Thread by @TheKpopProf

Everyday I see posts in different internet communities from people who are in love with #Korean culture and now want to live (study/work) in #Korea. This is both beautiful and somewhat worrying. It's beautiful that everyone is enamored with #KoreanMedia products, but

Korea is not a fantasy. It's a complex country with good things (food) and bad things (price to buy a home). To have the type of life you may fantasize about after watching some #Kdramas, the best step is to push your Korean language #fluency to the utmost possible.

And, because language is intimately tied to culture, to understand Korean at an advanced level, you need to also study the history and society of Korea. I have a pinned tweet with a bunch of book recommendations, and there are also great open access journals that

are full of articles to go into more depth on many topics. If you're someone hoping to make a life in Korea, or you know someone who has that dream, I urge you to to learn as much about Korea and attain maximum possible fluency before you get here.

Yes, you can come and

learn the language here, but it's very hard to make real progress if you don't exclusively study full-time. A dedicated Korean language program and total commitment to studying should be part of your plan if you come here to learn.

If you start from Japanese you can attain fluency in less than a year. If you start from English or another European language, you can study for a complete year, 5 days a week, no work on the side, and after one year average students are still mid-intermediate.

You can start to make friends with monolingual Koreans, but you won't be able to have deep conversations. Therefore, because studying language here is expensive, I recommend learning to at least intermediate level before moving here.

To get a real job (using your skills and education) with a Korean company you'll need to be fluent in Korean, and need to be able to culturally assimilate (when necessary, and have the situational awareness to know when that is).

Although there are some great jobs for non-Korean speakers, there are very few compared to the demand for such jobs, and networks (who you know) often play a role in landing those jobs (also you may need to have a.

visa that already allows you to work in Korea without company sponsorship to get some of those rare excellent jobs, and to get those types of visas you generally need to be of Korean heritage, married to a Korean, or to have qualified through a point system that requires,

among other things, high level Korean language ability).

Which brings me back to where I started-- if you want to make a life here in Korea, learn Korean before you come, as much as possible, and you'll find many more opportunities and have a better experience.

p.s. for most work visas you need to leave Korea and apply from outside Korea, and it's a fairly complex process. For the US, for example, you need an FBI background check (takes times, takes money). So, job hunting from inside Korea is not necessarily easier/faster.