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Why do Koreans speak such good English? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| russellballard Tetraglot Newbie China Joined 5135 days ago 16 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 27 17 February 2011 at 4:53am | IP Logged |
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I may be completely mistaken, but I have many friends who were born and raised in Korea but ended up coming to
university in the US, and their English isn't just idiomatic but essentially unaccented. I've noticed this among Koreans I know in Beijing as well and I found it to be a pretty significant contrast to most Chinese and Japanese speakers of English that I know. I was wondering if there is any underlying linguistic reason for this, I thought perhaps it had something to do with the Korean alphabet being more comprehensive phonetically--whereas I find Chinese people sometimes use chinese syllables to approximate English words-- but I really am not sure. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6380 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 27 17 February 2011 at 5:10am | IP Logged |
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I think you are completely mistaken. I've met many Koreans, and their English ranges from very good to terrible just like any other group of non-native English speakers..
12 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5101 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 3 of 27 17 February 2011 at 6:02am | IP Logged |
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I have to agree with the poster above me. Their English is about as good as anyone's.
The Koreans I know speak very good English because they were raised in America, but that's probably not what you're talking about. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Leurre Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5426 days ago 219 posts - 372 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Korean, Haitian Creole, SpanishC2 Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 27 17 February 2011 at 8:03am | IP Logged |
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Man yeah... Most Koreans I've met had a surprising low level of English for the amount of
time they spent studying it. Most Korean university exchange students that I have met, it's true, had a pretty 'normal' level: good pronunciation, decent fluidity. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 5 of 27 17 February 2011 at 1:05pm | IP Logged |
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Koreans are in general more willing to study and work abroad than the Japanese, so that
might explain some of the discrepancy. But make no mistake, here in Korea very few people speak English proficiently. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| polyglHot Pentaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5067 days ago 173 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 27 17 February 2011 at 4:10pm | IP Logged |
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Koreans aren't great at English.
Dutch, Norwegian, Sweedish, Danish and Israeli are. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| palfrey Senior Member Canada Joined 5274 days ago 81 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 7 of 27 17 February 2011 at 4:27pm | IP Logged |
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This may be a good excuse to re-post one of my favourite language learning accounts, that of The Korean. Though he may not be representative of Korean learners of English in general, to judge by the other posts in this thread. Edited by palfrey on 17 February 2011 at 4:28pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| yawn Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5427 days ago 141 posts - 209 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, FrenchC2, SpanishC2 Studies: GermanB1 | Message 8 of 27 18 February 2011 at 10:31am | IP Logged |
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I wouldn't be so quick to make blanket statements (like you have in the title of your opening post). As a current
resident of Southern California, I've come into contact with plenty of Korean immigrants to the United States, and the levels of familiarity with the English language vary greatly depending on the person. Some of them still speak very poor English despite having lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years (as in the case of my friend's mom), while others are essentially indistinguishable from white Americans (as in the case of my friend herself). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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