Korean Job Discussion Forums

[JongnoGuru]

[Maserial]

Such an advertisement is truly impressive.

[Bulsajo]

So, which one of you 'teachers' is responsible for that?

I did oral exam grading for LG senior management once upon a time and I saw/heard some pretty horrific mangling of English (but at least I never actually taught anyone who worked for LG).

[Satori]

Im afraid I can't laugh. This to me, speaks to the heart of what is wrong with Korea. They are too proud to learn anything from anyone. They don't have the humility imagine that perhaps some other countries do some things better than them, and they could learn from some outside input. They would rather get those ads wrong than, golly gee, get a foreigner to do it. The ads are just a symptom. It's a deep seated problem. When Japan got beat up at the turn of the 20th century, thier response was to send envoys to Europe to study thier systems. This is one of the reasons they are streets ahead of the Koreans now. It's a tragedy of arrogance and ignorance.

[JongnoGuru]

[Swiss James]

that advert is, of course, horrendous- but nothing can compare to how badly the Japanese mangle our language so let's not start holding them up as the golden boys of forward thinking.

[DaeSung]

LG electronics has quite a few Americans working in the company, the problem is actually is that they can't run everything by an American (even though sometimes I think they should, but I could sit all day and look/fix problems with english stuff and I would be busy all the time). LG isn't the only one with this problem either.

[Teufelswacht]

[billybrobby]

[JongnoGuru]

[ddeubel]

Satori,

You provide valuable insight.......accomodating another culture involves respect and tolerance. Took Europe many wars and many many cultural exchanges, weddings (royalty and other), communication, meeting -- much trade, before they got to the point where they'd "try to get it right" and let the culture in question , speak for itself...

Takes strength, a very NOT insecure belief in ones culture, to allow another culture control to state and sing in its own language....Koreans and many Asian cultures have not gotten to this point yet. Yes, it isn't a blanket cause celebre, but you point to a very valid problem in this culture...

I've never been anywhere around the world where companies, professional organizations, allow such gross and unimaginably careless mistakes in the English language. I think the reason is one, the cultural absolutism and arrogance you suggest and two.......they just don't take the time to do a good job --- they yet don't value the English language as a commercial / cultural tool.....i guess this is also arrogance...

good points.

DD

[laogaiguk]

[kermo]

I'm just asking myself why why why do they bother to print anything in English? Joongang is an English newspaper, right? Wouldn't it have been easier for LG to just tell the paper what it wanted the ad to say, and employ the translators there? Frighteningly, perhaps that's what they did.

[JongnoGuru]

[anyway]

I think that the theory about pidginization might be applicable in the case of many Koreans. As far as I know, the theory holds that the learner doesn't wish to speak the target language well because of the learner's feeling of distance from the target language's culture. That feeling of distance is usually due to learner's feelings of inferiority/superiority caused by the power relationship between the two cultures. For most Koreans English is simply a tool to appear sophisticated (as with many Western speakers of foreign languages) or get a better job (as is also becoming more common in the West).

The interesting thing for me is this: how many times have you encountered a Westerner who says they can speak this or that language, but it quickly becomes apparent that they only know a few words or phrases? In contrast, here in Korea there are a great many people who can speak English fairly well but say that they cannot. Who would you say is more arrogant?