To begin, this is not a “*should I study both languages at the same time*” question, but an “*if you were in my shoes with my specific level(s) of experience, what would your next steps be?”* I am currently only fluent in English, with a basic understanding of Vietnamese(I’m Vietnamese American).
**So the situation:**
I work in entertainment, with a focus on Asian media(so learning both languages would be beneficial, as well as fun). After self-teaching myself Korean for three months at the end of last year, I definitely enjoyed the process and was happy with my pace(2-3 hours everyday). However, I have not studied in three months(since Dec), primarily because of life obligations that distracted me.
Now that I have time to learn and self-study again, I am debating if I should begin learning Japanese for a bit instead.
* **Reason 1:** ***I want to try both languages before committing to one language to achieve fluency in.*** I am aware it’s recommended not to do both with an equal effort at the same time.
* **Reason 2:** ***I watch a lot more anime than anything else***, and I believe the “natural” speaking exposure and familiarity would help (whereas listening to k-pop did not help with intonation at all lol, and I did feel “forced” to watch k-dramas and korean videos that I didn’t enjoy quite as much.)
**So I guess my question is:**
***Is it worth it to try learning Japanese when I already have a “decent” understanding of Korean?*** My gut is telling me “yes, why not? it might be better for the long run to see what I have more passion in” but at the same time, my head is saying “after three months of learning Japanese, what if you forget all your elementary Korean and you have to start over again?”
After a three-month break, I already found myself needing to restudy some grammar and structure in Korean that I was once more familiar with, so I’m worried about where I’d be if I don’t study in another three months.
Any advice would be great, thanks! I’m planning on crossposting this to both subreddits. I’ll also leave a comment with more on my learning journey if the details happen to help anyone, haha. Thanks!
4 comments
My understanding and exposure to both languages:
***Korean***
* **Level:** elementary.
* **Experience:** I self-taught for 3 months using the Integrated Textbooks and Professor Yoon’s lessons on Youtube as well as Anki for Vocab. I found it immensely helpful. The grammar/vocab was very fun to learn and I picked it up at a decent rate that I was satisfied with.
* **Exposure:** low, only k-pop.
* **Why I want(ed)to learn:** For work, for fun, and because I enjoy K-pop! I work in an industry that favors both korean/japanese speakers. I chose to learn Korean first because I listen to a lot of k-pop and thought it would be fun(which it was). Korean also seemed to be recommended to learn first by a lot of folks on reddit.
***Japanese***
* **Level:** none.
* **Experience**: none. I only began a study plan to begin learning.
* **Exposure:** low but more than Korean? I watch a lot of anime, like. the same shows 5x+ beacuse of my adhd, lol.
* **Why I want(ed) to learn:** For work, for fun, and because I enjoy anime!. Again, if I learn japanese, i can see myself having an advantage in my career. Anime is also my main form of content, several hours a week.
So you studied hard for 3 months (good) but then you quit (not that good).
Now you want to start studying again (good). Whether you want to learn Japanese or Korean is completely up to you.
Three months of studying won’t give you a hefty advantage but if it gives you more confidence then that’s not a bad thing.
The advantage people talk about when they say “Japanese is easier if you know Korean” is more like, you received your entire education in Korea and grew up there, then you have an advantage with Japanese. Studying a bit of Korean won’t transfer this lifelong experience.
Okay, I’m going to tell you what I would recommend you do. Here’s the thing — please don’t take this as “you should absolutely do this.” Instead, read my thoughts and see how you instinctually react. If you find yourself thinking, yeah, that sounds right, great. If you think, no, that doesn’t seem right, also great. Listen to that inner voice!
That said! I highly highly recommend you start learning Japanese now. Why?
1. Your passion is there when it comes to listening to native speakers — even if that’s in anime which is voice-acted and not the same as natural speech. You will learn so much faster if you’re immersing yourself with native language media. You’ll also motivate yourself picking up words or basic expressions in your favorite anime.
2. Japanese grammar and Korean grammar have plenty of similarities. Still plenty of differences, but. I’m currently studying Korean in Japanese, which has always been a goal, and there’s so much that maps easily enough. Either language will help you with the other. I’m studying grammar with the help of [videos like these](https://youtu.be/noRpEKItnWA). There are very basic Korean sentences as examples in here so you may be able to get a little of what’s going on. Go far in one language and the learning curve will be softer in the other.
Also as you’re used to a tonal language, you may have a better ear for a pitch accent language, which is what Japanese is. Really good for you to pick that up now with all your listening.
3. The Japanese writing system is complex due to kanji. Getting a headstart on writing will help you in the longrun of the lifelong learning process. Kana are fun to learn, and you can slowly progress over time. No need to dive into kanji much in the beginning of your learning, focus on pronunciation, basic vocab and basic grammar.
You don’t need to stop studying Korean — but I think based on what you’ve described, this is a good time for you to start learning Japanese also 🙂
Reason 1 sounds fair. It also sounds like you naturally gravitate more towards Japanese.
However, 3 months of even 2-3 hours a day won’t get you as far in Japanese as it did get you in Korean. You get the possible boost that both languages have similar grammar, however kana + kanji is way harder than Hangeul.
In the end it’s up to you :).