According to Japan Foundation 2021 survey, published in 2024, over 60% of Japanese language learners around the world cited their love for Japanese pop culture as their main motivation for language learning. Similarly, the majority of foreign learners of Korean (whose number rose from 120.000 to 170.000 from 2017 to 2021!) are highly motivated by their keen interest in K-pop and Korean TV. If you're interested in popular culture of the language you're studying, you're actually in the majority!
There used to be some (light?) prejudice about people interested in popular culture of both Japan and Korea, and some people still have the attitude that liking traditional arts or history is somehow "higher" level of motivation. Well, numbers tell a different story: most people enjoy popular culture, and that's why it's being made. But most importantly - enjoying a show in a target language is INPUT! And input is a key factor in language learning. The more you listen to it, the more your read in your target language, the closer you will be to your goals. "If learners do not receive exposure to the target language they cannot acquire it.”, said a language acquisition scholar Ellis in their paper, as well as hunderds of other researchers.
There is no "bad" input in a sense of topic, and your language learning brain does not care if you're watching the latest K-drama on Netflix, or listening to a historical lecture on Yayoi period in Japan. There is no "high" and "low" culture in language learning. What matters instead, is how that input is close or far to your current language knowledge. Famous input hypothesis by Krashen states that input should be "i+1", meaning that it should be one step more than what you currently know. Less than that, and you're not making progress. More than that, and it will not stick as there might be too much to process.
That sounds great in theory, but for beginners it's very difficult to find something to watch where you're truly only one step behind. It doesn't mean that all that anime is meaningless! You still get some valuable input such as pitch and pronunciation patterns, occasional words and grammar recognition, and some useful phrases. And with time, you will be closer to finding subject matter that you can understand 70% of, and focus on memorising some of the new words. The best way is to choose stories that are rooted in daily life, without too much specialised vocabulary (there will be a post about beginner recommendations for both Japanese and Korean soon!).
What can you do to increase the efficacy of watching your favourite shows right now, before you get to intermediate and above where the process can be automated? I have several tips, some of which I still use myself to increase my vocabulary, and all of which I share with my students.
Language Reactor is a free and incredibly useful tool for language learning. Imagine you're watching your favourite show on Netflix, or a Youtuber that you like, but the subtitles are displayed both in the language you're learning, and English at the same time! Or maybe, the subtitles are in the target language, but you can click the word you don't know and get the translation just for that word, then keep watching. Language Reactor can do that, and more! It works with YouTube, Netflix, and video files you upload yourself.
Figure 1: Language Reactor PC interface when watching a YouTube video
If you click on any of the words, you can explore it's meaning and see other examples! In this image, I clicked on 경사, and it opened a dictionary explaining that it can mean a slope or a police detective, provided links for Naver dictionary, Glosbe, Wiktionary and Bab.la, and you could listen to example sentences too. Even though Language Reactor is free to use to watch and explore, adding words to your own study lists requires a paid subscription. If that's not what you're looking for, I'll explain how you can easily do it for free (with a little bit of manual work) in the next section!
Spaced repetition is a term used in vocabulary learning and memory aid studies, and it refers to an evidence-based learning technique which is supposed to simulate how your brain forgets information - preventing you from forgetting before it happens. Historically, it was associated with flashcard use, but nowadays most of the flashcards are digital. Spaced repetition is an incredibly useful technique for memorising large quantities of information, such as vocabulary or kanji/hanja.
I'm not a big advocate for learning vocabulary out of context, but combining spaced repetition with watching something you enjoy can provide excellent results (especially when you rewatch things, and most importantly - when you review regularly).
There are many apps and websites which offer a paid service, such as Memrise or Quizlet. They're good, but I said I will tell you how you can do this for free, and I will keep that promise. Anki (conveniently meaning "memorisation" in Japanese) is a well-known spaced repetition (flashcard) software which is open-source and free. It works on any phone or a computer. It just requires a little setup, and for you to save the words you're studying on your own. You can use it for any language, or for anything else you'd like to memorise, like word capitals or bones in a human body!
After downloading Anki to a device of your choice, you simply need to save any new word that you find to a "deck" (because they're flash-cards!) and review them as often as you can, ideally daily. I recommend keeping a special deck for different sources of your cards. There are many pre-made Anki decks, many of them for Japanese, but keep in mind that just studying from a random deck is NOT the same as fortifying your input with storing and reviewing target words.
However, in case you are interested, here are shared decks for Japanese, and here are some for Korean. You can find many of the popular textbooks and websites, and flashcards in a digital form can contain multimedia information (sounds and images) too.
Figure 2: Sample Anki flashcard for Japanese language
Lastly, a technique that sounds so simple that people underestimate its power - shadowing. In the language learning context, shadowing refers to simultaneous repeting while listening to speech. There is a lot of research which supports its usefulness (check it out here for a slightly academic summary), and you can try it today without any special training!
All you need is the audio in the language you're studying. For example, you can shadow that series in Japanese and Korean you've been watching, a YouTube streamer, or a voice actor in a game you're playing (singing along songs is not considered shadowing, but it's also beneficial!).
You can shadow in several ways. It's usually easier to do it while looking at the script (in this case, turning on subtitles in the target language, or displaying them using the Language Reactor tool). However, whilst shadowing and looking at the subtitles will be beneficial for understanding what has been said, and possibly aid you in memorising the vocabulary, it will not equally develop listening comprehension. In case you're aiming to improve your listening skills, shadowing without a script is an excellent metod. Yes, it's that simple - just try to repeat what they are saying at the same time. Don't worry about making mistakes or missing some parts (that's normal). You can come back and repeat those parts, and not being able to repeat something is a good indicator that those words or expressions need more attention. You might want to save them in your app, or write them down somethere.
Shadowing can improve your language skills in several ways: listening comprehension, pronunciation and intonation, vocabulary aquisition; it can make you sound more natural, and automate some expressions, even grammar patterns. Have you heard that RM from BTS supposedly learned English while watching Friends? I'm sure he did some shadowing while watching!
Have you tried any of these? What were you watching? Share your tips and recommendations below!