Korean Job Discussion Forums

[matthewwoodford]

Just wondering how good people out there are. Anyone fluent? If so I envy you. I've seen a lot of posts from people saying they speak Korean and I wonder what they mean by that. I'd hesitate to say I speak any language unless I'm at least fluent enough to maintain a polysyllabic conversation with a native speaker.

Also how hard do people find learning Korean? I find it very hard. My first year it all went way over my head, it just did not compute, took me about 2 months to memorise 'hwajangsil', although I got numbers right away from buying things. My second year I learned a lot of useful phrases - beginner survival Korean. My third year I actually studied for a couple of months and - lo and behold - my Korean improved and now I'd say I'm high beginner verging on intermediate.

Also, any tips to learning it from anyone?

I know the fluency options I chose are far from perfect.....

[endofthewor1d]

reading and writing is not a problem. simple conversations about whether or not i like certain animals are getting better. menus are my area of expertise.

and yet i was one of the more accomplished in my circle of friends. if i can ever land a job in seoul with a block shift, i have every intention of taking a class. that's the only way i'm ever going to learn it. i don't have the discipline or attention span to learn it by myself with a book, though one i can recommend (if you can read hangul) is 'easy korean for foriegners' (yeah, it's really called that.) the pictures are cool, the conversations aren't lame like some of the other books i've tried. some of the conversations are actually kind of funny. there's one excercise where you have to write sentences next to a series of pictures about a guy going on a soju bender after his girlfriend leaves him.
the alphabet was easy enough for me to learn on my own, but i wonder if i would have had the discipline and attention span to accomplish even that modest task had it not been my first week in korea, when i didn't know anybody, and hadn't quite mustered up the courage to fully explore my surroundings just yet.
and the korean girlfriend method of language learning helped for a little while. she enthusiastically tried to teach me korean. but as she was a korean girl, and had to be home at midnight *sigh* there weren't many times that we were alone at my place during which i was willing to waste precious boinking time in the pursuit of learning a language.

for me, it's taking a class. no distractions. no boinking. only korean.

[Paji eh Wong]

Na nin paji eh wong.

That is the extent of my Korean.

[komtengi]

I studied for three years, and have a major in Korean. I'd say my Korean is fleunt, most koreans don't believe me when I talk to them for the first time on the phone......The only probelms I have are writing long papers, or reading them in korean......thats cause Im lazy. Cant read much hanja, and I cant get into heavy conversations about things like politics. My listening skills and spoken korean are at a very advanced level.

[Howard Roark]

I have been studying Turkish for 2.5 years. It's so easy to learn, and remember. If I were living in Turkey I'd be much more advanced but I don't get much practice here.
Anyway, I'm kind of studying Korean recently. I've always had survival Korean but now I have a lot of free time at work so I started studying.
I'm finding it so so hard to learn.
I knew more Turkish in a month of being in Turkey than I knew Korean after my first year here! The sounds, the words, it's so random and meaningless to me.
Of course it be would though - it's a foreign language. But why is Turkish so easy for me?
Oddly, Korean and Turkish belong to the same language family, have similar sounds, and have the same basic structure. Yet, I find Turkish fairly easy and Korean makes no sense to me!
I am learning though, just slowly.

[Seoultrader]

I speak it with a Korean accent but lack the higher-level vocabulary to hold educated conversations (educated in international schools and stateside) about specific subject matter, be it politics, science, history, etc.

In a way, it has its advantages because in tense business situations I come across as "the average Joe" which often times puts my Korean counterparts at ease.

What really impresses me are the many DDD workers who learned to speak amazing Korean in a short period of time without any formal lessons.

[Zyzyfer]

Um, I'm beyond survival Korean, but I can't quite string sentences together yet. If I sat down for a week and hardcore focused on just this aspect, I'd probably be good to go, though.

[sid]

When I left Korea after 18 months there I was pretty confident with survival/small talk Korean... I could chat about fairly 'light' topics for a few minutes and read fast enough to sing mid-tempo songs in the noraebang.

Now I'm back and taking a class for the first time (intermediate). Learning grammar at breakneck speed and I'm suddenly aware of how much I don't know, my listening and reading comprehension is also starting to go well beyond what I can actually say. I feel like a Korean studying English! Hopefully there will be time to properly absorb everything I've studied and bring it into my conversational repertoire.

[wormholes101]

[HardyandTiny]

Considering I have lived in Korea for a total of 7.5 years on three separate occasions I would have to say my Korean language skills are about as bad as it gets.
I have no excuse, I just don't care.

[Gwangjuboy]

I have been here for about a year and a half. Compared to Westerners in Gwangju who have been here for the same amount of time my Korean is very good. I know many verbs, and I am able to string basic sentences together. I am also able to hold a converstaion at a basic level, e.g salary, hometown. favorite food, animal, places, reasons for being here etc.

My Korean girlfriend teaches me at least once a week. What I find really difficult is a) structure and, b) they use verbs that we don't have.
For example, sit da - wash, gam da - wash hair. You couldn't ask a Korean, oneul molri sit seo soe yo? (have you washed your hair today?) You would have to replace the sit da verb with gam da. e.g. oneul molri gam as eo yo? There are many other examples. (sorry for the bad romanisation.)

[gang ah jee]

he cooks, he cleans, always washes his hands after using the bathroom, and never says a bad word about anyone. he's good enough, i guess.


harr harr.

[crazylemongirl]

I would study korean if I could so I can't so I won't.

So survial korean it is for me.

CLG

[Ryst Helmut]

[matthewwoodford]