I was first introduced to Korean culture when I was in primary school. Korean dramas became very popular at that time, so I began to be interested in Korea. As I grew up, Kpop became more and more popular, so I got more access to the Korean culture. From listening to Kpop songs and watching Korean dramas, I found out that Korean and Chinese share a lot of similarities in speaking and writing.
Chinese was first introduced to Korea in the first century BC when the Han dynasty invaded the north of the peninsula and established the Four Commanderies. Buddhism arrived in Korea from China in the late 4th century and spread from there to Japan. The Goguryeo kingdom strengthened itself by adopting Chinese institutions, laws, and culture, including Buddhism. Research shows that all formal writing, including the official annals of the Korean dynasties and all government documents, was done in Chinese until the late 19th century. This explains why the Korean language now has different writing characters, but a lot of them still share the similar pronunciation with Chinese. This similarity makes it easier to understand Korean since the sentence composition and grammar all not entirely novel for me. When I practice Korean speaking, I could combine my knowledge in Chinese with the Korean grammar to learn faster. And during my learning, I found it fascinating that the Korean language borrows English as well. It is very interesting for me to compare the Korean language with the languages I am familiar with,
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