Taekwondo/karate

Tae kwon do is a martial art developed in Korea. It focuses primarily on kicks. It is a defensive martial arts which utilizes kicks to keep your attacker at a distance.

Karate was developed in Okinawa. It is a well rounded martial art with an even mix of punches and kicks, as well as some basic grappling. Like tae kwon do it's focus is self defense. It is probably one of the most popular martial arts. There are many variations of karate developed by experts in different countries.

Sadly, due to the popularity of karate, there are many fraudulent schools especially in the US known as "Black Belt Mills" with unskilled teachers that hand out black belts to anyone willing to pay for enough lessons. As a result, karate is sometimes mocked and not taken seriously.

taekwondo is a korean martial arts based mostly on kicks. but i guess taekwondo has now evolved more into sport rather than a martial art since its recognition in the olympics. only a very few would learn the martial arts and practical side of it an most are training it as a sport. karate on the other hand is a japanese form of martial art. its more versatile since it utilizes both the hand and the feet. i could say karate is more of power while taekwondo is more of speed, foot speed that is

It helps to think of Tae Kwon Do as Koroean Karate.

They are very similar, and the founder had a Black Belt from The Karate school.

The reason it helps to think of Tae Kwon Do like this, is because its style and techniques make it very simialar to many of the different forms of Karate, and Karate had a big influence on the re-birth of this art.

The difference in Tae Kwon Do, comes the more you learn as it gains from Koroean arts as well.

Karate, was developed as a very straight forward power art. Especially known for its powerful kicks, and punches. Tae Kwon Do is famous for its kicks, and even Bruce Lee borrowed his above the waist kicks from it.

When looking at schools, look for the main bodies, with Olympic connections. This helps to avoid the so called Black Belt Factories.

Modern traditional karate was developed in the Islands of Okinawa in japan after some influnes from chines martial arts. There are actually different styles of karate but they are all commonly considered as japnes martial arts today.

Modern tae kwon do was developed in korea after Much Influence from japnes karate during the occupation by Japan. Indeed, tae kwon do os some times reffered to as Korean karate.

Both are adopted similar white uniforms along with a colored belt ranking system for Karate and tae kwon do.

It can be generalized that in karate, one would use their arms or hands for 60% of the tome of strikes or blocks while the use of legs for kicking will for kicking will be about 40%.
The forms from tae kwon do would have the opposite percentage breakdown with 40% hands and 60% legs. In tae kwon do, there is also more emphasis on higher kicks to the head level than in karate.

The tae kwon do forms or patterns are generally a bit shorter and less complex then the karate forms. Some tae kwon do schools have been known to use the odd karate form in its curriculum as well.
Both karate and tae kwon do are considered as hard style martial arts in North America.