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Learning Japanese

Learning Japanese as a Korean Speaker: Head Starts and Traps

By the Hanabuddies team · · 3 min read

Japanese is one of the easiest languages for Korean speakers to learn. The word order is almost the same, both languages use particles after nouns, and many words share Chinese roots, so 準備 (junbi) sounds a lot like 준비 (junbi). Korean speakers often reach a comfortable conversational level much faster than English speakers. The harder parts are kanji, a few sounds that don’t exist in Korean, and the places where the two languages look the same but are used differently. Knowing those traps early saves a lot of unlearning later.

What Korean speakers get for free

  • Word order. Subject, object, verb, with modifiers before nouns. You can often translate a Korean sentence into Japanese word by word and get something close to right.
  • Particles. は and が map roughly onto 은/는 and 이/가, を onto 을/를, and に and で onto 에 and 에서.
  • Sino-Korean vocabulary. Thousands of words share roots: 約束 (yakusoku) and 약속 (yaksok), 無料 (muryō) and 무료 (muryo).
  • Politeness levels. Korean speech levels prepare you well for polite です・ます and for the idea of keigo.

Where Korean speakers struggle

  • Kanji. Unless you studied hanja, kanji is the biggest hurdle. Your Sino-Korean vocabulary helps you guess meanings once you know the characters, but you still need to learn to read and write them. See how to learn kanji.
  • Voiced and voiceless sounds. Japanese separates か and が, た and だ at the start of words, which Korean ears often find hard to hear. 金 (kin, gold) and 銀 (gin, silver) is a classic pair.
  • The z sound. Korean has no z, so ざ・ず・ぜ・ぞ often come out as じゃ・じゅ. Practise ぜんぶ and かぞく slowly.
  • つ and long vowels. つ is not 쓰 or 츠, and long vowels such as おばあさん versus おばさん change the meaning.
  • Final consonants. Korean syllables can end in many consonants; Japanese syllables mostly end in a vowel or ん. Avoid adding Korean-style endings to Japanese words.

Our Japanese pronunciation guide covers these sounds in more detail.

False friends

Because so much looks familiar, Korean speakers tend to assume too much. Some shared words have different meanings or different levels of formality, and some particles are used differently. For example, Japanese uses に with 会う (to meet someone), where Korean uses 을/를 with 만나다. And は versus が is close to 은/는 versus 이/가 but not identical, especially in questions and contrasts. Check a word’s meaning and register instead of guessing.

How to study

  • Move fast through basic grammar, but don’t skip it: confirm where Japanese differs from Korean.
  • Start kanji early, through words you can already guess from Korean.
  • Train your ears on voiced and voiceless pairs and long vowels from day one.
  • Speak a lot. Korean speakers can often understand more than they can say naturally, so build speaking time into every week.

Lessons for Korean speakers

A tutor who knows where Korean speakers usually go wrong can skip what you already know and spend your lesson time on the sounds, kanji and usage that actually need work. In online lessons with a native Japanese tutor, you get targeted pronunciation feedback and plenty of speaking practice, so your conversational Japanese keeps up with your fast-growing understanding.