The Korean language is used by an estimated 75,000,000 numbers of people in North and South Korea and is still spreading all over the world. Though most of its speakers are living in North and South Korea and its neighboring islands, there are still more than three million Korean speakers scattered worldwide.
Are you a fan of Korea and decided to study its language? Then you can start learning its basics such as the pronunciations and its few accents. It is still hard to communicate with Korean native speakers even if you know a few Korean phrases and differently pronounced subtleties. You need to learn the Korean alphabet (Hangul) first before you can truly learn the language itself.
Learning Korean is beneficial regardless if you learn it for fun, for career advancement,or even for traveling. But, if you are serious about learning Korean, you shouldn’t have many problems regarding the importance of the Korean language.
Learning Korean nowadays seems addicting for so many foreigners because of its popularity. Korean is widely known because of its Korean TV dramas, music, and some popular brands. Though Korean is not a major language of the world, it is still a very important language throughout Asia. It is slowly becoming more popular worldwide as a second language.
But we know that there is a bad side in every story. One of the trials most people experience in learning Korean is the adjustments. Especially, if you are there in the country and some Koreans assume that most of the foreigners don’t understand them. They might start talking about you in front of you. This happens again and again, and you cannot stop these things from happening. And when you try to speak to them using their language, they seem shocked that you fluently speak Korean and understand what they are saying.
The worst part is no matter how much you put an effort in studying the language and its pronunciation;it is always in the brains of some Koreans that a foreigner like you does not have the same pronunciation as they do in Korean. It’s true that the pronunciation of the Korean language takes much time to learn because it’s not like the way you read it in your language, and some native speakers have different tones in speaking. Unless you were raised there or live there, you wouldn’t have any idea in how they pronounce it. Of course, this is how they learned it. They’re native to the country.
It is hard to learn the Korean language in the first place, and the unorganized ways of learning may trigger difficulties in picking up the language. You find yourself lost and don’t seem to know what you are doing and what’s next.
Regardless of the torment and discouragement and pretended to misjudge, is it worth all the trouble to learn Korean? My answer is yes. Adapting to any language associates you with the way of life such that nothing else can. Learning another language enables you to investigate the aggregate personality of the way of life from where the language was created. Learning the Korean language is also learning their culture. It is not bad to give a try. For me, Korean is one of the great languages in the world.
Furthermore, I presume that you’re here because you also want to know how worthy it is to learn the language. To understand more of the importance of learning Korean, we will talk about some reasons to learn it.
12 Awesome Reasons to Learn Korean
1. Hangul
It may look completely different from anything you’ve ever seen before, and that’s okay because it is! But you will be pleasantly surprised by just how easy it to learn. The Korean Writing System is called “Hangul” and was created pretty recently by the writing system standards in 1443 under the King Sejong the Great. The Alphabet has 19 consonants, and 21 amazing vowels compare to the 26 in the Latin alphabet, right?
And here’s where the thing gets pretty interesting. Hangul is written by combining the individual letter into syllable block. For example, the “Hangul” looks something like this 한글, but IN English it should be written in 6 letters. But, in Korean, it’s lot more compact way of writing. It’s the ㅎH, ㅏA, ㄴ N, ㄱ G, ㅡ U, and ㄹ L to create this little word 한글. It’s cool!
And it gets even better if that’s possible. The letters are designed to look like the shapes of your mouth and tongue make while you pronounce that sound. So,at first glance, it looks like a completely new and really difficult language to understand but soon becomes something very fun and super easy to decipher. You’ll be reading Korean in no time even if you don’t understand what you’re reading; you still be able to read. Sound great, right?
2. KDrama
Korea is known all across the world by its Kdramas. You’re not sure what I’m talking about? Well, Kdrama stands for Korean drama, and it’s very fun, easy to watch, and addictive Korean TV drama shows. There’s some common theme such as innovative love story, the family ties, maybe some historical settings, or even modern high school setting. It was interesting, however.Where Kdrama is different is that it doesn’t go on and on forever, recording episode after episode and run for years like soap operas. Instead, kdramas tend to last for one series with around 10-20 hour-long episodes. It is great because you get into something, and invest just a little bit of time without having to commit your whole life to it.
Korean drama has been going for a long time starting back in the 60’s.However, it began to take off worldwide in the ’90s by the spread of the internet, making it much easier to watch kdrama outside South Korea. Multiple kdrama includes Descendant of the Sun, Rooftop Prince, and The Heirs. My favorite “Boys over Flower” is a sort of rags to riches story of a poor girl whose luck changes when she met a private school boy who fell into love with her and makes her whole life change.
Whoa! You can fall in love with that movie for sure.
3. KPop
2012 was an amazing year: there was a London Olympic, a huge film like the Avenger and the Dark Night Rises, but bigger of all of those things was “Gangnam Style.”Gangnam style by Psy took over the world in December of 2012 when it became the first video on YouTubeto reach over a billion views. Psy not only broke the internet, but he opened the world to KPop. There were few different letters of country slash pop over the world, including JPop in Japan, and CPop in China, but KPop is notably unique. Some notable artists to get you started include Girls Generation, BTS, and Bigbang.
4. Easy to study
Potentially, impact due to the increase of Korean culture to the mainstream, there’s a wonderful selection of resources to study when you land in Korea. Tools like Eggbun, Talk to Me in Korean, and Dom and Hyo make the language fun. It’s also a great online community for learning Korean, which you can use wherever you are.
5. Uniqueness
Korean is very different from all any languages. Korean is a really interesting language with more than 77,000,000 native speakers; so,quite a few people are talking in this language. However, the language is unique and frequently classified by a linguist as a Language Isolate. There are some similarities with Japanese in terms of structure and grammar, and they use Hanja, the Chinese Characters. How about the fact that it’s unique and uncommon in its way makes it fun and interesting if you’re looking for a challenge in a new language to learn.
Because of the separation between North and South Korea, there are still changes occurring to the form of the language. Punctuation use, spelling, and even some vocabulary is beginning to change between the two countries.
6. Korean Food
Don’t make a mistake of thinking that Korean food is unknown to the rest of the world (heck no!). Korean food is damn delicious with a pretty spicy kick. Dishes like kimchi a fermented vegetable which is much tastier than what the descriptions make them sound. Bulgogi a teak sweet marinated beef and bibimbap which has rice topped with vegetable, egg, and other good stuff that has made a name for itself worldwide.
Korean Restaurants are easy to find in a small town but, if you haven’t already tried the food, you’re not going to find a big city that has the same taste to those foods. We should come back with kimchi a little bit later; it is hugely popular and served to Koreans with almost every meal. To give you an idea of just how important this food is to South Koreans,it is estimated that each Korean person eats around 40 pounds of kimchi per year. What?
7. Opportunities
In the global society, getting ready for the future has turned out to be progressively vital. You need to exceed expectations scholastically, yet you likewise need to develop more abilities to be increasingly aggressive because the general population who might pursue a similar activity as you would not simply originate from your nation.
As indicated by the 2010 information from the 21st release of Ethnologue, the number of individuals communicating in Korean as their first language is 48.4 million. In all nations (counting China, Japan, North Korea, Uzbekistan, and the Russian Federation), the number of consumers is 72.2 million. South Korea’s economy is the thirteenth biggest on the planet. A lot of chances are accessible in the nation for work, business, or study. Be that as it may, since South Korea is commonly monolingual, it is smarter to learn Korean before going there.
When you learn Korean,many doors will open for you. There are some great Korean brands referred to worldwide, for example, Samsung and LG. Be that as it may, strikingly South Korea is one of only a handful couple of nations to maintain a strategic distance from the Mega Globe Banking Crisis of 2008-2009 and essentially their economy is quite very strong. It implies that if you are searching for work in a Big International Company, then learning Korean and keeping yourself entertained by viewing kdramas is smart. Korean is an advantageous language to learn.
8. Tests
To make things fun in Korean, you get the option of Two Language Test to give you fully qualification with your Korean language skills.It’s the Korean Language Proficiency Test (KLPT) and the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK). Some of the research doesn’t include the reason, but I did find something on this topic that is important. The TOPIK is generally considered best if you are looking to study in South Korea and KLPT if you are going to work in Korea with language. The other way of having something like this is a huge advantage. It gives you focus and motivation and something to say that you can speak the Korean well.
9. Broader knowledge
Including the Korean language to your knowledge base could expand your point of view about different societies. The rich history of Korean incorporates periods under different rulers before the Chinese and the Japanese arrived.
Realizing how to communicate in Korean could be an advantage as it could open many doors because not very many are learning the language at present. This implies there is less challenge for you. Combined with your scholarly degrees and experience, your capacity to communicate in Korean expands your odds to be contracted. Propelled Korean aptitudes could be the deciding element regardless of whether you are inadequate in expert experience.
10. Grammar
On the off chance that you are an English speaker, you may have a troublesome time learning the language since its example is SOV (subject-object-action word). You simply need to recall that the action word in Korean is constantly set toward the end. Different pieces of the sentence have specific articles so regardless of whether there is an adjustment in their request, the importance of the sentence would not change. In English, you state, “Bess eats (a) pear.” In Korean, it would be “Bess a pear eats.” Moreover, there is no adjustment in the action word structure, whether you are discussing solitary or plural articles.
11. Konglish
Konglish is composed of Korean and English words. Numerous English loan words are currently acknowledged and comprehended by numerous Koreans. In this way, it is good to utilize them when you can’t recollect the correct word in Korean. But you must take note that not all Konglish words sound like English words. There many of them that have different in meaning and even in their pronunciation.
12. Gender
In Korean, the idea of the sex of things isn’t non-existent, nor does it influence the sentence’s different components. The Korean language doesn’t have the manly or ladylike method for discourse as the greater part of the dialects like French, German, and Spanish. It’s difficult to retain those things in an unknown dialect. In any case, when you are learning Korean, you don’t need to stress over how to utilize the word in its proper sexual orientation. It makes it simpler to get familiar with the language.
If you need to get familiar with an intriguing and valuable Asian language, think about learning Korean. It can offer numerous advantages and make you a progressively focused applicant in the worldwide activity showcase.
Learning Korean is quite a nice journey that unlocks many possibilities in life. Like what we mentioned above, connecting with a new bunch of people, nice career opportunities, understanding a new culture, and it is a privilege in having a second language. In learning Korean, you can also improve your self-confidence and not to mention the amazing accomplishment when you learn the language.
On the off chance that you need to learn Korean, you could purchase a few Korean books and invest hours tuning in to digital recordings and viewing YouTube recordings. While these things can assist, the ideal path with learning Korean is through one-on-one exercises with a private guide. A Korean instructor can enable you to learn articulation, language structure, vocabulary, and significantly more.
Since you know every one of the advantages of learning Korean, it’s an ideal opportunity to begin. All in all, what are you hanging tight for? 가자!
