Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tanklor1]

I have to admit I've done a super duper job of avoiding the langauge of this country for the most of my stay here. I know most of the Korean alphabet and I can even pick out a couple of words in every couple of sentences that I hear. When kids talk to me I can pretty much tell from context what they want. I'm suscessfully being an ignorant North American!

I can live pretty comfy inside my bubble, but sometimes I kind of wished I had put in more of an effort. Take what happened last Monday. There's a restrauntant in my school building that I go to a couple of times a week. I always order the same thing so most of the time I don't even have to speak. (Nice actually) but Monday there was a another person on. Now I managed to order what I wanted in Korean rather well and I was sitting at a table waiting for my order to go. I always take my order to go and the regular person knows this. She was in the back taking care of something else. Once my order was finished the person asked me if I was eating in. (I understood this from context) Then it hit me I have no idea how to respond to this. I mistakenly told her that I was eating in, but I had no real way outside of using English to explain that I had made a mistake. Luckily the other person finished what she was doing and corrected my mistake for me.

I left there thinking. "Hey Korean would have been really helpful." it wasn't a big thing but it kind of woke me up.

So to those who took the time a effort to learn the langauge, how helpful is it?

[asylum seeker]

If you do put more into studying, good for you but I think you have to go into it with the right attitude.
For example, I studided Korean for one year at uni before I came and have kept up the study pretty well since I've been here (TOPIK level 3 passed) but ironically it seems the more Korean I learn the more I find that almost everyone I meet can already speak some English and that they dont want to speak in Korean with a foreigner. Whereas my non-Korean speaking friends are always running into situations where there was some misunderstanding about something due to their lack of Korean. So for me I've pretty much decided that learning Korean at the level I am is no longer about utility but just about having a hobby for its own sake- like collecting stamps, or learning the piano. That way I won't be disappointed about not getting much of a chance to use it and get all bitter and twisted like a certain red vegetable who frequents this site (just kidding tomato ).

[Yu_Bum_suk]

On Christmas Eve I was headed out with my friend to a western-style bar, near a Lotte Mart. We got in a taxi.

Friend: 'WA Bar?'

Driver: 'Uh?'

Me: 'Wa Bar juseyo? Lotte Mart juseyo?'

Driver: 'Eh?"

Me: 'Urinin Lotte Mart gasaeyo'.

This went on for a minute, with my friend and I trying to pronounce these two names every possible way - Lottae Marta, Wa Balr, Rottae Maltah, Loddae Marteh, etc.

Finally I asked for a pen and paper and wrote down LOTTE 마트 and we were finally on our way. This is not in a big city; it's barely big enough to have a Lotte Mart and passengers must regularly ask the driver to take them there.

After experiences like that, I just have to wonder if getting plastic surgery and changing the colour of my skin would be more useful than trying to learn more Korean in terms of making myself understood.

[jinks]

It really grips my shit when cab drivers will not understand simple directions to MAJOR landmarks. However, I have hit on a cure for this seemingly wilful misunderstanding of foreigners' rendition of Korean in taxi-cabs. Here's how it goes: jump into a cab as it is pulling off a busy rank, ask to go to Chosun-Ilbo building, or Gyeong-dae buk-mun, or Costco or wherever. When the cabbie displays extreme comprehension problems, jump out of the cab and get another taxi - actually you don't need to get another cab, because when the cabbie realises he has been sitting on the rank for forty minutes and he is about to lose his fare - he will suddenly understand. It is weird, but it works.

[Homer]

[SarcasmKills]

[Homer]

[ernie]

i think a driver would understand exactly what you meant! when we call someone on the phone we sometimes say "give me ___"

many of our sentences are not literal, and a little common sense goes a long way... korean cabbies are not the best with directions... i gave a map IN KOREAN to a place that was within a few kilometers, and 2 cabbies didn't understand! the third typed it into his GPS and figured it out... christ! just let ME drive...

[Homer]

Sorry ernie but WA Bar juseyo would at the very least provoke hesitation in a cabbie....

But, this particular driver seems to have been a bit dense...he could have paused for a sec and then figured it out. It seems he either could not or would not.

[Atavistic]