Korean Job Discussion Forums

t bear · Joined: 24 Aug 2003 Location: south central rok

This has probably been done before, but I was trying to fing the most difficult english word for koreans to say.
So far I think FRIVOLOUSLY is the hardest Ive found.
Also SPECIFIC and ANEMONE are quite dificult, these two are difficult for more than just koreans though.
BARBARIAN can also be quite hard aswell.

Eunoia · Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2004 6:49 pm Post subject:

Rural. Heck, even I have trouble saying that one.

SuperHero · Joined: 10 Dec 2003 Location: Superhero Hideout

There is no such thing as the most difficult, but I think we can come up with a number of words that can be classified as a group as the most difficult of some such thing.

My personal favorite combination is

library rivalry

riverboy · Joined: 03 Jun 2003 Location: Incheon

For the youngins-Luler
My high school kids had difficulty with Juvenile. They thought it was Javelin

Ilsanman · Joined: 15 Aug 2003 Location: Bucheon, Korea

try 'crisps'

osangrl · Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Location: osan

for the youngsters again it has to be:

afartment

john · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

Th = da

Short i = long e

s = shhh

kangnamdragon · Joined: 17 Jan 2003 Location: Kangnam, Seoul, Korea

"Tiger Woods would play golf early in the morning if he would roll out of bed at the sound of the alarm."

LK · Joined: 28 Jul 2003

"ROLLERBLADING". For some reason it's difficult even for my grade 3 middle school students.

schwa · Joined: 18 Jan 2003 Location: Yap

Most Korean learners cant pronounce the y in year or yield.

Likewise w in wood, wool, wolf.

They have a lot of trouble not adding a syllable to words like months, fifth, sixth.

Out of context, girl is often unrecognizable.

Have them pronounce folk -- that usually has amusing results.

ryleeys · Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Location: Columbia, MD

The hardest word in my experience with Koreans must be "a"

Something about saying, "I want a pencil" instead of "I want pencil" hasn't clicked with a single student I have between the ages 6 and 16... non of the other teachers can say it either.

SuperHero · Joined: 10 Dec 2003 Location: Superhero Hideout

Zed · Joined: 20 Jan 2003 Location: Shakedown Street

"asks"

Zyzyfer · Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 3:22 am Post subject:

I've gotta agree with wood and year being the hardest words to say. I can always Konglishize bigger words into something that the students can say.

mithridates · Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 4:23 am Post subject:

Parallel's pretty hard.