Study Abroad (Korean and Mandarin)—Pacing

[RachelMeier]

So I’ve been thinking about doing two 8 week study abroad sessions next year for Mandarin and Korean, once right after the other (I’ve checked the schedules and this pretty much works perfectly). I’ve basically decided on the Ewha and NTU (National Taiwan University) programs. Here’s my practical dilemma: which program to do first?

Benefits to doing Korean first:

—if I end up having a hard time overseas in Asia or there’s a family emergency, the Korean program is way more important to me so I will have at least gotten that done/partially done if I need to come home
—Hopefully I will be able to do some more Mandarin side study and test into a solid lower-intermediate/second year class when I get to Taiwan
—The Korean program requires payment from overseas but is still subject to cancellation if classes don’t fill up (I’ve read tons of complaints about how Ewha handles the finances lol). The Mandarin program doesn’t require payment until the day it starts. In that case it would make way more sense financially to do the program I’ve paid for sooner as opposed to being down $4000 with nothing to show for it for 2 whole months.

Benefits to doing Mandarin first:

—Planning to buy a lot of books in Korea, so this will let me travel back to US directly with all my purchases
—Many of my fellow Korean students will probably be Chinese so I will be able to continue to develop budding Mandarin conversational skills at my Korean program.
—I could end up deciding to stay and teach English in Korea, it would make way more sense in that case to do Korean second

Has anyone ever done two language programs in different languages subsequently like this? What were your experiences with the pacing with respect to your learning, esp if you studied two language with significant vocab overlap?

Related real-world questions:

If you did your study abroad in East Asia, how much did you spend? I’m guessing right now that my costs will be around $12,000-$15000 (going to try to room at the respective universities which is slightly more expensive).

Also, I may be working part time remotely for a US company while I am over there—will there be any issues with that legally, or is it kind of a grey area?

[Axon]

Goodness! What an experience that would be! I can't help but ask if you've done study abroad programs before or had experience with burnout in the past? It can take a lot out of you.

From what you've written, it seems like the Korean program is the best choice to do first. Aside from the reasons you've listed, you're at a higher level in Korean already. The intensive eight weeks will strongly solidify your Korean such that you can take another eight-week break and still come out having learned a lot. A lot of what you already know will become automatic (daily interactions especially) and what you learn in the courses won't dissipate entirely.

Plus if you do have spare time during your Korean course, you can learn more Mandarin vocabulary for Taiwan as you mentioned. Hanja aren't super common out and about in Korea, but they're not exactly hidden either. Just looking at a couple of pictures I took during a short layover in Seoul I can see plenty of signs or ads in Chinese and Japanese. Character reading speed was the main thing that bothered me when I first came to China, so the faster you are, the less illiterate you'll feel.

And there may be Korean students in Taiwan for you to practice with as well!

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