Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jajdude]

An interesting old thread. Still hard to get that pronunciation right.

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

Knowing the native language does make you a better teacher. You can give quick explanations of difficult vocab and you can understand why Koreans make the same simple mistakes over and over, it's because of certain problems with language transfer. EG in Korean you can drop the pronoun if it's clear from context, but in English it's impossible to have a sentense without a subject. So you get "going home" instead of "I'm going home".

[indiercj]

Oh gosh. My English is pathetic!

[diver]

I like respond: "You are an Earthling. Speak Esperanto".

[Real Reality]

Esperanto has about two million speakers worldwide.
http://www.esperanto.net/veb/faq-5.html

Two million speakers? Too few?

Simple, logical, and politically neutral, Esperanto uses many easily understandable words derived from Latin, French, German, English, and Slavic. Estimates of the number of Esperanto speakers worldwide range from 1 million to 16 million. But because it is artificial, most experts say Esperanto's chances of becoming an official international language are slim compared with those of popular natural languages.

Of the latter, English is the most likely candidate to gain preeminence. Though Mandarin Chinese has more speakers--788 million compared with 420 million for English--English has a wider constituency of speakers.

"I can't see any possibility other than English," says Beijing University's Shulin Ding. "In our own country, English is by far the most popular foreign language."

David Iovino, world traveler and professor of Spanish at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania, agrees with Ding's assessment. "In Bogota, Colombia, you can't walk two blocks without seeing an advertisement for English classes," Iovino says. "In other countries, everybody who is even the slightest bit ambitious to get up in the world takes English. "And, of course, English is the language of technology and of international travel. Everywhere in the world, the control tower speaks English to the pilot. I myself support the idea of an international language, so long as it does not mean that we have to abolish our native languages."

English is firmly rooted as the language of international commerce, according to Lawrence D. Krohn, first vice-president for international economies for Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc., one of the world's largest brokerage companies.

"In the business world," Krohn says, "I think there is definitely a movement toward a world language, and nothing comes remotely close to English as far as Europe is concerned.
http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmatthew/articles/global1.html

English is the international language of technology, trade and business. It is the OFFICIAL international language of air traffic controllers and airline pilots, and is even the language of the International Space Station.
http://www.majbill.vt.edu/geog/geog1014/TOPICS/110Religion/english.html

English is my default language. I will try to speak the language of the region or country. If the person I am speaking with cannot understand me because of a "foreigner's accent," then we may use the default language (English).

[TheMrCul]

[TheMrCul]

[Korea Newfie]

[indiercj]

[Mashimaro]

[l'il kim]

There's also a huge difference between how Koreans treat kyopos and "complete" foreigners. For instance, if I'm out with a foreigner friend at a restaurant or store or something, the foreigner suddenly becomes completely invisible and the staff will only talk to me the whole time. It can be a relief to the other person...unless they happen to be fluent Korean speakers! Then, that kind of treatment can be quite annoying. Some of my foreigner friends who study Korean complain that even when they speak Korean to locals, they are still responded to in English. My feeling there is that, as a foreigner, you have to speak Korean REALLY well and cleanly to avoid that fate.

Fun little side note: when I'm out on the street speaking English with another kyopo, I notice Koreans staring at us and occasionally talking sh*t about us. Apparently, they think that we're native Koreans who studied abroad and are just "showing off" to be cool! The fact that we could have been born elsewhere just never occurs to most people!

Despite learning Korean being my raison d'etre here, for real foreigners who are only here temporarily, it isn't really necessary. Sure, it'll make living here easier, but so many people get by knowing only 10 words. Unless you want to settle down here and have a career related with Korea, there really isn't much point to learning the language, IMHO. However, kyopos, like it or not, are considered part of Korean society, and if we stay here for a semi-extended period without knowing the language, it can be VERY uncomfortable and unpleasant.

[yangban]

You are in Korea, learn Korean. You are in America, learn to speak American. Exactly. Can't have it both ways now can we? Since returning to the States, I have shoved this argument down the throat of every person who bitches about America going bilingual. You can't learn a language in 3 weeks, a year or even 5 years perfectly. And I have said how grateful I have been being lost in a sea of foreign sounds, shapes and sights called Korean and have someone reach out and touch me with English. Beautiful I say. Until I got the time to learn a few words to survive. They shut the hell up. Which is what you should tell these people on the rare occasion that they do this to you. Tell them to go to America or France and see how fast they pick up the language, where there is definitely no oasis of Korean to help them.

[matthewwoodford]