Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Eedoryeong]

I'm posting this to ask for references to any good language-learning-based literature already written on this following subject:

-I've recently put my thumb on an annoying pothole on the road to clarity with some of my English-speaking Korean friends. Specifically it's the seemingly high degree of comfort with modifiers that fail to clearly point to their target nouns. It seems to extend further into a generally larger, different idea between the two languages (about what subjects can be implied and which need to be explicitly restated, or at least represented by pronouns) that fails to self-correct moving from K-E or E-K.

I've always just addressed it in the past, but maybe it needs a specific remedial strategy, i.e. a lesson.

Okay so what am I talking about?
THIS
e.g.

Having finished the assignment, the TV was turned on.

Or

He returned to the rich-smelling field to find that one flower he remembered. When he arrived, he could smell it.

There are a lot of English speaking Koreans around me that are completely comfortable letting these two examples lie just as they are. These examples don't demonstrate more important disconnects that could occur, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be critical at some point.

Does anybody else recognize what I'm talking about? Have any language writers K-E or E-K already addressed this well in existing literature?

[samcheokguy]

[Eedoryeong]

[Straphanger]

[teacherinseoul]

Before teaching students about dangling modifiers, consider the following:

a) Will students need to use/recognize this grammar often?
b) Aren't there other topics that would be more useful?
c) Could you simply tell students to be careful when using pronouns?

Hoping to save your students some grief.

[poet13]

You must have some pretty high level students. Even North American college/uni students still butcher this.

[Eedoryeong]

Straphanger, that was a great example. And you're right, it is the subject of some good jokes.

I guess I could see it becoming more... urgent(?) in areas with sensitive information:
-directions in an emergency
-conversation between patient and doctor
-directions in important procedures

Considering how frequently this may be experienced here, I'm a bit surprised at some of the replies. Where's the love?

teacherinseoul, no students are the subject of this thread, but that's hardly the point. A very good way *to demonstrate* care with pronouns (or modifying nouns) may well be to use a humorous set of these examples and get students (level-appropriate, of course) to direct the references correctly. But that, too, is beside the point. Why skirt the question? Have you never experienced a K-student transfering K-grammar structures into English, or can you not imagine it ever coming up with students above intermediate level? It seems to me this is just a slightly higher-level of the same kind of transfer process. The point of the thread is to invite discussion on whether transfering Korean grammar structure is part of it, and thereby whether it would need special treatment.

Here's a better question:

if they're doing it coming over to English, is it a reasonable guess that English speakers are doing something similar moving into Korean?

Actually that latter point is the original point of interest for me.

[Ed Provencher]

Is this an example of what you are talking about? A student of mine wrote the following:

[Knucklehead]

[Thunndarr]

When your students can use the past of "go" consistently you can start working on bigger problems.

[Eedoryeong]

I'd like to hear from teachers of Korean about similar errors made in Korean.