|
 |
Korean is hardest! | ||
Tags: Korean | Difficulty | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| pmiller Account terminated Groupie Canada Joined 5674 days ago 99 posts - 104 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 29 25 June 2009 at 4:16am | IP Logged | ||
|
I thought this was interesting - from a student at DLI (U.S. Defense Language Institute):
"Right now only 8 Languages are being taught (for Navy). Category IV: Arabic, Chinese, Korean. Category III: Persian, Serb-Croatian, Hebrew, Russian. Category I: Spanish. Those are your only "options" and I have not received my language yet, but I did give them my top 3 selections of Korean, Russian, and Arabic. Everybody is telling me this about my selection: Korean I probably won't get because I only have a 103 DLAB (his score on the Defense Language Aptitude Battery/test. The maximum score is 176 and the minimum acceptable score is 85 for Category I languages (Romance, Scandinavian, Dutch), or 100 for a Category IV languages (Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese). Korean is the hardest language here, apparently it is 75 weeks long now, and they are trying to make it a Cat V language. Russian is hard to get because they don't really need too many Russian linguists anymore. Arabic, a lot of people get Arabic, and since it's in my top three, guess which language I'm probably going to get :). Arabic." http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/education/a/dliarticle_5.htm Edited by pmiller on 25 June 2009 at 4:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachgenie Decaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5709 days ago 128 posts - 165 votes Speaks: German*, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Flemish, Persian, Swiss-German Studies: English, Belarusian | Message 2 of 29 25 June 2009 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Do North Korea and South Korea have different dialects?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pmiller Account terminated Groupie Canada Joined 5674 days ago 99 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 29 25 June 2009 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes, they do. South Korea itself also has different dialects, with the one in southwest South Korea being notorious. The "standard" is the language around Seoul, and I think it's pretty much the same in the rest of the country, with the exception of the southwest region. North Korean language has changed largely due to political influences - different vocabulary & usage. Also, the North long ago completely did away with Chinese characters, whereas the South still uses them, although the trend is toward less use. That's about all I know - I'd love to hear more. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rmss Triglot Senior Member Spain spanish-only.coRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6564 days ago 234 posts - 248 votes 3 sounds Speaks: Dutch*, English, Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 4 of 29 25 June 2009 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I don't know how fair it's to say that Korean is the hardest language around (it also depends on the languages you already speak). If I look at GoldFibre's progress it's not impossible to learn Korean quickly; it all comes down to the method you use.
That's why I find Dr. Arguelles' claim of 10 years for Korean sounding ridiculous. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pmiller Account terminated Groupie Canada Joined 5674 days ago 99 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 29 25 June 2009 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||
|
You're right, it does depend on what languages you already speak. Korean is probably the easiest language for Japanese people to learn, since the languages are very similar grammatically and share many Chinese loan words (and similar culture).
But the rankings at FSI and DLI are for native speakers of English who don't know any other languages. As such, Korean seems to be the hardest (of the major languages taught, i.e., not including North American Indian languages, etc.) Dr. Arguelles claims you need 10 years to learn Korean? Hmm. Well, DLI wants to make it 75 weeks, which is almost a year and a half of full-time intensive study, roughly 10 hours a day, 5 (or 7?) days a week. And that's supposed to get you up to a proficiency level of about 3 (professional working proficiency) on a scale of 0-5, with 5 being native-level proficiency in speaking, listening and reading. Proficiency levels 4 and 5 cannot be attained through classroom study and take exponentially longer. Considering that very few people have the motivation or discipline to study like a DLI student on their own, maybe 10 years is about right? Edited by pmiller on 25 June 2009 at 2:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7077 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 6 of 29 25 June 2009 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | ||
|
From my experience, Korean is a language you can make a lot of progress in rapidly. But once you reach a certain point, the progress slows to almost a halt and that's where much of the time is spent; refining and enhancing what you already know to clear those final hurdles.
I would guess that to reach a level I dream of (TOPIK 6 and near-native speaking) is possibly going to take me another 2-3 years of semi-intesive study (probably half of that time will be in Korea as well). But as I say, it's semi-intesive.. meaning I will only actually consult a grammar or dictionary (or anything else associated with learning) about once a week - the rest of the time is spent just on normal life skills (watching tv, reading, speaking, writing). (BTW: another 3 years would mean 7 years of Korean for me; I first felt basically fluent in Korean after 2 years, then I changed my mind when I raised my standards, and reached my new standard after another year) Edited by andee on 25 June 2009 at 3:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5832 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 7 of 29 25 June 2009 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | ||
|
It would be interesting to have a look at the aptitude test. I don't suppose it's available on the net?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pmiller Account terminated Groupie Canada Joined 5674 days ago 99 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* | Message 8 of 29 25 June 2009 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Here's a description of the test:
http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/joiningup/a/dlab.htm ...and advice for taking it: http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/joiningup/a/dlab_2.htm 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
