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As some of you may know, I'm a language geek. If I spend enough time around a certain ethnicity, I get curious and start looking up their language and culture. I learned some basic Japanese in school, and took classes in Chinese while working at a Chinese computer company, because I just had to know what the conversations were that surrounded me every day. And it was a great experience. But for some reason, I'd known about Korean for many years, but never really got around to it, or had the need to. Until now.
We've all seen the stereotypes of Koreans, either as manic Tae Kwon Do stylists, overachieving students, surly shop owners, or makers of inexpensive cars. But as with everything, there's much more. After spending time with various local Koreans, seeing their local churches, and seeing a substantial amount of Korean in "Lost", I finally got curious enough to start learning the language. I didn't have a pressing need, just a persistent desire to know more. So I started with a phrase book, then read online resources, watched instructional videos, etc. And what I found is pretty cool.
Korean is grammatically similar to Japanese, but uses a lot of Chinese vocabulary. And my prior exposure to both those languages has been helpful. But I found out something else. Instead of using tones or long words to distinguish meanings, it uses a richer vowel set, including more "Germanic" vowels. And the native Hangul script is far easier to understand and pick up than Chinese writing. So it ends up being a sort of "easy Chinese". And when reviewing episodes of Lost that have a lot of Korean, I've noticed some nuances that didn't make it through translation to subtitles. The language is accessible and a lot of fun. I've used it on occasion with Koreans I've run into, and half of them are surprised that I knew some of it, and wanted to know how I was learning it. It's been rewarding, especially considering how little effort has been involved so far.
We've all seen the stereotypes of Koreans, either as manic Tae Kwon Do stylists, overachieving students, surly shop owners, or makers of inexpensive cars. But as with everything, there's much more. After spending time with various local Koreans, seeing their local churches, and seeing a substantial amount of Korean in "Lost", I finally got curious enough to start learning the language. I didn't have a pressing need, just a persistent desire to know more. So I started with a phrase book, then read online resources, watched instructional videos, etc. And what I found is pretty cool.
Korean is grammatically similar to Japanese, but uses a lot of Chinese vocabulary. And my prior exposure to both those languages has been helpful. But I found out something else. Instead of using tones or long words to distinguish meanings, it uses a richer vowel set, including more "Germanic" vowels. And the native Hangul script is far easier to understand and pick up than Chinese writing. So it ends up being a sort of "easy Chinese". And when reviewing episodes of Lost that have a lot of Korean, I've noticed some nuances that didn't make it through translation to subtitles. The language is accessible and a lot of fun. I've used it on occasion with Koreans I've run into, and half of them are surprised that I knew some of it, and wanted to know how I was learning it. It's been rewarding, especially considering how little effort has been involved so far.
