[2020-08-10] How I became FLUENT in Korean in only 6 months [f4X26U5Eraw]

Hello and welcome back to another exciting

video. Today I'm gonna be talking about

how I became fluent in Korean in only 6

months, and I'll share my tips and secrets

with you if you're also interested in

learning Korean. Maybe it will help you

because I really, really care about

helping other people. Now, I think it's

safe to say that most of you already know

that I am a very good speaker of Japanese.

You could say that I'm fluent. I have

level 2 in JLPT, which is the Japanese

Language Proficiency Test. Now, you may be

surprised to hear that I also speak Korean

to a very high level. Now let me begin.

I'll begin with why I started to learn

Korean, and then I'll teach you how I was

learning it. So grab your favorite cigar

and light up a big fat one. Get comfy in

your chair as we go all the way back in

time to 2009.

So the story begins in 2009. I just

recently got dumped by my first ever

internet Japanese girlfriend that I had

kind of been in a relationship online for

about 2 years, and I was devastated. And

then after about 2 weeks of crying and

moping about, I found the second Japanese

girlfriend. So as I was starting to get to

know this new Japanese girlfriend, she

told me that her parents were actually

Korean. And as you could imagine, she was

into K-drama and K-pop and anything Korean

related. And I thought if I learned

a little bit of Korean, maybe I could

impress her. So I decided to learn the

Korean alphabet. Only took me about 2

days. It's very simple to learn. I went to

Japan to meet this Japanese girlfriend and

things didn't really go very well. I don't

want this video to be all about her, so

I'll just keep things brief. Things didn't

go well between us, and after a few weeks

of dating, um, she blocked me on social

media. And I found a new girlfriend who

was this Korean lady in a guest house in

Japan. And this Korean lady Well, she

couldn't really speak English and her

Japanese was very basic. In the beginning,

we communicated by using very basic

Japanese. Obviously, my Japanese was way

better than hers, but hers just wasn't

really good enough to be able to smoothly

communicate with each other. And I

thought, why don't I just learn Korean? I

already know the alphabet and it'll be

pretty cool if I could also speak Korean

as well as Japanese. It'd be pretty

impressive to be able to know 3 languages.

And since me and this Korean lady were

kind of dating as a couple and there were

other Korean people at the guesthouse,

there's about 5 or 6 Korean people at the

guesthouse and we all sat together to eat

meals, have lunch, have dinner. And we

also went out traveling together. And as

you can imagine, they all spoke in Korean

to each other and I felt kind of left out.

I would just be sitting there not really

talking to people because I didn't

understand what they were saying. And I

didn't really feel like I could just jump

into the conversation they were having

because I didn't know what they were

saying. There was also this kind of

annoying Korean guy who, who was very

chatty and he would keep chatting to my

Korean girlfriend and taking her attention

away from me. It was really annoying.

Every time he was there, he would always

steal my Korean girlfriend's attention

away from me and I felt like I was being

ignored. So, so I had plenty of good

reasons to learn Korean. I got myself some

Korean textbooks at the store and I

started learning Korean but I was learning

it in Japanese because I was in Japan.

The textbooks were in Japanese, made for

Japanese people learning Korean, not for

English speakers. So you might be

thinking, isn't it kind of difficult to

learn Korean in Japanese?

As someone who had already learned how to

speak Japanese and knew pretty much

everything about the Japanese language,

it was actually easier to learn Korean in

Japanese because Korean and Japanese share

so many— there's so many similar things in

Korean and Japanese. For example, the

grammar is pretty much identical. They

have very similar systems when it comes to

speaking. A lot of the pronunciations are

also kind of similar. So I think it was a

lot easier to learn Korean in Japanese

instead of learning it in English. And if

you know Japanese, you really should be

learning Korean as well because it's

basically the same as Japanese, just

slightly different. What I'm trying to say

is it's just so easy to learn Korean if

you know Japanese, and probably the other

way around as well. If you know Korean,

it's probably very easy to learn Japanese.

So I used to sit in the guesthouse all day

long after I came back from my Japanese

language class. I used to go to a Japanese

language school because my dad said it

would be a good idea. I didn't really want

to because I felt like my Japanese was

already good enough, but my dad insisted

and he paid for a 3-month course in this

language school in Osaka, and I went

there, I think it was about 4 or 5 days a

week until 2 p.m. or 3 p.m., and then I'd

come home back to the guesthouse, and then

I'd just spend the rest of the day reading

my Korean textbooks and studying Korean.

The other people at the guesthouse thought

it was kind of funny seeing me sitting

there studying Korean instead of Japanese

because most foreigners come to Japan to

speak to learn how to speak Japanese, not

Korean. They used to make jokes and say

things like, Daniel, why didn't you go to

Korea? And it was pretty funny. So after a

few months of learning the language, I

realized I was getting pretty good at it.

I was getting pretty damn good. My

pronunciation was flawless. I found it

very easy to understand the grammar

because it's almost identical to Japanese

grammar. And, um,

Yeah, I started having conversations

with the Korean people who would be around

at the guesthouse, and me and my Korean

girlfriend would have no problems

communicating and would have— would be

able to have deep, meaningful

conversations about life and philosophy

and, you know, stuff like that. It was

really helpful for the relationship that

we were able to communicate properly. I

think if I didn't make the effort to learn

Korean and we just carried on speaking in

broken Japanese with each other, I don't

think the relationship would have lasted

as long as it did because communication is

very important when it comes to a

fulfilling relationship. I think when

you're learning a language, the most

important thing is to be practicing the

language with a native speaker every

single day for as many hours as possible.

And having a Korean lover that I could

talk to every day all day long really

helped me a lot. And I think the reason

why I became so good at Japanese as well

is because I was speaking to my first

Japanese girlfriend over Skype for hours

and hours and hours every single day for

well over a year. And I think that really

helped me master the language

and master the pronunciation and to sound

like a native speaker. These days, I have

to admit, my Korean skills have gotten

rather rusty. That's because I haven't

spoken to a Korean person in about 4

years now. Yeah, it's been 4 years since I

had to use Korean at all. So I'm not sure

how good my Korean is these days. It

probably isn't as good as it used to be,

but I'm willing to bet that my Korean is

probably a lot better than your Korean is.

Now for the final part of the video, I'm

going to go off on a bit of a tangent here

and have a bit of a rant about some

comments that are irritating me. I find it

really annoying when people start

complaining that I'm not pronouncing

Japanese words properly, even though I

claim to be fluent in Japanese, which I

am. They say, Daniel, how come you claim

to be so good at Japanese but you can't

even pronounce blah blah blah in, in

Japanese when you're speaking in English.

For example, my recent video game review

of Ghost of Tsushima, people kept saying I

wasn't even pronouncing it properly. So I

just wanted to address the reason why I

don't pronounce Japanese words or city

names or places properly when I'm speaking

in English. When I'm speaking in English,

I don't pronounce foreign words in the

foreign way, in the way that they're

supposed to be pronounced. For example,

if I'm gonna say Tokyo, I'm gonna

pronounce it as Tokyo. You know, that's

how it's pronounced in the English

language when you're speaking English.

Obviously Japanese people don't pronounce

it as Tokyo when they're speaking in

Japanese. There's a proper way to

pronounce it, and obviously I know how to

pronounce it the proper way. The reason

why I don't is because it will sound

really stupid if I'm just speaking in

English and then I just randomly toss in

one Japanese word and pronounce it in the

proper way. It just sounds like I'm trying

to show off. There's loads of different

words, um, that we use in

English that, that are foreign words, and

we don't pronounce those words in the way

that the natives pronounce them. For

example, Paris. Paris isn't really

pronounced Paris. French people don't say

Paris, they'll say Paris. Croissant isn't

really pronounced like that. It would be

pronounced, you know, in a more French

way. But we don't pronounce it in the

French way when we're speaking in English

because we, we're speaking in English. We

pronounce it the English way. So when I'm

speaking in Japanese, I also pronounce

English words in the Japanese way. For

example, I wouldn't say supermarket in a

British accent when I'm speaking in

Japanese. I would say— I would pronounce

it in katakana Japanese using the proper

Japanese pronunciation because that's how

Japanese people pronounce it. And when I'm

speaking in Japanese, I'm basically

pretending be a Japanese person, and it

would sound really stupid if I'm speaking

in Japanese and then I just say one word

in a British accent. That'd be really

weird. It doesn't mean I don't know how to

pronounce supermarket in English.

Obviously I know how to because it's my

native language. I choose not to because

I'm trying to speak in the way that they

would understand what I'm saying.

It's just really annoying when you get

those comments that are saying It's like

they're saying that I don't know how to

pronounce things properly just because I

chose not to when I'm speaking in English.

Obviously, I know how to pronounce places

in Japan. It's not difficult just to

pronounce a 2 or 3 syllable word. So yeah,

I just wanted to talk about that because

it was getting on my nerves and bothering

me. Um, yeah, hopefully people will stop

writing comments saying things like You're

not pronouncing blah blah blah properly.

I'll pronounce things how I want to

pronounce things, okay? Thank you very