Korean, spoken by about 80 million people, is a beautiful East Asian language.
The Korean language which is written in the Hangul system of writing developed around the 15th century. It is the official language of South and North Korea and is also widely spoken in various parts of Russia, China and Central Asia. There has been a recent increase in popularity of the Korean language due to the varied content it is providing viewers globally through OTT platforms. However, there are pros and cons of everything and so Learning Korean also has its set of pros and cons.
What are the pros and cons of learning Korean?
There are various pros and cons of learning Korean, let us look at them one by one in detail.
What are the pros of learning Korean?
Career boost
South Korea has the 7th rank in the list of the most productive economies in terms of exports. As a part of that, India and Korea have had very strong economical relationships since 1962. Korean open market policies have helped in securing a large market for India for its economic liberalisation. India and Korea both have benefitted and supported each other with the help of such schemes and policies and will continue to do so in the future too looking at the collective economic growth they have achieved. Due to the Cooperative Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) which was signed by both countries in 2010, both the countries in the past two years have exceeded the $20.5 billion mark. It provides a lot of job opportunities in a variety of sectors including, the music industry, production of goods, travel, tourism and hospitality sector, education sector, etc.
The Korean culture
The world today is hit by a massive wave in the form of its content known as the Korean culture wave. It is a sudden upsurge in the popularity of the Korean pop music industry and Korean movies and drama. People across the globe have now started taking interest in getting to know and understand the Korean culture deeply and have loved it. Learning Korean will open up your opportunities of learning the culture closely.
Good for the brain
As the Korean language is very similar to Chinese and Japanese, it also has similar effects on the brain as learning Chinese or Japanese affects our brain. Learning Korean will make you smarter, and enhance your memory and concentration which is also proven by various studies. Research has also shown that learning Korean can help with Alzheimer’s disease and can slow down the brain’s ageing effects. And increase focusing and functionality of the brain. Strange! right?
What are the cons of learning Korean?
Not very popular
Even though there is a sudden upsurge in the popularity of Korean, it is still not amongst the top 5 most spoken languages in the world. It will grow to that level in the coming years but currently, it only provides a few opportunities as compared to any other popular language such as English, Chinese, Spanish, French, German, etc.
Time-consuming
Learning Korean can prove to be a time-consuming task, looking at the writing system that it follows, that is the Hangul system. Plus you will be wasting your time learning something that is not one of the most commonly spoken languages in the world. When you can utilize that time into learning a more viable language such as the Chinese, Spanish, French, etc languages.
Learning Korean has its equal share of pros and cons.
It is a beautiful language that is growing steadily towards popularity, and in the coming years would be amongst the top 10 most spoken languages in the world. But right now it is in a growing state, if you are someone who is planning to benefit out of learning the language immediately then learning Korean would prove to be a wasteful task. Although you can still learn if the language interests you. Learning a language can never be a waste of skill afterall.