> I've been fluent in Japanese for over a decade and am about 6 months into studying Korean.
Me too! Nice to talk with someone with a similar background :)
> you never really settle into a sense of confidently being able to read new words correctly. It sucks.
Native speakers don't magically gain the ability to read correctly every new word. So it is fine to hit the dictionary every now and then!
In the case of 仲人, I can guessimate 仲 (naka) and 人 (hito), but recall that 素人 and 玄人 are pronouced <long vowel>~uto. I would try to pronounce it as nakouto (the correct spelling is nakoudo). So people do gain a heuristic for reading.
Also Kanji provides a mnemonic device after learning the meaning of the word. (One who makes/improves 仲).
>So, on balance I'd say reading Korean is way easier because they ditched Kanji.
Me too! Nice to talk with someone with a similar background :)
> you never really settle into a sense of confidently being able to read new words correctly. It sucks.
Native speakers don't magically gain the ability to read correctly every new word. So it is fine to hit the dictionary every now and then!
In the case of 仲人, I can guessimate 仲 (naka) and 人 (hito), but recall that 素人 and 玄人 are pronouced <long vowel>~uto. I would try to pronounce it as nakouto (the correct spelling is nakoudo). So people do gain a heuristic for reading.
Also Kanji provides a mnemonic device after learning the meaning of the word. (One who makes/improves 仲).
>So, on balance I'd say reading Korean is way easier because they ditched Kanji.
Yes, unless you're Chinese or Japanese speaker ;)