Strange Korean
I've been taking Korean classes lately.
Seeing how I want to make the most of my time before my job starts in September, I've decided to do the things I've always wanted to do, but will never get to do it once I begin work. Learning Korean is one of them, because I love to learn about other languages and cultures, and putting that knowledge to use by communicating and befriending people of various nationalities. Furthermore, my hometown of Coquitlam and the rest of Vancouver now has more Koreans than Korea, and some of them don't even speak any English. Thus, I would surely come across Korean clients, and speaking their language would surely improve me and my firm's relationship with them.
And finally, I love it when people light up like a flaming Christmas tree when they suddenly hear you speak their native tongue.
Right now, after spending weeks on writing and pronunciation, we are finally at the stage where we start learning grammar and how to construct basic sentences. Unfortunately, just making our entrance into the realm of grammar means that our capability to carry out an everyday conversation is wholly inadequate. Therefore, I couldn't help but wince as my class practices the downright weird dialogues from the textbook, which translate to:
Now as a former English teacher myself, I know how difficult it is to produce a normal, everyday conversation for the purpose of illustrating the use of very simple and preliminary grammar points to utter novices. In fact, I'm also guilty of producing a few odd practice conversations myself...but nowhere this bad. But then again, one probably should not write off such verbal exchanges as utterly useless.
After all, I never know when I suddenly find myself engaged in a dialogue with a Korean who has severely impaired cognizance.
Seeing how I want to make the most of my time before my job starts in September, I've decided to do the things I've always wanted to do, but will never get to do it once I begin work. Learning Korean is one of them, because I love to learn about other languages and cultures, and putting that knowledge to use by communicating and befriending people of various nationalities. Furthermore, my hometown of Coquitlam and the rest of Vancouver now has more Koreans than Korea, and some of them don't even speak any English. Thus, I would surely come across Korean clients, and speaking their language would surely improve me and my firm's relationship with them.
And finally, I love it when people light up like a flaming Christmas tree when they suddenly hear you speak their native tongue.
Right now, after spending weeks on writing and pronunciation, we are finally at the stage where we start learning grammar and how to construct basic sentences. Unfortunately, just making our entrance into the realm of grammar means that our capability to carry out an everyday conversation is wholly inadequate. Therefore, I couldn't help but wince as my class practices the downright weird dialogues from the textbook, which translate to:
A: Is this a book?Or little gems such as this:
B: No.
A: Then what is it?
B: It's a bag.
A: What is this?Oh, trust me. It sounds stranger in Korean.
B: It's a bag?
A: Whose is it?
B: It's mine.
A: It's very pretty.
B: Thank you (you insincere dickwad).
Now as a former English teacher myself, I know how difficult it is to produce a normal, everyday conversation for the purpose of illustrating the use of very simple and preliminary grammar points to utter novices. In fact, I'm also guilty of producing a few odd practice conversations myself...but nowhere this bad. But then again, one probably should not write off such verbal exchanges as utterly useless.
After all, I never know when I suddenly find myself engaged in a dialogue with a Korean who has severely impaired cognizance.
posted by Cosmic Ocean at 11:54 PM
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