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Why is Korean so popular? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| LuckyNomad Groupie Korea, South Joined 6348 days ago 79 posts - 89 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 33 of 53 09 April 2008 at 10:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Why would anybody think Korean is popular on this forum or anywhere outside of Korea?
I don't think the Korean wave is still around. The actual culture is not appealing to me. It's not appealing to many of my korean friends either. Though the pop culture does have manys good movies and quite a lot of good music. I'm not sure how Korean is all that useful outside of Korea. I learn the language because I ended up in Korea and because all of my friends speak it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Yukamina Senior Member Canada Joined 6265 days ago 281 posts - 332 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean, French | Message 34 of 53 09 April 2008 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm learning Korean because it's similar to Japanese(and I love Japanese). And it's neato. I like the way it looks, and the sound is growing on me. The culture...I don't know much about yet.
I'm not sure how far I'll take it, but it'd be great if I could play games or watch movies in Korean and understand it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bushwick Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6245 days ago 407 posts - 443 votes Speaks: German, Croatian*, English, Dutch Studies: French, Japanese | Message 35 of 53 09 April 2008 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | ||
getting it out of context. i said i haven't practiced any korean in months, due to a lack of time. when you have a new writing system you're not exposed to, people tend to forget it quite fast (especially because it is so fresh to me). and as you said yourself, a lot of the work is untranslatable. i'm sure there is no lack of literature itself. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Nea Vanille Diglot Newbie Korea, SouthRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6166 days ago 28 posts - 48 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC1 Studies: Korean | Message 36 of 53 09 April 2008 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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First of all, like many people have already mentioned... Korean is actually not that popular and I'm not really sure what would give you that idea. It's still a lot less studied than Japanese or Chinese, so much that in all of Germany, something like 5 Universities offer degree programs in Korean Studies and back home I knew plenty of people interested in Japanese or Chinese culture, but not a single person fascinated by Korea. Well, I am...
My reason for learning Korean is because I fell in love with Korea fast and hard, and still haven't fallen out of love with it after about 3 years, 1 year of which I've spent living in-country. My first contact with Korean was via TV dramas - yes, I admit to liking those braindead, vile heaps of bad TV! :) - and movies. I quickly noticed that I liked the sound and rhythm of Korean (and Korean men just sounded soooo sexy, and still do to my ears!) and so got interested so much in Korea I started out with reading books about Korean history and culture. After that, I made my first Korean friends (people who were travelling in Europe) and I was nothing short of charmed by these extraordinary people! A lot can be said about Korean people, both good and bad, but they are definitely one of a kind, for better or worse. Koreans never cease to amaze and amuse me. They are also very physically attractive, both the men and the women. I was fascinated, swiftly made a lot of friends, and then embarked on the long, long journey of learning Korean. Korean always looked a lot friendlier than Japanese and Chinese, a reason that further encouraged me to go for Korean first. The lack of Chinese characters in novels, on the internet, in chat rooms made the language look more accessible and easier to pick up (and after studying it for 1 year, I still don't find it as hard as rumored - the cases that tortured me in Latin all gone! - but that may be because I study it with passion and enthusiasm. Anything you study with sincere interest is easier than what you study in boredom). And yes, I have to admit: another reason is that, while a lot of people study Japanese, and in certain circles studying Japanese is already seen as slightly negative (associations with being an otaku, weird etc.) studying Korean holds no such connotations just yet and always seemed more "special" to me. The chic factor was a relatively minor factor in my decision, though - if I had fallen in love with Japan instead, I would definitely have gone to Japan, critcs be damned. So, that's why I'm studying Korean. Maybe you can tell how enthusiastic I am about it. :) Edited by Nea Vanille on 10 April 2008 at 7:03am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6187 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 37 of 53 10 April 2008 at 3:54am | IP Logged | ||
True, but this doesn't change the fact that it's there to learn, and if you plan to go the route of CJK, hanja will inevitably fall into your mind at some point, even if it's after you study one of the other two languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ichiro Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6210 days ago 111 posts - 152 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, French Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Malay | Message 38 of 53 10 April 2008 at 10:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Korean's　very popular here in Japan, in large part I'm told due to the success of the TV dramas here. I asked why these were attractive and was told that it was due to their simplicity and sincerity, which apparently is missing from more frenetic Japanese offerings.
Anyway, the language shelves of the bookshops are full of books on how to start Korean from scratch, how to write letters to Korean penpals, how to find a Korean girlfriend / boyfriend in their own language etc. And obviously the languages are similar and right next door; but I think it's been a recent boom. ********************************* What's this odd idea that one of Korean, Chinese or Japanese can act as a 'gateway' to the other two and provide a fast track to their inner mysteries? They're all of them hard to pick up. And won't their shared features be the same whichever way you come at them? And why isn't Vietnamese included in this set? What's the mystique? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Goindol Senior Member United States Joined 6075 days ago 165 posts - 203 votes | Message 39 of 53 10 April 2008 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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"What's this odd idea that one of Korean, Chinese or Japanese can act as a 'gateway' to the other two and provide a fast track to their inner mysteries? They're all of them hard to pick up. And won't their shared features be the same whichever way you come at them?
And why isn't Vietnamese included in this set? What's the mystique?" I agree, especially with Chinese and the other two. With Vietnamese, I suspect it has to do with Vietnam's lesser economic prowess, lack of geographical proximity from Korea and Japan, and a more intimidating tonal system than Mandarin Chinese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LuckyNomad Groupie Korea, South Joined 6348 days ago 79 posts - 89 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 40 of 53 10 April 2008 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | ||
In my case, I had studied Japanese before Korean, so when I began studying Japanese, I had to get used to speaking backwards, ommitting the subject, changing the verb endings, using honorifics, writing new scripts, etc. When I started learning Korean, my mind was already preprogrammed for it. The challenge of learning a language that's nothing like my own has already been overcome. The two languages have many shared features. So instead of saying, "why does this have to be like this? It doesn't make sense." You say, "Oh! That's just like Japanese!" Plus a lot of the vocabulary that stems from the chinese characters is similar. The chinese languages and vietnamese are beyond my knowledge. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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