DO Korean and Japanese understand each other?

Well, they are closer to each other than they are to any other languages. They are remarkably similar in some ways, but in another way, their also very different and they are certainly not mutually intelligible. That’s why there are fewer chances that they can understand each other’s languages.

Can Japanese understand Korean and Chinese?

No. Nevertheless a person might be able to understand most of the words written in Chinese characters on a Chinese/Japanese/Korean newspapers.

Why can’t Chinese and Japanese understand each other?

Japanese and Chinese aren’t even in the same language family. Japanese is in a category of it’s own, the closest language maybe being Korean, and they do not have cross understanding. Chinese has many dialects, and even they do not generally understand each other with the spoken language. With the written language however, China has no alphabet.

How similar are the Korean and Japanese languages?

Furthermore, although the Korean language (Altaic) and the Japanese language (Japonic)are highly similar to each other (e.g. similar-sounding words and grammar rules), they are considered to be isolated and different languages too. Myth 2: Asians who can speak either one of the CJK languages actually understand and/or speak all three of them.

Should you learn Chinese characters when learning Japanese or Korean?

You can opt not to learn Chinese characters, or even delay doing so, while learning Japanese, Korean, or even Chinese (yes, you can learn conversational Chinese by using Pinyin/Zhuyin), but if you want to be a truly fluent speaker of these three languages, Chinese characters are the key.

How similar are Korean and Chinese writing similar?

Very similar, in the sense that it is mostly possible to do an accurate literal translation from one language to another. 1) Modern Korean uses the hangul script (phonetic) and hanja (chinese characters) are no longer found in most writings.