Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Qinella]

I'm learning Korean right now, but still know very little. I take my dictionary around with me, and sometimes pull it out in a store to ask about something. It's amazing to me that if I don't pronounce the word perfectly, the person will just stand there staring at me, and maybe repeat it the way I said it. I haven't had a single Korean yet try to figure out what I'm saying by using context. So I show them the word in writing and they laugh, then dramatically pronounce the word for me in the proper way, which is usually a very minor difference.

In juxtaposition, almost every Korean I talk to in English sounds like they have marbles in their mouth. L/R, B/P/F/V, O/ooh/U.... their pronunciation is typically awful, and I really have to strain to understand, but I do my best. I don't constantly correct them and laugh at their pronunciation, or stare at them like they're idiots. But for me to speak to a Korean, I must have absolutely perfect pronunciation or else I might as well forget about it.

Being an American citizen, from a country where you constantly interact with foreigners and their mutilated English, it blows my mind that what I now recognize as a lingual courtesy is not even close to extended here in Korea. At least not in my experience so far.



Rant over. ȣ���� !!!!

[Zyzyfer]

Yea, today my students were giving me crap about Jeollado. Of course I know it's ���� but it's romanized Jeollado and people say it so that it sounds like ����. Now, this was in class, so it's easy to retort by asking a kid to say "red light", "girl", "world", something like that, and then laughing at them. They get the hint pretty fast that it's not nice.

Unfortunately, you can't use that on the streets here, since a fair number of people know Konglish at best anyways. Sometimes it really is bad pronunciation on the foreigner's part, but sometimes it's just asinine BS.

[Badmojo]

You're not alone.

I've noticed this here, big-time.

Okay, maybe I can't pronounce "yeogwon" exactly right, but cripes man, taxi drivers ought to be able to figure it out.

I encountered it in China, too. I guess that's what you get from not having a lot of foreigners around. I mean, back home, you had to learn fast, or else how could you ever carry on a conversation at the corner store?

[Merlyn]

Yeah, these posts are right on. I encounter this regularly. And sometimes this has happened just after I've finished talking to a Korean friend about these words and I go to repeat them just a few minutes later and to my disbelief they have no idea what I'm talking about, even when I say we were just talking about this same word one minute ago, and I give countless hints, and they still can't remember. Then to cover their denseness they'll completely mispronounce the word, as was mentioned earlier.

[eamo]

Koreans don't get to hear their language mis-pronounced often. They think it's a hoot.

We English speakers hear English mangled all the time here in Korea and in other non-English speaking countries (including Scotland! ). We have become experts at working out what people are saying.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

My first week in Korea, I observed classes for a teacher whom I was to replace. I couldn't understand a single word those little buggers asked me -- and some of them were in middle school!

A few weeks later I could understand everything they said.

Same thing goes for my wife when we visited Canada for the first time. No one (except for Nova Scotians ) could understand her. After a few weeks, everyone close to the family could -- but she was still met with blank stares when speaking with new acquantances.

Sparkles*_*

[Mashimaro]

It's a fallacy that your korean pronunciation has to be perfect before koreans can understand you, but as others have said they are less used to foreigners mangling their language than we are.

Korean pronunciation is tough, just watch koreans meeting each other for the first time, they often have to check a few times they are pronouncing the other person's name right.

Another thought, confidence and speaking loudly and clearly are sometimes the only difference between being understood and blank stares. koreans like anyone mishear things, are distracted or for whatever reason might not catch what you said. It doesn't necessarily mean your pronunciation was off. Half deaf kimbab ajumma didn't get what you said, say it twice as loud and as clear as you can, and she might (or might not if your pronunciation really is bad )

[canadian_in_korea]

[Universalis]

If it makes you feel any better... Gary Rector (long-term non-Korean Korean who speaks perfet Korean) wrote a column a few years back about an experience he had in the countryside while traveling through Korea. He walked into a Yogwan looking for a room, and found an ajumma and her child sitting at the front desk. Here's how it played out:

GR: (In pretty damn good Korean) Do you have a room available?

<Ajumma stares blankly>

GR: I need a room for the night. Do you have one?

Ajumma: (to her child) Tell him I don't speak English.

Kid: But he's speaking Korean, Mom.

The point is that even if you speak their language to them in their own country, they still have a tendency to "misunderstand" you on account of you being a foreigner.

But yea, I know your frustration. Context (munmaek) should go a long way in helping you get your point across, but Koreans seem to have a knee-jerk reaction of assuming they can't understand what foreigners say.

Brian

[Swiss James]

this might sound like I'm stating the obvious, but when I first meet someone I always start with either
"Hi!"
or
"Anyong haseo!"

that then sets up whether the next thing I'm going to say is in english or korean.

Works for me.

[crazylemongirl]

Well what about the reverse? can have basic little conversations with everyone in my school it took a while for them to get used to speaking to me but now I can talke for a few minutes on superfical stuff with the teachers. However I have one problem: my principal. I just can't understand a word that he says. He does speak at a million miles an hour and seems to have a bizzare slur.

[Swiss James]

[Badmojo]

[billybrobby]

hahaha, awesome fridge. that's about half a liver's worth right there.

I agree with Swiss James' idea. Most Koreans expect white people to speak English, period. So sometimes its best to prepare Koreans for the fact that you're about speak Korean, and the best way to so this is to say something really obvious and common.

Sometimes when I'm speaking a mix of Korean and English with a Korean person, I'll be straining so hard to figure out which Korean word a person is saying that I'll not realize they're speaking English.

You refer to the fact Americans are good a deciphering broken english as a courtesy that we extend to some hapless foreigners. But I don't think its courtesy at all, just necessity. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to talk to the dude at the local Quicky-Mart. Koreans just aren't confronted with that necessity in their daily lives.

Also, not to be rude, but you should consider the idea that your pronunciation is just atrocious and no amount of context clues can save it.

but i sympathize with you...sometimes I thinking learning Korean is the most friggin' thankless task in the world. Until the next time a Korean declares me a genius for being able to say 'I'm hungry.'