I am an avid drama watcher and language buff. 

I prefer dramas over movies and don't care much for variety shows. Because I want to understand the dialogues without having to wait for subtitles, I nearly always start to learn the language after having watched a few shows from a country. I am conversational in Japanese and Korean, have basic knowledge in Chinese and Thai and recently started learning Tagalog. Understanding at least part of a language makes watching dramas so much more entertaining, because you will recognize things that subtitles (especially in English) can not portray, like the relationships of characters.

My Drama History

I had my first contact with Asian drama in the summer of 2008 when I was in Japan for the first time. I was staying with a Japanese host family and my host sister was always watching TV in the evening, so I naturally joined her. I remember that we watched "Code Blue", but I couldn't understand a word of Japanese at that time so I had no clue what was going on. 

The next summer I was back (having learned Japanese for a whole year), but the shows on TV ("Buzzer Beat" and "Orthros no Inu") were still way above my level. Only when a friend from my language school gave me "Hana Yori Dango" with English subtitles, a whole new world opened for me! ^^ HYD became my first real drama and got me hooked on Japanese dramas in general.

In 2010 I watched my first Korean drama with "You're Beautiful" and from that point on there was no stopping. After a whole lot of Korean there was Taiwanese, then Thailand and Philippines, and most recently Chinese drama. 

And there is still so much more to watch... ^^