Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ilsanman]

I wonder...how often can people not understand your pronunciation?

When I started learning, I was told the importance of good pronunciation. No one could understand me, unless I wrote it down.

Now, after 8-9 months of studying, and being at an intermediate level, my pronunciation is still not great, but better. I am almost totally understood by certain friends, and my teachers. I am rarely if ever understood by Ajosshis and my students.

I know sometimes it takes keen hearing to break through bad grammar and pronunciation. Teachers should have that skill. Some people lack the ability to understand anything but perfect pronunciation.

What are other people's thoughts?

[little mixed girl]

.....

[FierceInvalid]

[peppermint]

I don't speak much Korean to kids- I've only got one class of them. I generally can make myself understood without comment on pronounciation in day to day life. There are exceptions, but those are rare now. I found I had more troubles in Seoul, perhaps because I started learning Korean in the countryside?

The rare ocasions when my students hear me speak Korean, they're more impressed with the fact that I can function reasonably well in the language (as long as nothing unexpected happens).

[Mashimaro]

People generally seem to be able to understand my far from perfect pronunciation. I've had students (and a few non students) laugh at me from time to time, but I doesn't worry me too much. If I can be understood most of the time, as a relative beginner I'm happy.

[just because]

Yeah, i make sure I've got the sounds down pretty perfect when I'm learning something.
Especially in the early stages it is vital to have the exact sounds for the characters. The rest will flow after that.

[waggo]

I doubt if you are at intermediete level.How are you grading yourself?

[the_beaver]

For some phrases I sound pretty good, but mostly my pronunciation is not good, only clear enough to understand -- which is a big step forward from where I was when I first got to Korea.

The most important thing for me to keep in mind: Koreans say they don't have sentence or word stress except for rising and falling intonation at the end of sentences -- complete bullshit; believing that was responsible for my first disasters with pronunciation. BUT, the sentence and syllable stress is not as strong as in English. For me to be understood (not sound like a Korean, mind, only to be understood), I stress conjunctions, sometimes adjectives, sometimes nouns, and the sentence ending verb while trying to keep everything else relatively flat.

[mithridates]

Another thing to remember is that sometimes other native speakers don't understand each other from time to time. When that happens, they use another word, ie

politician
what?
politician, you know, a person who works for the government.

Or
Fifty-five
what?
fifty five, five-five.

Whereas people learning a language freeze up and think 'Oh! It's the pronunciation! All right, let's try harder this time...' and get really embarassed. Whenever I see somebody get a glazed look, the look that says they don't understand, I just rephrase it in a different way.

[Ilsanman]

[mithridates]

I usually think of intermediate as someone who knows enough grammar to be able to navigate around almost any sentence with a dictionary, can do present tense, past tense, positive negative and the like, and can pretty much live in the country on their own, though perhaps with effort sometimes. If you have that then I consider you intermediate ^^

And it is possible within 8 months.

[just because]

Well then consider me intermediate.

[edoras]

most of the time I'm missunderstood it's because of my bad pronunciation. There are times though when I have clearly said something with the right pronunciation and whoever is listening just doesnt understand. I dont know why. Sometimes my Korean friend has been there and has to say the same thing and they immediately understand.

[Ilsanman]

It sounds the same to us, and different to their keen native speaker ears.

I think some people immediately stop listening when I speak to them. That was kind of the point of this thread, and to see if anyone else has the same problems.

[komtengi]

I dont understand how people are having pronunciation problems while living in the country... consider yourself fortunate, I initially started studying in Australia, and not having the opportunity to converse in Korean that much pronunciation was a big issue.
Personally I have no problems with pronunciation, and have found it is from being here and talking in Korean over 80% of the time. Just being here and speaking Korean means that your pronunciation should be pretty good comparitavely... particulary if you are formally studying it