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Why do Koreans speak such good English? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Adamdm Groupie Australia Joined 5438 days ago 62 posts - 89 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Dari, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 9 of 27 18 February 2011 at 11:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, I' like to corroborate the original poster's sentiments - when I was doing work experience for a TESOL Grad. Dip. in the mid 1990s, the one Korean student in the very multi-national class had better English than the teacher - certainly more grammatically correct. This was a student born in, educated in, and going back to, Korea.
A sample size of one, perhaps, but I was quite impressed at the time. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Romanist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5283 days ago 261 posts - 366 votes Studies: Italian | Message 10 of 27 18 February 2011 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
What on earth was this student doing in an ESL class, if he/she already knew English better than a professional English teacher!? (Seems like a waste of time to me!) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Yurk Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5731 days ago 29 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Azerbaijani Studies: Modern Hebrew, Sign Language, Korean, Spanish, Indonesian, Irish Studies: French | Message 11 of 27 18 February 2011 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Just wanted to echo what others have already said. Most of the Koreans I know who came to the U.S or Canada after age 5 or so have pretty bad English, actually. Only exception to that would be some of the exchange students I know. The Chinese exchange students and Korean exchange students I know all have a decent level of English, although their pronunciation isn't always that great.
As for those who do have good English who weren't brought up in an English speaking environment, I wouldn't say it has anything to do with hangul. I don't really know what you mean with Chinese people approximating English with characters, but I really don't think whatever writing is used is all that relevant to their speaking abilities. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5650 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 12 of 27 18 February 2011 at 9:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This is one of those topics where a "lolwut" is enough to constitute a reply.
There are good ones, average ones, and awful ones in terms of English speaking ability. Last time I spoke to my Korean mom (6 years ago) she still had an accent, after living in English speaking environments for 15 years. Understandable, yeah, fluent, no. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5449 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 13 of 27 20 February 2011 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
Did your mom interact with mostly other Koreans or did she actively try to speak English? I made effort to speak only English outside of home, even to other Korean American kids, and now my English is pretty much like a native language, while my mom who interacted mostly with Koreans is still at a basic level of English. By the way, 6 years seems like a long time to not talk to your mom. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Adamdm Groupie Australia Joined 5438 days ago 62 posts - 89 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Dari, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 14 of 27 21 February 2011 at 1:00am | IP Logged | |||||
Fair question! I expect he was disapointed in his expectations. The class was in Australia, and he had to stick with it for the visa requirements. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Thantophobia Groupie United States Joined 5163 days ago 49 posts - 66 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 15 of 27 28 February 2011 at 2:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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Because Koreans are freaking geniuses. They study for hours at school, and hours into
the night too if they actually want to pass, and they have few if any vacation time during school. It's why they do all the complicated jobs that no one else wants to do. Nobody gives them enough credit. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kappa Groupie Japan Joined 5521 days ago 99 posts - 172 votes | Message 16 of 27 28 February 2011 at 9:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree that Koreans are really diligent. I've heard a lot of times that the university they go to decides their future career so everyone tries to get into a better college studying until late night at a cram school or something. There may be a tad bit of an exaggeration. Well but I believe this doesn't mean that they are superior to other peoples. If they speak decent English or any other foreign language, then, that means they have earned it. Just because the ones you've met speak horrible English or even can't say hello in the language, that certainly doesn't mean the same thing applies to the rest. It all depends. There are people that speak English really well, also those who don't, I believe.
Such a shame though, we also are really eager to learn a foreign language (Actually it's just English.) English education is such a huge industry in Japan. Some people spend a lot of money on some aggressively advertised materials, which, apparently, have not been proven to be any better or more effective than a lot more cheaper, ordinary courses. :/ There may be those people who think they can buy "efforts", eh. Edit: Removed some sentences that obviously were irrelevant and I didn't need to say. Probably I am not supposed to write anything here unless I, 1) learn some decent English, 2) have something to say that's really informative, 3) am pretty much wasted and have nothing to lose thus am not afraid of anything (e.g., getting banned.) I'll be careful. Edited by Kappa on 01 March 2011 at 8:50am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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