Foreigners who show an interest in learning Korean hear conflicting things from well-meaning native speakers. They are told that Hangeul is the easiest writing system to learn because it is the most scientific in the world. They are also told that Korean is one of the most difficult languages to learn because it has so many expressions for the same thing.

Linguists, meanwhile, reject the idea that one language is more difficult to learn than another or that one language is “richer” than another. In linguistics, all languages are equal as linguistic systems, but unequal because power structures treat them differently. To a linguist, Korean is no easier or more difficult than any other language.

Many factors influence the degree of difficulty in learning a language, but the most important are language distance and opportunities for exposure to the language. By these measures, the degree of difficulty in learning Korean depends on which languages the learner already knows and how much exposure he or she has to the language.

The idea of language distance comes from linguistic typology, which is the branch of linguistics that classifies languages into families based on historic relationships. Since the late 19th century, linguists have debated which language family Korean belongs to, but most argue that it is an Altaic language, along with Turkish, Mongolian, and, in the opinion of most linguists, Japanese. These languages have a subject-object-verb word order and a large number of changes to verbs. A native speaker of Mongolian, for example, would not find Korean word order and the many verb changes in Korean difficult. English speakers, by contrast, face a steeper learning curve because English has a different word order and few verb changes.

Another side to the idea of language distance is vocabulary. Throughout history, languages have borrowed vocabulary from other languages regardless of word order or grammatical structure. English is classified as a Germanic language, but has borrowed many words from French and Latin, which belong to the Romance language family.

Korean has borrowed extensively from Chinese, which belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family. The two languages thus share a common vocabulary, but a different word order and grammatical structure. Chinese learners of Korean may find Korean grammar as difficult as an English-speaking learner, but would no doubt find the vocabulary easy to learn.

Japanese is closest to Korean in word order, grammatical structure and vocabulary. This explains why many Koreans find Japanese, particularly spoken Japanese, easy to learn. For Koreans who know Chinese characters, Japanese is especially easy to learn because they do not need to learn many new characters. The reverse, of course, is true as well, though many Japanese find Korean pronunciation difficult at first.

Word order and pronunciation repeat most in languages, which make them easier to learn than grammatical structure and vocabulary. This explains why native speakers of English who learn Korean can adjust fairly quickly to Korean word order and pronunciation, but find learning verb changes and vocabulary much more time consuming.

Individual differences are important in language learning, and this is where differences in exposure to the language come into play. People who like learning new languages tend to seek more opportunities to use a language than people who do not. Learning a new language often requires contact with a different culture, which some people find stimulating, whereas others find it burdensome.

Exposure to a new language is necessary to provide input and opportunities to use the language. The combination of input and language use pushes learning along and helps the learner develop confidence and fluency.

English-learners in Korea can benefit from intense language exposure, but they have to look for those opportunities. Except for a few areas frequented by tourists, foreign languages are rarely used in Korea and most Koreans have a limited command of foreign languages.

Learners who seek exposure to Korean find an overwhelming number of opportunities because many Koreans react positively to foreigners who make an effort to learn Korean. Koreans who are confident in using a foreign language like to practice it with native speakers, but they are also like to help foreigners learn Korean. Learners who develop a circle of Korean friends will soon find themselves in many situations that offer intensive language exposure.

The ease or difficulty of learning Korean depends on what the learner does. A shorter language distance makes learning easier, but not automatic. In the end, learners have to make an effort. Seeking opportunities to use Korean in a variety of situations has the greatest influence on success.

By Robert J. Fouser

Robert J. Fouser, a former associate professor of Korean language education at Seoul National University, writes on Korea from Ann Arbor, Michigan. — Ed.