Similarities between Hindi and Korean languages 

Do you know that Korean language has a lot of similarities with Hindi and other Indian languages?

Things like the word order in sentences, the concepts of post-positions or case markers and honorifics are very similar in Korean and Hindi.

And that makes learning Korean language through Hindi much more easier and efficient than learning it through English.

Let’s see what are the similarities between Hindi and Korean in detail:

1. Word Order – Hindi and Korean both follow the same SOV word order (Subject + Object + Verb) as opposed to English which follows SVO (Subject + Verb + Object) word order. Due to different word order it becomes very difficult to translate English sentences in to Korean or vice versa. But if you try the same thing through Hindi or most other Indian language, it becomes super easy and makes perfect sense. Example : Ram reads a book – 람은 책을 읽습니다 – राम किताब पढ़ता है.
2. Pronunciation – Devanagari script (as well as scripts of many other Indian languages) have most of the sounds of Korean. On the other hand, many Korean sounds can’t be produced accurately in English. So if you learn Korean language through standard Romanization system, it’s very likely that you would be pronouncing many word unnaturally. Learning Korean pronunciation through Hindi is not only easy but also very efficient.
3. Post-positions or Case markers or Particles – Like we have Karaks (ने, को, से etc.) in Hindi, Korean language also use the particles for different functions and they are used in the similar way. In English we have prepositions which come before the nouns while in Korean and Hindi we use postpositions which come after the noun. For Example – John is in the room. 존은 방에 있어요. जॉन  कमरे में है. In both Hindi and Korean the word for ‘in’ is coming after ‘room’.
4.  Honorifics – Hindi and Korean both have a very well developed system of honorifics which is an integral part of not only the language but also of the culture of the two countries. Using the language that shows respect towards older people or people who are above you and affection towards younger people is very innate in the culture of India and Korea. So when learning Korean, it is very easy to understand the concept of honorifics in Korean langauge (words and gramamar) if you are from India or know an Indian language. On the other hand, it’s nightmare for people from western countries who can’t get their head around why we use different words and phrases for people based on age, social status, closeness etc.

Above are the reasons why I started a Korean lesson series on YouTube where I teach basic Korean through Hindi.

Some lessons on the channel are in English but in every lesson I continuously compare language elements with Hindi and Indian culture so that it is easier for learners to grasp.

If you are an absolute beginner learner or even if you some basics, I would suggest you to have a look at this Korean language lesson playlist on YouTube.