canoe

Honestly, besides geographical or job-related reasons, there are probably very few reasons to learn Korean as it is not particularly a useful language to learn at a global scale. The few foreigners that I know who speak Korean were either married to Koreans or how to know Korean due to working/living there. That being said, I was venture to guess that those learning Korean who don't fit into these roles are probably like the poster above who is learning Korean as a way to understand Korean dramas, kpop, etc.

That reaction of bewilderment when revealing that you are learning Korean is probably due to a combination of things, not least of which include the fact that Korea still does not have a very big presence in the global stage so many people do not see a utilitarian reason to learn Korean. Nevertheless, Korea's economy is continuing to grow in magnanimous steps and Korea at least has a couple brands that are widely and globally recognizable such as Samsung or Hyundai. Unless there ends up being a much more economical reason to learn Korean like there is with Chinese, I don't see Korean ending up being a very popular language to learn.

The popularity of Korean (which is still relatively small compared to other main languages like Chinese) has come along a long way probably due to its export of Korean dramas, kpop, etc. I feel like Korean may be easier to learn than Japanese or Chinese simply due to the fact that Korean contains much fewer "letters" than Japanese or Chinese. In this way, Korean is much more similar to English and may be more approachable than say, Chinese which has thousands of different characters. Japanese is difficult since they use both Japanese characters along with Chinese characters which number in the thousands.

Although this is a stereotype, this is pretty much based on truth from what I've seen here in the US. Most Europeans know two or more languages and Asians are pressured to learn English hardcore from an early age as examination of English proficiency is something they will have to go through throughout their job-seeking process. But what I've noticed time and again is that Americans tend to mostly know only English. Yes they do know a couple very basic Spanish words time to time since they live right next to Mexico and there are a lot of Hispanics in the US but I have found it very difficult to find bilingual Americans. Moreover, American tourists tend to take for granted that English will be understood wherever they travel.