Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Thiuda]

Hi all,

I'm trying to put together a list of linguistic differences of English as compared to Korean. There are many, of course, beginning with obvious ones, such as word order and phonology, to the more subtle differences, like Korean lacking agreement between subject and verb. I am specifically interested in differences between the languages that Korean learners of English have a hard time with, such as the /r/ - /l/ distinction, or the acquisition of the English article system. Your insights as teachers and linguists are most appreciated.

I'm asking for this info, because I am trying to ascertain which structures it might be interesting to investigate further for a term paper that I am writing this semester. Thank you for any help.

[freddy teacher]

articles
prepositions
countable nouns/uncountable nouns
l / r
p / f
p / b
b / v
j / z
long e / short i
short e / short a
common sense
thinking outside of the box

the list continues.

[wishfullthinkng]

many english-speaking people have stated that korean is one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn. one of the reasons for this is because korean is all about context and situation.

take this sentence for example (romanized for those unable to read hangul)

"mogi shidoh."

it simply translates to "mosquito don't like."

a korean would completely understand this sentence even though it is lacking many essential english sentence components (and korean components for that matter). a korean would understand you are talking about yourself, because it'd be silly for you to assume you know anyone else's preference towards mosquitoes. this negates the need to use a subject, although it is still grammatically incorrect. also, there is no pluralization of the mosquitoes because a korean would also know it'd be absurd for you to dislike only one mosquito but enjoy the company of the rest of them.

however in english it is all spelled out for you. "I don't like mosquitoes." if you leave out the subject creating the sentence "don't like mosquitoes." it would be incomplete and uncomputable for an english speaker. likewise, if you omit the pluralization of mosquitoes the sentence also loses its coherency. "I don't like mosquito." simply isn't complete enough unless you are talking about something, someone, or someplace named "mosquito".

the interesting thing about english is most of it is spelled out for you and laid on the table for all to see. english really requires little awareness from the listener. korean and japanese are not like that, they rely much more on the listener extracting the needed information.

english relies more on the speaker being aware and conveying everything they are trying to say. the complete reversal of the responsibilities of interpreting and comprehending the messages being sent and received is very difficult for many native english speakers.

in the malcolm mcdowell book "outliers" there is a fascinating passage about how korean air was prone to crashes in the late 80's and 90's due to how information is extracted by the listener as stated aove. (the story also is tied to a social component as well but i won't be going in to that).

[winterfall]

I'm guessing your only talking about English vs Standard Korean right? You might want to explore the Regional dialects. The differences aren't in just pronunciation. They often have different grammatical rules and informal / formal speech. It might be interesting for a cross comparison on who might have easier time learning English.

[Chet Wautlands]

The way we deal with negative questions.

English:
Are you not going to Busan? (Yeah, I am!)

Korean
Are you not going to Busan? (No, I am going!)

...wait, now I'm confused.

[wishfullthinkng]

[edwardcatflap]

[wishfullthinkng]

[RMNC]

-Everything

[happiness]

English is the langauge to express the various degrees of self and indiviudualism.

Korean is the language to express one's relation within a concept of Korean Confucianism.

I read the avg. American uses around 2000 words a day.
The avg Korea uses around 500+.

Makes sense,

[Fox]

[Fox]

[happiness]

[DIsbell]

High-context vs. low-context is a salient difference. One way you could look at that is pronoun omission. Another is utterance (or sentence, but I notice this more in spoken Korean) length. For example: My girlfriend and I were sitting in a park and a woman walking her dog stopped near us for a break. I noticed a few passersby let out a "강아지다!" It seemed strange to me as I translated it in my head "It's a puppy!" Nothing grammatically "wrong" with the utterance in either language, but I realized in English it would be a bit strange to just comment on something common just existing. In English, there would tend to be more said related to the observation of a dog, such as a suggestion/command ("Hey, look at that dog!") or an opinion ("That puppy is so cute!"). Korean speakers can and do say similar things, but the simpler "It's a puppy!" appears to imply a bit more among the speaker and audience, and is definitely not considered odd.

Another striking difference is lexical vs. morphological expressions of politeness/formality, tone, and style. Each language uses both, but not in the same proportions. English tends to rely much more on lexicon whereas Korean seems to take advantage of many more morphological variations to express nuances in those areas. As a learner of Korean, it can be confusing to deal with choosing which is most appropriate, not to mention trying to study so many endings that you might encounter as a listener or reader. For Korean learners of English, I've noticed that oftentimes students have issues expressing the sort of politeness or formality that they would like to (or at least, normally would in Korean). Also, since learners tend to pick up the bulk of English grammar (at least in respect to tense/aspect) fairly quickly but are limited in their access to vocabulary (particularly casual/highly informal) so their range of expression can be lacking, whereas it's pretty easy for a learner of Korean to muster appropriately casual or formal speech (even though style or tone might be lacking).

[Slowmotion]

From a linguistics book I had in college:

In Korean, voicing is not contrastive but aspiration is;
In English, aspiration is not contrastive but voicing is.

If you're confused I can provide examples.

And as mentioned, negative questions. Negative questions and regular questions have the same reply in English, where in Korean it doesn't.

English:
Did you eat lunch?
Didn't you eat lunch?
-Yes I didn't eat
-No I ate
(both apply)

In Korean

Did you eat (밥 먹었어?)
-네 먹었어 (yes i ate)
-아니 안 먹었어 (no i didn't eat)

Didn't you eat? (밥 안 먹었어?)
-네 안 먹었어 (yes i didn't eat)
-아니 먹었어 (no i ate)

Another one is specific honorific words that humbles oneself.
For example 저 instead of 나 for "I"
드시다 instead of 먹다 for eating
계시다 instead of 있다 etc