Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Qinella]

This is a comment Brachy posted in another thread. I didn't want to derail the thread, so I thought I'd make a new one to request clarity on this opinion.

It's my opinion that, if you are living in Korea, the Korean language is extremely useful. It's the polar opposite of useless. Just like if you were living in France, French would be useful.

But, perhaps there's some logic behind this seemingly byeongshin statement. I'm all ears! How is Korean a useless language, especially for people living in Korea, and which languages are not useless?

Cheers,
Q~

[shakuhachi]

Korean is not useless. It depends on what you intend to use it for. If you want to use Korean for work, you have to stay focused and persue your goals.

[sheba]

A language that 46 million (plus) people speak is certainly not useless. If you are a foreigner living in Korea then it would make things A LOT easier if you could speak it also.

[ubum]

Any language skills are not useless. Yes, if you are here for just a year and go back home to your small hometown, populations 568. Then Korean isn��t as useful to you as it may be for others. But, it definitely isn��t a useless language.

[mindmetoo]

What was the poster's criteria for useless? If you're going to live and die in Korea, then it's pretty useful. It would make my life easier here boning up on this useless language. French is a fairly useful language, it's a popular second language and helps learning other romance languages like Spanish and Italian.

[Qinella]

[yesterday's child]

indeed Q. anybody monolingual knows that the language they speak is a means of survival and is anything but 'useless.'

the person claiming 'Korean' is a useless language is prolly monolingual and not too bright, anyway.

[tzechuk]

I think Brachy thinks that no one, other than Korean, uses the language, thus making it useless.

I've already responded in the other thread that it is not useless, it is alive, people speak it! If there are people who speak this, then it is not useless!

[whatthefunk]

maybe he was only thinking in terms of business use. it is true that korean is not as usefull as maybe japanese or chinese in the buisness sense, but to say that it is entirely useless isnt correct. im sure that if you spoke fluent korean and lived outside of korean, you could make some use of it, even if it was only to have korean friends. no language is entirely useless.

[nrvs]

Yes, it's not at all useful outside of Korea. Aside from expatriate populations here and there, Korean isn't spoken elsewhere in the world. And most overseas Koreans can speak a second language if they have to.

But it sure is fun to learn while living here. Even on a basic, "survival" level. It's nice to put a sentence together and have someone understand you. Most monolingual Koreans really appreciate even a halting effort. It makes your day-to-day life easier in so many ways.

However, the effort required in learning Korean beyond the low-intermediate level might be a wasteful exercise if you aren't planning on spending your life in the ROK.

[mithridates]

I translate Korean into English and could do the same if I were to move to China, Iceland or Madagascar tomorrow.

[nrvs]

[mithridates]

Thanks. No, not in other pursuits. One area where it might come in handy is being a politician in a place like Richmond in Canada. Even non-Korean immigrants over there, if Asian, would be impressed.

Another way to look at it is that spending over three years here and having nothing linguistically to show for it might actually be actually worse than never having come here in the first place. I'm talking about nothing though, the guys that have learned makju juseyo and maybe a dozen others. I can picture the prospective employer looking at a resume and thinking "wow, this guy spent four years in a whole other environment and has nothing to show for it. What makes him think he could adapt to the environment in my company?"

[little mixed girl]

if the CIA is offering you a job using it, then it's not useless.

[joe_doufu]