The Language

The level of English fluency on the street is rising in Korea, but it's still very low and gets worse the farther you are from Seoul. Many people who do know English are shy to speak it— if you're a Canadian, you likely learned some French in school, but try using it now in a conversation! For your own sanity, you need to know at least a little emergency Korean for when you go out. At the very least learn some Hangul so that you can read a restaurant menu or a bus sign— and so that you don't look like a total clod to others. It's obvious that you're a foreigner, and you will never be expected to be fluent, but no one appreciates someone who makes no effort to learn your nation's language in any country. And Koreans, especially, are grateful for even the most halting attempts.

Purists will notice that my spellings of Korean foods are more phonetic than standard, if there can be said to be a standard. There are at least two systems of representing Korean characters into English, and mispellings abound anyway. When I first came here I was confused and thought Busan and Pusan were different cities! They're just two ways of spelling the same one, just as you will see Jeju and Cheju.

Apparently, whether Koreans want to admit or not, they genetically derive mostly from southeast Asia and not the Mongolian steppes. The language is a different story. Most linguists think that Korean descends from Mongolian and not from Chinese— although the influence is strong, just as Latin influenced English, a Germanic language. It's a difficult language for English speakers, although I would say that Japanese is even harder and Chinese is more difficult to learn to read because of its non-alphabetic system. There are few instantly recognizeable words in Korean, and the grammar is very different from Modern English. It lacks the massive vocabulary and variety of expressions of English, although there is a healthy literary tradition of poetry and philosophical writings in Korean. Koran can also be more compact than English. Pronouns are normally omitted and articles (a / the) are unnecessary.

Modern English has only one level of respect (you), but Korean has numerous levels based on relationships. Koreans often ask lots of personal questions to a new person, partly because (I think) they are inquisitive people, but also because they need to know what grammatical level of respect to use in order to not seem rude. The most common involves a -yo ending on verbs, and when you first hear Korean you seem to hear a lot of yo, yo, yo all the time.

Korean is an aggultinative language, whereas English is analytical. What this gibberish means is that English builds a statement by putting words in order (The dog bit the man) whereas Korean makes a statement by adding the parts together: (Dog-object-man-subject-bite-did).

Early Koreans spelled their words using Chinese characters, but around 1446 scholars under the famous King Sejeong created a writing system for Korean ex nihilo. It is one of the only true alphabetic writing systems in Asia, and Koreans are justifiably proud of their efficient and phonetic Hangul. It isn't hard to learn, even for lazy people like me, and the written words are mercifully lacking in the exceptions and silent letters that English has. Many Korean scholars of the time snobbishly thought that Hangul was too easy to learn, even for mere women, and that Chinese was a more sophisticated writing system.

I learned Hangul by noticing that the characters slightly resemble the shape your lips make when you say them. Modern Korean writing does borrow from English, though, in its left-to-right arrangement and in the punctuation marks. One other nice thing about Korean is that, unlike languages such as Vietnamese, you don't have to worry about pitch. And unlike English, all syllables are unaccented— that is, they are equal in volume. You need to remember this so that you are understood. It's our natural tendency to emphasize the first or second syllable in words, and that accenting will confuse Koreans. English says "We went to the beach," saying some words slowly and others very quickly, but Korean does not so much; it is not a stress-timed language the way English is.

The standard form of Korean is the Seoul dialect. There are many regional variants. As a beginning speaker, you don't need to worry about this as the dialects are mutually intelligible, although people do complain that Jeju Korean is very distinct and sometimes hard to make out, and refugees from the North are also said to have an antiquated and hillbilly vocabulary and pronunciation. I first lived in Busan and my wife is from there, and so my Korean has lots of Kyeongsan dialect expressions. You should know when something isn't standard, but Koreans often find it amusing and endearing when foreigners use dialect, particularly if they're from that area of the country.

Many learn-to-speak Korean books are crap, in my opinion, and are either out of date or simply list complex translations of phrases without teaching any grammar. Some of the university texts are better. Roadmap to Korean by Richard Harris is very good. Pick up phrases from students or friends. Look at some internet learning sites such as Transparent or Learn-Korean.net, for a start; or watch the cheesy but light Let's Speak Korean show on Arirang TV, which is also available on YouTube. You can, of course, use my tutorial, which is aimed at the bare beginner so that you can learn some necessary utterances. I've learned more from my students and from websites than from books, with the exception of Harris' work.