Title: Chinese vs. Korean
With the rising of the Korean culture nowadays, more and more people are now fond of the Korean culture which is on-trend for the young generation. As the Korean culture becomes viral, Korean language is soon considered one of the trendiest language. When it comes to Korean, the first thing that comes to our mind may be the similarities and the connections with Chinese, so it is likely to feel confused when using Korean and Chinese in our daily life. Considering the fact that Korea and Chinese share close historical background and the neighboring location and they’re both the origin of ancient culture, they have lots of similarities and some striking differences respectively.
Firstly, let’s get started with the similarities between these two languages, which are form by their similar culture. In terms of the similar culture, I believe we all know that they had some strong connections in the ancient time. As a result, they are in the same Sinosphere, or the East Asian cultural sphere. And what is Sinosphere? Sinosphere is that some nations that are located in east and southeast area in Asia, and which were historically influenced by the Chinese culture in the past. And these influences include literary traditions, religions, and also language inevitably. Moreover, Korea is included in this cultural circle owing to its geographical location. For this reason, the language in Korea is deeply influenced at that time. As well, Korean absorbed an abundance amount of Classical Chinese words, and there are almost 60% of Korean vocabulary comes from Classical Chinese today. Therefore, we can tell that it is quite similar between Korean and Chinese.
Secondly, despite the similarity that these two languages have, there are some absolutely differences between these two different languages, and that is the alphabet. In terms of the alphabet between these two languages. Take Chinese for example. We can easily tell what a word is trying to convey; in other words, if we see one individual word in Chinese, we can still get the meaning of that word as long as soon as we see that word. While, in Korean, if we see only the alphabet itself, we can not know the individual meaning of that word. And it is just like “Bopomofo” in traditional Chinese, we can only recognize the sound of the alphabet instead of knowing the meaning directly. As a result, if we want to know the meaning of some certain words, we need to read it out first, then we can know the meaning afterwards. So we can know that there is a big difference between Korean and Chinese in terms of their alphabets.
Last but not least, there are also another difference between Korean and Chinese, and that is the writing styles [U1] of these two languages respectively. From the Chinese history, we can know that the Chinese words are originated from drawings in the past. Nevertheless, the Korean words come from windows and doors in the 15th century. For this reason, it is obvious that Korean words are all linear and have no bending. And that’s the reason why there is a great difference between Korean and Chinese writing[U2] .
In conclusion, from the alphabets and writing differences mentioned above, we can easily know that Korean and Chinese are two distinct languages respectively. Although some people may misunderstand that Korean is extremely related to Chinese or derived from Chinese because of the historical factors, with the comparison above then we can know that Korean and Chinese share striking similarities and some differences. Korean and Chinese are both vital and trendy languages in the world. After realizing the similarities and differences of them, we can therefore learn and introduce them more easily and deeply.
References
沪江韩语 (2015). 你知道吗？韩语和中文有这些异同
Retrieved from: https://kr.hujiang.com/new/p751854/
Jack Noone (2016). Is the Chinese language similar to Korean?
Retrieved from: https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Chinese-language-similar-to-Korean
Envato Elements (2019). Korea Tourism And Culture Vector Concept (picture 1)
Retrieved from: https://elements.envato.com/korea-tourism-and-culture-vector-concept-QCMM4W
Emrentoria (2019) The Sinosphere or Sinic influences across the East-Asia and S outheast Asia (Vietnam). (picture 2)
Retrieved from: https://www.deviantart.com/emrentoria/art/Sinosphere-811637622
Korean learning freak (2015) Easiest way to learn korean alphabet chart with pronunciation full package
Retrieved from: https://koreanly.com/korean-alphabet-chart-with-pronunciation/
[U1]I think it’s more like the “writing” of these two languages.
[U2]repeated
