Why I Started Learning Korean
So I've been learning Korean for a while now. Been making steady, but slow, progress. I'm getting more confident in composing sentences from scratch with the grammar structures I know. It's a lot of fun, though it's also quite maddening.
A few days ago, I thought about why I started learning Korean in the first place.
Originally, it wasn't a language I had a whole lot of interest in. Didn't really know about Korea, either. Not its history, people, nor culture.
The only Korean thing I was aware of was its movie industry. Lots of fantastic movies coming from there. Movies like Oldboy, Train to Busan, I Saw the Devil, Parasite and so on. I was vaguely aware of K-pop, too, but wasn't a listener. Didn't think it'd be my jam.
One day, however, a video was recommended to me. It was a fan-made compilation of a K-pop idol. I have no idea why it was recommended to me. Maybe because I was looking at Korean movies?
Either way, I watched the video and thought it was funny. So I started watching more. And more. And then more.
And then, at a certain point, I noticed the language itself. Something about Korean sounded beautiful to me. I can't explain why it sounds beautiful, it just does. Much the same way I think Arabic and Swahili sound beautiful. Can't explain why, they just do.
I thought it looked cool, too. Lot's of circles and straight lines and angles. Something like this: μλ νμΈμ (Hello). That looks cool as hell to me.
So I looked up the alphabet. Saw a video and found out that the alphabet was quite easy to learn. I was able to read Korean in only about a hour's worth of work. Of course, I could "read" Korean at a snail's pace and with terrible pronunciation, but it was something. I could watch a Korean vlog, for example, and read the street signs written in Korean. A whole new world opened.
And that was enough to get me hooked. It got me excited. Ignited a spark in me that I didn't know I had.
So I started searching for more resources. I figured that if I could (slowly and painfully) read Korean, why not go further?
And I did just that. Got a book for self-study. Started doing a lesson a day (took weekends off, though) and have been having a blast.
Started to get more into Korean movies and K-dramas. Started listening to K-pop and became fans of several groups (turns out, even though I'm more of a punk kind of guy, it very much is my jam). Started learning about Korean history. Even bought a few history books.
It's pretty interesting. I would've never started learning Korean if not for that one recommended video.
And it's kind of funny, in a way. When someone says why they learned a language it's usually something like "my partner speaks it," "I want to connect with my extended family," "because of work," "because of school" and so on. For me, though? Nah. It was because some random-ass YouTube video got me interested. And I suppose that's more than enough reason.
Anyway, I hope to continue my studies. While I'm getting confident in creating sentences, I still have a ways to go for my speaking and listening abilities. I hope one day I can become fluent.