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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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pest2
Joined: 01 Jun 2005
Location: Vancouver, Canada
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 Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 8:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Then the rational, free-willed person will not learn much about Korea. |
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I said sufficient choice for a rational, free-willed person. It doesnt rule out learning more. Its a minimum expectation for a rational person.
We have no duty to learn about Korea. You can see it logically by noticing that it neither harms nor helps anyone, absolutely. You can see it in practice by realizing that alot of people learn enough about Korea without Korean that they realize they dont want to learn more. You cant make a good argument for duty to learn more about Korea than what could be known with your other senses and survival Korean.
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Heck no! (this forum is about only) Western movies, Western pop songs, and Western sports!
When the conversation IS about Korea, it is usually something like electric fan death and Korea-has-four-seasons. |
You make the mistake of assuming that this forum is in anyway established to learn Korean. It's purpose is first for Dave to make money by getting employers to submit ads at 80,000won a pop for jobs. Next, its here to give teachers a place to get information and rant. It was never meant to be a place to learn Korean. You might as well be complaining that people dont talk about Korean on www.flickr.com .
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I took a foreign language aptitude test in whcih I scored in the 99th percentile.
If that test is valid, I deeply pity the other 99%. |
I dont know which test you took or how valid it is or what definition of "aptitude" it uses, but anyway cant you see, once again, how you are projecting your own self-knowledge onto the truth of how others exist? Can you really not see the problem with this? (Bill Gates says, "I didnt finish high school and Im the richest man in the world. No one needs to finish high school and they can all be the richest men in the world").
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But back to the topic at hand, I think Tomato's social-strategic view of trying one-up the Koreans he meets so he can use them before they use him fits in perfectly with the standard for quid pro quo relationships in Korea/sociopathic behavior anywhere else. |
Why is it degrading to Koreans to speak Korean to Koreans in Korea? |
Can't you see the consequences for a societal quid pro quo relationship standard? With respect to other people, right and wrong comes after utility. Not before it. You are saying that its WRONG for Koreans to speak English to you because in America, you expect immigrants to speak English to you and not their native language.
But to a Korean, "wrong" consists of not making utility-based relationships with the desired effect of meeting their own basic needs. It's wrong to them because its harmful not to do it. When they meet a man who runs a bank, they establish a relationship by starting a savings account. Meet a man who fixes cars, get his business card and take your car there next time it needs a tune up. Meet a woman who works as a prostitute... hehe.... anyway you get the idea. Meet a man whose native language is English... you should practice speaking English with him.
The problem with utilitarian relationships is they end up creating a dynamic in which the people in the relationship are trying to compete against and one-up each other. The relationship has no intrinsic value, so its purpose for each person involved is to acquire something for each person individually and not the other. The other's needs are not a factor. So they dont care if you need to learn Korean. You can be their friend and teach them English.
In our own culture, not considering other's needs and having or being able to have a true respect/connection with other people is usually associated with a sociopathic disorder of some kind... but here in Korea, is normal, acceptable behavior.
AHHHH AND THIS IS WHY I DONT WANT TO LEARN KOREAN! I DONT WANT TO COMMUNICATE WITH THESE PEOPLE! |
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Dome Vans
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:26 am Post subject: |
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I want to learn Korean but because my city only has 60 000 people there really is a lack of courses, although my co-teacher is phoning round to get me on some evening classes, if he can find them.
Immersion is a fantastic way to learn a language. I lived in Sweden for four years and became fluent by listening to Swedes speaking and taking an interest in it, listening to intonation, melody etc. Listening to korean it doesn't sound that hard to pick up. But really lessons are the way ahead. |
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regicide
Joined: 01 Sep 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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| own_king wrote: |
| I think a lot of people get frustrated - myself included. I've given up on it because even when I know the right word, Korean people can't or won't understand. Korean people have no experience hearing foreigners speaking Korean. They can only understand perfect Korean spoken by a native speaker. It points again to their intolerance, whereas in Canada, if someone speaks to me in terrible, very broken English, I will try to understand what they are saying, but Koreans just won't. 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". So there is one word, I didn't need to learn. So it's pointless. |
Excellent example.
Often you are off just slightly and like you pointed out, we hear English in our countries and here in Korea that is at least as bad but we understand it or make an effort to understand it.
Then you say something perfectly like the word mool which you have spoken a hundred times before, and they don't understand it because they are not listening to you.
After a few of these situations your enthusiasm for the language diminishes.
It is the same or worse in Taiwan though. |
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Barking Mad Lord Snapcase
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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Tomato, what is your opinion of Western expats who complain about their experiences in Korea?
Is there a name for them ...? |
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indytrucks
Joined: 09 Apr 2003
Location: The Shelf
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| Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Barking Mad Lord Snapcase wrote: |
| Is there a name for them ...? |
Nova Scotians. |
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pucciniphile526
Joined: 26 May 2017
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| Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 4:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Barking Mad Lord Snapcase wrote: |
Tomato, what is your opinion of Western expats who complain about their experiences in Korea?
Is there a name for them ...? |
Sorry.
Happened to see this message ten years later!
I don't know if you were in Korea at the time,
but at one time this site had a ferocious flame war on the subject.
Those who were happy in Korea called their opponents whiners.
Those who were unhappy in Korea called their opponents apologists.
The apologists accused the whiners of ethnocentricity.
They told the whiners to love it or leave it.
The whiners accused the apologists of being superficial.
In other words, they accused the apologists of looking at Korea through rose-colored glasses. |
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SuperfuzzBigmuff
Joined: 12 Mar 2017
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| Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 7:55 pm Post subject: |
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| pucciniphile526 wrote: |
| Barking Mad Lord Snapcase wrote: |
Tomato, what is your opinion of Western expats who complain about their experiences in Korea?
Is there a name for them ...? |
Sorry.
Happened to see this message ten years later!
I don't know if you were in Korea at the time,
but at one time this site had a ferocious flame war on the subject.
Those who were happy in Korea called their opponents whiners.
Those who were unhappy in Korea called their opponents apologists.
The apologists accused the whiners of ethnocentricity.
They told the whiners to love it or leave it.
The whiners accused the apologists of being superficial.
In other words, they accused the apologists of looking at Korea through rose-colored glasses. |
The whiners would have thrown in " sorry for not drinking the Korean kool-aid" somewhere, or "you're obviously a Gyopo" and the apologists would have dropped in "Korea isn't the only place this happens".........fun days Dave's 2007 from a purely desk warming perspective.
How dull Dave's is these days; I might have to actually use my deskwarming in a productive manner, somehow. |
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tophatcat
Joined: 09 Aug 2006
Location: under the hat
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 6:06 am Post subject: |
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| I self-studied Korean for 15 months. Then, I realized I was studying Chinese. I thought people couldn't understand me because of the accent. After that I gave up any kind of studying. Nowadays, I just rub sticks together. |
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nicwr2002
Joined: 17 Aug 2011
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| Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2017 12:14 am Post subject: |
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| I fell into the trap of learning enough just to get by. |
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