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Lingo

On my recent trip to Korea, I was reminded just how difficult a language to learn Korean is. This morning I came across this article: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-hardest-languages-to-learn-2014-5. Here's the graphic:

easiest and most difficult languages to learn

In the lower right corner you'll note that Korean involves many of the challenges associated with Chinese - they use many of the same characters as Chinese, and while the sounds in Korean are not tonal, that's actually helpful when it comes to Chinese because that's how you'd differentiate between otherwise similarly-sounding characters. In Korean there is no difference, so many Chinese-borrow words end up sounding exactly the same, which is why you have to know Chinese characters to know the difference. Much can be inferred from context, but to truly reach a level of fluency you have to know some Chinese.

So now you know. Korean is difficult. And that's what makes it cool that I can do it, albeit more in conversational than in writing, which is a skill that I just didn't master.

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