Introduction:

In the world of globalization, learning a new language has become an essential part of the career and economic life of many career-oriented people throughout the world. The countries are now closer than ever, and the East Asian countries have vibrant, dynamic, and diverse cultures and also intellectually rich regions worldwide that offer excellent career opportunities, which tend most of the people to learn East-Asian languages. But many people have a dilemma regarding which East-Asian language to learn. Most often I come across questions like, “Should I learn Chinese or Korean?” Yeah, for most people this may be a tricky and confusing question. You might be interested to learn both at the same time, but this sounds impractical. You need to choose any one of them. In this article, I will discuss the pros and cons or advantages and disadvantages of Chinese and Korean, so that you can get an overall idea from this and at the end, you find this article helpful to decide which language to learn.

What are the advantages of learning Chinese?

• Chinese is considered one of the most spoken languages worldwide along with English and Spanish. At present more than 1 billion people in the world speak Chinese. The Chinese culture is said to be one of the fascinating cultures in the world. 
• China is one of the leading exporters in the world at this moment. If you plan to do business with China then you can definitely learn Chinese. Many entrepreneurs are looking for Chinese-speaking people who can help them to communicate with the peoples of China or establish their business in China. Learning Chinese can help you in the travel sector too. 
• The Chinese language is not very difficult to learn, the grammar part is quite simple and with regular practice, the pronunciation is also manageable. You can face challenges in the tonal parts and along with that, you will require to learn loads of Chinese characters which will be time-consuming for you to get used to.
• Chinese is considered to be the gateway to learn Japanese and Korean, which means, once you have learnt Chinese it would be easier for you to learn Korean and Japanese. 

Disadvantages of learning Chinese

• The Chinese language takes years to learn and achieve fluency as you have to go through a process of layers of complexity of a four-tone, and more than fifty thousand characters to learn. Chinese characters aren’t phonetic. Reading Chinese writing is a difficult thing to learn as Chinese is a tonal language, so the pronunciation can change the meaning of a word. English is not a tonal language, so English native speakers may have a harder time learning Chinese speech patterns.
• Most foreigners learn the “Standard Mandarin” which is spoken in the urban parts of China and this may not work especially in the rural areas. 
• It is observed that well-educated Chinese people prefer to speak to you in English rather than in Chinese. So if you are working in a Chinese company, you will need Chinese to talk effectively to lower-level management only. 

Advantages of learning Korean 

• Korean is competitively easy to learn. Most people learn Hangul quickly because if you understand the basic of Hangul, then you will be able to pick up Korean vocabulary faster. The Korean alphabet is very simple and so it is easier to learn. 
• Another important reason for learning Korean is because of its culture. Learning Korean will help you to get a deeper understanding of your favourite Korean shows which cannot be otherwise translated into English.
• If you are working in a Korean company or planning to work in a Korean company, then learning Korean will be an extra benefit for you. You quill be able to communicate with the Korean co-workers and team. By learning Korean, you can surely find yourself at the forefront of a globally competitive market.
• By learning Korean, you will be able to teach people Korean and can bridge the gap of communication. 

Disadvantages of learning Korean

• By learning Korean, you can use the language only in Korea. Outside the country, you will have nothing much to do with it.
• Though the Korean alphabet is easy, the honorifics are hard to master.

So which language you should learn?

So, there are pros and cons of learning Chinese or Korean. To some Korean may seem to be an easier language to learn because of its phonetic alphabet and more simplistic grammar rules. On the other hand, Chinese is much more widely spoken and it is used in business, science, and government. It is always said that if you don’t have an interest in a language, you can never learn it, in spite of it being a very useful language. 

So to sum up, you definitely need to learn the language depending on your goals and interests. Practically speaking both languages are a bit difficult to learn and require immense practice and proper guidance to master them. And for proper guidance, you can choose Multibhashi. Multibhashi offers both Korean and Chinese online video interactive classes. And there are professional experts to guide you to achieve your goal. So the Ultimate decision will be yours. I will advise you to choose the language which would be more useful to you. After all learning, any foreign language is itself the biggest endeavor.