u/Leather-Ad-6294

I don't mean open its markets, but be "fully" open for tourism both to and from its country.

Do you think it is strictly a question of economic development? Having an economy robust enough to withstand imperialist attacks?

Or is North Korea basically staying closed until there is no more global imperialist threat (which could take over a century or more?).

I don't think it wants to stay closed forever and that it is a question of constraint. Economic, political, but I also understand the overall risk of capitalist propaganda being imported in mass from overseas like what happened to the USSR putting pressure on the government.

I would love to learn Korean and begin reading from North Koreans on their history, outlook on revolution, and so on (I mean modern texts also), but right now if I learn Korean it will only be useful to consume South Korean content which interests me less.

Just wondering what you were all thinking about it!

I was in a conversation with a group of native speakers of my TL. I'm at a level of "fluency" where I can get by in most conversations but I still make some simple grammar and pronunciation mistakes here and there which I'm trying to fix.

I was shy but decided to say a few words, but two sentences in one of the native speakers picks up a word I pronounced wrong and repeats my mistake to others while laughing. At that point I didn't really care, sometimes language learners make funny mistakes without noticing and if it makes the crowd laugh so be it. But the thing is after they laughed, I asked them "how are you supposed to say it?" once, two, then three times but each time I got ignored as they thought it was much funnier to laugh at my pronunciation before moving to a different topic.

It left a really bad taste in my mouth and I just felt like it was mean for no reason. If they had laughed and then corrected me, it would just be a silly mistake like any other, but instead I felt belittled because god forbid I don't have a perfect command of their language after spending the rest of my life speaking a different one.

If people understood the endless hours of study it takes for someone to even grasp the basics of a language maybe they'd think twice mocking others who have diligently worked just to be able to understand them. But until then, I guess it's just an easy way to look down on others.