Hey guys today, we are gonna compare
Chinese, Japanese and Korean! I've been wanting to make
this video for a long time. As a Chinese speaker, I often get asked : oh, can you understand Japanese? Are you using the same Alphabet? Can you read Korean? If you know Chinese, learning Japanese or Korean must be so easy for you, right? Wait, wait, wait I know we are neighbours, but things are more
complicated than you imagine You know what? They don’t even come from
the same language family! So what exactly are the similarities
and differences between these languages? Let’s find out in today´s video! According to current research, these three languages belong
to different language families. Chinese belongs to the
Sino-Tibetan language family Korean belongs to the Koreanic language family and Japanese belongs to the Japanonic familly. Note that the names of the last two language
families are controversial, and there is still debate between scholars! Chinese is the oldest out of the three languages which dates back to over 3,000 years ago. Some scholars divide the history of the
Chinese languages into 4 main periods In the early 1900s a program for the
unification of the national language, which is based on Mandarin, was launched This resulted in Modern Standard Chinese. In 1956 a new system of
romanization called Pinyin, based on the pronunciation of the
characters in the Beijing dialect, was adopted as an educational instrument to help in the spread of the modern standard language commonly referred to as 普通话 or 国语. The Chinese language has had
a significant influence on both Japanese and Korean throughout their history, especially in terms of
vocabulary and writing systems. Before the 4th Century AD, Japan did not have a writing system of its own and
it gradually began to adopt the Chinese script, it merged the Chinese characters
into their own Japanese style. According to the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki, a semi-legendary scholar called Wani was
dispatched to Japan by the Kingdom of Baekje during the reign of Emperor Ōjin in the early fifth century, bringing with him knowledge of
Confucianism and Chinese characters Hanzi, we call Kanji in japanese. By the 8th and 9th Centuries A.D., Chinese characters began to be used
to represent Japanese language. Since the two languages are so
different in their syntax and phonology, Chinese loanwords and characters began to be "Japanified" for more convenient use. Japanese writing developed into
the threefold system today, with an incredible complexity which include Kanji two other scripts: Katakana and Hiragana. We will discuss this in more
detail in the next part. The Japanese language has adopted many words
and characters from Chinese, with approximately 60% of academic vocabulary and 18% of daily language use
consisting of loan words (mainly nouns) When it comes to Korean Chinese characters arrived in
Korea together with Buddhism during the Proto–Three Kingdoms era in the 1st century BC. After being adapted for Korean use, these characters came to be known as Hanja, and remained the main script for writing Korean
for over a millennium. During this time, various phonetic scripts
such as Idu, Gugyeol, and Hyangchal
were also invented. Mainly privileged elites were educated to
read and write in HANJA. However, most of the population was illiterate During the 15th century, King Sejong the Great personally developed an
alphabetic featural writing system known today as HANGUL. He believed that Hanja was inadequate for
writing Korean, which led to its restricted use. Hangul was designed to either
supplement or replace Hanja entirely. The writing system was introduced in the document called Hunminjeongeum It quickly spread throughout the nation
and helped to increase literacy in Korea. Korean is often misunderstood and misrepresented because its origins are still the
subject of ongoing scholarly debate. While the precise linguistic
classification of Korean is disputed, some scholars propose that Korean and Japanese belong to the Altaic language family, which also includes Turkish and Mongolian. well After our small history background, let's compare these 3 languages concretely in Vocabulary, Pronunciation, Reading， Grammar
and writing to give you a general vision of their similarities
and differences: The similarities mainly lie in their vocabularies. While the three languages
have different grammatical structures and pronunciation systems, they share a considerable number of words and phrases due to their historical and cultural
interactions. While some characters used in both Japanese and Chinese have similar
meanings and pronunciations, others are unique to one language or the other. For instance, this character 誠 means "honest" in both languages, but its pronunciation is very different it's pronounced "makoto" or "sei" in Japanese
and "chéng" in Standard Mandarin Chinese. That´s so different! Individual kanji characters invented in Japan,
or multi-kanji words coined in Japanese, have also influenced and been borrowed into
Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese in recent times. For example, the word for
telephone, denwa in Japanese, is calqued as diànhuà in Mandarin Chinese, điện thoạiin Vietnamese and jeonhwa in Korean. For example look at these words: Cheers chinese ganbei japanese Kanpai
korean gonbei Time in chinese shijian in japanese jigan in korean xigan They are similar with pronunciation and even some characters are similar in writing Pay attention, Japanese Kanji still uses the traditional
Chinese writing system which is also used in Taiwan, hongkong, Macau and
other Chinese speaking regions. Mainland China has promoted simplified Chinese characters for use since the 1950s and 1960s. When it comes to pronunciation
chinese might be the hardest There are twenty-one consonants and sixteen
vowels in Chinese language with different combinations, we can create more than four-hundred mono-syllabic sounds
together. When pronouncing chinese you should consider
the following: first as i mentioned in my previous videos pinyin is the latin alphabet system used to help foreigners pronounce chinese
but be careful. The sound that pinyin letters represent does
not correspond exactly like in english letters or any language that uses alphabet, each Chinese sound is associated with one syllable and each Chinese character
has its own pinyin syllable. for exemple G we pronounce Ge not G the tones, since chinese is a tonal language changing tones means changing meaning so you have to pay attention
to both the pronunciation and tones. There are 4 main tones in the Chinese language
and a 5th neutral tone. Japanese pronunciation is the easiest of all
3 Japanese has no tones It has only five vowels (a i u e o) combined with 14 consonants display vowels and consonants
some sources says 14, 15, 19 Each syllable in japanese has
the same length and strength unlike in english where you would
have to stress some syllables You have to pay attention to pitch accent but it’s not difficult and you will still be
understood if you make mistakes but it’s still important to have
a natural sounding japanese. The Korean pronunciation difficulty is more or less in the middle The alphabet consists of 14 syllables representing
specific consonants and 10 symbols representing specific vowels that get assembled into syllable blocks. It is very different from english pronunciation and relying on romanized letters to produce
korean sounds would be a big mistake Korean is a phonetic language which means the sounds of pronunciation
matches the written alphabet, each letter represents a specific sound for example this ㄴn for north + ㅢeo for Pod ,This means “you.” Korean pronunciation can still be challenging due to its complex syllables, including compound vowels
and synthetic consonants. Many people find these aspects
of Korean pronunciation difficult to master when they
first begin learning the language. One of the major difficulties of the
Chinese language is that it is not phonetic. This means that learners must memorize the
sound and meaning of characters separately as some characters have multiple
pronunciations and meanings. like Hao the 3rd tone, its adj which means "good"
Hao, the 4 tone means, "prefer" but haochi means "delicious"
hao chi means "someone loves to eat" go and check, even Google Translate can struggle
to accurately translate it. This can make it challenging to correctly
read and pronounce Chinese words, especially for beginners. For language learners, reading a text out loud in Japanese can be
challenging because the Kanji characters must be memorized, and they often have multiple
pronunciations and meanings. However, the Katakana and
Hiragana scripts are phonetic, making them relatively easy to read. There’s also the Furigana script which
is mainly composed of hiragana letters it’s placed on top of kanji in
case the kanji was unfamiliar it aids with the pronunciation of the kanji, it’s mainly used for by foreigners
or kids to make reading kanji easier While Kanji can be difficult
for non-Chinese speakers, Chinese speakers may find it easier to memorize. In my opinion, reading in
Korean is relatively easy because it is written phonetically especially for speakers of languages that use the Latin
alphabet. But for Chinese speakers, of course we prefer
the old Hanja system! See! The difficulty of a language really depends
on your native language. When it comes to writing difficulty people
tend to have different opinions Some might say that Chinese writing is the
hardest and some might say Japanese is the hardest
as an entire system of writing. You see, both Chinese and Japanese use characters.
As we all know, Chinese uses characters called logograms or logographs as they evolve from images. Chinese writing is ideological which means
that each character has one or several meanings And when combined together they create even
more meanings For example，大means "big"，小means "small"
大小 means "size" It´s quite logical right?! When it comes to Japanese writing, the complexity
lies in the integration of the three writing
systems. These three systems work together to form
a complete sentence but Hiragana and Katakana are usually the
starting point since they form the phonetic base of the language.
There are 46 Hiragana characters, 48 Katakana characters,
and over 2,000 Kanji characters There are several functions for the hiragana
system: A major function is to add grammatical structure
to the sentence Grammatical value as it’s used for verbs,
adjective endings, particles, adverbs and verb conjugations It’s also used for words that have no kanji etc.
Katakana Katakana represents the same sounds as Hiragana
but looks more angular and sharp. It is mostly used as a transcription for loan
words from foreign languages, similar to using italic English. It is also used for brand names,
scientific and technical terms. It has similar uses to Hiragana, but it can be used for some plant and animal
names, as well as words with uncommon Kanji. Now we are gonna play a game, I am gonna say some japanese words with english origin and
you guess what it´s camera computer juice sports ice cream Now you guys know where the cute japanese
english accent from Kanji are used for writing nouns, adjectives,
adverbs, and verbs. They also help to break up sentences and add
more structure. In Japanese, there are no spaces
between words when writing, so Kanji makes it easier to read. For example, consider these two sentences, which convey the same meaning 'He speaks English very well', one written with Kanji and the other with Hiragana only. The first sentence is easier to
read as it is broken up with Kanji But since Japanese is actually a
different language from Chinese and it has its own unique grammatical system, using kanji only is not sufficient for Japanese
writing hence the evolution of hiragana and katakana.
As they were used to add grammatical value. Chinese grammar is considered the easiest
of all three languages. Chinese is an analytic language, it doesn't use inflection to modify
words for grammatical purposes such as plural, gender, tense, or case. It also doesn't have prepositions,
verb conjugations, or tense changes, which means you don’t need to memorize all
those mind-twisting rules. Chinese shares a similar sentence order with
English, which is Subject-Verb-Object In korean grammar
Passive and causative verbs are easy to form. Plurals are also easy to form，
you just need to add a particle, but you would still need to use measure words like in chinese
language the korean plural marker 들(deul)
can be added to nouns, pronouns, adverbs and connectives
for example: 새 [se] bird
새들 [sedeul] birds 사람 [saram] person
사람들 [saramdeul] people also, There are no grammatical gender However if you already speak japanese, Korean
grammar is considered similar, they have many things in common such as:
they both have the same sentence structure SOV For example Japanese
when i want to say I started a new job watashiwa atarashī shigotoo hajimeta Korean
naneun saeroun ireul sija kaettta But in Chinese, the structure is different wi kaishi le gong zuo it’s like in english But still Korean’s grammar system is simpler
than Japanese. For example, there aren’t many
different verb conjugations. So in conclusion I would give
Korean a medium difficulty rank. Japanese grammar is considered
the hardest of the 3 The difficult part: changing forms between animate and inanimate
objects can take time and effort The heavy use of particles And honorifics Linguistic honorifics are words or expressions
used in a language to show respect, politeness, or formality towards the person being spoken
to or referred to. While many languages have some form of honorific
speech, Japanese takes it to another level. In some languages, such as French and German, honorific speech is primarily represented
by using a different pronoun like "vous" or "Sie" instead of "tu" or "du," respectively, along with
changes in verb conjugation. However, the Japanese honorific system is
much more complex and nuanced, not only pronoun and verb conjugation changes,
but also a wide variety of honorific prefixes and suffixes that can be added to nouns, verbs,
and other parts of speech. For example, the suffix "-san"
is a common honorific that can be added to someone's name to show respect. It's similar to using "Mr." or "Mrs." in English. There are also more specific honorifics like
"-sama" for showing even more respect, "-sensei" for
addressing teachers and experts, and "-chan" for addressing children or people
you're close to. Not finished yet, they have “Kun”, "-dono"
,"-hime", "-senpai" … One common aspect of Japanese honorific speech
is the use of the "Masu form," a verb conjugation that is used to express
politeness and respect towards the listener
or the person being referred to. The "Masu form" is created by adding the suffix
"-masu" to the verb stem and is used in many situations where politeness and respect are required.
japanese also conjugate verbs into the masu form to indicate politness.
for example: のむ (Nomu) becomes のみます (Nomimasu) かく (Kaku) becomes かきます(Kakimasu) So in conclusion this is my opinion in terms
of difficulty between the 3 languages: There are still other aspects and details
we didn't compare in this video! I know that every time I make a language comparison video, some people may not agree
or want to argue about it, but that's okay. It's not about comparing languages and picking
a winner, but rather about giving you some new ideas
and perspectives on different languages. It doesn't really matter which language has
the hardest grammar, pronunciation, or writing, as it depends on many factors. As you can see, every
language has its difficulties. If you study a language you love, nothing
else really matters. If you feel inspired or have a clear idea
about any of these three languages and even want to start learning one or all
of them, I would be happy about it! If you're a language lover
like me and want to exchange with other language learners in the Zoe community, you can join our Discord server by clicking
the link in the description box. We have just added Japanese and Korean languages, and we regularly share learning resources, study plans, and organize events every week to help you on your language learning journey. If you liked this video, don't forget to give
it a thumbs up if you have any other questions or comments,
feel free to write them in the comments. See you in the next video! Bye!"
