Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Sincinnatislink]

Other:

The classes I tried to take through my employer sucked massively, and nobody lets you practice with them.

[Kenny Kimchee]

I lived here for 18 months in 2002-3. I got about 1/3 of the way through the horrible "Korean Conversation" book by Korea University. I couldn't even do a proper self-introduction and could barely do present tense verbs.

I moved to Japan and lived in a semi-rural area for 3 years. I taught at a middle school on the JET Program. Only 3 of the teachers in my school spoke English (one of them could hardly "speak" English at all). I didn't see another foreigner during the work week. I cranked it out on the grammar and passed Level 3 of the Japanese Proficiency test after two years.

My quality of life improved dramatically after I knew what the fcvk was going on around me. The biggest frustration about living in a foreign country is not being able to communicate and/or being able to get things done (this is especially true about male control freaks like myself). Once I learned the language, I felt a little more in control.

I came back to Korea a year ago and hit the books immediately. I teach in a university and plan on staying here for a while, so it makes sense to learn the language. I'm now high beginner (can conjugate simple past, present, future, present continuous, conditional, etc.).

I think there are three big benefits of studying Korea:

1) Being a language learner makes you a better language teacher.

2) It eases some of the feelings of frustration/helplessness associated with living abroad.

3) It makes you more sympathetic to/interested in the host culture.

Sadly, my high beginner level already makes me one of the better Korean speakers among my peers. I work with several guys who've been here for seven years or more and my Korean already blows theirs away. Not surprisingly, these are also the guys that tend to complain the most about Korea...

[Atavistic]

Oddly enough, 90% of the dates I've gotten in Korea, I've gotten because I was studying or speaking Korean.

[BTSskytrain]

spent 3 years teaching in korea and did study the language. not a very fun language to learn as it was very complex. reading and writing korean is a piece of cake but the structural aspect of korean was tough for me.
learning thai was much easier for me.

it could also have something to do with the fact that my time spent in korea was because i had to (save $$) and my time spent in thailand was because i wanted to. so, i sort of felt like i was being forced to learn korean, this pressure only brought on by me of course. my pride wouldn't allow me to live in a foreign country for three years and not speak at least some of the language.

[nateium]

[anyway]

[kiwiduncan]

Speaking Korean definately has a place in class. It's useful for giving the students verbal prompts in order to make them speak more to each other and ask questions. Even in high level classes where the students have much better English than my Korean it's great for clarification.

When you can understand what the students want to say you can really help them by giving them exactly the language they need. I have my lower level students asking "Duncan, how can I say 조금 있다가 저녁을 먹으러 간다?" and I can tell them the expression in English.

I often use Korean to 'dictate' conversations between students. They have to think on their feet and are forced out of the reading-words-off-a-page-without-thinking mode.

[whatever]

Very few people show me the courtesy of letting me fumble through the Korean I know to get my point across. That makes the study that I have and am undertaking fruitless, for the most part. They either are amused and don't take me seriously, immediately hijack the exchange with rapid-fire Korean that I can hardly follow, or get annoyed and want to fumble through their English instead.

My most significant displeasure is when I am the customer and one would think it would be in their best interest to show me the utmost courtesy.

(sigh)

All in all, I haven't found it to be very rewarding, personally or practically.

[Ginormousaurus]

I studied in a Korean university for over a year and a half, but not for the reasons given in the poll. I had been living here for 2 years (1 year longer than originally planned) and came to realize that I didn't want to go back to Canada any time soon. I felt that if I stay for another year, I may as well start learning Korean so I'd have more than just memories of good times in Shinchon and Hongdae to go home with. After studying for a few months I thought, "What the hell. I guess I'll go all the way with it."

Obviously it has greatly improved my quality of life here and I don't regret the 1000+ hours I've spent studying. However, I can perfectly understand why a person might not be bothered to learn anything beyond the basics.

[excitinghead]

I'm an old-timer, 31 and 7 years here, with a Korean wife and half-Korean daughter, so I definitely have my prejudices. But I'd still agree that if you're not planning to stay for long, then there's little point in learning more than being able to read and write hangul while you're here. For a very short time invested, it makes your stay here sooo much easier, but the benefits to further study aren't really worth it.

I can echo most other posters' points. Learning Korean as a student has made me empathise with my English students much more and made me less hypocritcal (ie complaining about Koreans being too scared to say "I don't understand," when I too don't do it often enough in Korean because I'm too embarrassed too), and I've learned that many Koreans make mistakes with English because of inherent features of Korean, which other languages lack. Knowing these has made me a better teacher.

Also, I've got probably the best ESL job in Korea, at least in terms of hours and salary, primarily because of my Korean ability. Naturally I can't give details in public, but take my word for it, 99% of you would just kill for my job. I got it partially because of my F2 visa sure, but like my boss said when I first got it, he wanted someone he and other teachers could communicate with (they're too scared to do it in English too).

Finally, I also sometimes have problems being understood and/or taken seriously if I speak Korean to strangers too, I've posted about that a lot here over the years, but like I said on another recent thread, for some reason that seems to happen less the longer you're here.

But one important thing that other posters haven't said is this: almost without exception, the biggest whiners, complainers, and moaners about Korea can't say s*hit in Korean. I'm doing an MA in East Asian studies, so sure, I do consider myself a bit of an expert, and yeah, I'm an old-timer, and older than most newbies here to boot, so I am naturally patronising to newbies. I admit all those, but that's not why I say the above.

I say it because if can't read the newspapers, read netizens' comments, listen to the radio, understand the news, or speak to normal Koreans, then you have no idea that most of what you complain about Korea...a hell of a lot of Koreans complain about too, and are trying to make it better. Koreans know the education system completely sucks for instance, but there are interest groups and politics involved and so no matter how eloquent a drunken newbie's 15 minute rant about it in an Itaewon bar is...his or her ideas probably wouldn't work.

Don't get me wrong, Korea has a hell of a lot of problems which Koreans are not worried about and/or dealing with intelligently enough, there's a lot that deserves ranting about, and I do myself with my Western friends all the time. But I don't generally want to hang out with people not studying Korean because they just have no idea what's going through people's minds here, what occupys them, what they're worried about, what really happens here, how Korea really works...hell, as I type this, I realise I may as well hang out with a child instead.

That's a bit harsh, like I said I'm a grizzled old-timer, and I read newbie blogs occasionally because I'm so old and jaded I really need fresh perspectives on Korea sometimes. And I'm probably not as much of a Korea expert as I like to think (actually just the very last entry on my blog shows I still have a lot to learn about Korea). But I think I'm onto something here...sure, there's a lot of racism in Korea, I experience (usually benign) forms of it everyday myself...but surely part of that is because so many foreigners here can't speak Korean, and so like I said, don't really know anything about the place and how it works and so who's opinions are, in effect, as trivial to Korean life as those of Korean children? Sure, flame away, but first ask yourself: back home, would you treat the opinions and concerns of a foreigner who couldn't speak any English, who didn't know anything about your country, and who didn't plan to rectify either any differently?

Hell, no wonder many Koreans treat foreigners the way they do.

[whatever]

[kiwiduncan]

Time and time again I read comments from people who say that attempts to converse in Korean have been meant with contempt, amusement or confusion. I'm far from a great Korean speaker but I have rarely encountered these problems. I'm able to carry out a conversation in Korean and have generally found Koreans quite welcoming and positive about my efforts. My pronunciation often requires me to repeat myself a bit, and when Koreans get carried away chatting I just get a glazed look on my face and just pretend I know or try to simplify the conversation. My main stumbling block is that I just don't feel particularly motivated to study these days as it's hard to find Koreans who i really have a lot in common with.

[whatever]

Perhaps that you state you're in Oxford, England, taints your perspective?

As for the previous poster, how exactly do you 'empathize' more with your students now that you're learning Korean? Granted, you most likely learned one or more foreign languages in your schooling, and they (the students) probably assume that you never have (and it's their burden, exclusive of everyone else in the world), but what makes it different specifically in Korea?

[mithridates]

[whatever]

A good point, as always, M.