Learn 150+ languages with quality native-speaking teachers on italki🎉. Buy $10 get $5 for free for your first lesson using my code KEXPLORER: Web: go.italki.com/kexplorer App: italki.app.link/kexplorer
I've recently come back from 2 weeks in Seoul and Busan and I've studied Korean before so I know basics. I was surprised at how many locals speak English, often when I tried to speak Korean they would reply to me in English. And it wasn't just very young people. So I'd say it's easier to get around without knowing Korean than you might think.
Thank you for the video! My take on this: you NEED to know at least the basics to get by as a tourist. And, if you wanna stay long term - learn the language of the country you’re in!
I traveled as a tourist this year with zero Korean and in big cities like Seoul and Busan you can definitely manage. It’s not easy if you need more complex things or if you want to have a conversation but otherwise just with signs and a humble bow I could manage easily in the market, pharmacy, cafes, etc. Many bus and metro stations are written in English also. If you want to stay long term definitely mandatory to learn.
traveling to Seoul you really only need Hello, thank you, how much, numbers 1-10, and where is it. That will get you through a vacation here no question
If you're gonna travel to a country for maybe a couple weeks and you're only trying to enjoy the experience I bet it's fine if you just know "the basics" which would be being able to order food, book a reservation for a hotel or a restaurant, going shopping for souvenirs, and ask people for help if you need it, but if you're planning to live there, knowing the language it has to be a must... Otherwise the only way to live comfortably it would be if you surround yourself of other foreigners who speak the same language as you...
I agree with you however I've met people in Korea that have been there for years and only know the very basics. Yet it has not impeded their lives at all and they seem to get by just fine without been able to speak it. A buddy of mine speaks almost no Korean but has tons of Korean friends and a korean girlfriend. So as I agree it would be better to speak it there is also a fair amount of people that get by just fine without it.
Business travel I stayed in Seoul and worked in Cheongju,Suwon, and Icheon. I learned basics from a book and coworkers. It helped during my stays there
The guy from Azerbaijan hit the nail on the head. Interacting with only folks that speak English will allow you see Korea only 'on the surface'. And he sounded fluent. I'm happy to see the intentionality that follows people's thought process. When you're here for the long-term, it's wise to learn the language. For me, learning Korean has been about learning a new culture. And I totally love it. Thanks KExplorer. The shifting camera didn't hurt the quality of your content that much. 👌😊
2:46 It made me so happy to see a Bahraini here!! Im technically not a Bahraini but I was raised and am living in Bahrain. It's so rare to hear the name "Bahrain" anywhere.
I love iTalki! I use it a lot to learn a lot of different languages like Korean, Japanese, and many more. In addition, I would also recommend learners to start taking Korean classes before traveling to Korea.
It’s actually quite interesting that if you live in a country you should learn the language. Being from the US, there are so many people here that never bothered to learn English but are able to get by so its definitely a change in perspective from what they are saying.
thanks for this video. I have been living in Germany for 33 years. I spent several months in South Korea 34 years ago (before that, I lived for 2 years in Saudi Arabia, where I learned Arabic). In the last 33 years I've been speaking only German (day in day out - at school where I teach, to my German wife, and only English to our trilingual daughters). For three decades, I concentrated on improving my Castillian Spanish - enhancing it with Peruvian, advancing my knowledge of French (which I learned before German) and learning two more, continental Portuguese and, for the last 5 years, Swedish. Your video has inspired me "to put oil on my rusty" Korean. It is a language that has a beautiful sound and writing system. why shouldn't I (re)learn another Asian language being originally from another Asian country, like the Philippines, myself?
If you are here as a tourist: just know hello and thank you, and some other basic phrases If you are living here: I'd recommend knowing how to at least say a handful of phrases and recognize 3-400+ vocab words. You learn here quickly, but being able to have a simple convo makes your life easier. I came here with barely the basics, and I think knowing a little more would have made my first 4-5 months here better.
I think it’s important to know a minimum basic language when you go to visit Korea. For my side I’m just came back from Korea last month. I’ve try to speak the basic words. Some young’s Korean people sometimes helps you on the street to find your way in English. But when you are with ajushi ajuma on the Korean countryside you have to struggle to speak a minimum Korean to make you understand by Korean people.
I'm in the process of learning for a trip. Thought I'm terrified to actually speak it. I think you should learn the basics for any country you are visiting that is not English. It's I think a bit arrogant to assume everyone speaks English.
Even a few Korean elder citizens can speak English, of course, they are not fluent. Thus, foreign visitors may not have some communication problems if they can speak English, generally speaking. It means that if they can find some talking opponents as younger Korean people on a trip, many of them won't face some communication trouble to understand. In the countryside, foreign travelers might face a harsh moment when they can't find English speakers easily. On the contrary, in Korean cities, English speakers are here and there, but in the countryside, should have Korean friends who can speak English. That's better for visitors.
It's a subjective question. I remember visiting Korea for 3 days to renew my visa for Japan. I couldn't say anything besides hello and I couldn't read hangul at all. I really felt helpless at times and my Japanese wasn't great but I could have simple conversations and just being able to do that made me feel so much more comfortable in Japan. But you're not doomed by any means in Korea if you can't speak or read hangul. It's just going to be awkward and you need to give yourself more time to get lost en route to places etc. Not being able to speak or read stinks but I think it's something you can get used to. As long as you're there to spend money I think koreans will be happy to have you. If you only visit countries where you speak the language you'll miss out on a lot of great travel destinations.
I went to Korea on holiday for the first time this year and I knew that not a lot of people spoke English so I tried to learn a few basic sentences. Whenever I would watch videos such as these or on Tik Tok or IG,they would say,"Oh some people speak in English in Seoul. That was not my experience 😂.I was actually surprised at just how few people actually speak English. And people made it seem like it's quite common amongst young people.I met one person who spoke English the entire trip(my trip was 10 days long) and that was in Busan and it was a middle aged man. I guess I came in with a prejudice because in my country almost everyone speaks English even if it's their 2nd,3rd or even 4th language.And even if a random person on the street may not speak English FLUENTLY they can still understand English and stitch a sentence together to respond to you(most people can). I found that in South Korea,even the understanding of the language wasn't common. Maybe that's due to it being such a homogeneous country. But my trip was great regardless and Papago helped a lot. So I'd say if you're staying long term or are on holiday for a long time definitely know more than a few sentences. But Korean people aren't necessarily that into small talk either so you won't be striking up a casual conversation with the cashier(Which is the case where I come from). So don't put too much pressure on yourself.
This is the problem with the current Anglocentric world. The default expectation for a non-English speaking country especially an average East Asian not needing to speak with a foreigner ever in their daily lives to speak to English is such an ethnocentric and biased view of the multicultural, interconnected present world we live in . I'm not necessarily calling you out personally but the rest of the world has to realise how much the world revolves around the English language to the point where belittling other languages as a main mode of conversation for not speaking it is implicitly considered the norm. America may have been the super power that triggered this insane trend for acculturation since WW2 but now when so many countries are so prosperous and unique in their own way, this sentiment can be said to be very outdated at this point. TLDR: Many cultures, especially Asian ones need to have more pride and dignity for their own culture and language rather than trying to Westernise everything non-Western.
@@user-hs1dd4tc7t I agree and disagree. I agree that it's a strange standard to have for homogeneous countries and even given the diversity of the world as you put it. But I disagree in terms of diversity somewhat nullifying English because I come from a country which is ethnically,racially and culturally diverse and English is, for the most part,still quite common. For example,you could be in a friend group of 5 or more people and each person could speak a different native language so the language you would use within your friend group would be English. Because that's the language everyone has in common. Largely due to colonisation but also because my country encourages expanding your horizons beyond the borders of our country. Which,unfortunately,requires a grasp of the English language. So in that sense,I agree with how Anglocentric the world is. But again,the world is more than just my country. It's just an example of how diversity and English do not cancel each other out. Again, I'm speaking solely on what I have seen in MY country. Learning basic English is viewed as an important tool that "opens many doors". And even when immigrating,people in my country tend to move to English speaking nations. Primarily the UK, Australia,New Zealand etc). So there's that. But I hear what you're saying. Obviously Korea has a different history and different priorities and they're very patriotic so it will be different from where I'm from where people just want to move constantly 😂
I had the same experience! Even the concierge at the hotel was quite bad at English. I was surprised. The person with the best English was an older man, maybe 70, on the subway. I'm thinking he probably worked abroad.
In Korea, it’s definitely better to learn the Korean language but it depends on where you are living? Like in cities with not many foreigners, the people are more accustomed to just speaking Korean.
It's like really hard listening to people like speaking and the only preposition adjective or adverb is like. Like they never went to school or like never read a book. Like we are soooo doomed.
5 years here and I still only know how to say thank you and hi. Koreans never speak to you unless you speak to them. So, you can just live here and chill and never learn the language and be completely fine. I've lived in 2 other countries and fluently learned their languages because everyday people were speaking to you. But, in Korea no one will ever talk to you, so it seems pointless. Even if I learned Korean there'd probably be no one to speak it to anyway. In the other countries I lived in, there's no "getting by" without their language. Which gave you no choice, you either learn or you learn. Don't worry, you're never going to "get in the culture" in Korea. You'll always be a foreigner to them.
