Kicking it up a notch with 漢子 (Chinese Characters)

In some respects, Korean is the easy way out when studying an Asian language. Chinese has those dreaded “tones” which for a non-musical guy like me are really scary. Then there are the thousands of pictograph characters that must be learned. They aren’t letters. Japanese also makes use of the Chinese characters in a major way. Japanese is further complicated by having 2 completely different “alphabets” that are mixed along with the Chinese characters.

To the untrained eye, a Korean sentence like “제가 사과를 좋아해요” (I like apples) looks incredibly daunting, it really isn’t. Chinese and Japanese have a huge barrier to being able to read. Let me betray a secret of Korean: Learning to “read” is really quite easy. Understanding what you read is of course another matter….as it is in any second language. But in Korean, because the reading barrier is so low, one can easy move on to meaning, and the arch nemesis of grammar!

In middle school I studied Latin, which according to Mr. Dare (yes, that is really his name) is responsible for some 65% of English words. So, knowing Latin can really help improve your English vocabulary. Of course Greek also influences English, especially in science and medicine.

The relationship is similar between Korean and Chinese. 70% of Korean is derived from Chinese, and therefore, understanding some basic Chinese characters can really improve your Korean vocabulary. So I’ve bought a new book aimed at helping foreign learners of Korean master 500 of the most common and useful 漢子 in Korean.

You probably aren’t as excited about this as I am, but that’s OK… this is my blog after all.

KoreanClass101.com

You already know that I live in Korea. You probably know that I am working hard to learn the language. But you might not know how easy it is for you to get started learning the language! Visit KoreanClass101.com for a wonderful Korean language podcast. I feel like I’ve seen every website there is for learning Korean – and this is absolutely one of the best. It has been in full production for just a couple months, so it is easy to get started and up to speed. The staff is very helpful in responding to comments and questions, and there is an active user community in the forums to support your learning. If you want to learn Korean, this is a great tool to add to your arsenal.

Perhaps the best feature is that you will learn about standard and intimate politeness levels early on! Many textbooks, and some classes don’t bother to teach you the common everyday Korean. You will really hear Korean as I do in Seoul!

They asked me to join their blogging team, so from time to time, you can read about my linguistic and cultural experiences with the kids at the orphanage there.

Language story at someone else’s expense…

With as much Korean as I speak, I don’t really have any funny stories about using the wrong word and embarrassing myself. I do have one…but it is really rather bland. I’ll tell you about it and then share another funnier story about some other poor foreigners language faux pas.

I was in the kitchen of the orphanage one day searching for some chopsticks, so with my hands in the air I asked:

“손가락 어디에 있어요!” (son-karak awdi-ay ess-aw-yo
Which got a big laugh from the cook. It was then I realized I had really asked:

“Where are my fingers?”

You see, fingers is “손가락” (son-karak) and chopsticks are “젓가락” (cheot-karak)

Silly me….

But at least I’m not this guy:

A friend of a friend (OK, I know that’s lame..but the story is good) who was pretty new to Korea, and had gone to the grocery store in search of some salsa and chips. One thing that foreigners learn quickly is that there are a lot of Korean words that have been borrowed from English. So if you don’t know a particular Korean word, one possible solution is to use the English word, and it just might work. Especially if you pronounce using Korean pronunciation rules.

So, the guy finds a store clerk and proceeds to ask for the salsa. But he doesn’t speak any Korean, he pantomimes dipping chips into some chips into a bowl of salsa, and he says “SALSA, SALSA!” The clerk gave him a mortified look.

In Korean what he was saying was really “설사” (sawl-sa) Precise pronunciation is really very important in Korean, as s slight vowel change can completely alter the meaning. He learned that lesson. In English, it might be sawl-sa, or sall-sa, etc. In Korean it is ONLY “살사” (sall-sa) “설사” (sawl-sa) as it turns out is diarrhea . Notice the difference?! It’s really slight! So this poor chap thought he was showing the clerk dipping ships into a delicious crushed tomato sauce, but he communicated a very different message!