Thanks for your response, Abbey. Indeed, that’s why I used quotation marks because Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin are not really in the same family. However, there are very clear and useful connections between the three.

Korean and Japanese have a very similar grammar structure. They also both use words of Chinese origin (modified to fit their pronunciation structure). I learned Japanese first, which helped me understand Korean more easily. Then when I started Mandarin, the use of Chinese Characters in Japanese made it easier (although some forms were simplified of course).

Each language has its own specificities, which is what makes them so interesting to learn! What I meant was that it’s definitely easier to learn the combo Japanese-Korean than German-Mandarin for example.