We’ve Been Quietly Learning Korean. We Just Completed Our First Semester of Studying 한국어
If life were like Civilization V, this is the point in which King Sejong the Great would be getting the message from President Obama, “My people are buying your blue jeans and listening to your music.” The Kennon-Green household has given into the 한류. First, though, we need to back up so you have some context.
Many of you know about our shameless, on-going addiction to the insanity that are Korean dramas. I’ve told you about some of them in the past. Harvard-educated aliens falling in love with actresses. Secret birth histories that somehow end up involving stockholder meetings and inheritance fights. Freaky-Friday-style body switching. Time-traveling princes who have life-threatening allergic reactions to crab. They have everything. We fell in love with the language so much that we decided we didn’t want to deal with the sub-titles so in the midst of all of the other things we had going on in our lives, we restructured our almost non-existent free time to devote it to learning to speak and write Korean. Several months ago, we enrolled in Korean classes here in Kansas City. Once a week, we travel to the Korean Institute where we have a two-hour language class followed by a half-hour culture class where we learn about various aspects of Korean society and history. Only, we ended up not doing it alone, we talked my mom, my dad, one of my sisters, and my mother-in-law into going with us. If my other sister lived nearer, we’d have had her in it, too. (For my parents, it wasn’t hard because they also love Korean dramas but actually do significant amounts of business with Korean-based companies so it’s a fantastic expansion of their skill set that can benefit their businesses.) That way, we can all practice together.
The experience has been wonderful in no small part because of our amazing 선생님. She decided she was going to teach us phonetically so we could read first without knowing any of the meanings of words, which is how I learned English as a child so I’m thrilled with that approach. She assigns us lots of homework and makes it fun, often tying lessons to songs or physical movements. We are so blessed to have her as a teacher because she has a gift for teaching. My whole family adores her.
Anyway, this Saturday marked the end of our first semester. Throughout the semester, the pace was rapid enough that we felt like we were behind at times given we like to do things flawlessly – a difficult task given the launch of the asset management business, which consumes nearly every waking moment – but by overshooting, we ended up coming much further than any of us imagined. All members of our family received between a 97% and 99% on the final and we were taking it for granted that we were actually reading and understanding sentences. Yes, they were rudimentary, but we didn’t even know the alphabet a couple of months ago. For example …
That’s a picture of me going over my final exam practice pages in the car. It is incredible to me that I can now look at that page and not only make sense of it but complete it by writing symbols that, a few months ago, meant nothing to me. For example, number 18 says, “The eraser is on the desk” while number 19 says, “The dictionary is in the backpack”. (Or, if we are being literal, a close approximation might be “Eraser desk on not is” given the rules for word order are different but by learning the way we did, we tend not to run things back through English in our heads for translation, making it a lot more efficient.)
Sure, we have a tremendous amount left to learn – thousands of hours of study, in fact. Right now, our vocabulary is extremely limited, we don’t know many of the rules of grammar, the extent of the linguistic complexity you are going to get from me is something like, “안녕하세요. 자는 조슈아 케넌 이에요. 코카콜라 있어요?”, and our pronunciation is not at all where it will ultimately be but it’s hands down one of the most enjoyable things we’ve ever done. We’ve thrown ourselves into it because you can’t get better at something unless you are willing to make thousands of mistakes practicing. (Actually, in Korean class, we had to select a Korean name at the beginning of the semester so within the school, I’m 강민준 and Aaron is 안태준 since we liked how those names sounded.)
It makes me wonder how much of society is structured by the language we speak. In Korean, for example, there is so much hierarchy in behavior and spoken language compared to English-speaking countries where we speak to Presidents and Prime Ministers in almost entirely the same way we do homeless people, professors, doctors, or criminals. The words used to describe various family members in relation to one another are something we don’t really do to nearly the same degree as specificity in English. It’s fascinating to learn. It’s easy to see, now, how Bill Gates caused an international uproar when he ‘disrespected’ the President of South Korea inadvertently a few years ago through a totally honest mistake.
Besides that, we’ve studied Korean history, food, buying things from stores, and other activities meant to help us understand the culture. You can tell I am definitely my mother’s son because throughout the semester, she announced, “Why don’t we just do this right? Let’s go live in Seoul for six months and immerse ourselves.” If it weren’t for our business obligations at the moment, I would, though we could easily accommodate it given how we are reorganizing everything – I can read annual reports and deploy capital from anywhere. We do know that Aaron and I are definitely going to Korea in 2017 even if nobody else goes with us. We’ve been working on our preliminary lists of things we want to do in our head.
Truth be told, my personality is coming through, too. While I’m excited about the prospect of someday being able to watch Korean dramas without English subtitles, I’ve found myself pulling Korean annual reports and trying to work my way through them. I’m nowhere near being able to read the notes in any meaningful sense (the numbers, yes, and it’s largely unnecessary should I ever wish to make an investment for bigger companies due to English translations being available) but Aaron and I decided at the outset what has now become our mantra which is, no matter how long this takes, no matter the journey we travel given our time constraints, “this ends in fluency”. We’re already seeing a payoff. The image of the Maxim wrapper in the above gallery? The reason I included that was because it – that specific wrapper, which came from a package Aaron and I bought at a local Asian grocery store since I wanted to try and figure out why instant coffee was so popular in the Asian markets versus the domestic market – was the very first time I was able to read something in Korean. I got so excited I started yelling and doing a victory dance in the kitchen. The translation: “White Gold Coffee Mix”.
There’s also another major benefit to come out of this. We’ve discovered the joys of a local Korean-French bakery chain. In fact, Aaron and I grabbed breakfast there the morning of our regulatory exam to become representatives of Kennon-Green & Co. Turns out, while it may sound strange, a red bean doughnut is pretty good.
Reader Comments (25)
Comments are presented chronologically, with replies indented beneath the comments to which they respond.
JB
December 5, 2016
Congratulations on starting to learn Korean! A friend of mine was a Korean linguist in the Air Force and said it was one of the hardest things he ever did, so bravo! On a side note, let us know when you'll be having a meet-up in Seoul.
Kapitalust
December 5, 2016
Dear lord, you are going to be better at Korean than I am... and I'm Korean. Interestingly, or strangely, however you want to put it, due to immigrating to Canada at the age of 5, my command of the Korean language was permanently halted at the level of a 5 year old. I can speak the language and fluently understand the structure of how to verbally speak, but ironically, can barely read or write the language (as I did not keep up with developing that aspect growing up in Canada). While I carry no accent and have the loose structure of the spoken language intact in my brain, there is an embarrassing level of vocabulary missing; I often just plug in English words when speaking as I have no concept of what "advanced" words are or try to revert what I'm trying to say in, how do I put this, child's language. It's... interesting.
As to why I never developed the language skills beyond a 5 year old's level? My parents at first pushed to have me learn it. But as I got older and they got older, they got busy with work and life and my resistance to wanting to learn probably just made them give up eventually. This was psychologically due to the fact that as an outsider to a different culture, I hated feeling different. It was always and constantly apparent, implicitly and explicitly. I just wanted to feel normal. And how I ended up compensating was to shun my entire cultural history and absolutely embrace Canadian culture, specifically white Canadian culture. I grew up disinterested in my history, my language, and my culture. I literally had no Korean or Asian friends growing up. All of the friends I attracted were white or non-Asian. People would remark (and still sometimes do) about how "un-Asian" I was - in my talk, my walk, and the way I presented myself to the world. That would make me feel proud, which is kind of strange now that I reflect on it. I was trying (and perhaps still do to an extent) to be someone I can never be.
It took me a long time to understand why I grew up the way I did, realizing it in my mid-20s, and why I turned my back on my cultural heritage. I've slowly been trying to change as it is definitely not a healthy attitude to carry, yet it has become such an engrained part of who I am that it is hard to extract. A few years ago, my mom told me about how her future grandchild should be taught Korean and it made my blood boil. Only after settling down did I realize why my reaction was the way it was. It's a constant process to unlearn this mindset and behaviour.
Wow, I didn't think I meant to write something so personal when I started writing this. I had thoughts to scrap this whole comment as I am fairly private myself and it is not natural for me to share vulnerability and emotions very much, especially to strangers. However, I suppose I have written much and perhaps it will be of some use to someone.
Gilvus
December 5, 2016
Replying to Kapitalust
So...you speak Koreanglish. I speak Chinglish.
My (non-Chinese) SO finds it hilarious when I talk with my parents. "yap yap yap yap yap Obama yap yap yap Berkshire Hathaway yap yap yap dividends yap yap yap interstate commerce."
Kapitalust
December 5, 2016
Replying to Gilvus
That's basically me when I speak with my parents and anyone else who is fluently Korean!
Roundball
December 5, 2016
Well done. Next step- teach yourself Korean accounting and look for cigar butts like WEB did in 2004
Gilvus
December 5, 2016
Korean financials conform to IFRS, right? So you're getting a double whammy of non-native languages: English/GAAP --> Korean/IFRS.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Roundball
December 6, 2016
Replying to Gilvus
Yeah, from my 5 minutes of google sleuthing last night, looks like South Korea didn't switch to IFRS until 2011. So if you had the time and the drive back then to learn the culture and accounting, there were deals to be had.
BTW- is anyone else having problems posting images on Disqus? I keep getting a "you must be logged in to upload an image" error.
Also has anyone had issues with this website crashing frequently on iPhone Google Chrome? I've updated to the most recent version, restarted the phone and all the other usual & customary fixes.
Suh
December 6, 2016
How do you get so many things done, your energy is amazing.
Where do you get the motivation from,
I dont know if you have written about it before but i wanted to know how you deal with procrastination. It a huge problem for most people especially me.
I had started an online store and i was really motivated and worked hard then after a couple months got bored of it and find it difficult to work on it now and want to start other things
Same things happen when i try and read a book, i am really excited to just open it and start reading but when i get around 50 pages in, i just want to put it away and pick up another
How would you deal with this situation?
Pablo
December 6, 2016
It warms my heart to know that you are learning a new language! I've been picking up languages all my life so I now I can speak Cantonese, Mandarin, French, and Hebrew. Watching cartoons with same language subtitles (SLS), reading comic books, and singing karaoke in the language that I am learning has been very helpful for me. The subtitles helps me to pick up new words when the actors are speaking too quickly for me to understand. As well, I find that cartoons and comic books use colloquial and conversational language more often which will help to speed up your fluency in day-to-day speech. Finally, karaoke helps me to use three of the four language skills -- speaking, listening, and reading!
I wish you success with your Korean language studies. 🙂
lauren
December 6, 2016
It sounds like you've got plenty of practice material at your disposal, but if you're ever looking for more (especially at the beginner/intermediate level), the Pimsleur Language Courses are fantastic, and Duolingo is a decent supplemental site as well. (I don't have any professional association with either, but I used both when I was first learning German and found them tremendously helpful.)
Another slightly odd recommendation-- watch children's cartoons, particularly the sort that are aimed at the pre-kindergarten audience. Kids cartoons have simple plots are geared towards limited vocabularies, so they're great for listening to the language and learning how it's actually spoken, but on a less complex level. (I have watched far more Bob the Builder, aka Bob der Baumeister, than I care to admit.) There are a lot of foreign language cartoon dubs available on YouTube (though I'm not sure how many are in Korean) or alternately, the DVDs can be usually be ordered on the international Amazon sites. Once you get more fluent, Disney movies are also a good stepping stone from cartoons to "grown up" TV and movies. Good luck!
engineer7006
December 7, 2016
Tous Les Jour is all over the world! I've seen them in China, the DC area etc.
Find some Sul Bing if you can as well. Interestingly enough, I know the guy who has the US trademark for that.
Are you going to take one of the TOPIK tests? http://www.topikguide.com/topik-overview/ I've taken the equivlent exam in Japanese, the JLPT and used it as a motivator to continue my studies after I returned from living in Japan.
Steven
December 8, 2016
Would be great if you could go to Korea with the family for 6 months once the 'in person' part of getting the new business up and running is done. You may have purchased that new Jaguar a couple of years too early though..you will have to find somewhere for it to park and depreciate:)
Lml519
December 8, 2016
Hi Josh, what are your top Korean drama recommendations?
Harry Ramsay
December 9, 2016
Just wanted to see if I could help here - I don't know a lot about Korean specifically, but I have a couple of recommendations for language tools that you could use if you're looking for things to help speed you along. I would recommend Glossika (Korean link here: https://glossika.com/courses/fluency123/korean) for building spoken fluency. Essentially, there are approx. 3000 sentences built from data showing many of the most common and useful phrases, and it really helps to drill production of whole sentences and sentence structure to gain rapid fluency in the literal sense of the word (meaning, in this instance, clear and quick verbal production, the same way that drilling scales helps to develop muscle memory in music. It's essentially technique.)
I'd also recommend LingQ if you want to work on reading and listening skills. It's a subscription service (web app, plus mobile app) at $10 per month I believe. You can check out a limited version of it for free. You can translate words and entire phrases on the fly, and it really helps with getting a very data-driven look at exactly how many words and phrases you have in your vocabulary (and at exactly what level each one is), and you can read and listen to plenty of Korean content (including adding your own) and it can also help with things like making flashcards out of your new words, if you so choose. It also shows you exactly how long you've been listening, speaking, reading and writing per month.
(By a funny coincidence, the founder of LingQ - a pretty interesting gentleman called Steve Kaufmann - is also working on Korean right now. I believe it's somewhere around his 15th language...?)
Last one... iTalki is also a super helpful tool. You can find teachers online and take Skype lessons. I know you and Aaron are doing in-person classes, but building spoken fluency only comes through actually speaking, so you could supplement your classes with additional 30 minute or 1-hour sessions here and there if you're short on time (which, given everything I've seen on here recently, seems to be the case...) They could also help you with specific issues from your classes, if you have any.
I don't know if any of these will help, but hopefully you'll get a chance to check them out and see if they're useful or not! All the best, and good luck!
JT Lee
December 19, 2016
안녕하세요 저는 이 블로그를 정기적으로 읽고 있는 코리언-아메리칸 입니다. 조슈아씨에게 많은 정보를 배우고 있고 너무 감사하게 생각하고 있습니다. 저는 2015년 땡스기빙 후에 정보기술 컨설팅 사업을 시작했습니다. 그 후로 이 블로그가 참 많이 도움이 되었습니다. 조슈아씨와 아론씨가 한국말, 한국 드라마와 한국 문화에 관심있다고 하니 참 반갑습니다. 앞으로 한국말이나 문화에 대해 궁금한 점이 있다면 연락주세요. 다시 한번 감사합니다! 화이팅!
Hello. I'm a Korean-American who reads this blog on a regular basis. Joshua, I want to take this opportunity to say "thank you" for all the information that you've provided. I opened up my own IT consulting business shortly after Thanksgiving of 2015. After that this blog helped me a lot. It is very nice to see both you and Aaron are interested in Korean language, Korean drama and Korean culture. If you have any questions about Korean language or culture please don't hesitate to let me know. Thank you again! Cheers!
Kev
December 30, 2016
Oh wow. I'm looking forward to some Korean language blog posts in the future... will have to sort my laptop out so I can actually type Korean again!
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It's a fascinating country and language. If you go there for 6 months, you may well find yourself not wanting to leave 🙂
BTW talktomeinkorean.com has some fun lessons, worth checking out.
Also, great to see you posting again 🙂
Connelly Barnes
January 5, 2017
My wife and I are also into the Korean dramas...she is Chinese and they are quite popular in China. We previously watched My Love from Another Star but now are watching The Legend of the Blue Sea. Happy belated New Year!
Jennifer
January 14, 2017
Hi! Like JT Lee, I'm also Korean American, although unlike her, my reading and writing skills are way below hers. My speaking and listening skills are pretty decent, although not great, but I'm always trying to improve my vocabulary.
It's very impressive that you're learning about Korean culture, the language and the dramas, after all Korean dramas are a huge part of life even here in the states, my grandma watches them all the time, she gets DVDs from a Korean shop that lends them out for a dollar a disc.
You should also try watching Korean Variety shows, they're great for learning about Korean culture, as quite a few of them touch upon it from time to time, for example, there was a celebration about the Korean alphabet, a couple of months ago, and you learn about Korean history along with the people on the variety shows. One night and two days, Running Man, are just a couple that you can watch. Gag Concert is another show you should consider watching. I do have to warn you, Korean humor is all about body gags, hmm, translating that into English does not sound right, but well, they're very reliant on physical humor.
Should you have any questions regarding Korean anything, please feel free to contact me! It's always a pleasure helping people learn more about another culture. ^_^V
galacticduck
January 27, 2017
Pretty cool. I had a long-time girlfriend whose mother claimed to be a direct descendant of Emperor Sejong of hangul fame. She's got some kind of certificate to back it up, but...I was of course unable to read it. 🙂
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Kandice
February 24, 2017
My son is applying to high schools right now (private) and he's very interested in pursuing Mandarin at the schools offering it. I'm all for it. I think it's a wise choice for long term, global business purposes. Also Spanish, given we live in Texas and he's been learning Spanish since he was 18 months old.
SpikeyGuy
May 2, 2017
Culinary lures make the best entree to lure linguaphiles! The red bean, if same, can also be found in Japanese pastries.
But I'm actually writing here just to say I'd attempted to write you via your "Send Joshua" link, but it's not been working (no matter the browser or character count). Can you advise?
Maddy
July 17, 2017
What is the name of the Korean school you attended in KC? Is it the Kansas City Korean Language Institute?