A bank is 银行 in Mandarin and 은행 in Korean, and both words come from 銀行. Mandarin writes it with a simpler first character, and Korean spells it in Hangul letters.
Korean is written with letters that spell out sounds, and Mandarin with characters.
| Korean | Mandarin Chinese | |
|---|---|---|
| Script | Hangul, 24 basic letters grouped by syllable; Chinese characters are rare in everyday writing | Chinese characters, simplified in mainland China and traditional in Taiwan |
| Tones | None in Seoul speech, while Busan and the rest of Gyeongsang keep a pitch accent | Four tones and a light tone |
| Sentence shape | Subject, object, then the verb, with small markers after each noun | Subject, verb, then object, the same order as English |
| Verb endings | Show the tense and how polite you're being | None for tense |
| Speakers | About 81 million, in South Korea, North Korea and abroad | About 990 million as a first language |
Sino-Korean words do: they make up about 57% of the entries in the Standard Korean Language Dictionary from the National Institute of Korean Language.
| Meaning | Korean | Mandarin | Characters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time | 시간 | 时间 | 時間 |
| Problem | 문제 | 问题 | 問題 |
Korean and Mandarin are both in Category IV at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI), the group its students need the most class hours for.
| Study per week | FSI full-time course, Korean or Mandarin (2,200 hours) |
|---|---|
| 3½ hours | About 12 years 1 month |
| 7 hours | About 6 years |
| 14 hours | About 3 years |
| 28 hours | About 1 year 6 months |
| If you want to… | Start with |
|---|---|
| Follow K-dramas and variety shows in Korean | Korean |
| Take the TOPIK | Korean |
| Follow how friends from Busan really speak | Busan Korean |
| Work with suppliers or offices in mainland China | Mandarin |
| Watch Chinese dramas without subtitles | Mandarin |
Korean: Ordering Drinks at a Cafe
카페에서 음료 주문하기
Do you have iced Americanos?
Yes, we have iced Americanos.
Do you have green tea, too?
No, we don't have green tea.
Mandarin: Ordering Coffee
点咖啡
Hello, I would like two cups of coffee.
Sure, your two coffees are ready.
Thank you, here is the money.
In the Korean lesson, 있어요 asks whether the cafe has a drink, and 없어요 says it doesn't. The author of both is Poppy, your AI tutor, who writes every lesson in Bubblegum, a language app.
Bubblegum
Bubblegum is the best app for serious learners. You learn from text and audio you can mostly understand, which is called comprehensible input.
- A Sino-Korean word's Hanja Breakdown shows each Chinese character in it, with other Korean words that use the same one.
- The Hangul course teaches each Korean letter with a picture to remember it by.
- Clear, expressive AI voices read every lesson aloud, with a different voice for each speaker.
- Korean and Chinese books you own have no lesson version in Bubblegum. Show Poppy a screenshot from one, and she answers your questions about it.
- A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so your first one is free, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn.
- Regenerative Review™
Mobile
Is Korean Related to Chinese?
No, they come from different language families. Korean borrowed its Chinese-based words, and South Korean newspapers and scholarly papers still print some of them in Hanja.
Which App Should a Beginner Choose?
If you are serious about learning a language, start with Bubblegum. Poppy writes lessons at your level about things you like. Both the Korean comparison and the Chinese comparison list more apps.
Is Bubblegum Free?
Yes. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn. It holds lessons that other learners asked Poppy for. A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so your first one is free, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons.
Sources
- Wikipedia, Korean language (about 81 million speakers; subject–object–verb order; Hanja largely unused in everyday life, and abolished in North Korean writing in 1949; in South Korea Hanja is mainly reserved for newspapers, scholarly papers and disambiguation; speech levels show the speaker's relationship to the listener; Seoul speech uses vowel length, while Gyeongsang dialects keep the pitch accent of Middle Korean; Korean and Chinese are genetically unrelated)
- Wikipedia, Hangul (24 basic letters: 14 consonants and 10 vowels)
- Wikipedia, Sino-Korean vocabulary (about 57% of the Standard Korean Language Dictionary of the National Institute of Korean Language)
- Wikipedia, Standard Chinese (four tones and a neutral tone; subject–verb–object order; verbs not marked for tense; official in China, a national language of Taiwan, official in Singapore)
- Wikipedia, Mandarin Chinese (about 990 million first-language speakers)
- Wiktionary, 은행 (bank; Hanja 銀行)
- Wiktionary, 銀行 (bank, Chinese; simplified 银行)
- Wiktionary, 시간 (time, hour; Hanja 時間, simplified 时间 in Mandarin)
- Wiktionary, 문제 (problem, question; Hanja 問題, simplified 问题 in Mandarin)
- Wiktionary, 있다 (to be, to have; 있어요 in polite speech)
- Wiktionary, 없다 (to not be, to not have; 없어요 in polite speech)
- Wikipedia, Simplified Chinese characters (standard in mainland China; traditional characters are official in Taiwan)
- U.S. Department of State, Foreign Language Training (Category IV: Korean and Chinese – Mandarin, 88 weeks or 2,200 class hours, for an ILR 3 in speaking and listening)
- Bubblegum
Checked on October 5, 2026 against each app's own pages.
