My wife and I (30F and 34M) just had this argument and I want the internet’s opinion on if she’s setting her sights too high or not.
For the past few months, my wife has gotten really, really into Korean tv dramas. She started one show with a friend around Christmas but she kept going and I’d say she’s watched at least 6 or 7 decently long series since then and is showing no sign of slowing down.
I have to admit I was already annoyed with this before we had this argument – she didn’t used to be really into many shows and a lot of times she was happy to watch whatever and knit at the same time. She said she liked feeling like she was getting stuff done. But since she watches the Korean shows with English subtitles, she doesn’t do nearly as much knitting, so it feels like she’s abandoned a lot of her projects. For example, she usually knits my mom something for her birthday in March like a hat or a scarf, but she didn’t and I could see my mom was disappointed.
So because of this, when my wife told me yesterday that she wants to start learning Korean so that she can watch more shows and get more immersed in that culture and stuff, I got really irritated. I told her that Korean is an incredibly difficult language to learn and since she’s an adult, there’s no way she’ll ever become fluent. She’d just be wasting her time without a hope of actually getting proficient in a language that she would only use in watching tv. I told her it seemed like an unrealistic goal and a waste of time and money. She called me a jerk, told me to eff off, and didn’t give any sort of counter argument. Looking back, I think I spoke sharply but I think deep down she must also realize that it’s a stupid idea but she doesn’t want to admit it.
I should also say that my wife only speaks English, so she doesn’t even have any kind of foundation for learning a foreign language, much less one as notoriously difficult as Korean.
Also, tv watching is not a hobby, it’s a passive activity. Some of y’all seriously need a life if you consider tv watching a hobby.