Should i learn korean?
Mandarin is actually not very close to Korean. Mandarin is part of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Korean is part of the Ural-Altaic language family. They are only very loosely related — maybe about as related as English and Hindi or English and Russian. Character pronunciations are very different, and grammar is completely different. When I attended (and graduated from) Yonsei University Korean Language Institute, most Chinese students I knew didn’t really learn Korean faster or better than most non-Asian students that I knew, and their accents were awful and almost completely incomprehensible — worse than the Americans, Europeans, Japanese, etc. The only people with an advantage in learning Korean are Japanese people. Therefore, I expect that learning Korean to any meaningful level will take close to 1,000 hours of study. Probably closer to 3,000 or 4,000 if you want to be fluent and understand 99% of dramas, songs, and colloquial conversations. Is this really worth it for a few
i started to learn japanese for the same reason you did… i loved anime, japanese food, manga, movies, pop songs, imports, video games, products, etc… but turned out, i didnt have a good reason for learning japanese, and which it turned out it was also not a good motivating reason as well… so i sort of gave up learning it… but i picked it up again after 2 years and learning intermediate now, only because i said to myself “oh well, i started it, so i might as well finish it, since its always good to have an extra language in youre social life skills” but i noticed learning a language for good reasons are the best… such as reasons involving jobs, business, travel, and other significant reasons… i think the most efficient language to learn is english (obviously) , spanish, and maybe chinese… cause most likely those 3 languages will come in handy… japanese is actually pretty useful too… korean is one of the hardest languages to learn, and i really have respect for people w
I mostly agree with Shinchon there except one thing, Don’t learn Japanese unless it’s related to your hobbies and same with Korean. The competition within job for Japanese and Japan, and elsewhere is rapidly rising. My only advise is that you should concentrate on learning Chinese (maximise it) along with English as Chinese economy is on the rise and will be a major force in 10 years time. Or learn a language that will be useful for the job that you are interested in. Now on the hobby side, it’s your choice to learn Korean. Knowing Mandarin and English hardly helps in learning Korean. The grammatical structure is very different. Korean and Japanese is similar in that way though.
