I’ve been studying Japanese for about five years now, and recently I’ve gotten into Korean dramas. To my surprise, I can understand around 20–30% of the dialogue, even though I’ve never studied Korean before. The grammar feels strikingly familiar — the word order, use of particles, and overall sentence structure remind me a lot of Japanese.
I’m also curious about the extent of shared 熟語. How much overlap did you notice? Did your knowledge of kanji help you recognize Korean words with Hanja roots?
How did you find reading Korean compared to Japanese? Without kanji, did things feel more ambiguous, or was hangul intuitive enough to bridge that gap?
I’d love to hear your experiences, please comment!
by elimanzz