kangmi: learning korean

“Not like Korean, but very good”

I studied the listening section of the second lesson of Sogang’s Novice II tonight with 덕수. After I read through the dialogue, he said, “Not like Korean, but very good.”

Not like Korean? What was it like, Japanese? Arabic? Klingon? How could it be good—very good—if it wasn’t like Korean? He then explained that what he meant was “Not like a Korean, but very good. You talk like an American.”

In a recent Salon interview, Rachel Dewoskin talks about her language difficulties in China:

Often in China, I was embarrassed by my own difficult grasp on the language. For me, fluency and eloquence—these are the staples of my life. The thing I care most about is language. And I care very much about how words fit together and which ones I choose and other people choose. Grammar mistakes light up in my mind, as in Word. And so in China I just felt powerless in that regard. I had no nuance, and I had no ability to communicate subtleties, and I felt crippled by that. And in a way I’m grateful, because it was so humbling. Anybody who’s self-loving needs to take a trip out of his own language and try to communicate. It taught me more about the power of language and it taught me something about my own capabilities, the limits of my own competencies.

If I can still be taken down a peg or two, I’m not yet humble enough. 덕수씨, 고마워요.

Posted by kangmi on May 18, 2005 at 8:28 PM0 comments