Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tomato]

I have wondered how so many Korean preschoolers learn to read before they start first grade.
You may say, "They teach reading in preschool."
That may be part of it, but even the kids in English preschools learn to read Korean.

Maybe the efficiency of the Korean language has something to do with it. It is probably easy for preschoolers to learn that each little square box represents a syllable.

Today, a cute little yoochiboo sat in front of me in the library. She had one of those children's books which had one picture for each word and one word for each picture. She looked at the word for "toothbrush," pointed to the first syllable, said, "ĩ," pointed to the second syllable, and said, "��." She looked at the word for "toothpaste," pointed to the first syllable, said, "ġ," pointed to the second syllable, and said, "��."

I wondered whether she was really reading the words or whether she was responding to the pictures with the knowledge that one square equals one syllable.

Even if she was only matching squares with syllables, I am sure that it will be a feasible step to learn to tell those syllables apart. If English syllables were similarly encapsuled, English-speaking preschoolers could probably do as well.

A drum roll and a fanfare for Sejong!

[dg611]

[Scary Gary]

What do you guys think about hangeul? It doesn't take very long to learn, so I guess it has its advantages. Sometimes i'm suspicious that it is kind of boring and limited though, but maybe I'm just a biased anglophone.

I get tired of my adult students telling me that Korean is the BEST language in the world. But I don't get tired of asking them to name any internationally famous Korean literature, poetry, etc.

Thoughts?

[joe_doufu]

[djsmnc]

I met a kindergartener once who could read words in English well, but had trouble pronouncing it. He could speak Korean well and complain to his mother, but couldn't read a single character.

[Scott in HK]

[excitinghead]

[Sleepy in Seoul]

Yes, hangeul is easy to learn - although I can only speak with experience about learning it as an adult - but English is not that difficult either. I didn't go to kindergarten, my mother preferring to have my brothers and I at home. By the time I was old enough to start primary school I was not only able to read, but I could write in cursive as well. I don't remember exactly, but it was years before other children my age were taught cursive. Why should children not be able to read and write as early as possible?

[EFLtrainer]

[thekingofdisco]

[tzechuk]

My husband has never said that Hangul is the best language, but he has said that it is the most scientific... which I agree. Having said that though, I also find Hangul a little stupid because the words themselves have no meaning, they are just sounds. 80% of Korean nouns are from Chinese, so the hangul characters are merely sounds of these Chinese words.

For example, the word *won* can mean dollar, circle, finish, garden etc.

I asked my husband how he knows what the hangul characters represent and he said they know through context. This is why learning to understand Korean, especially literature, difficult.

[EFLtrainer]

[tzechuk]

EFLtrainer, in English, you KNOW what each word means. Each word has a meaning - ok, may be several, but you know what the word means even on its own. Like the word for the unit of money - dollars. You know it is money. Can you say the same thing for *won*?

This is not true for Korean. With Korean, one individual word could just about mean ANYTHING. Like the example I gave above, the word *won* could mean dollar, round, finish, institute etc.. etc.. You won't know which Chinese character it is referring to unless it is contextualised. This is the reason why, hard as they try, they still have to put Chinese characters in paratheses in writing (look at Korean newspapers), so that people know what they really are trying to say.

[Son Deureo!]