Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Julius]

Its just seems wrong to deliberately mispronounce English words in that often silly-sounding korean way in order to be understood. Surely koreans should be trying to standardise themselves to the international standard of pronunciation, not thinking I'm wrong for saying an english word correctly?

I go into the shop and ask for marlboro lights" to a blank look. After several repetitions her face springs to life "ahhh...marrol-bawroh-lite-uh???!!
Umm...yes, indeed. And some pottuh, purheemah, choko, koppee, and cheejhuh"

I mean if I meet Italians, I assume their pronunciation of spaghetti, piano and tagliatelli is the correct one and seek to copy it. Its their words, after all.

[cdninkorea]

If the speaker is one of my students, I will correct them. Otherwise, if I'm in a store or whatever, I'll speak it the Korean way.

[sojourner1]

Yes, I live in an ecopolis and call those red bugs with black spots, "Lady Byrds". LOL

[RACETRAITOR]

I was just on the phone with a student who was talking about her "apart elevator." I pretended I didn't know what she meant, asking questions like "apart from what?" Finally she clued in and said "apartment elevator."

[ella]

There's nothing wrong with pronouncing words like Koreans, we're in Korea, for goodness' sake. I think it's inevitable, anyway. I always ended up using Indian pronunciations when I lived in India.

Edit: I don't speak Konglish in the classroom, of course; I meant when you're out and about.

[RACETRAITOR]

When you're teaching English you should try to correct them. "Otobai" or "arubaitu" may work for them but if they want to use English they need to know how to speak in English.

[jajdude]

In the shop? Well, do you suppose that store worker cares about the correct pronunciation when 99% or so of the customers are Korean and they always say "Diss uh" for "This" cigarettes? You just have to use Konglish to be understood sometimes. I prefer not to as well. A funny one years ago in a small town: A guy I knew took a cab and said "KFC" -- nope, the driver could not figure that out. "Kay Ep See" maybe would have worked.

[dogshed]

One of my adult teacher classes brought up Konglish.

I told them I don't like the term Konglish. Konglish implies
it is a special kind of English. I told them I consider words
like remocon and pension to be Korean words and they
should also see them as Korean words.

We also talked about how many English words come from
other languages and how in English the words often have
different meanings than the original word it came from.

In my student classes I always tell them that handphone
and remocon are Korean words. I suppose the idea I'm
trying to get across is that the word is not wrong it just
isn't English.

[bourbon street]

from a linguistic standpoint lest we not forget that all language evolves, changes, and gets modified. regarding konglish, i would recommend that you use your best judgement based on the situation. needless to say, you will want to use proper pronunciation with your students. however, when bouncing around seoul ordering cigarettes, coffee, shopping, whatever, it only makes sense to use whatever means necessary to communicate your point, even if it means speaking konglish.
and of course the bottom line is that at the end of the day, who really cares anyway? do what you can with what you've got.

[mehamrick]

Yeah I learned this the hard way when I first came here. It took me six cabs of WAL-MART (back when it was here) before one of them went ohhh WAL-MART uh ...

I say outside of the classroom conform or go f*#in crazy trying to get anything.

[jajdude]

[mithridates]

Dogshed is right, once people take a word from another language and use it amongst themselves it becomes their own word. Piano is a great example. Soft. I play the soft.

[twg]

I speak normally.

And I don't teach outside of the job. So if I come across someone using Konglish, I ignore it.

[billybrobby]

[billybrobby]

And while I'm on a rant....I think a lot of people fail to realize that English is a status symbol in Korea. With a certain degree of imprecision, it demarcates the wealthy and priviliged. It's a surer status symbol than a Gucci bag or a nice watch. It shows that mommy and daddy probably had time to send you off to Whitey Land to play with the natives for a year or two whilst the less fortunate were working through school in covenience stores.

Years ago, I heard about an actress who came from an ordinary family but became the trophy wife of the priviliged son of a conglomerate owner. The women in the son's social circle thought the actress was declasse so they would only speak in English around her (which she didn't speak *giggle*), to isolate her and remind her of her lowly upbringing. The story might be fake, but it's always struck me as a perfect parable about the underside of Korean wealth.

So if you think it's pretentious to when English speakers pronounce French words correctly to other English speakers (ah, gay Pah-ree!), you can imagine the mixed feelings Koreans have towards English pronunciation.