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bugs
Joined: 09 Sep 2003
Location: Classroom
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 Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 11:57 pm Post subject: Koreans cutting off their tongues to speak better English! |
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Has this been happening in Korea? Interesting article.
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A short cut to better spoken English
South Koreans trimming their tongues to improve speech
SEOUL, Oct. 17 Chop a centimeter or so off your tongue and become a fluent English speaker. That is the hope that recently drove one mother to take her six-year-old son for surgery aimed at ridding him of his Korean accent when speaking the language of choice in global business.
DRIVEN BY A desire to give their kids an edge in an increasingly competitive society, a surprising number of South Koreans have turned to the knife in a seemingly drastic bid to help their offspring perfect their English.
Those who have a short frenulum (a strap of tissue linking the tongue to the floor of the mouth) can face problems pronouncing some characters due to a disturbance in lateral movements of the tongue, said Bae Jung-ho, an oral surgeon at Seoul's Yonsei Severance Hospital, who operated on the six-year-old last month.
Bae said it takes about five minutes to complete the operation, called a frenotomy, which slices 1 to 1.5 cm (about half an inch) off the frenulum to make the tongue more flexible.
There is a razor-thin risk of complications and, unless it is the best option possible, we don't recommend it. Bae said that he had received many inquiries about the operation, mostly for children aged between 12 months and 10 years. Of these, only 10 to 20 percent had led to surgery.
The doctor said he performed the surgery, which costs 150,000 won ($127), once or twice per month. For a tangible improvement for those with ankyloglossia the medical term for those with a short frenulum months of language training is needed even after surgery.
It takes time to see pronunciation actually improve as picking up a language or saying it properly is a complicated process to master, he added.
Using surgery to enhance your looks is already very common in South Korea, where many resort to plastic surgery to make their eyes bigger, noses shapelier and even their calves slimmer.
In the case of tongue surgery, many psychologists, professors and native English speakers argue that there are many downsides. Dr. Shin Min-sup, a professor at Seoul National University who specializes in issues of adolescent psychiatry, is worried about the trend for surgery and also for pushing young children too hard to learn languages.
There's the potential for life-damaging after-effects, Shin said. Learning a foreign language too early, in some cases, may not only cause a speech impediment but, in the worst case, make an child autistic.
What's wrong with speaking English with an accent anyway? Many parents tend to discount the importance of a well-rounded education, Shin said.
Robin Bulman, an American living in Seoul who has an adopted five-year-old Korean daughter, felt that surgery might hurt a child's self-confidence.
I think it's gross. Mutilating children's tongues is not the solution. If a parent takes his child into the surgery and then, if the child is still unable to speak unaccented English, what would that do to the child's self-esteem?
Bulman says her daughter speaks perfect English, admittedly with a strong Montana accent. If there's just some real problem with Koreans speaking English, a physiological problem with their bodies, how can a pure Korean child speak perfect English?
GROWING FOREIGN PARTICIPATION
You would be hard-pressed to find a country that is more feverish in its attempts to learn English than South Korea. From toddlers to students to office workers, learning English has become a national obsession.
The focus on English surged after the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis rocked South Korea's economy, Asia's fourth-largest, throwing a record number of people out of work.
Financial markets were subsequently flung open and foreign investment flowed in, creating a need for communication. English is now becoming a means of survival, said Cha Kyoung-ae, a professor who teaches English at a local university.
Entering a college, getting jobs and getting promoted many things hinge heavily on your mastery of English. The surgery may be an extreme case but it reflects a social phenomenon; said Cha. When it comes to language, money and prestige speak louder.
Many Koreans believe an early start in English could give their children an edge and so do not hesitate to send them overseas or at least to evening classes.
Central bank data show that spending for overseas study by South Koreans, including those who leave purely for a language course, jumped to $1.43 billion in 2002 from $960 million in 2000. The number of people leaving the country to study is also on the rise. Nearly 344,000 Koreans departed last year, up sharply on a figure of about 200,000 in 1999.
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By the way, this is from the Reuters.
Last edited by bugs on Sat Oct 18, 2003 12:07 am; edited 1 time in total |
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Old news. i heard about this ages ago. Several Koreans I mentioned it to were ashamed that they as a people, even consider mutilation surgery to better speak the language of America. |
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intergalactic
Joined: 19 May 2003
Location: Brisbane
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| Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2003 2:13 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, this has been happening for a while. I can't believe the people suck up this claptrap and actually pay to have their children mutilated for no real reason, and it is still going on!
Just the other day our yoga teacher told my husband and I that Koreans can't speak English because their tongues are too short. My husband (Korean-Australian) told her "That's not true, it's just practice".
She said, "Yes, our tongues are too short to ever be able to speak English well, that's what a visiting professor at our church said."
My husband said again, "That's not true", she said "Isn't it?", he said "What about me, I have the same tongue as other Koreans and I speak perfect English."
"Oh..aahh....hmmm, yes, practice is it?".... |
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indiercj
Joined: 30 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2003 2:44 am Post subject: |
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| Stupid Koreans. F*cking stupid. They have their money but obviously not enough to buy any brain for themselves. shame. |
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coolsage
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: The overcast afternoon of the soul
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| Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2003 8:47 am Post subject: |
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| Yikes. Truly scary, these extremes, assuming they're true. I do a pronuncation exercise with my students at the start of each class, focusing on the sounds that give Korean speakers of English the most trouble: long and short vowels, and particularly, distinguishing between 'R' and 'L' sounds. I demonstrate with my own (increasingly toothless) yap as an example, which is good for a guffaw, and, yes, they get it. No need for radical surgery here; it can be done. |
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Hyalucent
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: British North America
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| Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2003 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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| I have one student who got the procedure done. He doesn't sound any different... he's just under a lot more pressure to try harder in class. |
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endofthewor1d
Joined: 01 Apr 2003
Location: the end of the wor1d.
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| Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2003 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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have these people never heard of nor met an ethincally korean person who grew up in an english speaking country, and therefore speak perfect accentless english (that is, english with no korean accent... don't want to start a bunch of moaning about american vs. british english)?
this is worse than fan death. |
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Dan
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Sunny Glendale, CA
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| Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2003 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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the number of people who do this is gonna be ridiculously low
use some common sense. |
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Derrek
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2003 9:15 pm Post subject: |
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| rapier wrote: |
| Old news. i heard about this ages ago. Several Koreans I mentioned it to were ashamed that they as a people, even consider mutilation surgery to better speak the language of America. |
Yeah, I know... I knew a few Koreans like that. They hate to speak the American language! Why? Because America is so closely linked with that evil country known across the world as CANADA!
I can understand! |
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weatherman
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: Korea
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 6:32 am Post subject: |
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This thread does kind of bring to mind the equally useless surgical procedure, circumcision. One of the most horrific things I ever came across is that in Hellenistic times (first three centuries BCE for the historically challenged) some Jews had the end of their weeny snipped off so they could look like uncircumcised Greeks at the gym.  What some people won't do to feel accepted! |
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Son Deureo!
Joined: 30 Apr 2003
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| Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 6:59 am Post subject: |
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I can't help but crack up every time I hear Koreans talk about short tongues making it impossible to speak proper English, because I have a short tongue (in the U.S. speech therapists call it "tongue tied"). And it's not the "r" sound that gets tongue-tied people, but vexes Koreans, but the "l" sound, which Koreans do just fine.
I overcame this minor speech impediment at a very young age (5 years old or so) with a little speech therapy. I remember having to say a lot of tongue-twisters like "lions love licking lollipops" and that sort of thing.
On a related note, in a recent class of mine the word "burritos" was on the vocabulary list. Just for kicks I was rolling the "r"s, using the original Spanish prononciation. I thought it would surprise, impress, and baffle the kids just like my raising one eyebrow and wiggling my ears, but lo and behold they all started imitating me and getting it right on the first try! There is no such "r" rolling in Korean, and it took me a long time to learn how to roll my "r"s when I was studying Spanish. For the life of me I can't figure out why the Spanish "r" was so easy for them when I have to correct these same kids constantly with the English "r". Any ideas, anyone?
Since that's really the only sound from Spanish that doesn't eist in Korean, maybe Koreans should give up the obsession with English and work on learning Spanish instead. |
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