Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Chet Wautlands]

Do you see yourself learning it to fluency? Is it a hobby? A career move? Something you'll use in your home country? Something you used to meet girls? Will you use it in other fields than teaching?

Where do you see Korean taking you?

(Full disclosure: I've been learning Korean for a few years, but I'm not really sure why. I'm doing an MA right now and I expect my MA to be very useful, but I'm not sure about my Korean.)

[asc422]

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[littlelisa]

I would LOVE to learn it to fluency.

My reasoning is that a language is always useful, and you never know what surprise situations might come up where it is useful (once I was bumped up to first class on a plane because I spoke Chinese). Secondly, if you don't get at least high intermediate you are in danger of eventually losing the language too easily. I figure there is some point where you are just not going to lose the language easily (like my French). I think my Chinese was almost there (I have since forgotten so much. It's been 7 years now since I studied it, at least). I don't want to go through so much to learn a language and then forget it. Thirdly, I love languages and it's interesting.

I have a friend whose job is to do translations from Korean to English. She is Australian and learned Korean while she was here. Now she is travelling while continuing to work by internet. How awesome is that?

I've already started doing some translation stuff (mostly to better my Korean and learn more vocabulary).

I don't have any plan for my Korean. I just want to get it as good as I can because it would make me happy.

[redaxe]

[happiness]

im not fluent, but im very functional, and have gotten a few jobs from it. I just think its part of the job, and I practiced all the time. I refused to speak English when outside my job, most people were appreciative. The best diplomacy, that and eating the kimcheez.

[RMNC]

It's a hobby in that in can get me more tail and be able to enjoy more things, culturally, and a career move in that it pays to be multi-lingual in any job, not just teaching English.

[tomato]

I once started a thread entitled "Why should a foreign teacher study Korean?"

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=13860&highlight=

[skeeterses]

I also enjoy learning Korean as well.

But to answer the question: there's actually several reasons.
Back in 2005 when I first came over to Korea, I wanted to be able to understand what my students were saying in Korean and actually communicate in Korean with the locals. Also, I didn't want to be the idiot American who lives in the country for 10 years and not say a single Korean word. But the biggest reason is wanting to have the accomplishment of reaching fluency in a difficult foreign language. After all, everybody and his brother can speak Spanish or English. With so many people around the world either speaking English fluently or studying English, I wanted to prove that Americans can learn a difficult foreign language like Korean or Chinese and actually reach fluency.

I returned home to America in 2008 but still continued learning Korean. I practice it at the local Korean church and can sometimes understand the Korean sermon. Also, some of the Korean movies are very good and that is a very fun way to practice the language. And while not yet fluent enough to understand all the Korean speech or read everything, I've been able to talk about things in Korean that I wouldn't have been able to do in 2005 or 2006, so I have been making progress with each passing year of study.

[sirius black]

A few reasons for me as well. Some previously mentioned. I don't want to live and work in a country and not be able to communicate. I want immigrants to learn english when they come to America and I would be a hypocrite if I didn't practice the same. It can't hurt with the ladies as well.

My problem is I'm lazy to some extent and its so easy to live here and NOT know Korean. When I have learned other languages it was due to full immersion. I had to learn it. The human brain is remarkable. It will go into 'survival mode' and force itself to retain a language if it feels its needed for 'survival'. I was told that by a teacher once and that's why the military and other programs that teach foreign language do full immersion, no english, you sink or swim by hearing the language all day, all the time. My brother's gf studied spanish through HS and college but didn't get fluent or near fluent untl she was in a program where she was placed in a small village in Guatemala where no english was spoken. After six months she could rattle off spanish with no second thought while before she spoke tentatively to a native spanish speaker.

[Leon]

My degree is in international relations. If I can learn Korean I can get a job much more easily than if I know only Spanish.

[zhanknight]

Seems to me like Korean would be useful in really unconventional situations.

If I recall correctly, Korean companies do a LOT of work abroad.. One of the most recent projects was the Burj Dubai/Al Arab - tallest building in the world. I wonder if someone fluent in Korean and English would be useful on that job site, given that the other major contractors were from English speaking countries? Imagine that - Korean fluency getting you a job in an Arabic speaking country.

There are probably lots of random things like that out there for people fluent in Korean.

[notinKS]

I decided to learn it because my brain loves the stimulation. I enjoy my job, but I'm not working nearly as hard as I have in previous jobs, so this is something for me to focus on. I also have no idea what I'm going to do for a career after this, so I figure that if I study Korean enough, I can use it as a gateway into a new job.

[tottenhamtaipeinick]

[Fox]

I want to learn Korean as part of my desire to study Eastern philosophy. Learn Korean, study the Korean strains of Confucian and Buddhist thought in their own language, move on to learning Chinese and tackling Chinese Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, then if I still have the drive, move on to Hindi to tackle Indian Buddhism and Hinduism. Not for purposes of employment or anything so petty, just as an interest. I'd rather have started with Chinese first, but I think it will take much longer to be able to read Chinese competently, and I think learning Hanja with my Korean (where I can build off of a Hangeul base instead of having to dive right in) will make learning Traditional Hanzi easier later on, since I'll be working with characters whose form and meaning I all ready have an idea about.

[Rutherford]

I study Korean a few hours per week. I don't expect to ever master Korean but I enjoy foreign languages and while living here it's the most entertaining to learn. I enjoy recognizing a word of phrase that I just studied, being able to explain things to others, and chit-chatting with the fishmarket ajummas.

The other day I had a rewarding moment in Costco when I was able to explain to an ajumma that the big can of tomato paste she was looking at was not tomato "pastuh" (sauce) and that the jars of prepared pasta sauce were around the corner.