Korean Job Discussion Forums

[some waygug-in]

I got this topic from the general discussion forum, and on a slight tangent from that
thread,I wondered about this problem and how it might relate to teaching English in Korea.


When I was studying Korean, especially the first couple of years, I can remember studying the same lessons over and over again many times

(even more than 10- 20 times) and yet I was barely able to recall anything.

When I tried to speak Korean my mind just went blank except for the most basic vocabulary and phrases.

I was fully able to understand the material, and pronounce everything while studying, but within a few minutes it was gone.

I think a lot of my adult students were having a similar problem with learning English and I can see why they would get frustrated. (I did)

Just wondering what other people's thoughts are on this problem and what are some ways of overcoming this?

What are some ways of making things stick?

[fugitive chicken]

Yeah, I had this problem too, but I think it had a lot more to do with the fact that since the two languages are sooo different from one another its so much harder to learn than spanish or similar tongue.

I also found it hard to remember, but I also had such little practice using my Korean because EVERYONE would try to practice their broken English on me and would ignore my broken Korean for practice. If they did humor me, they spoke too fast for me to even try. Same goes for your students, they are not immersed in English and only have it for your brief class and then go home and instantly forget it because they don't have to use it. And if you don't use it, you lose it.

I suggest practicing, like going out and having a conversation with a Korean friend or co-teacher and keep the topic on what you're learning, and do it several times. That helped me the most.

[ed4444]

My theory is that it is because of the way our memory works.

If you see interviews with any people who have super memories, it is because they connect each word or number to an image and then it is easy to store and recall them.

With Korean language (and many other languages) for English speakers, we have no visual context to cling to for the sounds in Korean. So this means that retaining the Korean expressions in memory is more of a challenge.

I think trying to remember Korean from aural acquisition alone is therefore extremely difficult. Maybe the best way is to ensure that every expression you pick up is quickly written down in both Hangul and phonetic Hangul in English side by side and just use them as much as possible to give them a context in your memory.

[Gorf]

I agree. There's basically no context and the way the words are made seems completely arbitrary to westerners.

[Hotpants]

There's just too many verb endings, and most foreigners just don't study hard enough, immerse themselves in level-appropriate contexts, or practice enough.

[cwflaneur]

[koreatimes]

Koreans abandoned Chinese characters, but they kept a lot of the sounds for words. So, what we use as prefixes/suffixes, the ends of words were completely glossed over in order to establish what Koreans think is "their" language. Here are two examples:

以前 (Yǐqi�n) = 이전
以后 (Yǐh�u) = 후

If I learned the hanja, I would have an easier time remembering words because I would see the context of the Korean version. With less letters than the English alphabet, it's no longer a matter of recognizing "faces" but memorizing combinations.

[wishfullthinkng]

titles for posts like these should be "why am i so bad at remembering korean" instead of "why is korean language hard to remember?"

it's not difficult for everyone you know.

[World Traveler]

Ah, so learning Korean is easy for you? Do tell us more.

[World Traveler]

Look at this poll for a thread entitled "World's most difficult language". Korean gets more votes than any other language listed: more than Japanese, more than Arabic, more than Chinese. It is arguably the most difficult language in the world. Many intelligent people are of that opinion.

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7587&PN=4&TPN

It is very possible you are overrating your own abilities in Korean, as many Westerners do. If not, mind giving us some tips on learning Korean, because for a lot of us it is TOUGH. It's not that we don't want to be able to speak Korean, it's just that it is so darn difficult to learn.

[koreatimes]

Reading and learning grammar isn't that bad, but speaking seems to be the hurdle that Japanese doesn't quite have. I have better success with Korean speaking though than Chinese. If I know the Korean word, Koreans might giggle but they know what I mean. In China, they just laugh and give no help as to what I might have said. You can't approximate in Chinese, like you can with Korean and Japanese.

"A student is so obsessed with Korean culture that she has had her tongue surgically lengthened to help her speak the language." - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8695371/British-student-has-tongue-lengthened-to-speak-Korean.html

[shifty]

[World Traveler]

[jizza]

This is a really indirect way to learn Korean vocab, but if you want a strong foundation for learning the 3 East Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) I'd recommend learning Chinese first. Learn the hanzi (traditional/simple chinese characters) because more than half of the Korean language, and especially many of the difficult/advanced words are from Chinese.

As for pronunciation and grammar, goodluck cuz you're on your own!

[shifty]