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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanja
> South Korean primary schools abandoned the teaching of Hanja in 1971, although they are still taught as part of the mandatory curriculum in grade 6. They are taught in separate courses in South Korean high schools, separately from the normal Korean-language curriculum. Formal Hanja education begins in grade 7 (junior high school) and continues until graduation from senior high school in grade 12. A total of 1,800 Hanja are taught: 900 for junior high, and 900 for senior high (starting in grade 10).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Japanese_and_Kor...
> Japanese and Korean both have an agglutinative morphology in which verbs may function as prefixes[13] and a subject–object–verb (SOV) typology.[14][15][16] They are both topic-prominent, null-subject languages. Both languages rely heavily on turning nouns into verbs utilizing "to do" (する and 하다).
> Modern Korean and Japanese share a similar system of demonstrative pronouns: i- (이), ku- (그) and ce- (저) for Korean corresponding to the Japanese ko- (こ), so- (そ) and a- (あ)(“this”, “that” and “that over there”). They both lack a compulsory distinction of plurality (for example "an apple" vs "apples" is usually not specifically distinguished).
This surprises me a bit (I believe you; I am just surprised.)
Why do Koreans think learning Japanese is easier than learning English?
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.
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.
Consider the difference between English and Spanish vs. English and Japanese. If you look at a Spanish sentence, you can more or less translate it word for word to and from English so long as you know the vocabulary and verb conjugations. Japanese on the other hand has an entirely different grammar, uses the case (particle) system, has honorifics and levels of politeness, has entirely different parts of speech from english, is far less ego-oriented (I don't mean this in a judgemental way, just that objects are much more often the subjects of sentences)
It is mine as well, but I considered the questions you're asking when I was teaching myself Japanese around age 9. I'm 33 now. The barrier of difficulty is all in your mind. You're the only limiting factor. You decide for yourself how difficult something is to do.
Good question. My understanding is that (from the article)
The low birthrate is leading to severe labor shortages ... prompting the
country to welcome more foreign workers.
Besides, the birth rate in SK hovered between 1.4 and 1.5 during much of the 80s and 90s, and only dropped to current levels (around 1.1) since the early 2000s. Most people who are looking for jobs right now were born in the 90s; the ultra-low-birth-rate generation is still in K-12. It's a lame excuse.
Foreign workers are willing to accept the kind of crappy treatment that most young Koreans would not hesitate to report to the authorities. That's why they're hired and Koreans are not. Then the Koreans become foreign workers in Japan...
https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/unemployment-rate
> The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Japan increased unexpectedly to 2.5 percent in March 2019 from a five-month low of 2.3 percent in the previous month
My thinking is that Japanese and Korean work culture is quite similar. So if you want to live in that culture, why not do it closer to your family?
However, if you get smitten by a more western lifestyle in the US or Europe, it will be very hard to return home.
Anecdotal, but I can confirm. I work for a Japanese bank in NYC that has a lot of Japanese expats. A few weeks prior a new expat came over and he was in awe of being able to start work around 8:50 and leave at 6:00, and how easy it is to approach the managers. Meanwhile, the expats that have been in NYC for a while are dreading returning to Tokyo.
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.
Aging society is a big issue.
When i was studing, alot of thought went into "my county has a lot of internal issues that doesnt seem to be solved anytime soon - mby its better to jump the ship before it sinks".
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 understand from the article: it says a low birth rate as a reason of an increase in migration. Why would a low birth rate lead to more migration? I can understand the unemployment rate as a reason, and SK surely has a serious problem of low birth rate.. but that's for new babies...