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Grammatical superiority of Korean | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5983 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 9 of 16 02 February 2009 at 9:04am | IP Logged |
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This thread prompted my discovery of The Passing of Korea online, which is old enough to be public domain. It's an utterly fascinating book! Even if I had no interest in Korea, it is worth looking at for its comments on Japan and China, wonderful typography, and the superior prose with which it is written; writing of a standard I don't recall running across in any modern books I've read. I have to look up words on every page.
Another nice thing about it was written before modern philosophies ushered in the era of political correctness and relativism and corrupted the style of all our history books. Edited by parasitius on 02 February 2009 at 9:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Deecab Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5946 days ago 106 posts - 108 votes Speaks: English, Korean* Studies: Mandarin | Message 10 of 16 10 March 2009 at 6:51pm | IP Logged |
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I can certainly believe that some languages may express certain mood better than other languages do but that doesn't make Korean superior grammatically, let alone holistically.
In English, we can express words like de-moron-ify and still be understood although it is grammatically wrong. Korean can't really do that effortlessly. What do we mean by superiority? The difficulty or the expressiveness? If we go by the former, Korean grammar is hardly anything compared to Slavic languages and even English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sebngwa3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6149 days ago 200 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Korean*, English | Message 11 of 16 25 January 2010 at 1:27am | IP Logged |
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I edited the original post to add the rest of the essay on Korean by Homer Hulbert. Edited by sebngwa3 on 25 January 2010 at 4:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6753 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 12 of 16 25 January 2010 at 10:18am | IP Logged |
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Japanese is also incredibly rich in modal constructions — second only to Korean, perhaps — and there are entire
books written about Japanese modality. While I'm not touching the subject of superiority, I can say that I think I understand what the author is talking about. A rich and intricate verbal system really makes it easy to attach complicated and nuanced meaning to even basic expressions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zooplah Diglot Senior Member United States zooplah.farvista.net Joined 6353 days ago 100 posts - 116 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: German | Message 13 of 16 06 February 2010 at 10:28pm | IP Logged |
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I detect a note of sarcasm.
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| sebngwa3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6149 days ago 200 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Korean*, English | Message 14 of 16 11 February 2010 at 8:41pm | IP Logged |
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I edited to add a section of the article right before the "The grammatical superiority...."
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| cm006j Newbie United States whitehindu.blogspot. Joined 5279 days ago 23 posts - 28 votes Studies: Mandarin, Hindi, Sign Language | Message 15 of 16 05 July 2010 at 3:15pm | IP Logged |
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I think the very reason to learn many languages is that they all do something better than others. They all have some area in which they shine.
Korean is better at some things and worse at others than English. English is better than some languages in certain aspects and worse in others. Same with every other language. It all evens out and leaves me with the idea that I would like to know every language there is! ETA: Sorry, I just realized that I'm in a special thread. I'm new here. I got excited to express my ideas, I hope that's okay. Edited by cm006j on 05 July 2010 at 3:19pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5163 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 16 of 16 27 September 2010 at 1:39pm | IP Logged |
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Can I write something?
Well, I must say I don't agree with this statement~~ Even though, I myself feel fascinated by korean grammar.. and its many gramatical endings. You can express many interesting subtle things. But... there are still areas in which Korean is irregular, or one construction i used to express two different things. for example transitive and causative verbs are very irregular :( 1 person has voted this message useful |
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