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South Korean students flock to Japan

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#71

Post by cattlefarmer »

T-R wrote: post #32
inferiorhuman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, Japan has more than its fair share of far-right fruitcakes who deny everything They elected a far right "fruitcake" to the post of prime minister.

To be fair, they only elected the conservative party, the LDP; the party elected the prime minister. Granted, they've elected the LDP almost continuously since 1955. Of course, they tried electing the other party in 2009, but their leadership kept resigning. Of course, given the LDP's stranglehold on politics, one has to wonder why they feel a need to pander to the nettouyo.

I stopped paying to attention to politics about 5 years ago and am very surprised to learn that the major opposition party (DPJ?) has essentially fractured into multiple, smaller parties, all using a variation of the same name.

At this point, I'm not even sure who to vote for anymore.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#72

Post by lifthrasiir »

tanilama wrote: post #60
barry-cotter wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Koreans learn the hanja, which are basically identical to traditional Chinese characters (hanzi) in secondary school. Kanji are more divergent from hanzi than kanji and if you want to be able to read a newspaper or textbook you’d probably need to add about 700 characters to the 1800 generally taught in Korea but that is a massive leg up. Japanese and Korean have very similar morphemes and grammar. And English educati…

From my interaction with Korean people here in US, since the modern Korean language has moved on to its indigenous Hangul system, their ability to understand Hanja is limited, nor do they need such ability in daily life.

It is correct that Hanja is no longer used in daily life, but most people do know enough Hanja to start with. It is still mandatory to learn Hanja in middle schools (AFAIK), and since Hangul is pervasive now the use of Hanja ironically adds a good visual cue---many newspapers frequently use 美 or 英 in place of USA or UK and people is fine with that.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#73

Post by devonkim »

baolongtrann wrote: post #4
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...

Have to admit I am clueless about the history between these two. Why don't they like each other?

Besides more recent events several hundred years ago Japan also tried to invade Korea under Tokotomo Hideyoshi. Japanese Imperialism has a bit of history to it that makes Koreans uncomfortable given the peninsula has been under constant conquest by its neighbors for at least a thousand years now.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#74

Post by kaesar14 »

nemonemo wrote: post #43
School-Cotton wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 year…

Interestingly enough, I feel that your grammar is pretty much spot on perfect, at least from this excerpt. It's the cadence and rhythm of the way you write and format your sentences that subtly suggest you're not a native English speaker.

Maybe the thing that most sticks out to me is saying "English writings." I don't think a native speaker would say writings, just "in their English", or perhaps "In their written English."

Your English is fantastic, this is me simply musing on what you're suggesting.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#75

Post by rchaud »

awl130 wrote: post #63

This article is laughably wrong (probably a puff piece to entice Korean students to work in Japan). The truth is exactly the opposite: there are fewer Koreans in Japan every year (as measured by foreign residents in Japan -- this includes work and student visas). The fastest rising immigrants to Japan from 2015-2018 are in descending order[1]: Vietnam Cambodia Uzbekistan Myanmar Sri Lanka South Korea comes in dead la…

It did sound like a puff piece, since the only company that was even mentioned by name was a recruiting/staffing agency.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#76

Post by rchaud »

sasaf5 wrote: post #23
jpatokal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Japan has apologized repeatedly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements... However, Japan has more than its fair share of far-right fruitcakes who deny everything, and in both Korea and China politicians have found Japan to be a convenient whipping boy whenever they need a distraction from domestic problems.

Japan demands the issue to be "settled" or "forgotten" after mulling quick apologies. Imagine Germany demanding that the Holocaust be forgotten.

Germany's the exception, not the rule. Most countries's governments like nothing more than to behave as if their past transgressions never happened. And even then Germany has had no shortage of politicians who say "Germany has apologized enough".

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#77

Post by codedokode »

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…

I think comparison with Israel/Palestine is wrong because Koreans do not explode bombs in Japan.

Also, I don't understand why anyone could dislike Korean people. They didn't invade Japan, and probably they never invaded any country.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#78

Post by nemonemo »

kaesar14 wrote: post #74
nemonemo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 year…

Interestingly enough, I feel that your grammar is pretty much spot on perfect, at least from this excerpt. It's the cadence and rhythm of the way you write and format your sentences that subtly suggest you're not a native English speaker. Maybe the thing that most sticks out to me is saying "English writings." I don't think a native speaker would say writings, just "in their English", or perhaps "In their written Eng…

Thank you, you made my day. I spent way too much time reading commets in HN, and that effort paid off. :)

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#79

Post by kaesar14 »

nemonemo wrote: post #78
kaesar14 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, I feel that your grammar is pretty much spot on perfect, at least from this excerpt. It's the cadence and rhythm of the way you write and format your sentences that subtly suggest you're not a native English speaker. Maybe the thing that most sticks out to me is saying "English writings." I don't think a native speaker would say writings, just "in their English", or perhaps "In their written Eng…

Thank you, you made my day. I spent way too much time reading commets in HN, and that effort paid off. :)

Of course! Coming from someone who's tried (and failed) to learn a bit of Mandarin, even the spoken language was quite tough. Chinese/Japanese/Korean -> English/Romance languages is quite a tough lingual gap to bridge, and you should be proud of yourself for achieving fluency!
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