 More and more people from around the globe are choosing to learn Korean, but is it worth it? Let's talk about it men lie women lie, but numbers don't we're talking about this new duo lingo Analytics study that was just released Korean is now the sixth most popular studied on duo lingo We're gonna be going over the report some indication of global trends. What does it mean? What does it not mean? Why do people like studying the Korean language so much? Make sure you like subscribe and turn on your notifications, but you know what something else people need to study How to say Smala, no, I'm just kidding check out Smala sauce.com. It is our chili oil David all I got to say to this study is Kimchinara You watch that I watched that whole documentary about the nation of kimchi man And it's funny to say that phrase so I guess David why how popular is Korean on a global level right now of people learning it Well, it has switched places with Italian to take the number six spot It has ranked seventh since 2020 that means it's moving up the list Andrew Could it keep moving up the list from six to fifth to fourth to third? Second I mean, I don't know if it ever be second, but I definitely think it has spots to climb it I think Korean still has a ways to go as far as popularity Andrew It is rise rose in amongst young learners ages 13 to 22 in several countries including the US United Kingdom and there is a 75% popularity growth to learn the Korean language in India Wow, a lot of it is attributed to culture music entertainment as the driving factors it to increase the number of people who want to learn Korean citing Squid Game as an example The other popular languages are Japanese at number five India number eight Chinese at number nine Chinese rose from number six in 2021 David What are your initial reasons why there's a whole comment section? We're gonna get into but what you have some reasons I have some reason I think that the Korean language is really fun to sound to speak There's something from your diaphragm. You know me like I know some phrases I don't use them when I'm out in K-town because I don't want to have the whole thing where I'm like So do you all take it for go get you say oh, and then they're like start speaking to me Korean I'm just like that's all I know how to say I don't want to do that But uh, it's cool. It sounds good and I think that a lot of people are attracted to it on a linguistic level, right? But let's be honest Andrew linguistics is always tied with the love of culture pop culture Sociality the way interpersonal relationship pings takes place within that group people like the Korean culture overall Which is leading to the linguistic study, but not just the culture David I feel like a lot of people are finding a liking to Korean people and the way they act whether It's like Ajama's or Ajashis, you know, like the older people they are gonna react Positively to when you speak Korean, I would say right even if you're not a I mean especially if you're not Asian But even if you're Asian like a Chinese person speaking Korean I think they're gonna enjoy it and the the interaction will be more positive So think about it if it's easy to pronounce and easy to say and all you have to do is say it to make this Interaction a little bit better. What is your incentive? You're gonna say it, right? Yeah, no, absolutely. I agree. I think that right now long story short there's like a ten-point checklist of sort of like soft power and I feel like Koreans are hitting banging ten out of ten on right now in the sense of like It's like the West enough because of you know, Westernization and Korea is specifically a Christian nation now along with Buddhist And I think that they have collectivism, but it's not a sort of drab gray collectivism. It's like a fun collectivism It's like a cool frat or sorority that you want in on You know what I mean? Like there's others types of collectivism that may be like less appeal Yeah, if you see yeah If you see a group of people and they look like cool and fun and clean and and having fun with each other Wouldn't you want to join that group or be able to ping with them on a deeper level, right? I think that a lot of Koreans that I meet and maybe it's about been to Korea as well I know Korean Americans I know people who came over at 10 15 years all that you know We went to college. So I just met met a lot of people with a lot of different life patterns a lot of Koreans feel like enthusiastic positive mini ambassadors of their own culture Obvious to various levels, but they feel like they have a zeal for it. They want to share it Yeah, and they're good at teaching. Oh, you want to know crazies. I would say per capita They are much better ambassadors and representatives than almost any other Asian Yeah of their mother. I agree. I agree like they just do a good job of Representing themselves and I feel like they're extroverted to like not overly extroverted But like extroverted relative to being Asian. Yeah, and I feel like Japanese they have a culture that a lot of people like too But they feel like difficult to talk to they feel a little closed off a little bit more internal But I feel like they have attractive things so they're have some of the check marks But not all the check you know what like when you talk to a Korean like it feels like the door is still open But sometimes for Japanese it feels like oh, you're not Japanese like it's okay Like we're going to be nice and serve you but not Japanese I'm not gonna lie China right now out of the 10 check marks might have like four of them You know what I mean? I don't even want to get into it They're missing a lot of check not that I'm not saying that they care because they might be like yeah Who you as are so foolish to think that we spend our time thinking about accumulating the check marks But they just don't got them I think Thailand actually has six out of the 10 check marks in the sense that people believe that Thai culture also very cool A lot of bowing they want to say the phrases However Andrew Thai culture may be viewed as a little too gritty still not economically there to be fully polished and refined Right, right, right, right so the overall I agree with your points and what I would say I'd put it this way like easily someone who's non-Korean or non-Asian can say Hey, all the Korean people I've met are nice all the Korean content that I've seen is high quality All the Korean food that is available to me is well done and tasty And that is because they take so much pride in representing themselves that it makes it look like a tribe that you want to be a part of Alright, also, it doesn't hurt that Korean is an easier language to learn because I think what happened with Chinese and this is you know Remember we remember 12 years ago 15 years ago. Everybody's like learn Chinese learn Chinese. Oh my gosh Chinese is go You gotta learn Chinese. Hey, you want to do business? You want to be a millionaire learn Chinese? It's like the turning Japanese of the 2000s remember when everybody was learning Here's the thing that kind of happened is that economically China had a lot of power So there was very a lot of reasons to learn Mandarin and a lot of people still are learning Mandarin But the soft power didn't come with it. Mmm. So it didn't make people love to learn it. It's not a one-two punch It's just a one punch. I know a lot of non-Asians that could speak Chinese surprisingly, but they don't do it Because it's just fun per se Maybe they find it fun now. I'm sure they have fun when they speak it now But right like it's not the most commercially viable accessible language to learn I think some people who started learning Chinese a few years ago Like got to like maybe year two and was like ah and then they see Korean and they're just like You know what? I'm not using this language to be a millionaire. I just want it to live and make my life more fun So I'm just gonna learn Korean. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I feel like people learn Chinese because they're like man people are just shocked that I would Whereas people are learning Korean because they're like I kind of would like to be Korean or something like Or love to hang out with Koreans. Yeah, I do think that there's something in their culture that has a certain zeal and a passion for life And obviously, you know, I can't much from a lot of pain too But I do feel like Korean people live life with a zeal that is not jaded. Yeah, they do not live life I mean, we're like we're like in the middle of like like peak. I don't know if it's Korean society But like this is like when Korea is at the top of the game globally right now I actually have a lot of theories about like because they're some of their culture is more from, you know Siberia it's a little bit nomadic Mongolian influence But that's actually more like roughing it which has gives them the capacity to absorb Western culture at a more deeper level out of Way, this stuff is gonna go over your guys heads It is not as dynastic as man. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Let's It just more got the things that's gonna blend better with the West I mean, you know, there's always things that make certain cultures more attractive than others and people are really into the Italian Archetypes or Italian American archetypes like yeah, she like you know me like hey What are you talking about? Like how come everybody likes that character whether or not that is them? You know I'm saying like I never seen anybody want to imitate like a Polish American or a German American as much as an Italian I don't know what a Belgian American or even a French American People look up to German engineering, but you never had people go with being like, yeah I would like to talk like this like this is not something that's like a highly desirable European like I Think McGregor he channeled something about Irish bravado that people were you know what I mean? There's just like basically what I'm saying is it's just different per Culture and it just plays out differently. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So anyway guys Let's get into the comments and or these are some of the trends from the duo lingo study English still top of the charts surprising. Yes or no. No, I think English is gonna continue to dominate the world I think more and more people are learning English listen between winning all the wars the economics Hollywood and music of the past Hundred some years. I think English is gonna be at the top. Do you don't see English being supplanted? I do not see it being supplanted by anything not Spanish not Mandarin. No English Is still the one the largest percentage of English learners came from India Vietnam and China Yeah, all emerging, you know economies, right? They want more opportunities with the West and most everybody in the West is gonna know some level of English Yeah, I mean obviously we already covered this Korea overtook Italian interestingly enough Andrew less people in the world are speaking Italian The Italian government recently issued something that's not gonna allow the young Italian Millennials and Gen Z people to use any sort of English loan words in government or official business documents because people were using too much That's I mean that that is those are the weird things that you kind of have to do to keep culture sometimes Because if you leave it up to pure capitalism in the free market, it is true more people the young audience they want to learn Italian pop culture is not popping right now Italian opera music Pavarotti Italian ancient culture Italian classical culture Romans is the best like French and Italian classical culture Better than Anglo-classical however, but modern culture They were like we were getting worried like none of the youth that they don't want they want to speak Italiano America and British America and British culture Somebody said that Portuguese supplanted Russian so people are talking about global trends a lot more people are going to Lisbon You know Portugal and an old-world ancient Empire sort of fell off the map for a while They always had Brazil right because they speak Portuguese in Brazil, but now they were saying obviously Russia There's a whole the war, you know, it's just it's dropping Portuguese surging Well, it doesn't make you believe that you're gonna need to know Russian and so like I said, listen when people are using duo lingo They're like literally gonna take like a trip there or go there for study abroad So they're just thinking about where do I want to study abroad? I should brush up on that language I want to go to Lisbon because it's got this charm to it I want to go to Korea because it's got this. I consume all this Korean culture and eat Korean food You know, I mean so it's easy to just whip up the old lingo and be like what are some phrases boom Right, what languages are fascinating me right now? Also, I think Russia in a way like it could be passport bros Russia's a popular destination Brazil's a popular destination However, Russia seems like not a good play for an American to go to in 2023 Let's be honest appealing to go a lot of people are learning Ukrainian because they want to connect with the people over there Obviously, you know terrible situation going on also possibly to communicate with People who may be coming in to their country from Ukraine, right, right, right? Japan it used to be the most serious learner of Second language in the world Andrew, but it's dropped number two to Belarus But the other countries are Hungary Russia and Ukraine in terms of people who are like they're saying that these people are putting in Heavy average time like not just picking it up I think to be honest a lot of those people want out they want out of those countries right now to be honest If you look at the situations Somebody said Gen Z. Well, there's a court is there are these people learning English. No, just any language. They're learning at hardcore The work in okay Gen Z Picks up a lot more less commonly studied languages as well as really being the heavy bulk distribution of learners of Asian languages But they're also a lot more likely to give up than baby boomers Yeah, I think a lot of Gen Z people are toying with learning different languages and phrases at least whether it's Korean Chinese Japanese, I think that Gen Z loves learning phrases from multiple languages But in terms of actually hardcore communicating it takes a lot of time Yeah, an effort and Andrew the truth is a lot of like the global class in any global country They speak English right right right to be honest Germany has the most polyglots now it has pulled ahead of the UK in terms of people who learn a lot of languages really well You know what Germany is in that area where it's like It's a different language if they learn it counts if they learn Danish and Flemish and then they learn like French and it's like although though all those languages are like somewhat related right right right I saw the charts and or there's really interesting stats a lot of people in Europe They learn English obviously they also learn Spanish a lot of people in America learn Spanish a lot of people in Canada learn French Which makes sense right because those are usually like the second biggest population. There's a lot of French in Canada There's a lot of Spanish speakers in the US. Yeah, so Andrew ultimately. This is the duo lingo study Koreans rising some other countries are falling No, I mean what what does it mean it makes sense, man? I think that Right now from a young pop cultural sense in the Asian sense if you like Asian pop culture right now You're probably referring to a lot of Korean culture possibly Japanese and learning some Korean There is no downside to it to be honest. There's like No reason not to if that is your interest right learn a couple phrases. Yeah, oppa. I mean Young don't saying I mean whatever you want to Ditch yeah, I can't wait when China Can I see so you know, I mean we we just rattling them off, right? These are things that we've picked up But I think that Yeah, I think that man Why not if that's what you're into? Yeah, honestly like really? What's stopping you dude? It's always like culture is so interesting to me because there's so many levels of culture It's not just like, you know, some people they have their Industry popping but not their soft power some people have their soft power pop in Jamaica But maybe the industry hard powers not there and then some countries have both Korea's got both right now They're they're banging on all cylinders. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I think they have the capacity to be outward focused in a way that Japan never was I think Japan at 1.90s 2000s they got everything banging too, but just their mentality is more internalized. It's not externalized. Yeah so Goes down to the individual people that you meet, you know, like if on average the Average Korean that you meet is excited that you speak it and then, you know, they're gregarious They want to share your culture. They want you to be excited about Showing them what you know It becomes fun and anything that's fun people will do you know why because if it brings you dopamine You're gonna do it. What if it's copamine K dopamine? Korean dopamine. Oh It brings you copamine K-O-P-A-M-I-N people in 2023 are chasing dopamine like a coca fiend. Anyway guys Let us know what you guys think of this duo lingo study in the comment section below very interesting You know these do these trends mean a lot or do people read too much into them? Let us know we encourage the debate in the comment section below Make sure you like subscribe turning your notifications until next time. We don't hop out boys. We out peace