Korean is the seventeenth most widely spoken language in the world. Knowing Korean will allow you to interact with your Korean neighbours, friends, co-workers or even staff in your favourite Korean bar. Speaking the local language is a tourist’s handiest tool when it comes to discovering and understanding a national culture. If you plan on visiting the sizeable, dynamic and beautiful country that is South Korea, being fluent in Korean will make your visit even better.
Easy To Comprehend Alphabet
Hanguel, the Korean alphabet, is easy to learn. It only requires a couple of hours’ worth of dedication and you will be good to go.
Easy To Speak
Korean might be the easiest language to pick up, especially with regards to reading it. In Korean, each character of the alphabet has a dedicated sound and is clearly divided into consonants and vowels. Pronouncing Korean words is simply a case of adding the sounds of each character together. Korean is also devoid of any intonations, unlike tonal languages such as Mandarin. There is also no gendering of nouns in Korean. Unlike French, the gender of nouns does not affect the sentence’s other elements. You also do not need to change verb forms according to singular or plural subjects, as you do in English, while speaking Korean.
Learning Korean Would Give You A Better Understanding Of The Culture
Korean has a comprehensive system of honorifics or titles. These vary across different levels, each one used according to social factors, e.g. status, age, seniority etc.
The Korean Grammar Makes It Evermore Easier To Speak Korean
Korean grammar follows an SOV pattern i.e. Subject Object Verb. This means that the verb will always come in the end of the sentence. This is the most significant element of the sentence. The other elements have certain particles attached to them. Therefore, it does not really matter if you change their order. The meaning would remain intact! Here is an example:
Ex. John drank water. Here is how you might speak this sentence in the correct grammatical sense, in Korean:
John (+ subject particle) + water (+ Obj. particle) + drank (past form).
You Can Appreciate Korean Media Products Without Subtitles
You will be able to understand your favourite Korean shows’ dialogues much better after you learn Korean. This will save you the trouble of looking for subtitles when watching shows in Korean. Now, you will be able to focus solely on the emotions and the subtle nuances on screen.
In addition to these, many words from English are easily understood and widely used in Korea. Therefore, whenever you feel like you have stretched your Korean vocabulary to its limit or are not feeling as confident about your Korean skills, you can easily slide in a few words from English. Many Koreans should easily understand your point.
We understand that learning a new language is not easy; initially, you will probably encounter a few difficulties. For example, you might find the grammar a bit hard to grasp being a native English speaker or perhaps the systemic use of honorifics might intimidate you. Sign up for korean classes in singapore to get to tick this off your bucket list!