South Korean students flock to Japan • Hacker News Board

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#41

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:48 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #34

nemonemo wrote: post #25

South Korean here. My anecdata: some of my friends went to Japan for advanced degrees. Most of them came back within a couple of years after their study. 10x or more people around me went to US. The majority of them are still in the country after a few years. Such tendency was remarkable to me, given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans. There is one thing I can't under…

> given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans This surprises me a bit (I believe you; I am just surprised.) Why do Koreans think learning Japanese is easier than learning English?

[deleted]

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#42

Post by mikkyang » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:49 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #34

nemonemo wrote: post #25

South Korean here. My anecdata: some of my friends went to Japan for advanced degrees. Most of them came back within a couple of years after their study. 10x or more people around me went to US. The majority of them are still in the country after a few years. Such tendency was remarkable to me, given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans. There is one thing I can't under…

> given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans This surprises me a bit (I believe you; I am just surprised.) Why do Koreans think learning Japanese is easier than learning English?

The grammar is very similar (use of particles, word order) and a large amount of vocabulary, especially technical vocabulary, is derived from shared Chinese words.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#43

Post by nemonemo » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:59 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #34

nemonemo wrote: post #25

South Korean here. My anecdata: some of my friends went to Japan for advanced degrees. Most of them came back within a couple of years after their study. 10x or more people around me went to US. The majority of them are still in the country after a few years. Such tendency was remarkable to me, given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans. There is one thing I can't under…

> given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans This surprises me a bit (I believe you; I am just surprised.) Why do Koreans think learning Japanese is easier than learning English?

Syntax-wise, Koreans and Japanese are very close. The sound systems are also close (e.g. no p/f v/b distinction). Kanji and Hanja are just Japanese/Korean versions of Chinese. Some words are shared and some nursery rhymes have the same melody. They even memorize the multiplication table with the same melody. In many ways, their languages and cultures have evolved with proximity for a long time, like thousands of years.

English and Korean are just two languages that would have almost no way of influencing each other directly for a long long time. They evolved independently, and once one is familiar with one language system, learning the other is just... painfully difficult in my experience.

If you see grammar errors in my comment, a Japanese person would very likely show similar mistakes in their English writings.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#44

Post by w00kie » Tue, May 14, 2019, 6:04 AM UTC

user982 wrote: post #35

jpatokal wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both countries have low birthrates, but Japan is far enough along the labor shortage curve that unemployment has been essentially eradicated in Japan. From the friendly article: According to Statistics Korea, the national statistics office, the unemployment rate last year for people aged between 15 and 29 was 9.5 percent, compared with 3.8 percent overall and 3.6 percent for Japanese 15 to 24. Also, Japan has a vocal…

> Also, Japan has a vocal far-right fringe, but the average Japanese person has no qualm with Koreans and Korean TV, music, food etc is widely popular. And Israelis love Palestinian/Arab hummus. That feeling is not transitive to the Palestinian people. > There are over 500,000 Koreans living in Japan, many 2nd or 3rd generation, and plenty more naturalized Japanese of Korean descent. If anything, I'd suspect there's…

They can naturalize anytime they want but choose not to...

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#45

Post by theaustinseven » Tue, May 14, 2019, 6:07 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #36

theaustinseven wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan invaded the Korean peninsula as well as a sizeable portion of China and enacted horribly cruel war crimes against the citizens of those places. I won't get into details, but this comment would be akin to asking "What's the history between the Germans and Jews? Why don't they like each other?". The primary difference being that Germany had a reckoning with the history of what happened during that time, while the…

It's worth pointing out, I think, that nowadays most Germans and Jews get along perfectly fine, despite their history a few generations ago. So just citing that case isn't a full explanation of the enmity between Japanese and Koreans.

Oh yeah, I understand. That's why I brought up the last part. Germany did a relatively good job after the war of apologizing for its warcrimes and rooting out the toxic culture that led to them. I was trying to describe the gravity of the crimes that happened during the war with that comparison, less so the modern day feelings.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#46

Post by masklinn » Tue, May 14, 2019, 6:13 AM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #7

thaumasiotes wrote: post #3

I don't get the "as birthrate sinks and unemployment climbs". It's not like Japan is doing well there. And Japan is infamous for its incredibly negative attitude towards Koreans...

Both countries have low birthrates, but Japan is far enough along the labor shortage curve that unemployment has been essentially eradicated in Japan. From the friendly article: According to Statistics Korea, the national statistics office, the unemployment rate last year for people aged between 15 and 29 was 9.5 percent, compared with 3.8 percent overall and 3.6 percent for Japanese 15 to 24. Also, Japan has a vocal…

> unemployment has been essentially eradicated in Japan

Much of that is the surprising amount of minor busywork the country uses instead of welfare support e.g. multiple people doing circulation around a minor bit of roadwork when other countries would use traffic signs or temporary traffic lights. This is mostly unreliable contract and part-time work.

Japan has fairly high rates of relative and working poverty, with north of 15% living under the poverty line.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#47

Post by rangibaby » Tue, May 14, 2019, 6:14 AM UTC

duckonomy wrote: post #39

jpatokal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, Korea was repeatedly invaded by Japan. More recently, Korea was a Japanese colony between 1910 and 1945, during which the Japanese ruled with an iron fist and did their best to destroy Korean identity by forcing people to take Japanese names etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Japan%E2%80%93Korea...

The identity-destroying part only came after 1938. They were trying to do 내선일체 [內鮮一體] (not sure how to translate this in English). Before that, they actually helped Koreans learn Hangul. I was also very anti-Japan as a I grew up under typical Korean parents. But after reading the actual history, there were some good parts during the colonization. Although, I'm not denying the horrific parts caused by war. But that's…

I guess the word you are looking for is "cultural assimilation". 内鮮一体 is the specific case of Japan and Korea.

The Japanese were fresh out of their own industrial revolution so had plenty of experience to do the same thing in Korea. The legacy of that is that Korean and Japanese societies have a lot in common eg Chaebol and Keiretsu. Following the war Japan sheltered people persecuted by the ROK dictatorship (eg Kim Dae-jung, Lee Byung-chul)

> I think part of the hostility from either of the countries is caused by only seeing part of the reality.

It's tribal. East Asian People are racist against each other and each other's countries, but East Asian Persons get on just fine.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#48

Post by jpatokal » Tue, May 14, 2019, 6:23 AM UTC

user982 wrote: post #35

jpatokal wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both countries have low birthrates, but Japan is far enough along the labor shortage curve that unemployment has been essentially eradicated in Japan. From the friendly article: According to Statistics Korea, the national statistics office, the unemployment rate last year for people aged between 15 and 29 was 9.5 percent, compared with 3.8 percent overall and 3.6 percent for Japanese 15 to 24. Also, Japan has a vocal…

> Also, Japan has a vocal far-right fringe, but the average Japanese person has no qualm with Koreans and Korean TV, music, food etc is widely popular. And Israelis love Palestinian/Arab hummus. That feeling is not transitive to the Palestinian people. > There are over 500,000 Koreans living in Japan, many 2nd or 3rd generation, and plenty more naturalized Japanese of Korean descent. If anything, I'd suspect there's…

> Zainichi Koreans of any generation are not citizens

That's a bit of a tautology: if they nationalize, which they can if they wish to, they become citizens and stop being counted as Zainichi. They're also granted a number of privileges (welfare, state pensions etc) as "Special Permanent Residents" not afforded to any other non-citizen residents, although they're still not to vote.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#49

Post by tanilama » Tue, May 14, 2019, 6:25 AM UTC

nemonemo wrote: post #25

South Korean here. My anecdata: some of my friends went to Japan for advanced degrees. Most of them came back within a couple of years after their study. 10x or more people around me went to US. The majority of them are still in the country after a few years. Such tendency was remarkable to me, given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans. There is one thing I can't under…

But Koreans are still required to learn Kanjis right? Even with many shared/loan words through history, learning several thousands characters still doesn't feel easy enough to me.

While in many countries, people start learning English when they are in elementary schools. Upon until getting out of college, that is some decent years spent on English alone.

While the language itself is significantly different, more reading and extension of vocabulary should the few pending items to master English from that point on.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#50

Post by ezoe » Tue, May 14, 2019, 6:28 AM UTC

nemonemo wrote: post #25

South Korean here. My anecdata: some of my friends went to Japan for advanced degrees. Most of them came back within a couple of years after their study. 10x or more people around me went to US. The majority of them are still in the country after a few years. Such tendency was remarkable to me, given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans. There is one thing I can't under…

The answer is, they need slaves. The foreign workers are suitable for slaves because they don't know the labor law well.

As the birth rate is decreasing, there is a shortage of young slaves. It's a simple supply and demand situation. If you want to hire a worker, you have to pay more because there is not enough supply that satisfy the demand.

I have no idea what the future Japan will look like, but for workers, it will be a good market until Japanese economy corrupt.