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What makes Korean so difficult? | ||
Tags: Korean | Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| crackpot Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6345 days ago 144 posts - 178 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 37 05 October 2008 at 12:31am | IP Logged |
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Hi all,
A few weeks ago I went out for dinner with two Korean friends and we got onto the topic of languages. I asked them why Korean is so difficult, as I'd heard this many times. They told me that conjugation is as simple as simple can be, that there's no plurals or no articles, that it's written with a 24 letter alphabet and that it's phonetic. Later I started wondering what it could possible be that makes it so hard. Does anyone out there care to give me a little insight into this one? Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6480 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 37 05 October 2008 at 1:25am | IP Logged |
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Erm.. what you need to realise is that actually, Korean conjugation isn't simple. We don't change our verbs according to the subject, but we change it according to everything else out there. Same goes for adjectives. Plus, there are honorifics.
We may have a rather phonetic alphabet, but it's not 100% phonetic, which means that you will not be able to hear a word and write it down. Furthermore, the regular, tense and aspirated consonants are said to be very tricky for foreigners to differentiate. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6483 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 3 of 37 05 October 2008 at 2:59am | IP Logged |
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What makes Korean difficult:
1) Pronunciation, especially (but not only) the tense consonants. 2) Almost everything that makes Japanese difficult: an entirely different way of building sentences (with grammatical particles, and a flexible word order quite different from that of English), and a complicated honorific system. Both are more elaborate in Korean than in Japanese. Furthermore, there's an entirely different cultural background, and different way of slicing up the world. I can't say that these examples apply to Korean, but in Japanese, 'nomimasu' is usually translated as 'drink', while it actually means any kind of swallowing without chewing. Hence, you 'nomimasu' most pills, for example. Similarly, the word for 'nose' includes the concept of beak and elephant trunk. This type of reslicing of reality takes a while to get used to. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Hollow Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States luelinks.netRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6583 days ago 179 posts - 186 votes Speaks: French*, English*, SpanishB2 Studies: Korean | Message 4 of 37 05 October 2008 at 7:52am | IP Logged |
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Honestly, without saying that I speak Korean well (though I've gotten better) I think Korean conjugation is the easiest aspect of the 'grammarish things' component. Honorifics, i don't know why people stress over, they're relatively easy for me to input correctly in a sentence.
No, what makes Korean so incredibly hard for me is indeed: pronunciation, and the fact that simply knowing words or phrases is never enough. One has to know when to use what (In what circumstance do I use the Sino-Korean word for 'face', and when do I use the Korean? Is it ever more proper to say 찬물 than 냉수?)- sorta things 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Deecab Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6005 days ago 106 posts - 108 votes Speaks: English, Korean* Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 37 05 October 2008 at 1:50pm | IP Logged |
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The real difficult thing about Korean? I guess lot of things what people say about Japanese not including Kanji.
With Korean you're not going to hear correctly in lot of situations if you haven't heard the phrase in a particular way before. What I'm very dissatisfied with the way Koreans speak is that they will change words and pronunciation the way they want. A girl can say 이거 좁아 (eegeo joba) but could have meant 이거 줘봐 (eegeo jweobwa) or the other way around. To me, who grew up speaking the language, I would naturally think the second one despite her easy-way-out pronunciation but I can get confused especially when the context implies that both are very possible. That's just the nature of our language, I suppose. Even between native speakers, there are so many "I didn't hear you properly" question. I am not sure if this is the case with other languages. I rarely have a problem like this in English unless the person let's say is speaking black English. And while Hangeul is extremely easy, you won't always be able to spell correctly just by hearing a word. Knowing how to use correct vocabulary and phrases in different situations of course is another matter. Honorific, as I've mentioned in another post, is also not easy to apply properly. But all in all, I think Korean is not hard but rather different from English. Edited by Deecab on 05 October 2008 at 1:53pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ChrisWebb Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6307 days ago 181 posts - 190 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean | Message 6 of 37 07 October 2008 at 6:09am | IP Logged |
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I think for an English speaker there are a number of things that make Korean difficult, some intrinsic to the language and some not.
The first thing that makes Korean difficult is pronunciation, this is a greater problem when speaking than listening but seriously affects both. The only real solution I can see is consistent work ( preferably with a native speaker ) on learning to hear and produce the differences. I know in Prof Arguelles recommended approach he would have us blind shadowing as the first step, I can't help thinking that ingraining sounds that we may well not be hearing accurately is not likely a good idea, I personally think it would be best to take some silent time to learn to hear the language accurately before ever attempting to speak it. Grammar is also a problem but I think this is really aggravated by the fact that teaching materials are not consistent with each other in which politeness level ( if a single level is even chosen ) to teach first. My personal feeling is that 'yo' forms should come first and many texts do adopt this approach.... Unfortunately a whole load more will have you speaking ultra politely instead which makes it hard to progress quickly using multiple courses. Honorifics are sometimes introduced too early, they just complicate what is complicated enough at the beginner stage and I think as a learner Koreans will be pleased enough that you are trying to speak that they will forgive the odd slips in this area ( that has been my experience ). I am not saying you dont need to learn honorifics merely that it should be done later rather than sooner. Vocabulary is a problem. Too many books and courses just give you great lists of words you are expected to memorise without any real hook into helping with memorisation or understanding of word formation. Some learners turn to Hanja ( chinese characters ) to help with this but to me that looks like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut with, what I think is actually needed is for teaching materials to try and give an understanding of word formation in Korean. Once you know that snot is literally nose-water or that tears are eye-water it gets a whole lot easier to remember these words and Korean is logical and consistent enough that vast tracts of vocabulary can be successfully approached in a similar, if not always quite so obvious, fashion. For an English speaker idiom is a difficulty too, Koreans simply express reality differently than we do, sometimes it can be quite surprising to see those differences. The biggest problem is however, in my opinion, the quality of Korean learning materials ( most courses have serious problems in one area or another ) and the difficulty and expense involved in obtaining native materials at anything lower than a pretty advanced level is a barrier. I think both of these problems are improving but they remain serious obstacles which I think will not really ease very much over time. In the case of learning materials there is too much legacy already and in the case of native materials insufficient demand in the west. Edited by ChrisWebb on 07 October 2008 at 6:13am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6230 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 37 07 October 2008 at 7:37pm | IP Logged |
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What is difficult for me?
Pronunciation is actually not that much of an issue for me, surprisingly enough. Yeah a Korean will ask me from time to time to repeat a word, but often times this is NOT due to individual letters being incorrect. It's more an issue of pitch and intonation. Take the word "비빔밥" as a concrete example and compare it to "곤기밥." Honorifics give me troubles because I was not trained to use them in the beginning despite the fact that they are CRUCIAL on a daily basis to sounding like a native. I am at the point that I may need someone to help fix that actively. Grammar is no trouble for me since I learned basic and intermediate Japanese and embedded it all into my head. The only grammar that poses a problem is the kind that shares meaning with basic grammar, except that a slightly different mood is expressed, but that's a more advanced level, I suppose. I will absolutely agree that vocabulary is often dropped on you like a commercial break in textbooks. Lists just do not work for some people, and putting them into textbook format without using them more than say, once, is absurd. More recordings and more readings please! I think the most difficult aspect of Korean is listening. As Deecab said, verbs and adjectives sound slightly different depending on how they are conjugated so you need to hear the same word in 3-4 different ways sometimes. It's ridiculous. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| nhk9 Senior Member Canada Joined 6848 days ago 290 posts - 319 votes Speaks: English* | Message 8 of 37 11 November 2008 at 1:19am | IP Logged |
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I thought I would highlight a problem for many of us trying to learn Korean.
Try to look at the following: 이쁘다고 배운가? 이쁜 걸로 치면 텐 프로 테려다 연기 시켜야지. 진짜 이쁜 애들은 거기 다 있더만. How many of you can claim to understand the above (when given its context) 100%. Remember, we're talking about people speaking at a very quick pace (due to their ppalli ppalli culture), with pronunciation sometimes off (e.g. 이쁘다, with a lot of slang and contractions (있더만), and a word that has mmm, 10 definitions in the dictionary? (치다... not kidding, just go to naver.com and try to search up this word) By the way, the above was taken from the script of a recent drama broadcast in Korea. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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