Korean Job Discussion Forums

mithridates

Just wondering. Since unlike romance/germanic languages where you can often just replace words and get by with the same sentence order, with Korean one must construct a completely new area in the mind to accomodate the grammar.

Some minor things I've noticed:

-Every once in a while I'll get an f and a p mixed up...it's very rare but when it happens I wonder if it's the Korean that has done it to me.

-When I meet somebody similar in age to me I wonder if she/she is above me in age or below...

-I pronounce foreign city names that have the letter r in them the way a Korean or Japanese would, using my tongue on the roof of my mouth.

-I've improved my English etymology somewhat when learning some words. The Korean/Japanese/Chinese word for church doesn't say anything about a building, for example, just teach+meet. Also, the word for grenade means hand+pomegranate+bomb. It was only after learning that word that I realized that the word grenade comes from the Spanish word grenada (I think) that means pomegranate.

Well, this is all *somewhat* interesting.

But, I can't think of anything major! I had assumed that learning such a different language would do something weird to my neural network but I seem to think in mostly the same way I did the way before. That's why I'm asking because I hope somebody has noticed something I didn't.

Conversely, is there something about Korean that your mind just can't fathom for some reason?

BTW I left a typo in there on purpose 'cause it's fun.

kiwiboy_nz_99 · Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Location: ...Enlightenment...

The way they say "fat came out" instead of "you got fat" intrigues me, in fact the many uses of the verb �� makes me think that Koreans think in majorly different ways to us. The whole idea of being able to drop pronouns because you should be able to know what is being talked about tells me they're all about context, and the fact that they don't have the equivilant of our twelve tenses plus auxiliary and modal verbs tells me they're less concerned about being ultra accurate regarding issues of time ... it seems a very emtional language, lot of onomataeic ( sp ) words, that's about all for now

tomato · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2004 1:27 pm Post subject:

It seems that learning Korean has sharpened my ear for languages in general.
On the radio, I heard a popular song in Spanish which I hadn't heard since I was in South America 25 years ago. I caught more of the words than I ever did before.
I am also fussy about hearing opera singers who aren't Italian singing Italian opera. When I was in high school, I thought Leontyne Price was the hottest thing on four wheels. Now her Italian pronunciation bothers me.

Zyzyfer · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2004 7:41 pm Post subject:

Really, learning Korean hasn't changed too much about how I think, since I had dabbled in Chinese and Japanese before coming here.

However, learning how to teach English to Koreans has had a big impact on how I regard English. A lot of little English tricks that we take for granted or don't actually understand, yet accept, now make sense to me.

An umbrella, a unicorn; why the difference?

1979 versus 2004 versus 633(years)
345 Mill Dam Road
23357
285,934 people live in this zip code.

Just exactly how do we speak numbers in English? While an individual number is simple to teach, downright kindergarten in fact, the whole numbers system blows any Korean number issues I've had right out of the water.

komtengi · Joined: 30 Sep 2003 Location: Slummin it up in Haebangchon

Ody · Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Location: over here

this thread titled, "how has korea changed you" explores a simular inquiry.
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=6429&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Cedar · Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2004 12:53 am Post subject:

The number one biggest difference learning Korean has made in my life is my abilty to grasp other languages. It was so hard to "bend my mind" around Korean, that now I've become completely conversational in Chinese in less than a year of study. (I dream in Chinese, I speak Chinese sometimes exclusively for the day, with the same person-- not just beginner stuff in other words- I have a huge Chinese vocabularly.)

Why is Chinese so easy? Cause compared to Korean, the grammar is nothing. Cause the cultural values being somewhat similiar the WAYS in which they put things is similiar. Last of all, because of the many Korean words with Chinese roots, often the Chinese words sound close to a Korean word I already know.

I've now moved on from studying Chinese, and am studying Tibetan. The grammar is remarkably similiar to Korean in many ways (SOV, not SVO) and I can't even imagine how I'd have felt if I'd tackled it before Korean, especially since Korean has such a comparatively superior writing system to ALL the rest of the writing systems I've ever encountered.

That's the biggest difference.

However, there are a million ways in which EVERY language is tied to culture, and learning Korean helps me understand Korean people and understanding Korean people has always helped me speak Korean better...

mithridates · Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2004 2:58 am Post subject:

Which begs the question...why Tibetan? You may just be addicted to languages too...

ohahakehte · Joined: 24 Aug 2003 Location: The State of Denial

ive had the same experience learning mohawk. the etymology is totally different and i love how learning a different language with a different background changes your thinking.

the traditional mohawk word for coffee is "ohsokwakeri" - crushed bean juice. of the many different words in mohawk for european, white person, american, canadian, etc, the one that i find the most interesting is "kanatien." the story behind it is that when the first white settlers arrived, the natives said, "kats ken satien" - come and sit down; "satien" is you sit. "kanatien" means the euro-north americans sat down and never got up. a third and very interesting word in mohawk is the word for the american president, "ranatakarias" - the town destroyer. the name is rooted in the late 1700's when the rebel american forces swept through upstate new york - traditional territory of the six iroquois nations - and burned and destroyed most iroquoian villages and dispersed the natives. the iroquois confederacy still uses the word today as a title for the american president.

i know that english has roots in latin and other languages that are more literal words and descriptions for things such as in mohawk or korean, but i know of very few of them, and so english seems so dull in comparison

IconsFanatic · Joined: 19 Jan 2003

mithridates · Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2004 3:56 am Post subject:

Me too, I think learning to read Chinese was the best thing I ever did.

I was just reminded of Bruce Cockburn singing the Huron Carol in Huron on one of his cds. It made a cold shiver go through my body when I reflected on how he was singing in the language of the dead...the only ones who could understand what he was singing are all buried now. Resurrecting dying languages is fascinating.

ohahakehte · Joined: 24 Aug 2003 Location: The State of Denial

mithridates · Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2004 4:14 am Post subject:

That's a good point...I find it equally fascinating though to think about the mundane aspects of these dead languages.
When one is revived it seems to change in form equivalent to the amount of time it has spent in hibernation as it adapts to the world around it. Sometimes that can completely change it.

But u kno', sumtimes its not just x-tinct languages tht start t' look wierd over time.. *^^* m_ _m

Apparently languages would change a lot faster if people under 20 called the shots. People start to sound like their parents after they enter the workforce and are forced to change the way they speak in order to get respect from their co-workers.

mithridates · Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2004 4:15 am Post subject:

Ah, I just noticed that I've been beeped. His name is Bruce c o c k b u r n, pronounced coburn.