Will South Korean Drama Surge Cause The Korean Language To Closely Compete With The Mandarin Language In The Top 20 Languages?

 

It's the Korean New Year also too, right? I did write an article where Mandarin-language shows should be made more accessible to non-Mandarin speakers. After all, Mandarin is already the second largest language spoken in the world. Meanwhile, Korean is only in the Top 20 but not in the Top Ten. Korean has 77 million speakers. Mandarin has 1,107 million speakers which are actually 1.107 billion speakers. Granted, there are more ethnic Chinese than Korean in the world. Hopefully, there will be enough South Koreans born for the next generation. 

Chinovelas became the thing not with Amazing Twins but with Meteor Garden. The judgment tablets of Judge Bao were soon replaced by the red tags of Judge Daoming Si. Meteor Garden (2001) became the new show for the Chinese Sunday Theater on ABiaS-CBN. GMA-7 had its own Chinese Sunday Theater when they also aired Lavender and My MVP Valentine. However, we know how South Korea became more aggressive with Japan in the world market. I'm not really even surprised that more people know Suzy Bae over Maaya Uchida or know Kwon Nara over Erika Toda. South Korean drama also came in and competed for head-on with Chinovelas whether they were from Taiwan or China.

Who could remember the showing of Autumn in My Heart? I didn't really have much of a crush on Song Hye Kyo. However, I did end up crushing on Kim Tae Hee when I was 20-something and she was in her mid-20s. I already admitted it that I secretly wanted to marry her back in my college days. Stupid but it happened. I could remember Love Story in Harvard and Forbidden Love. I could say Tae Hee was the time I sang "Diana" like Paul Anka did except she wasn't my tutor. Later, I really wondered why there was a drop in Taiwanese entertainment. Instead, Korean entertainment is getting more popular than Chinese entertainment. Yet, Chinese entertainment may still be competing with Korean entertainment at the same time.

Some can say Mandarin became more spoken due to the population. There are more Chinese who move out of China than North Koreans who defect from North Korea. The difference is that China is more populated than North Korea. In the case of China, it seemed that they had an easier time migrating than they did with North Korea. There are more Chinese worldwide than there are Koreans. Some Chinese have become other nationalities. You have Chinese who are considered Americans, Filipinos, Malaysians, Indonesians, Singaporeans, British, etc. We have Filipinos abroad, and we have Koreans abroad, but it seems the Chinese population may be why the Korean language isn't as spoken. It's even barely half of the number of Mandarin speakers!

Yet, I think with more modern Chinese - who knows they might end up doing so. There might be the demand to learn more about the culture. You might think about foreigners who fly to China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, etc. A typical experience is that they can't navigate the place because they can't read the calligraphy. Maybe, one enters a smaller Korean or Chinese restaurant and can't even understand the menu. They want to taste the real deal and then find out they got all noodles, all dumpings, etc. Some Chinese may have been lost in South Korea. Not because some of these Chinese may have breathed the air of freedom in democratic South Korea. It's because the language differences between Hua Yu and Hangul are there. 

Korean entertainment may have a way of captivating audiences. I find most Korean crime drama better done than Chinese crime dramas. I watched Black and White starring Vic Chou. I watched Dragon Squad starring Vanness Wu. I watched crime dramas either for the attractive female or because there's a good plot. I did drop Somebody because of how badly executed it is. Meanwhile, I found many others (even without that attractive actress) to keep me interested in the good plot. Though, my first exposure to Korean was just the typical love story. Both Chinese dramas (whether China or Taiwan) or Korean dramas (well, from the South) tend to mix the formula of just the boy meets girl. Taiwan seems to be resurging right now on Netflix as a competitor to South Korean shows. 

Overtime, this might create an interest to learn Korean. Maybe, Chinese from the Mainland might be flying over to South Korea soon not just to breathe democratic oxygen but to learn South Korean. Maybe, Chinese people of other nationalities would not only want to learn Mandarin but also to learn Korean. If that's the case, maybe the next generation of ethnic Chinese around the world (and maybe, I'll also put Filipinos watching Korean shows with subtitles) will really want to learn Korean. Maybe, one day Korean will be in the Top 10 instead of just the Top 20 in terms of widely spoken languages.