Korean Job Discussion Forums

kingplaya4 · Joined: 14 May 2006

The age of twelve or so. Sure I get it, Hangul's the greatest alphabet in the world, well not sure I really buy it, but its gotta be among the top ten I'm sure. So learning the letters is pretty easy ok, Koreans, I totally agree with you there.

But it's really starting to piss me off when Koreans say English is so difficult, and that Korean is much easier. I say a big BS on that one. Maybe English has a lot of grammer exceptions and irregular verbs that it is difficult to be seen as a native speaker unless you were born into it. But let's face it, the vast majority of Koreans we complement on speaking Excellent English (which we actually mean) while we can have a nice conversation with them, maybe even talk on complex issues, they will still misuse articles, get the grammer wrong, and occasionally use the wrong verb endings.

I would just like to get a basic grasp of Korean say where maybe I could speak like a five year old Korean. After a year of much study (informally) but have used videos, books, seriously bothered a girlfriend over it, and any random Korean that seems friendly enough, I don't seem to be getting very far.

One thing that we learn early on is that there are three levels of politeness, whereas I would say English only has two clearly different levels, and are easier to form. But that's not the big one for me.

The big one is that relatively simply words seem to contain inordinate amounts of syllables. To take a basic one everyone knows, compare kamsahamnida compared to thank you. Which one is easier?

Even worse for me personally, as my memory isn't as great as it once was was the fact that we seem to have to learn both Chinese and Korean vocabulary. Korean Muleero (Free) Gongkja (Free) wentjohge (left) jahwhejune (still left).

Now if we want to get into family trees thats even more complex, you call your wife one thing anae, while a stranger would have to call here something else that escapes me at the moment. You can't just say you have a brother, it has to be stated whether he is older or younger, and your sister would have a different name for him. When it comes to aunts and uncles, there is a different name for each of them depending on if they are maternal or paternal.

I am starting to wonder if I'm just wasting my time being able to add maybe a word or two per day to my vocabulary, and then sentence construction is a whole other mess. Please tell me I'm just a whiner, or someone with a horrible memory, or is this language simply impossible?

doggyji · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:27 pm Post subject:

Haven't you seen bunch of Korean-speaking ladies on "Chat with Beauties"? Wink

Most of them are quite good. Some of them haven't really stayed in Korea for that long and are very comfortable with speaking Korean. Sheer effort? Yeah sure, but we know the world is unfair to begin with. Some are just born with their natural language-absorbing talent. That can be an extra frustration for the untalented. Having said this, I believe the progress can never get reversed as long as you put constant effort in the learning with the right methodology. It's a matter of time certainly unless your goal is becoming native-fluent in the language. I began to learn "I am a boy" when I was Grade 6 in Korea (no significant use of English until when I was 19). Now I'm almost 25. I still suck at English and I'm sure there must be a few errors (the use of articles maybe) in this paragraph I'm writing right now. But I get by. Speaking of my personal issue, pronunciation has never been a noticeable problem for me. A few times, I was asked if I was born here in Canada. (But they must've had very bad ears Laughing

) It's the pure sentence-construction that has to be done in the blink of an eye, especially when you speak. Writing is 3 times easier because I can take time. I tried too hard to sound like a native but I gave it up. I just developed my own style and pace of speech that I'm comfortable with.

Atavistic

Scotticus · Joined: 18 Mar 2007

Luna · Joined: 22 Feb 2007 Location: seoul suburbs

SPINOZA · Joined: 10 Jun 2005 Location: $eoul

Korean is more syllabic than English at the total beginner level only. After that it's English that's significantly more syllabic (especially when written in Korean, which is of course how a Korean will often think of English....Microsoft, 3 syllables, is 마이크로소프트, 7 syllables, in Korean). Abstract nouns are almost always two or three syllables in Korean and their English equivalents embarrassingly long and the stressed syllable completely random.

sonshine20 · Joined: 17 Nov 2005

I've never met a Korean who thought English was much more difficult than Korean. I get irritated by the opposite, people (Koreans and not) who insist that Korean is incredibly difficult or even one of the most difficult languages in the world! It's not. It is very different from English, true, but as with any different language, it just takes consistent effort.

(And, in my experience, the beginning stage was by far the most difficult. You will (if you try) get past the 2-words-a-day stage and things will start to click! Hang in there!)

kingplaya4 · Joined: 14 May 2006

That's cute that almost everybody got defensive, but if its not much different than learning any other language why aren't other foreigners doing it? I speak better than every foreigner save one that's been here anywhere between 1 and 5 years (yes most of them are at the lower end of this scale). I just don't buy that none of them are interested in Korean, something else is at work here.

Also, depsite the fantasies of KTV most foreigners I've met aren't having these wonderful social lives with lots of K-Girl interest. Maybe its just my hagwons, but most of the foreign guys are single with no K girl, and go out drinking 1 or 2 nights but are hardly having enough "fun" imhop to justify not bothering with the language on those grounds. There's gotta be something else here, and not everyone is one and done, although definitely that is part of the problem.