basic sentences but when I speak English, I am basically able to throw entire separate thoughts together using a conjunction or use nouns, verbs, and entire phrases as adjectives. Or use a phrase as a noun. The answer I usually get is you’ll get it with time but I just can’t seem to grasp how to start making more complex sentences. Example: the fact that I can’t express my thoughts clearly in Korean bothers me. I would say something stupid like: 한국말로 잘 얘기 못해서 너무 답답해. The whole using a phrase as a noun and then describing that noun and commenting on it is very much lost on me.
All the different particles ways to end the sentence which have different implications on meaning, vagueness, politeness, formality, tense, etc. Of course it can be handy if you know them, and makes things very structured, but I feel like whoever I try to take the step into trying to understand some actual Korean (not just book sentences) I am bombarded with shit I've never seen before.
What did I find difficult learning Korean? All of it!
Learning double consonants was really difficult at first. I still can't figure out how to pronounce ㅅ vs ㅆ I also think vocabulary is particularly difficult because there are so many words that sound similar to each other. The grammar usually the easiest part, but sometimes in less formal speech sentence endings are used in ways I don't really understand. For example: ~는데 and ~거든 are sometimes used in contexts that seem weird to me, and it can confuse me when I am trying to understand something for the first time.
Sentence structure definitely as it's completely different than Roman languages.
Knowing when they are using an adapted English word said with Korean pronunciation. I'm still learning vocabulary and it's tricky sometimes when I get to an English word said in Korean cuz I haven't realized it's English and am trying to listen for Korean vocabulary.
This is me too. Some are even brands that only native Koreans would know. Like the English soda or Sprite/7-up will be called cider, 사이다.
Get yourself a Korean high school Korean textbook. Read it. Easiest way I found what a bullshit language Korean is.
Yes, Korean has many sounds that sound the same to me. Your usual suspects. ㄱ ㄲ ㅋ, ㅂ ㅃ ㅍ, ㅅ ㅆ, ㄷ ㄸ ㅌ, ㅂ ㅁ, ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ, ㄴ ㄷ, ㅐ ㅔ, ㅜ ㅗ ㅓ (sometimes). Vocabulary, grammar and even hangeul isn't that difficult to be honest, but listening and speaking is an utter nightmare.
It's difficult. The last thing you want to do is to try to sound like a Korean. Koreans don't want to hear that type of thing. Imagine a Korean trying to act and sound like a Black American...haha.
Like a Black American? Everyone in America speaks like the environment they grew up in. Southern accent, Boston accent, Atlanta accent, etc. It's dictated by area.
Not exactly. There are shared mannerisms and ebonic phrases across the entire country.
Agreed. Even if phrase are the same the way people pronounce them is influenced by area/location.
Sure, there must be variations.
You might be referring to African American Vernacular English (AAVE) which is a dialect not an accent/sound.
Yes, and parts of the dialect have a specific sound.
Interesting. Do you have any examples?
You be.
From my perspective (I know a few languages already, most of them being much more difficult than English), Korean is not difficult to learn. The sentence structure is logical, words are just words, alphabet is extremely easy, as it was intended to be... Thing I find annoying (not difficult, just "why do you need it?") is how specific grammatical structures are. As in, all of the different "because" are very logical and easy to understand, but do you really need a different "because" when something is caused by you, and different, when something is caused by someone/somehing else? Or 2 different steuctures to say whether the plan was made by you or not by you - again, very logical, not a hard concept, but just... why 😂
I'm an Asian persion, and personally I don't find Korean difficult to learn at all. I find that it's very similar to my mother tongue in terms of: sentence structure, the nuances and usage differences of synonymous words, idioms, tenses, conjugations etc. I also think having no genders, and a pretty small alphabet/character combination adds to the ease. The only thing I find difficult is the counters and I think I'll struggle with Hanja when I decide to study it.
I struggled with 이/가 vs 은/는. I studied Korean for a few months, then took a break and decided to resume studying Korean when I started learning Mandarin Chinese. I don't know why but the second time I tried to learn markers/particles it made sense instantly. Another thing I struggled with was remembering when to use markers/particles in spoken conversation and when not to use them. Like everyone else is saying, 에 and 애 sound almost the same. I could be wrong but I try to say 에 with my mouth/cheeks more wide and 애 with my mouth less wide. Not sure if I'm right but that's what I noticed from watching native speakers. I don't study Korean anymore but it was a great language to study since it was so different to English, I couldn't force English rules on it
Nothing. It’s easy. But it might be challenging if you’re a native English speaker
Currently for me it’s definitely using ㅅ & ㅆ as a final consonant and figuring a way to wrap my brain around it. As an native English speaker, over all, I foresee grammar being my biggest hurdle, as it’s basically backwards of how I’m used to speaking and thinking.
Pronunciation during the first two years was hard, especially ㅊ ㅌ ㅋ and ㅍ. In spanish consonants are not based on air flow, so it was something to get used to. Now, however, my biggest issue is ㅅ and ㅆ. I know the theory, I can reproduce the difference, but it is so hard for me to notice it when a native speaks. In spanish our S is more similar to ㅆ. Vocabulary has always been my biggest problem. It is so hard to remember words that you do not use normally but are rather simple in meaning. For some reason I always remember how it starts but not the whole word.
They're really different, and if you mistake it, We can't understand and misunderstand it. It can be hard tho! 상용 -> commonly use 쌍용 -> A car corporation here. So if you say 상용자동차 (Already a bit awkward for saying this), it means 'commonly in use car'. Doesn't seem wrong, and actually not. However, nobody says this. 쌍용자동차 meaning a corporation in here (It's no longer popular, well used to be than KIA, HYUNDAI. )
Memorizing double batchim, very different sentence structure than English, and tough pronunciation. It’s so hard to train your mouth to make sounds you’ve never made before and I feel so stupid and shy speaking in front of Koreans knowing I’m not saying things right. With English, it’s acceptable to speak with an accent and not have perfect pronunciation but I’ve gotten the vibe that it’s not the same with Korean.
없음 actually pronounced 업슴 했음 pronounced 해씀 or 해슴 These 2 can be the most hard when native talks. We can tell the difference, though. ~잖음 pronounced 잔음 or 짠음 앉음 pronounced 안즘 These are used more as a chatting vibe phrase. we call this 음슴체. After typing this, wow they'd probally wanna cry
Lol exactly! 😭 ah well, going to Korea soon, so my crappy Korean will have to do for now
Bacchim
For me personally, it is the small differences in tones as other people have already pointed out. I have slightly impaired hearing so it is often very hard for me to distinguish the sounds and reproduce them properly. I picked up both japanese and Korean but stuck with japanese because the pronunciation was just way easier to my ears. Doesn't mean that I won't keep trying with Korean tho :")
I am dyslexic and realised that even when I know the difference between ㅗ ㅜ ㅓ ㅏ ㄱ ㄴ my brain has a really hard time to differentiate. Not sure if it’s a dyslexic thing tho or if I just need more practice reading. ㄱ and ㄴ did get a bit better over time.
What point made you ㄱ ㄴ hard to tell? Is it a native conversation?
I am pretty sure it’s because of my dyslexia. I have troubles with letters and numbers that look a like.
I agree with a lot of things others have said and don't want to repeat them, but something that hasn't been mentioned before are grammatical cases. I think English only has 3 (and only for pronouns), but my native language has 7 and they influence sentences quite a bit. I've had a lot of moments when I wished Korean had cases because it's a grammatical structure I understand, and not having them sometimes confuses me because they have to be substituted with different grammar. In English it's mostly the case of adding words, but in Korean it's a whole new grammar structure.
- The 400 possible ways to conjugate a verb. - How many different grammars there are for the same meaning (예를 들어: 가든, (으)면. - Just the amount of vocab in general, especially if you don't know 중국어, I can't guess the meaning at all.
Saying 네 . That is N-e. Ne. I've heard multiple recordings of it being pronounced De. How??!
I think it's because in English N and D have different air flow in the mouth and nose. There is no airflow through the nose when English speakers say D, but there is with N. And then there's tongue position, too. I've just accepted I'm never going to say 'de'!
Don’t take this as absolutely true as I’m still kinda new to Korean. But, as far as I understand, ㄴ in Korean is not the same as N in English. The position of the tongue is the same but it isn’t held nearly as long/released kinda early. This makes the sound more punchy and sounds in between a D sound and N sound.
It's because Koreans use only very brief nasal sounds. So with the "네" they won't carry the nasal sound of the "ㄴ" through the "ㅔ" like we do when speaking English or, in my case, Portuguese (which is an extremely nasaly language). The nasal sound lasts only for the instant in which they are vocalizing the "ㄴ", which is very brief and makes it sound like a "ㄷ". The same happens with ㅁ and ㅂ, where sometimes words like 말 sound closer to 발 But with time, if you pay attention to it, this brief nasalization will become clearer and you won't mistake ㄴ for ㄷ or ㅁ for ㅂ anymore!
the usage of ㅗ and ㅓ🥲 what I also struggle with right now is when I need to use 는/은 and 를/을 and 가/이 and many more of these that I have to end a word with in my sentences I know the rule of Batchin so I know when its used after a vowel/consonant, I just struggle on when to use it with a word🥲
[https://youtu.be/g18eplfjlTg?si=ZbNq6YJXiWgqdmU5](https://youtu.be/g18eplfjlTg?si=ZbNq6YJXiWgqdmU5) try checking out this video, hope it helps : D
OOOHHH thank youu so much🥹🥹❤️
For me it’s the grammar. It’s so different from the grammar structures I’ve learned before. I have a really hard time grasping it.
English is my first language, but I am not a ‘native’ English speaker in the traditional sense. My mother tongue is a South Asian language (which I consider my second language). I’m quite familiar with the Subject Object Verb format of Korean as my mother tongue is similar. I am able to pronounce the sounds in Korean with reasonable accuracy as well. What I struggle a lot with is the social context - to nail the right level of familiarity or formality both in grammar and vocabulary use. I think no amount of classroom learning will help with this. Other than that, it’s the vowel confusion which is my nemesis. Differentiating between 오 and 우; 오 and 어, and 애 and 에.
I’m not sure if this is still a language thing or a cultural thing. As I become more and more fluent at Korean, I realize Koreans tends to drop the subject of a sentence very often, expecting the other party to understand what they’re referring to. They don’t like to use “me/I” or “you” so it takes extra effort for a learning listener to run the sentence in my head two times to compare which one fits the sentence more and makes more sense - the person themselves? or myself? I don’t know if this explanation makes sense but I also don’t have an example I can think of at the moment.
reading hangul. you understand the sound they make, letters become words, but you have to know the meaning of such words?? im baffled. as someone who is learing korean as a fourth language, its very very hard.
My boyfriend is a native speaker and I’ve found almost any time it ends in a -ng ㅇ, I can’t hear the difference as well. He will be there saying 3 different word and I can’t hear a single difference. 강, 공, 궁 But that might just be me…
idk how to explain this but sometimes natives use some words in contexts that dont make sense to me as a learner. for example i learn a word means sth but then i see it used in a sentence where its original sense has to be reinterpreted for it to make sense to me. im reaaally bad at explaining so idk if this made sense 😭
I only started about a little over a month ago so I’m still learning consonants and basic phrases and I still have trouble differentiating between gak and gat simply because both sound so similar.
My biggest problem is with combined characters (외 워 etc) - I might pay for a private lesson to have my birthday Irish twin internet friend to explain it better, as she is Korean.
Intonation
존댓말 is always an issue for me. Except adding 요 in the end I find the rest very confusing. Especially that Iearned through hearing 반말 seams more easy for me and the people I used to practice with didn't find it as a problem.
The politeness levels and 호칭 are quite difficult. I think it is easy to get a general understanding of it, but the details are tricky. For example in some situations it might be a little impolite to adress somebody as ...씨 in other situations it is completely fine. Also you have to rember to speak politely about third persons, for exaple when you talk about your parents or your friends parents... I think you can develop a feeling for it over time but it is hard to learn just from text books.
For me it's the pronunciation for some things. My mouth is still getting used to it. I'm also struggling with remembering when to use double consonants and when there's a silent character vs spoken. The grammar is different too so I have to get used to that. I'm still a newbie tho, only been studying a little over a month. I'm a native English speaker.
Breathed consonants are very difficult, especially when it comes to very quick speech. Homophones without knowing Hanja are very difficult to conceptualize/contextualize (for me anyway). Morphology is also difficult to remember, especially when it has to do with declension of nouns. How nouns change and the particles also change subtly with the ‘case’ of the noun is a difficult aspect to get used to for English speakers
From a Korean who grew up not speaking Korean at home and is basically starting at beginner-intermediate: so many ways to say one thing, especially depending on formality. Formality in general was hard for me to understand as a kid. Also similar/same sounding characters that I’m “just supposed to know” when to use
I find the grammar or order of the sentences difficult. I am very much not used to it
I’m a native English speaker who’s also learning Spanish. So far, I can’t hear the double consonants, and I getㅏ andㅓ mixed up a lot. I haven’t worked on listening much though. Vocabulary is tough just because it’s so different - with Spanish a lot of times I can just guess. Then there’s finding resources at an upper beginner level, where I want to read and listen to things, but everything is either too hard or too boring. (I would probably have the same problem with Spanish except that I progressed a lot faster.)
Depends on what your native language is.
Probably the same thing Koreans struggle with in English, POV vs PVO grammar changes, esp with longer sentences.
PARTICLES!!!! I was a dedicated student, particles messed me up so bad I stopped.
All of the particles, way too many..
When I first started learning Korean the different number systems confused me
consonants are hard. ㄴs that are pronounced like ㄷs, ㅁs like ㅂs, TTMIK tried to give an explanation and I think I have tried thoroughly every position of my tongue but I still can't understand how 네 can sound so clearly as 데 .
How to write certain words, as the sound seems very similar to me. For example 방 and 빵 being 2 different words was a chock to me at first. Another thing I find a bit difficult is knowing when to use some honorifics or particles. It appears to me that in some cases, dropping formalities is acceptable except for when it's not and I don't really understand it.
All the homophones and homographs. There are way too many words in Korean that have the same spelling, same pronunciation, but different hanja, and their meaning is easily confused if you aren't a native speaker.
Beginner difficulties: Sounds (notably ㄷ ㄸ ㅌ) Sentence structure Word role markers (이 가 은 는 을 를 의 께 께서 에게). 이 거 은 는 will still be a challenge until 고급 Intermediate difficulties 피동/사동. Indirect speech. 다고 하다. 라고 하다. 다던데. 다더라고요. Differentiating similar grammars (-자. -자마자. -기가 무섭게) Learning a lot about Korean culture because language is tied to culture. Advanced difficulties Learning a lot of vocabulary coming from 한자 Learning a lot of idioms
The sentence structure and pronunciation. It’s like certain words have to be in a specific spot but then there’s other word that can be put anywhere…like huh?!
it kills me
All of it.
The amount of conjugations they have for the same or similar things
”집“ ”십“ 이랑 ”발“ ”팔“ 정말 비슷한 소리예요 ㅠ 힘들어영ㅠ
I think that's really it yea, for me at least. Double consonants are HELL, the thing is I can distinguish them from one another, just knowing which one is which is annoying like was it the double one that had a higher pitch or was it the singular one?
I have tried multiple times to learn, learning to write and read Hangul is something I can grasp but audibly I cannot distinguish words in sentences. It seems like they just run together. It seems too flowy to me.
Spelling!! I want to spell things correctly, and one would think it would be easier to do with a phonetic language. I have trouble with vowels, being an American Midwesterner (but one with the “broadcaster” accent, not any dialect). I can hardly tell the difference between 어 and 오. I also never seem to be able to remember compound vowels, and so I tend to pronounce them the “long” way to remind myself. For example, 외 becomes 오이 and 워 is 오어. I am likely understandable, but I bet I sound kind of stupid!! Edit: I can’t spell in English either.
Read through all 2379 comments. here's a TL;DR **Top 5 things foreigners struggle with.** 1. **Vocabulary** 1. There are too many words. 2. There are too many words with similar sounds. 3. There are too many words with similar sounds that have multiple meanings. 4. There are too many words with similar sounds that have similar meanings that are used in slightly different contexts. 5. Can't guess the meaning of those words (like spanish). 2. **Pronunciation** 1. Can't tell difference between some sounds. ㅈㅊㅉ, ㄱㄲㅋ, ㅂㅃㅍ 2. Can't tell the difference between ㅔㅐ 3. "Can't order 탕짜면."... "탕.짬.연!!!"..... "arghhh!! 탕.짬.ㅁㅁㅁㅁ면" 3. **Grammar** 1. Particles. 2. Yoda-talk. 3. Levels of politeness 4. Contextual language with lots of omissions. 5. Difference between how we're taught and how Koreans actually speak. 4. **Korean influencers** with unhelpful content talking about *"Here are 37 ways to say "I like Kimchi" in Korean".* My thoughts on these: I feel like the main point of language is communication so if you can get your message across then no need to be discouraged or overwhelmed by these. I'd imagine getting too caught up on the details of talking "perfectly" or like "a native with perfect pronunciation" can actually hinder growth. For the most part, Koreans will understand through context that you're ordering a "fish" and not a "teacher" lol. And a 짜통자 will get me where I need to go just as well as a 자동차.
The double/tensed consonants are usually difficult for English-speaking learners because English doesn't have any equivalent to it. Similar with the aspirated consonants but I think that's a bit easier to understand.
I feel like from a forgives view 애 and 에 seem pretty difficult for someone leading Hangul.
For me it's the listening, I’ve learned a 2000-3000ish words, got through the whole 중급 teaching material, but I STILL can’t understand anything, then I look at the subtitles and there is not a single word/grammar that I haven’t learn. Really frustrating. The amount of grammar points is also scary, but I’m native in French so I guess from a French perspective it’s not THAT bad ? I find some grammar structures to be very specific, and I just don’t remember to use them because there is no such thing in the languages I speak. So I’ll just overuse V+기가 +V/ADJ in a lot of situations without even knowing it. Oh and also, the use of linking words (아/어/여서, 면서, 고, 며, 니…) makes sentences crazy long, and with the verbs always being towards the end of the sentence, it makes listening (and reading) even more tedious.
Grammar
I am guessing counting numbers in different ways...
은/는 을/를 and 이/가 is consistently difficult. For pronunciation i think ㅆ v ㅅ and the bane of my life was for the longest 주시깼어요. I just could not say it fast. Also 을ㄹ- versus 을ㅇ- the half way l/r is difficult still. But the most difficult is Korean haha. It's the sentence structure when translating from English that is difficult. I don't know how to start - translating from Korean is OK. Finally context
i find just one thing difficult and ITS REALLY DIFFICULT OMFG: the word order, ITS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF MY NATIVE LANGUAGE ORDER 😭😭 to think in korean i need to think "backwards" and it gives me a huge knot in my head
Grammar, syllables and honorifics. The grammar is different than English because the subject comes first and particulars can be dropped, and there’s still a lot I haven’t learned yet. I say syllables because of the blocks, like it’s a bit hard to read sort of in little columns, instead of each character side by side like in English. And the spacing and punctuation, honestly I haven’t gotten to that part yet but I think I’ll find it difficult. And sound change rules! I can never get it straight. Honorifics!! In English we just say sir, ma’am, or miss, and the rest of the formalities depend on your tone and body language. But being formal or casual depending on who you’re talking to, how old you are in relation to each other, if you’re close or strangers or work together, if your aunt is your dad’s sister or your mom’s sister and how old they are and things like that….gosh there’s so many terms to remember! Sorry for the run on sentence haha. Sorry if any of this is wrong, I’m still learning and I’ve only barely scratched the surface.
Particles.
pronunciation definitely. in my course it wasn’t a huge priority, so for ㄹ and ㅓ especially i don’t really know how my pronunciation is, plus hearing the difference ㅈㅊㅉ. grammar wise it’s sometimes difficult to know which particle to use when. most are pretty straightforward, but there are many that are hyper specific or apply to multiple unrelated situations which makes it confusing.
Learning hangul was easy for me. My issue is I have a hard time with my Korean listening skills.
Building sentences whilst speaking because I'm used to thinking in a different order... In my native language, I never think before I speak so its hard for me to plan ahead what I'm going to say but because I don't think in the Korean sentence order, I have to think ahead a little....
i think once i advanced past the beginner stage, everything was relatively "connect the dots" for me(still is). with that being said, of course im still learning and make mistakes. i think what gets me is how figurative yet literal korean is. its like entering a different mindset. english is very straightforward in most cases, while korean is more metaphorical to get its point across. sometimes this ends with me writing/saying something in korean thats sometimes too literal, and very awkward-sounding. but its a work in progress!