Korean is completely different. The Korean alphabet is phonetic with 24 letters and can be learned in a few hours.
That being said, a subset of Chinese characters were part of the written word in Korea for a long time. Now kids don't have to learn them anymore.
Interesting, a Korean friend of mine told me it was similar enough to Chinese that he could read some Chinese writing. Of course there's a good chance he was just having some fun at my expense.
reply