Are Korean and Japanese similar?
Structurally alike to a striking degree, yet with almost no shared native vocabulary and no accepted family relationship.
The grammatical parallels are real: both are subject-object-verb, both mark grammatical roles with particles attached to nouns, and both have elaborate honorific systems that change verb forms according to social relationship. Learners of one often find the other's structure familiar.
Vocabulary tells a different story. Native Korean and Japanese words are largely unrelated. What overlap exists comes from both having borrowed extensively from Chinese, so many formal and technical terms are recognisably cognate โ while everyday words are not.
The writing systems are unrelated in design. Korean uses Hangul, a featural alphabet created in the 15th century and widely regarded as one of the most systematic writing systems ever devised. Japanese combines two syllabaries with Chinese characters.
Whether the two are genealogically related remains unsettled; most linguists treat Korean as an isolate and Japanese as Japonic, with the similarities attributed to long contact rather than shared descent.
Side by side
| Korean | Japanese | |
|---|---|---|
| Writing system | Hangul | Japanese kana and kanji |
| Reading direction | Left to right | Left to right |
| Language family | Unclassified | Japonic |
| Word order | subject-object-verb (SOV) | subject-object-verb (SOV) |
| Speakers | Approximately 81 million speakers worldwide. | Approximately 128 million speakers, predominantly in Japan. |
- โ Different writing systems โ neither can be read without learning the other's script.
- โ Different language families โ few cognates to rely on.
- โ Same word order โ sentences keep their shape between them.
The same phrases in both
Nothing shows how close two languages are like seeing identical meaning rendered in each. These are independent translations of the same English source.
Greetings
| Korean | Japanese |
|---|---|
| ์๋ ํ์ธ์ | ใใใซใกใฏ |
| ์ข์ ์์นจ | ใใฏใใใใใใพใ |
| ์์์ | ใใใใฟ |
| ์๋ | ใใใใชใ |
| ๋์ค์ ๋ด์ | ใพใไผใใพใใใ |
| ๋ด์ผ ๋ด์ | ใพใๆๆฅ |
| ํ์ํฉ๋๋ค | ใใใใ |
| ์ ์ง๋ด์ธ์? | ่ชฟๅญใฏใฉใใงใใ๏ผ |
| ๋ ๊ด์ฐฎ์์, ๊ณ ๋ง์์ | ็งใฏๅ ๆฐใงใใใใใใจใ |
| ์ข์ ํ๋ฃจ ๋ณด๋ด์ธ์ | ่ฏใไธๆฅใใ้ใใใใ ใใ |
Courtesy
| Korean | Japanese |
|---|---|
| ์ ๋ฐ | ใ้กใใใพใ |
| ๊ฐ์ฌํฉ๋๋ค | ใใใใจใ |
| ์ ๋ง ๊ฐ์ฌํฉ๋๋ค | ใใใใจใใใใใพใใ |
| ์ฒ๋ง์์ | ใฉใใใใใพใใฆ |
| ์ | ใฏใ |
| ์๋์ | ใใใ |
| ์ค๋กํฉ๋๋ค | ใใฟใพใใ |
| ๋ฏธ์ํด์ | ใใใใชใใ |
| ๋ฌธ์ ์์ด | ๅ้กใใใพใใ |
| ๋ฌผ๋ก ์ด๋ค | ใใกใใ |
Introductions
| Korean | Japanese |
|---|---|
| ๋น์ ์ ์ด๋ฆ์ ๋ฌด์์ ๋๊น? | ใใชใใฎๅๅใฏไฝใงใใ๏ผ |
| ๋ง๋์ ๋ฐ๊ฐ์์ | ใใใใใ้กใใใพใ |
| ๋น์ ์ ์ด๋์ ์๋์? | ใฉใใฎๅบ่บซใงใใ๏ผ |
| ๋ช ์ด์ด์์? | ไฝๆญณใงใใ๏ผ |
| ๋๋ ํ์์ด๋ค | ็งใฏๅญฆ็ใงใ |
| ๋๋ ํด์ผ์ ์ฌ๊ธฐ ์์ด์ | ็งใฏไผๆใงใใใซใใพใ |
| ๋๋ ์ผ ๋๋ฌธ์ ์ฌ๊ธฐ์ ์์ด์ | ็งใฏไปไบใฎใใใซใใใซใใพใ |
| ์ด ์ฌ๋์ ๋ด ์น๊ตฌ์ผ | ใใใฏ็งใฎๅ้ใงใ |
Numbers
| Korean | Japanese |
|---|---|
| ํ๋ | 1 ใค |
| 2๊ฐ | 2 |
| ์ธ | 3 |
| 4๊ฐ | 4 |
| 5๊ฐ | 5 |
| ์ฌ์ฏ | 6 |
| ์ธ๋ธ | ใปใใณ |
| ์ฌ๋ | 8 |
| ๋์ธ | ใใคใณ |
| 10 | 10 |
In practice
Grammar knowledge transfers unusually well between them. Vocabulary does not, outside Chinese-derived terms.
Other comparisons
Method and limitations
The structural rows โ writing system, family, word order, speaker numbers โ are taken from each language's own entry in our language data. The assessment of mutual intelligibility is editorial: it reflects the general consensus, and intelligibility always varies by speaker, dialect and exposure.
The phrase comparison uses the same 116 seed phrases translated into every language we support, so the two columns are independent translations of identical English source text rather than one translated through the other. Those translations are machine generated; the sample skips any row where one side repeats an earlier row, since a collapsed translation shows nothing useful.