Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rabidcake]

I was just wondering the distribution of Korean within the foreign community.

When i was in Korea a year for a small vacation time, I felt that there was almost no foreigners that could speak Korean. The most I heard was "I can kinda get around", meaning that they most likely know very little.

The more and more I read this forum however, the more and more people I see that say they can and do a lot of tasks using Korean.

So how common is it for foreigners to know it? It seems like a large part of the foreign community speaks it, which I think is personally good. In Taiwan for example, rare is the foreigner that speaks Chinese, most can rely and do almost everything in English.

[World Traveler]

I've studied the language for hundreds of hours, yet know almost nothing. I still can't properly pronounce words or form sentences well.

This language is extremely difficult. It is on par with Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese (and may be even more challenging) in terms of how long it will take to become fluent. Linguists agree- for a Western speaker, Korean is among the absolute most mindblowingly hard languages one could find.

I've been living in Korea for nine months now and have witnessed only one non ethnic Korean speaking the language conversationally well.

Coming here, I thought I'd be able to have simple conversations by the end of my first year. How naive I was.

[Css]

i guess im lower intermediate level.

[jiberish]

I think Korean just has one major difficulty. How words are changed depending on the sentence. Also they will have single words but the ends are cut off when used in sentences.

I do think it Korean is often easier than English though. When you do alot of direct translations it is like cave man English.

[cj1976]

My reading and listening skills far outweigh my speaking ability. I've only ever really studied alone using books or online resources, but considering I am surrounded by Korean speakers my speaking level is shameful.
I find it so frustrating to try to speak Korean sometimes because I just can't nail the pronunciation, which is extremely important for the language.
I find that a lot of Koreans have problems understanding even the slightest deviation from the correct form, so if I say just one syllable wrong or in the wrong order, they fail to understand me.
I guess pidgin Korean isn't often heard by a lot of Koreans, unlike English.

[misher]

I'm just cracking the lower intermediate realm and I still know next to nothing. The hardest thing for me is listening and vocabulary retention. A lot of the consonant/vowel words/sound sets are based on chinese characters so for me memorizing nouns is a pain in the ass because a lot of the words sound the same. In English you have words like Elephant, axe and cow. Most of these nouns won't have another meaning. The Korean word for cow is 소 which also means a heck of a lot of other things as well due to the chinese character base. THe thing is, Hanja are not taught to us waegooks so it is like learning Chinese without tones to differentiate words and with Pinyin writing. There are probably only around 700 cominbations of sound sets you can make then its just mix em up. It could just ramble off a few sound sets right now actually and I bet it is a word. For others it may be different however as it depends on the individual.

For English native speakers this language definitely tops the list in terms of difficulty. I pull my hair out everyday and I'm only a level 3. AGGGGGGGGh.

[IlIlNine]

Stop studying and start practicing. This is the only way to fluency.

I'm not fluent by any means, but my conversation ability is pretty good (ie. good enough to be an interesting date for a few hours only in Korean). I do lack some formal knowledge which would definitely help me out a lot - and I plan on taking a course as soon as some time frees up - but I think that having a good ear for the language is a great base from which to start a formal course.

What I find most frustrating is keeping up with the konglish. They just throw it in there and it totally trips me up... and I feel a little goofy for not being able to catch it.

[jonpurdy]

I've been here for 19 months and I am conversational. I can understand, write, and speak equally well due to practicing every single day. I can also understand and know a few advanced-level phrases and words that I picked up.

But, to go from here to fluent would take a hell of a lot of studying and practicing. I'd guess maybe six or seven more years of study and I'd be able to debate with the best of them.

[morrisonhotel]

[rabidcake]

What frustrates me more than anything is that it all sounds the same when people speak it to me. And the words are simply just hard to remember!

[Forward Observer]

I have an almost native like pronunciation, but I only took one semester of Korean at Yonsei. Living in Korea for over five years and practicing every day helped me learn the best.

What blows me away is when you meet guys who are married to Koreans, in their 50's because they've been in Korea over ten years and they still can't read a sign, let alone tell the taxi driver where they want to go and what route to take.

[Privateer]

I'm not a beginner but I'm also not conversational so the poll doesn't have an option for me.

To borrow an apt description from someone else, I can communicate in Korean, meaning I can make my needs known, but cannot hold a conversation in Korean, meaning discuss or chat about things for any length of time. Until I can, I can't call myself 'conversational level'.

[winterfall]

[daemyann]

I think your poll should include two types of conversational ability.
I can do a lot more than a few basic tasks, but I'd hardly call it good conversation.

Edit:

I agree that there seems to be a higher percentage of people learning the language than in the past. Having said that, I assumed it was just a case of not seeing something until you look for it. I never really cared to look for how many other people were into learning it until I made the choice myself.

[edwardcatflap]