Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jkelly80]

I was wondering if anyone was aware of research/threads/websites that deal with problem areas that specifically relate to interference b/w English and Korean, whether in competence or production. If this has already been discussed, I apologize, but the search function leaves a bit to be desired.
Jim

[SPINOZA]

Can't help you with the threads/research/websites, but I can tell you problem areas:

* getting L and R the wrong way around.

Latin = "ratin" and rice = "lice" in many (but not all) cases.

Korean does have L sounds (but never at the beginning) but has no R at all.

* Getting F and P mixed up.

Place = "phlace" and funny = "ponny"

* I think there are two TH sounds in English (see 'think' and 'though') and Koreans cannot pronounce either, replacing with S (think = "seenk-uh"), or, in 'the', D (더, which is the Korean word for 'more')

* Putting schwa-like vowels on the end of words, like Italians (list = "leest-uh")

* Korean has two O sounds - one is like 'stop' and the other doesn't exist in English but "oh" gives you a rough idea. Words such as 'brought', 'talk' are very difficult ("b-roh-tuh" and "toh-kuh")

* Koreans - even advanced speakers - pronounce Z as J (thus zone = "jone")

* The 'sh' sound in Korean is ALWAYS followed by a vowel (usually "ee"), thus English = "English-ee"). An advanced Korean speaker with an excellent command of the language will think nothing of asking you "do you rike-uh peeshee?" (do you like fish?)

* Stress in English and the schwa rule needs to be taught - needless to say (unlike Korean) it cannot be deduced just by looking at it. The difference between 'rebel' (verb) and 'rebel' (noun)....difficult. Or "deepeecolt-uh".

* the TS sound in English ("it's") is pronounced as ㅊ in Korean, which is a cross between T and CH. So it's = "eetsch-uh".

* Korean has a very strict distinction between low speech (friends, children and family), regular speech and high speech and it's mostly all done via verb conjugation (speaking to the public or a boss requires super-polite verbs). Koreans mistakenly believe that because English does not share this system of honorifcs via verb conjugation that it follows English is a 'one level' language, thus even a Korean English teacher will say "give me water" with almost no appreciation of modal verb-use in English for such an occasion. To be fair, the Korean system of manners is much more straightforward and teaching Koreans not to say "give me a pen" or "come here" or "sit down" requires attention.

* Korean is generally much less syllabic than English, although you wouldn't think so at first.

* Korean has no V sound. It uses its B/P consonant to express V.

* Consonant clusters are difficult (ugly = "o-gol-lee"). 'Toast' written in Korean has 3 syllables, as does 'James'.

* Compared to Korean, English has hardly any difference between its vowels. The sentence "John is very tall" is very difficult to understand when said by a Korean.

I'm sure there are many more examples, Jim, but I must dash.

[SPINOZA]

And another one, Jim.....

I mentioned Korean verb conjugation above and its relation to levels of speech, but I didn't also mention, which would've been very helpful, that Korean does not conjugate verbs according to 1st, 2nd, 3rd person (at least as much).

So...I speak English/she speaks English/I spoke English/she spoke English...the same old mistakes occur with respect to person.

English also has a lot more irregular verbs. Korean does have some irregular verbs, but they are 'irregular' in a completely different way (ie. no connection with tense). See also give/gave/have given and numerous other verbs that have 2 irregular past tenses - it's all horribly difficult to many Koreans, especially kids.

[nobbyken]

I think Konglish is to blame for most problems.
This is the writing of English words using the Korean alphabet (or using english to write Korean words). The first effort said a lot of sounds wrong, so things are being changed on signposts and things.

The "ㄹ" character should be pronounced as R at the start of a Korean word, and pronouncede as L at the end.

Koreans write this simble for words beginning with L, so R is said instead.
Konglish makes cringe all the time. Thankfully the kids aren't as engrained as the adults.

[SPINOZA]

That's an incorrect definition of Konglish, Nobbyken. Konglish is when a word of English origin takes on a Korean meaning different from the original, like in 'service' or 'computer cleaning'.

ㄹ is almost an L at the beginning, definitely like L when two of them are together in the middle (몰라요) and also when at the end (서울).

It bears no resemblence whatsoever to an English R. The latter is made using the bottom lip and top front teeth, whereas ㄹ is made with the tongue.

[ChciPivo]

Try teaching a bit of tongue placement and exercises.

[cbclark4]

Sometimes the Korean Lial (I can't type Korean characters) makes an 'n' sound, as in the President of Korea or the name of some streets.

The Lial is not an 'L' or an 'R' sound is a unique sound. The tongue does
not touch the teeth, it touches the roof of the mouth. It's closer to the 'L'
sound than to the 'R' sound but will sometimes sound closer to 'R' sound
that we sometimes here in the middle of the word "Butter" or as some
prefer a rolling d-d-d-d sound.

Pronunciation drills of the following Comparitive sounds:

Think Sink (add sing and thing for more fun with ending sounds)

Fine Pine

Vote Boat

Link Rink