Trying To Pick Up A New Language...Japanese/Korean

As I get older, I find its very hard to learn new languages, not that I really learned any when I was youner. Case in point, my many failed attempts at learning japanese. Attempts may be a more positive spin on what was really a start and stop, mainly stop, approach to trying to motivate myself to begin the process. The best I was able to do was recognize a few characters and remember a few words. I dont have enough knowledge to even put a sentence together. Also, the language incorporates 3 character sets for its written aspect: katakana, hiragana, and kanji. I think its hiragana that I can somewhat read. See that! I cant even remember which charater set I remember.

So, I tried to understand a little bit of korean before my first trip. Luckily, they have one set alphabet system. Given time, it looks like it would be easier to learn than 3 different sets of symbols. However, I have found a problem with the romanization of the language. In reading the translated sounds of the characters, I found that the same symbol can be pronounced or romanized in 2 ways. Coming from an english language background, I thought they were different words/meanings when spoken differently. Heres a few of the interchangable ways of pronouncing certain characters: j and ch(Jeju/Cheju), b and p(Busan/Pusan), g and k(gimchi/kimchi), etc. In japanese, the characters are distinguished by their softer or harder sounding letters. But the difference in sounds means that they are two seperate words. This was very confusing to me prior to my trip. Although, I found that you can get around Seoul just as easily as Tokyo due to alot of signs being written in english. Conversing with the locals is a whole other matter