Korean Job Discussion Forums

[seoulman1]

Peope get thrown off because you are not Korean. Im sure if you studied linguistics they would talk about not the sound of language but also the language of the face. When I engage a Korean person many times I feel no connection with them...

I also find Korean language difficult because of the politness factor. As people were saying earlier, in Japan also, people arnt eager to prompt Hangul Mal from you.. They are just too proud of their language.

[yushin]

because we're thick?

[PRagic]

The only way to successfully learn a foreign language is naked and horizontal.

[samd]

Are you going to start a thread like this once a month Ghost?

This seems to be the fourth or fifth lamenting the difficulties of Korean, talking about your Turkish skills, and telling us how you were able to learn conversational Mandarin in four months in Taiwan. Then you throw in a plug for the school you go to on Saturdays.

Less time posting, more time studying.

No one here can give you a secret formula for learning Korean. You just have to put your head down, study, and practise.

[ghost]

[laogaiguk]

[Richard Krainium]

[icicle]

[SPINOZA]

Those of you who took issue with Own-King about his asking for water incident....he merely stated that he asked for some water. He did not explicitly state that he said just "water!". He might have asked for water in the normal, polite fashion - we just don't know from what he wrote ("For example, I was in a restaurant and asked for moolr (water) and I got a blank stare. I tried again and again (holding a cup) and nothing. I said water and the waitress immediately said "OK"").

If he did say just "물 / water!" then that's probably the reason he didn't get served - not pronunciation. Nevetheless, the assumption he just blurted out WATER was a harsh call.

I disagreed with much of his post though, apart from this:

[Paji eh Wong]

I was all ready to post some thing along the lines of "Same reason Koreans don't learn English, the cultures are incompatible", but there wasn't really a question, was there.

[dogshed]

I'm sure I could learn Korea if I actually bothered to study it. I'd rather watch Desperate Housewives.

I just got back from China and they are very different. They will try to figure out what you mean. If you say "water" they will get you a glass of water, wash your car, give you a bath, water your plants, and buy your dog a water bowl until they figure out what you want. Koreans will just stare at you.

(For those of you who are clueless that was hyperbole.)

[gmat]

[tomato]

Hello, Ghost!

I appreciate your post very much. It compares very closely with how I perceive of Korea, and it assures me that I'm not crazy. I have had to enroll in yoga classes, sign language classes, music classes, and Japanese classes because those were the only places I could see Korea people without being spoken to in English.

[pest2]

OP, I agree with your analysis of Korean people in relation to non-Koreans in their own country, and I agree about the effect. I think the machine itself is slightly different for some people. It's not so much that lack of interaction with Koreans makes it difficult to learn the language... The fact that the people are xeno-seeming and cold simply gives no motivation to learn. And motivation is at least 1/2 of the juice of learning.


I suppose if I lived in a box with no Koreans around and an audio tape and some books, and I'd talked to many Koreans and they were as kind and friendly as, say, Chinese or French after getting to know them, I'd be really motivated to study nonetheless.

Also, there are some loser expats here, but I dont think their overall quality is really any different than expats anywhere else in the world... Korean society has a de-atomizing effect even on ppl who live in it but are not Korean. We are thrown to the periphery of them, and from each other.

[pest2]