Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Rapacious Mr. Batstove]

Last night I was ordering mulnengmyon for dinner. I was trying out a new food place close to where I live. I said 'mulnengmyon hana jusaeo'. I do self study Korean and my pronunciation is OK, but not excellent.

I was met with a confused 'huh?' by the ajumma. I repeated more slowly 'mul neng myon ju say yo'. Another confused 'huh'. Now I'm getting agitated so I repeat again 'muul neng myon'. Ajumma pipes up 'ahhh, mul NENG myon'. I felt like saying "yup thats what I just f ucking said, moron".

What is it about English when even a gurgling alcoholic Korean businessman with kindy level English can be generally understood but a clear voiced foreigner with average Korean speaking slowly is met with vacant looks?

It makes me feel like the Korean language is like an MS DOS system, cold and unforgiving. An entry with the slightest syntax error is met with 'invalid command or file name'. How come with pronunciation, one can be so close yet so far from being understood?

[Poemer]

This drives me crazy too. It doesn't happen too often, but when it does. . . I mean, even somebody who isn't trying can pronounce 참치김밥 correctly. I just think to myself, "look around lady, where are we, what might I be saying-- you can do it, just put the pieces of the puzzle together."

I think it happens because some Koreans just can't imagine that a foreigner might be speaking even the most basic of sentences in Korean. It takes them a while to understand that what they are hearing is their mother tongue and not a series of inarticulate grunts that should be ignored until whitey gives up and leaves.

And, in all fairness, they don't have as much practice decoding. English speakers are used to hearing their language spoken in an endless number of accents, so it's easier for us.

[skdragon]

tolerance to ambiguity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguity_tolerance

[RACETRAITOR]

I'd really have to hear your pronunciation. A friend of mine told me this story recently. He lives near some place whose name I forget. Let's call it 하남 because that word has the same problem. Taxi drivers can never understand him, so he ends up yelling at them "Han-nam!" all nice and slowlike so they'll understand. I think you can see where the mistake is here.

A lot of times it looks to us like if you make a mistake on a single letter, it shouldn't make a difference in pronunciation. For example, Ogeum vs Ojoom, or jagi vs jaji. What's the big deal, you may ask?

But English is the same way. Substitute one letter and you can sometimes say an entirely different word. If a Korean walks into a bar and asks for a pill, the bartender will be confused (unless Pilsner is on tap).

[n3ptne]

The problem is two fold:

1.) It isn't exactly what you say, it's how you say it. The tone, inflection, pace, and volume all factor in.

2.) In Korean, there are tons of different words, that to us sound pretty much the exact same.

Oh... and try leaving out the "mool" part, just say neng myun joo say yo....

[albazalba]

That's so funny, I know exactly what you mean. It is really frustrating, because actually I don't believe they can't understand because when I go out with other Koreans and order something, everyone can understand me perfectly except the waitress or waiter. Of course it doesn't happen everytime but still, it makes you wonder what they are thinking. If they don't understand I'll usually reply with something like 백인도 한국말할 수 있어요!
I used to feel like I wanted to try and change Korean people's assumptions about foreigners but I know now that it's obviously impossible. All you can do is keep trying, but this is definitely a very frustrating thing about learning Korean.
Another funny thing is whenever I meet Korean people for the first time and have any sort of conversation with them, they always answer my questions to the nearest Korean person, they will never look at me when responding because I guess they assume I won't understand. I find it's always best to ask people why they act this way and they will quickly realize how strange it is what they are doing. But it's always an uphill battle.

[billybrobby]

How is 물냉면 pronounced anyways? Like Mullaengmyun or Mulnaengmyun?

[SPINOZA]

[billybrobby]

[Alyallen]

Happened to me on Sunday when I went to go to the movies in Seoul. I have a jeolla accent when I talk and this woman didn't get what I said AT ALL. I wanted to go to a movie at 12:20. She gave me a ticket for first 8:20, then 2:20 and then finally 12:20.


But I have to wonder because I even showed her on her watch and she still got it wrong. Sometimes (perhaps) the person you are talking to might be slow and be unable to take into account an accent?


Sometimes cabbies don't understand where I'm going even though I've been saying the same phrase for over a year. Perhaps some of them are hard of hearing, in my opinion.

I guess the lack of ambiguity would be the most likely culprit though...

[Rapacious Mr. Batstove]

[Rapacious Mr. Batstove]

[Rapacious Mr. Batstove]

[billybrobby]

[Rapacious Mr. Batstove]