Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Omkara]

I'm trying to find some understanding as to why Koreans in particular have this habit of hitting enter after every sentence, or of even breaking sentences by pressing enter once the sentence has reached a length or has fulfilled a clausal requirement.

The style would look something like
this, when they are writing
English prose.

Have you noted this? Understood the reasons? I often work with Koreans at home, and to have insight into this problem would make me more effective as a teacher.

[Thiuda]

I've spoken about this with Korean colleagues. They told me that although Korean is to be written like English, from left to right in paragraph form, students make the same mistake in Korean as they do in English - they list their sentences. My Korean colleagues seem to believe that a combination of poor education in secondary school and too much computer mediated writing is responsible for this phenomenon. I would add that since many Koreans have a predilection for reading comic books, if they read at all, they have little opportunity for observing correct style.

I explicitly have to teach proper paragraph style to all of my writing students at the university level - very few freshmen use proper paragraph style and even upper year students seem to have trouble with it.

[Seoul'n'Corea]

[ardis]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

but i've even seen Korean teachers write like that ^^

they list every new sentence in a row.

and show no undertanding of the idea of topic sentences or thesis statements

and yes the Internet doesn't help.

it may also have to do with the fact that Korean, like ancient Greek, used to be written all in capitals with no punctuation.

[Seoul'n'Corea]

[Omkara]