한국어가 어려워요?

"Is Korean difficult?"

This question is the second most frequently asked question after "Why do you study Korean?". Well, a short answer will be "yes" but that is as good as a no-answer. Honestly speaking, which language is easy to master. If I am to compare between Chinese and Korean, Chinese would have been a more difficult language to master. First of all, Chinese word is hieroglyph (a picture-like sign which represents a word). Simplification of the Chinese words has not made them much simpler to write, not to mention learning the traditional Chinese form that is still being used in places like Taiwan and Hong Kong. Furthermore, Chinese language has more consonants and vowels as compared to Korean language. In term of pronunciation, Chinese language has four main tones and a light tone but Korean language is monotone. So when comparison is made, Korean language seems a lot easier to master than Chinese language.

However just to give those who are interested to take up Korean language some idea of the difficulties to expect, I shall highlight five areas which, through my experience, are quite challenging.

First difficulty is sound-in-liaison. Something I am unaware of in the English and Chinese language that I have learnt. In Korean language, the sound of the ending consonant of the preceding word is carried over to the next word. Example, 삼월에(sam wol e - In March) is pronounced as 사뭐레(sa mwo le). Sound-in-liaison created the most challenge for me since I am not accustomed to this language style. It took me quite a while to change the way I listen and speak Korean. By the way, I am still adapting to this style of language.

[Edited: Song pointed out that English does have sound-in-liaison. For example, "what are you doing?" is spoken as "wha da you doing?" or in American English "wa ra u doing?" In fact sound-in-liaison is found in many spoken languages. It occurs almost naturally that native speakers may not even know that it exists.]

Second difficulty is contraction of words. Example, the conjunction 그러한데(but) can be contracted to 그런데. Further contraction gives 근데. Essentially, the three Korean words at different stage of contraction mean the same thing. The commonly used conjunction 그래서(so) is actually a contracted form of 그리 하여서. Other commonly seen contraction: 저의(my) gives 제, 나는(I) gives 난 and 누구를(whom) gives 누굴. Contraction of words creates a significant problem for beginners because contracted words cannot be found in the dictionary. Even if they are found in the dictionary, the meanings given are not meant for the words in doubt.

Third difficulty is the different forms of speech. Example, for the verb 먹다(to eat), in honorific form it is spoken as 드세요. In polite and formal form, it is spoken as 먹습니다. In polite and informal form, it is 먹어요. In casual form, it is simply 먹어. The occasion and the social status of the person you are speaking to determine which form is appropriate. When I was a beginner, the different forms of 먹다 are like different words to me. It really doesn't occur to me that there are different forms of the same word. There is also the problem about switching between the different forms. Even if I am able to know when to switch, my tongue can be a bit too stiff to make the change correctly.

Fourth difficulty is irregular verb. It is hard to explain this difficulty if you do not know basic Korean but just take it that the way an irregular verb is written can change under different situations. For example just take a look at the following changes to the verb 만들다(to make):

만들다 + (ㄴ)다음에 = 만든 다음에
만들다 + (ㅂ)시다 = 만듭시다
만들다 + 시다 = 만드세요

As you can see (words in red) 만들다 has morphed into different words under different situations but the meaning of the word has not changed. Irregular verbs are actually quite common in Korean language. Without a good knowledge of irregular verbs, dictionary is actually quite useless because the verb stem has to be first determined before the dictionary can give the right meaning. In this case, I need to make up that the verb stem is 만들다.

The last difficulty is irregular pronunciation. Example, 입니다 is pronounced 임니다, 못합니다 is pronounced 모탐니다, 읽는다 is pronounced 잉는다, just to name a few. There are also many pronunciation rules in the Korean language which can attribute to "irregularity". To be fair, in most cases, the change in pronunciation of a word is determined by rules and not that "irregular" per se. This last difficulty together with sound-in-liaison are creating havoc to my listening.

As what my Korean language teacher told us during our level one Korean language lesson: It is easy to read, write and speak hangeul but you will not know what they mean. She was absolutely right. But to learn Korean, I guess its 할 수 없어요(no choice). Mentally, I am telling myself, learning Korean cannot be harder than learning Chinese. It is just a matter of time.