I know that Japanese pronunciation is easier than let’s say Korean when you hear either language spoken. The reason why pronouncing Japanese is apparently easier is due to the defined nature of their phonology and the vowels present including watching Anime, but can the same be said for Korean pronunciation?

I mean, when you watch K-Drama: is it really easy to pick up Korean phonology by listening or is it complicated? Also, Korean “anime” isn’t common in the same manner as Japanese anime as they focus more on making movies with actual actors rather than voice acting. Is it harder to listen to Korean than Japanese or vice versa?

  • scytale@piefed.zipEnglish
    6·
    3 days ago

    Japanese is easier to speak but harder to write. Korean is easier to write but harder to speak.

  • Morti@sh.itjust.works
    4·
    4 days ago

    Ease of pronunciation depends on how similar the sounds are between ones native language and the language one is trying to learn. For a native English speaker, Japanese has much more in common sound-wise with English than Korean does, so it would be easier for the English speaker to distinguish the important sounds of the language.

    Another commenter mentioned with more exposure it becomes easier to pronounce the language, which is true for any language, but if your question is about ease of pronunciation, then the language that requires less exposure to get would be the one that’s easier, and I think that’s Japanese.

  • FishFace@piefed.socialEnglish
    4·
    4 days ago

    Any question that starts “which language is easier” depends on what languages you already know well. You don’t specify, other than to write your question in English.

  • [object Object]@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    4 days ago

    Japanese is definitely easier; double consonants (ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅉ, ㅆ) and ㄹ are the ones I constantly hear being tricky to pronounce.

    Could just be exposure though.

  • zikzak025@lemmy.world
    2·
    4 days ago

    My overall knowledge for both languages is admittedly low beyond just a passive interest in linguistics, but if you’re looking at phonetics, there are two considerations:

    1. Japanese has very few phonemes and most of them are understandable/easily reproduceable for an English speaker. Korean has more, including a few vowel distinctions that may be difficult for an English speaker to correctly parse.

    2. The Korean writing system (Hangul) is perfectly phonetic and easy to pick up. While Japanese doesn’t have as much variation in overall phonemes, and its syllabary is not hard to parse, the inclusion of Chinese characters in its writing system (that may also have multiple readings) makes it much harder to know how a term is pronounced just by looking at it.