"What language is written on the wall behind you guys?"
Her: "Chinese. A friend wrote that. But I should be studying that right now."
                       After finding out that she spoke Korean, I asked, "How difficult is the transition between the two languages?"
Her: "They have fairly similar grammar structure. But Korean is a really phonetic language. You can sound everything out once you have a basic grasp of it. Chinese is" (sighs) "all memorization."
Him: "They have some inherent similarities. The Korean written language was created by a king at the time. He used a few parts of Chinese characters to create it."
                      (Some internet research told me that, indeed, it was King Sejong, 4th monarch of the Yi Dynasty, who devised a universal writing system for Korean in 1440.)