Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Qinella]

Anyone ever noticed how difficult it is for Koreans to say numbers in English? Some Koreans I know who are fluent in English and have no trouble handling advanced conversations about ethics, morality, hypothetical scenarios and so forth will have a lot of trouble when it comes to saying "fifty-thousand". It's so weird to me. I can sort of understand if they would have trouble when you get into the millions or billions, but for less than a million? It seems like it should be easy..

One time at a store, some guy was trying to accomodate me by speaking English and he said the price was "five won". I responded with surprise! Wow, only 5 won!? Where can I find a 5 won coin? He started speaking Korean after that and his coworkers gave him hell about his admissible mistake.

[jajdude]

True.

One thing I tell kids (students) is that 1000 won = one dollar. So think:

50,000 won = 50 dollars, now replace "dollars" with "thousand won"

It doesn't really work that well though. Maybe adults could grasp it more easily.

I think they're just so accustomed to thinking with that 10,000 (mahn) unit, non-existent in English.

[Smee]

Yeah, I practice numbers a lot with the kids. Just carry the zero.

[Qinella]

The people I get a kick out of who can't do it are adults. Students I can understand, but take my boss for example. He lived in the US for 5 years, graduated from a university there, and speaks almost like a native. Even he will have trouble saying 180,000 won. I find it endlessly amusing.

[Smee]

I know . . . isn't it ironic? Like 1 spoon when all you need is a knife.

잠간만 . . .

[Ya-ta Boy]

I'm on a one-man campaign to fix this. All of my lessons contain at least 5 minutes on numbers.

There is no humanitarianism involved. It's pure self-preservation.

If someone doesn't straighten out these people, I will someday have a heart attack at the cash register in LG25 when some clerk tells me my armful of snacks costs W50,000. Or 5 million.

[schwa]

Shoe on other foot, how deft are you guys at calculating numbers in units of 10,000? Do you know how much one eok is?

[tzechuk]

1 and 8 zeros, schwa.

I believe that's 100,000,000 = 100 million?

[riley]

It's all because they count completely differently than we do. I put it that we start over after every third digit (Ones, Tens, Hundreds, Ten hundreds, Thousand, ect.) They start over after every 4 digits and that makes it harder for them. It's like there's a different place value for them. But yeah, it is interesting and scary when there's confusion over prices.

[schwa]

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

I was up rather late last night and awoke today at twenty o' clock.

[billybrobby]

yeah, there's the fact that they have a special word for 10,000 that makes everything very hard. I have hard time with Korean numbers, everytime I try to say Korean numbers my brain just locks up, even for numbers under 10. Maybe it's something to do with the left-right brain thing, where saying numbers requires you to use both sides of the brain at once. i made that up but it sounds kinda plausible, right?

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

[tomato]

Numbers in a second language are difficult for everyone.
The Nazis sent spies who had otherwise native fluency in Norwegian, Polish, and other languages.
But the Norwegians and the Poles were smart: they assigned the suspected spies in mathematical operations and what did they do?
They started ein-zwei-drei-vier'ing like any other German!

[Qinella]

Look, I have no empathy for the "they code everything in units of ten thousand" excuse. I can very easily say a number anywhere up to 1 million in Korean. Above 1 million, I may have to pause for a second and think about it, but I can get it. When you bring up 억, that's not even what I'm talking about. I'm saying basic numbers. Does anyone here with any Korean knowledge at all have trouble saying 50,000 in Korean?