Korean vs Japanese: An Honest Comparison

Both Korean and Japanese attract learners drawn to East Asian culture — K-dramas, anime, K-pop, manga. If you're choosing between them (or planning to learn both), here's an honest breakdown.

Writing Systems

This is the biggest practical difference.

Korean: One Alphabet

Korean uses Hangul, a single alphabet with 24 basic letters. You can learn to read it in a few hours and be fluent at reading within weeks. Hangul is phonetic — what you see is what you say.

Japanese: Three Systems

Japanese uses three writing systems simultaneously:

• Hiragana (46 characters) — Native Japanese words
• Katakana (46 characters) — Foreign words, emphasis
• Kanji (2,000+ characters) — Chinese characters

To read a Japanese newspaper, you need to know all three. To read a Korean newspaper, you need Hangul.

Winner for beginners: Korean, by a wide margin.

Grammar

Surprisingly, Korean and Japanese grammar is very similar:

• Both are SOV (Subject-Object-Verb)
• Both use particles to mark grammatical roles
• Both have extensive honorific systems
• Both put adjectives before nouns
• Both have similar sentence-ending conjugation patterns

If you learn one, the other becomes significantly easier.

Pronunciation

Korean

• More consonant sounds, including aspirated (ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ) and tense (ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ) consonants
• Vowel distinctions that English speakers find tricky (ㅓ vs ㅗ, ㅡ)
• Consonant sound changes at syllable boundaries (연음, 경음화)

Japanese

• Simpler sound system — 5 vowels, limited consonants
• Pitch accent (subtle but important for sounding natural)
• Long vs short vowels matter (おばさん aunt vs おばあさん grandmother)

Easier pronunciation: Japanese has fewer sounds to master, but Korean pronunciation maps more directly from the writing system.

Vocabulary

Both languages borrowed heavily from Chinese:

• Korean: 약 60% Chinese-origin words (한자어)
• Japanese: 약 60% Chinese-origin words (漢語)

Many of these words sound similar:

If you learn one, you'll recognize vocabulary in the other.

Difficulty Ratings

The US Foreign Service Institute (FSI) rates both Korean and Japanese as Category IV languages — the hardest category for English speakers, requiring ~2,200 hours of study for professional proficiency.

However, Korean has one major advantage: Hangul. The writing system is dramatically easier to learn than Japanese kanji, which saves hundreds of hours.

Which Should You Learn First?

Choose Korean if:

• You want faster reading ability
• You're into K-dramas, K-pop, or Korean culture
• You prefer a more phonetic writing system
• You want to visit or work in Korea

Choose Japanese if:

• You're into anime, manga, or Japanese gaming
• You're drawn to Japanese culture and aesthetics
• You plan to live or work in Japan
• You enjoy the challenge of kanji

Choose either if:

• You plan to learn both eventually (the grammar transfer is significant)
• You're interested in East Asian languages generally

Learning Korean with Chamelingo

If Korean is your choice, Chamelingo's structured 16-chapter curriculum takes you from zero to conversational with a gamified approach. The fact that you can master Hangul in Chapter 1 means you spend the rest of your study time on actual language skills instead of memorizing thousands of characters.

Get a head start by exploring our grammar point library covering particles, verb conjugations, and sentence patterns that parallel Japanese grammar, and browse vocabulary by unit to see the full scope of words you'll learn.