Korean Job Discussion Forums

[weatherman]

I was thinking of the same today. As we all know, March started off really cold and snowy, so that old idiom came up in my mind, but I could only remember the first half for a couple of hours... Anyways it is "In like a lion, out like a lamb." or "In in like a lamb out like a lion" about the kinds of weather for March... But I couldn't get the lamb.... kept think bear, and I knew that wasn't right.

[mithridates]

"werse" is a joke...

The scary thing though is that if English becomes a truly international language it may be taken out of our hands. Just like most people study American English over British English, it's also possible that if a few Asian nations make E their official language and also become an economic powerhouse, they could feasibly take the reins and do whatever they want with it, making 'fighting' a word to cheer people on with, 'handphone' the preferred word to cellphone, and changing 'remote' to 'remocon'.

If that sounds impossible and something you'd like to scoff at, think of a few British lords a few hundred years back scoffing at the idea that a few breakaway settlers could become more powerful than the British Empire. ^^

That's unpossible!

[mithridates]

More evidence:
Was listening to BBC the other day while doing some cleaning and I swear I heard the guy say:
"Taiwanese boaters head to the polls today to..."

'What the f(*k are boaters doing going to the...(turn around)..ah, voters! V and B, that's tricky!'

I didn't mean to think that thought, but I did.

[Maranag]

You're not talking about pool, are you?

As a low-level student of Korean and bilingual in two other languages (of which English is one) - I can say that my third language is the one that's REALLY suffering. It seems that for every Korean word I learn, one dissapears from my third language.

I'm sure you realize by now that languages have different strengths. Some things in Korean are just not easy to say in English (and vice-versa). How about "Bon Appetit" in French translated to English and Korean? Which would be more consice... The Korean, of course!

Here's an English tip: make a serious effort to speak quickly in your off-time unless you're in dire need to be understood by a Korean. It will help.

[OiGirl]

[Zyzyfer]

Don't worry, you're losing your English. Back in the States, I often stop mid-sentence, desperately scraping for that word that is nowhere near the tip of my tongue, and have to be informed of what the word I want to say is. It's quite frequent...

[har]

Yes, definitely have that experience of not being able to call up words that I know perfectly well. They've been buried under the Korean phrases I've learned. Also had my co-worker ask me if I thought I was picking up a korean accent. i laughed until I found myself using korean pronounciation of english words in converstation with fluent english speakers.

What i did find strange though is that coming here and hearing another language stirred up the limited french that i have. Bits and pieces of that would come to the surface that i thought i'd long since forgotten. same thing happened with a friend that came to visit who knows less french than me. He couldn't pick up any korean but boy was his french better when he left here.

language acquisition is fascinating

[crazylemongirl]

I have become so inarticulatue here.
Back nz I found the ability to conduct small talk very hard. Also any time I was buying anything having to do it in english freaked me out.

[Kwangjuchicken]

[jajdude]

This is old ground and has been covered before. We are not losing our English skills! We just spend a lot of time using crap English among kids and adults who don't know any. But when we get in touch with other English speakers we quickly recover.

[Chillin' Villain]

I think this is kinda silly... I've been teaching here for three years and learning Korean semi-steadily the entire time (ie: I have minimal trouble holding my own in casual social situtations), and I don't think it's really possible to "lose" English (unless it's not your first language). Do you never speak English here or something? You don't THINK in English anymore? I realize that learning an L2 (L3, L4...) involves certain cognitive changes, but the way that we learn our first language is so internally wired, that an actual "loss" of it just seems like the wrong choice of word... If anything, I think I can speak better now in English as a result of some of the linguistic awareness I've acquired through studying/using Korean. Now, I've DEFINITELY "lost" French and German, but that's a different story... Most of those translation problems had more to do with lack of single-word expressions than any decrease in English ability... Got any literal translation for "yeob-gi"? (sorry, boss changed the computers in the school to English Windows, so the hangeul is history)

[jajdude]

Yep still think in English, watch English TV, read.....

[Toby]

Minez orful now. Spilling haz gon to shite.

[OiGirl]

[Saxiif]