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Should Popularity be Important in Your Choices?
I started being interested in Korean in 2008 and really started studying it in 2009. Back then, in France, nobody really cared for South Korea, its language or culture.
After I really became addicted to Korean in 2010 especially, I kept on being asked the below question:
Why even learn Korean? There’s no point in it.
I had to reply all the time that I didn’t care for how popular, useful or whatever it was. I just enjoyed it and always wanted to spend more time on it.
This is why I really laughed a lot in 2012 when Gangnam Style came out and people started knowing more about Korea. The following years just kept on making Korea a bigger player in the entertainment industry. Nowadays, Korean dramas (TV-Shows), movies, music are all around us, whether you live in Japan, France, the US or anywhere else.
As a matter of fact, after 2012, I started seeing more and more people learning Korean. The popularity of the Korean entertainment industry was starting to show.
Most people started learning it in the hope of being able to listen to music or watch dramas while understanding those. Many gave up quickly but some lasted, among which a portion is most certainly better at Korean than me.
