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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6232 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 9 of 14 08 September 2010 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've been listening to/watching Korean media for over 10 years now and I still can't do the language. Maybe after another 1,000 hours of listening my brain will finally "get it." :D I guess the crazy consonants in Korean wouldn't be too bad if the vowels were simple like those of Japanese, but the vowels are not easy, either, and there are at least 10 of them before you get into the dipthongs. Even this wouldn't be so hard if there weren't some words that were crazy combinations of vowels. And when a Korean pronounces them they will all be slurred together and you won't be able to distinguish them or reproduce them. So in conclusion. Korean: Cons - Super hard pronunciation of consonants and vowels - Super difficult to understand when someone is speaking - Lots and lots of homonyms - "Fake" homonyms (words that sound alike to you and me and other non-Koreans but are actually a little bit different, but only native Koreans can hear the difference) - Grammar is difficult, because it's like Japanese grammar except more complicated - In my opinion, many of the words are too short and difficult to pick out of sentences, especially considering that most of them are slurred and dipthonged together. Compare with Japanese where I never had trouble identifying a new word in a sentence. In Korean, it's possible (for me) to know every word used in a sentence yet still not understand the sentence. Even some words that look like they might be 2 or 3 syllables long and easy to identify become slurred into one or 1.5 syllables when spoken. - Up until recently, most Korean language learning materials sucked. I mean they were AWFUL. Spanish, German, Japanese, Russian, etc. they all have well-written and helpful books, but at one point in the late 90s I think I owned just about every Korean program on the market and they were all TERRIBLE. You're probably wondering "why were they so bad?" I could literally write a 5 page essay about everything that was wrong with them. Just trust me, anything that a language course could do wrong or counter-productively, they all did. I was super motivated to learn, yet constantly pissed off because none of the materials were helping me. I have notebooks full of notes that I took from these awful courses that were completely unhelpful. This has changed in the last 10 years, however. There are finally some decent ones coming out. And some cool stuff online, too. - Another comparison with Japanese: When I watch anime, I will often pick up new words through context. This is super cool and helpful. I have watched WAY more Korean TV than I ever watched anime, yet I have only learned 2 words from Korean TV, and I didn't know how to spell or pronounce either of them. (see the bottom note under "Pros" for the other side of this point) Pros - Super easy writing system that I swear is always fun to write - It won't take you long to be able to read, especially words that you know. To give a comparison, when I am reading Japanese I always read like a 2 year old sounding out every word, and it's not until I get to the end of a word that I realize "oh hey, I know what word I just said!" (assuming I know where the word ends; remember that Japanese doesn't put spaces between words) In Korean, I'll be reading along super slow like a 2 year old, but then it's like "oh yeah I know this word!" and I get all excited. - I don't know where you live, but living in Chicago and the Chicago suburbs, > 50% of the Asians I meet are Korean so you'll have a chance to practice if you want. Contrast this with Japanese. I've met 6 Japanese people in 10 years, one of which was in Japanese class with me in college and didn't speak the language. Even sushi bars are owned by Koreans. - There was a thread here a few years back about how to "fake" your way through Korean. I think someone said you just de-emphasize any non-stressed vowel and only pronounce the consonants. I don't know what the linguistic term is for that, so just change any non-stressed vowel to "uh" unless it's an emphasized syllable in which case you pronounce the vowel as written. Of course, the drawback of this is you still have to be able to pronounce the consonants correctly. If I recall correctly, the poster said he was able to converse with Koreans using this method. LOL. I swear I can speak Korean better when I intentionally try to slur everything together, although I haven't done any comparative trials with native Koreans. - (counterpoint to the last "con" example above): On the rare occasions when you do hear a word used on TV that you understand, it's an absolutely euphoric feeling of satisfaction :) But in all seriousness, most of the time, even if I recognize some of the words in the subtitles and think "I know those words in Korean!" I still don't hear them being spoken. Read posts by forum poster Aradaschir (possibly spelled wrong). That dude is a master language learner and speaks everything, yet even he said Korean was ridiculously hard, and only after living in Korea for 9 years and marrying a Korean woman is he finally starting to feel a little bit comfortable with it. I'm not saying give up. If you master Korean you rightly have a place at the top of the language learners hall of champions. Just know that it's not one of the "easy" languages. Yet there is something about Korean that pulls me back to try and learn it again every so often. Edited by IronFist on 08 September 2010 at 8:00pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5444 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 10 of 14 10 September 2010 at 3:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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Go to koreaninkuwait.com. Dude has basic/advanced fluency in two years. Korean isn't that hard to me, just activating it is the hard part.
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| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 5981 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 14 19 September 2010 at 9:01am | IP Logged | |||||
ㅏㅓㅗㅜㅡㅣㅑㅕㅛㅠ (ㅐㅔ) (ㅒㅖ) (ㅚㅙㅞ) ㅟㅢ 10 basic vowels and 9 diphthongs. 2 pairs and a trio are so close you could say they're the same sound. That makes 15 vowel sounds, derived from a mere 3 puzzle pieces, mind you. Same number as American English. http://faculty.washington.edu/dillon/PhonResources/newstart. html
All the other "cons" you mention are just side-effects of a lack of skill in any foreign language. This one, however, is shared by any language that was influenced by China in the past. One of which you study, seemingly successfully given your lack of complaints about it. I still don't understand why you devote long posts to complaining about your troubles in learning Korean and sign off with a bit of encouragement. The way you present it makes it sound like your own experience with the language is representative or most. It's as if you're a visiting policeman at an elementary school talking about how painful it was getting shot by criminals and paying hospital bills and working long hours with less-than-desirable pay, contrasting it with the relative ease of firefighting--which despite its supposed difficulty you sustained no injuries and retired with BETTER health than when you joined--and concluding with "but it's a good job" before thanking the teacher and walking to the next classroom. It's unfortunate that your brain seems to not respond to all your Korean input, but it will be more encouraging to beginners if you learned to separate that from the facts of Korean both as its own language and relative to others. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4973 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 12 of 14 13 October 2010 at 10:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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try sogang course, it's nice, they have sound files videos, everything.
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| jae Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5459 days ago 206 posts - 239 votes Speaks: English*, German, Latin Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, French | Message 13 of 14 17 October 2010 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I definitely agree with everyone about learning Hangul. This is a definite must, and learning it in the beginning will save you so much time converting words from Romanized script to Hangul later.
I visited Korea this summer, and before going I tried to teach myself a little Korean (Hangul, basic phrases, etc.). I just went to the library to see what they had, and I actually found the Teach Yourself Korean series to be quite good. Also, once you get to a more advanced level, there is tons of Korean media out there, from music to movies, etc. I'm really into subtitles instead of dubbing (and is there even English dubbing?) because then you hear what people really sound like when speaking Korean, but in any case, I really enjoyed watching Korean movies with English subtitles...even though I don't know enough Korean to understand what they're saying most of the time ;-) Korean is really a beautiful language though, so good luck! (I'm hoping to learn it sometime too). And keep us posted :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6234 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 14 of 14 17 October 2010 at 8:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's a bit of a misrepresentation. He's written a Korean textbook, and translated a book of Korean temple legends from Korean to English. The latter can be downloaded from his publications page. He also doesn't speak "everything", though he has an impressive range. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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