How I Learned Korean

Hey, so in this video I want to talk about

why and how I learnt Korean. I can

actually speak Korean. It's not as good,

it's nowhere near as good as my Japanese

is, but I can have basic simple

conversations. And it all started when I

had this online Japanese girlfriend and

she was really into Korean culture and the

language and the music. So to try and

impress her, I decided to learn some basic

Korean and learn how to read the Korean

alphabet, which Only took me about a week

to learn the Korean alphabet. It's

actually pretty simple once you get the

hang of it. And I learned a few basic

phrases and that was about it, and I kind

of gave up after a few weeks. So fast

forward a few months later, I decided to

go to Japan to meet her, and things didn't

go too well. After about 4 to 5 weeks, we

broke up, and I was in this guest house in

Japan, and I was really shy and nervous.

For the first 4 or 5 weeks, I didn't speak

to anyone at the guesthouse. I just sat by

myself. I ate all my meals on my own.

During the day, I used to go to this

shopping center and just sit there doing

nothing, staring at people walking past.

I was really disappointed because I had

this stupid idea that I would go to Japan

and I would spend every day with this girl

that I met online, but things didn't turn

out that way. She was very busy with

university and looking for jobs, and we

could only meet up maybe 2 days a week.

So I was feeling really lonely and

depressed, and then about 4 to 5 weeks

later, I started— well, people started to

approach me and started to talk to me.

And around that time, 2 new Asian women

came into the guest house, and they were

actually from Korea. And I think they kind

of pitied me because they started to

invite me to go out with them when they

went sightseeing, and they started to eat

meals with me. And then after about a few

weeks of this, I actually slept with one

of them, and we kind of became a couple.

We didn't really make it public. We kind

of tried to hide the fact that we were

sleeping together, but I'm pretty sure

everyone knew. It was kind of obvious. I

felt a bit awkward about it because she

was so much older than me. She was about

15 years older than me, and honestly

speaking, I felt a bit embarrassed.

Anyway, there were quite a few other

Korean people in the guesthouse, and we

all kind of stuck together. The Koreans

were like in this Korean group, the

Japanese were in this Japanese group, and

all the foreigners were like in this

foreigner group. There's like separate

groups in the guest house, and since I was

in a relationship with one of the Korean

people, I was automatically accepted into

the Korean group. So I ate all my meals

with the Korean people, I did all my

sightseeing and excursions with the Korean

people, and I really enjoyed it. I felt

like I was part of a family. I really felt

accepted by them, and I started to get a

bit frustrated because they were always

speaking in Korean and I didn't understand

what they were saying. And there was this

one Korean guy that I really didn't like

because he was really talkative and

chatty, and every time he was there, he

would start talking to my girlfriend for a

really long time. And I used to get really

jealous and kind of irritated, and I

started to develop this hatred for him

because he would like hog all of the

attention from my girlfriend. And I used

to get really paranoid and worried that

they were talking about something sexual.

So I decided to start learning Korean. I

went to the bookshop and I bought loads of

how to learn Korean books. But the thing

is, because I was in Japan, all of the

books were in Japanese. They weren't in

English. They were for Japanese people who

wanted to learn Korean. So I had to learn

Korean entirely in Japanese. And I

actually think this worked out better

because Korean is a lot closer to Japanese

than it is to English. Korean and Japanese

are very similar in my opinion. The

grammar is pretty much almost identical.

A lot of words have the same or very

similar pronunciations. So I think that

the best way to learn Korean is to first

learn Japanese and then learn Korean in

Japanese. If you know Japanese, then it's

going to be really easy for you to learn

Korean. I think Korean is basically the

same language as Japanese except for the

words are different. After about a few

months of studying Korean, we stopped

talking in Japanese. Her Japanese was

pretty bad, so it was a lot easier to

speak to her in Korean, and we started

speaking entirely in Korean. My Korean was

still pretty bad, but it was starting to

get better than her Japanese, so it made

sense to speak in Korean instead. Anyway,

after about a few months, she had to go

back to Korea and I think that was the

most depressing day in my whole life. I

went from this stage of being alone in the

guesthouse to finally finding people that

I felt accepted by, all the Korean people.

And then after my girlfriend and her

friend went back to Korea, I felt like I

was alone again. I stopped going down to

the living room. I started to stay in my

room all day just learning Korean. I

remember the day she went back to the

ferry port to go back to Korea, and she

went back on the ferry. After I came back

to the guesthouse, I just— I went up to

the roof of the guesthouse and I just

started crying. I cried for like 20

minutes. I was so upset. I felt so lost

and alone. And at that time, I was

actually attending this Japanese language

school, and after she left and went back

to Korea, I felt so depressed. I just

stopped going to the school completely. I

went maybe one day a week. I didn't even

attend the final day at school to get my

graduation certificate, so I guess I

didn't actually finish the course. My dad

wasn't very happy about it because he paid

for it and I didn't even finish the

course. She actually came back to Japan

just to see me, which was really nice of

her. I ended up leaving the guest house

without saying goodbye to anyone. I just

left, and I met up with her and we went to

stay in a hotel, and we spent last 2 weeks

in Japan together, which I really enjoyed.

I remember my very last day in Japan, we

went to the airport together and we were

just hugging and crying in the airport in

front of everyone. It was, it was kind of

pathetic. We were so upset, it felt like

we were never going to see each other ever

again. We actually ended up meeting

another 5 or 6 times over the course of 5

years. Every time I went to Korea, I

stayed with her for 3 months at a time,

and I've been to Korea 4 times now. And

the last time I saw her was last year in

Tokyo, just before I left. I'm not sure if

I'm going to see her again now that I have

a girlfriend. Everyone in the guesthouse

thought it was pretty funny that I was

learning Korean in Japan because most

foreigners come to Japan to learn

Japanese, and all the other foreigners in

the guesthouse were sitting there with

their Japanese textbooks, and I was this

British guy sitting there learning Korean

in Japanese. In Japan, they kept saying to

me, why didn't you just go to Korea? I

never really intended or planned on

learning Korean properly like I did. It

just kind of happened. Um, fucking hell.

It just kind of happened. I never had any

interest in Korea, K-pop, K-drama, or

Korean culture before that. I tried

watching Korean drama a few times, but I

could never get into it. There was just

way too much shouting and screaming and

yelling, and it just gave me a headache

every time I tried watching it. Korean is

a very aggressive-sounding language, in my

opinion. It sounds like they're having an

argument, even though they're just having

a normal conversation. I used to be really

into Korean music, but not the regular

stuff that people seem to be into

nowadays, like K-pop. I can't stand K-pop.

I don't like pop music in general. I used

to be really into these rock bands from

the '70s and the '80s. I used to have

hundreds and hundreds of really old Korean

songs from the '70s, '80s, '90s. On my

phone. I used to really love Korean food

as well. I loved kimchi. I used to have it

with almost everything. Even when I came

back to the UK, I started ordering kimchi

off websites and I used to eat it at home.

But my dad used to complain because it had

such a strong smell. Even if you put it in

a container, the smell would leak out and

just get everywhere. So I had to stop

eating kimchi because my dad kept moaning

about it. My favorite food when I go to

Japan is actually Korean barbecue. It's so

good. You get this big green leaf, I think

it's called lettuce, and then you put all

this stuff in it like pork and kimchi and

garlic and onions, and then you wrap it

all up in the lettuce, and then you put it

in your mouth and you chew it, and it

tastes delicious. When I used to go to

karaoke in Japan, I used to sing these

really old Korean songs all the time. And

there was this one time I went to karaoke

with a bunch of people from the guesthouse

and the guesthouse manager, And I think

the manager kind of got fed up, and when I

was singing this Korean song, he just

cancelled the song whilst I was singing

it. He said it was really boring, and I

got really angry, and I just left. I went

home. Now that I think about it, I guess

it was pretty boring. Karaoke is really

boring if the other people are just

singing all these songs that you've never

heard of. This is the reason why I prefer

going to karaoke by myself, because you

don't have to worry about other people.

When I was going to that Japanese language

school, I used to have lots of Taiwanese

friends, and we went to karaoke once, and

it was so boring. They just sung Chinese

songs the whole time, and I had never

heard of any of those songs, and I was

just sitting there waiting for my turn.

And if you go to karaoke with a large

group of people, you hardly get to sing.

You get to sing maybe twice an hour, then

you're just sitting there for the rest of

the time waiting for your turn, listening

to other people sing songs that you've

never even heard of. And then when it gets

your turn to sing, no one's even listening

anyway. They're just chatting and talking

or trying to decide what they want to sing

for their turn.