How “Difficult” is it to learn the language of South Korea?
First of all, the standard language of South Korea is nearly identical to that of North Korea – just some differences in the language due to different government and an extended period of isolation (including what they call the language). If you’re native to English, Spanish and French are definitely a lot easier to learn; grammar, writing system and phonology of Korean are a lot more complex for someone with an English background. Korean is considered a category 3 language (on a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being easiest for a native English speaker). Category 3 languages are estimated to take 5 times the amount of time to learn than category 1, but for most of them, I don’t think this is really the case, including Korean.
