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> In fact, learning English as a native Korean speaker, one of the greatest difficulty was asking questions - you can't just start your sentence and make it a q

> In fact, learning English as a native Korean speaker, one of the greatest difficulty was asking questions - you can't just start your sentence and make it a question later, you have to mentally pause, construct your question in your head, and then invert the first word! It took me years. This is quite interesting to hear, but I assume you mean that you always knew if you were going ask a question before you asked it. So the issue was the actual construction of the sentence itself? If not, there are plenty of ways to bail out of a statement midway through a sentence. - Korean is more efficient than English... right? - Korean is more efficient than English, isn't it? - Korean is more efficient than English? (raising intonation at the end)

yongjik 3y ago
In a sense, sure I guess my brain almost always knows whether I wanted a question or not - after all, native English speakers have no problem asking questions. However, it's hard to get used to it, when I've never done it before. It's like a habit. Imagine you make coffee every morning - after a while it becomes second nature and you don't even think about what you're doing, you just get up and mindlessly start the coffee grinder. Once in a while your girlfriend visits, and she wants milk in the coffee, no problem, I'll pour some milk on her cup at the end. And one day you have a different girlfriend, and she doesn't like coffee at all, so when she's visiting you have to make tea! So you just get up, start grinding the coffee, and half a minute later, "Oh damn, not again!" Even though making coffee and making tea take about the same effort, it just throws a wrench in your morning routine until you get used to it, which make take a long time. > If not, there are plenty of ways to bail out of a statement midway through a sentence. Sure you can also do it in English, but you can't do it as gloriously as in Korean, where you can start the same sentence and end up with: 한국어는 영어보다 더 효율적입니다. Korean is more efficient than English. 한국어는 영어보다 더 효율적...(read the room, oh no, bail out)...이라는 헛소리를 하는 사람이 다 있더라고요 하하하! => I found an idiot saying Korean is more efficient than English, ha ha!
burnished 3y ago
I suspect they meant what they said - you're probably used to deciding that your statement is going to be a question because you must in English. You are probably forgetting all of the times you have started saying something only to realize that you werent sure of what you were talking about.
threwaway35346 3y ago
Working with many IT workers from Indian origin, their English always frustrated me in that when they ask questions they won't say it in the interrogative form. It was always in the declarative. "We are deploying the code, right?" versus "Are we deploying the code?" "This is Boolean, correct?" versus "Is this Boolean?" Is this cultural, or are they afraid to ask questions? It's almost as if by stating the question in the declarative form they are hedging their doubt. As an American English speaker, I find this annoying. If you don't know, be bold to ask straight, don't doublespeak it.
- IIAOPSW 3y ago
  English actually has this one backwards. Just think about the concept of a question mark. You're already specifying at the end of your sentences "the preceding was a question". Some languages have a literal spoken grammatical word that functions just like a question mark at the end of a sentence. In Chinese this word is "ma" (specific to yes/no questions). Also in Chinese, the way to pose a more general question mirrors the answer you are trying to get. You just substitute the information you don't have with the question words who/what/when/where/why. Eg "The bathroom is where?" "The bathroom is out back". When you stop and think about it, its actually kind of strange for English to pull the question words to the front, completely changing its sentence grammar for this one particular use case. I can't think of any other context where you can pull the verb to the front, violating the usual SVO ordering. English is weird, they aren't being timid (I think), you're projecting an interpretation of how they phrase things which actually has a simple linguistic explanation.

yongjik 3y ago

In a sense, sure I guess my brain almost always knows whether I wanted a question or not - after all, native English speakers have no problem asking questions. However, it's hard to get used to it, when I've never done it before. It's like a habit. Imagine you make coffee every morning - after a while it becomes second nature and you don't even think about what you're doing, you just get up and mindlessly start the coffee grinder. Once in a while your girlfriend visits, and she wants milk in the coffee, no problem, I'll pour some milk on her cup at the end. And one day you have a different girlfriend, and she doesn't like coffee at all, so when she's visiting you have to make tea! So you just get up, start grinding the coffee, and half a minute later, "Oh damn, not again!" Even though making coffee and making tea take about the same effort, it just throws a wrench in your morning routine until you get used to it, which make take a long time. > If not, there are plenty of ways to bail out of a statement midway through a sentence. Sure you can also do it in English, but you can't do it as gloriously as in Korean, where you can start the same sentence and end up with: 한국어는 영어보다 더 효율적입니다. Korean is more efficient than English. 한국어는 영어보다 더 효율적...(read the room, oh no, bail out)...이라는 헛소리를 하는 사람이 다 있더라고요 하하하! => I found an idiot saying Korean is more efficient than English, ha ha!

burnished 3y ago

I suspect they meant what they said - you're probably used to deciding that your statement is going to be a question because you must in English. You are probably forgetting all of the times you have started saying something only to realize that you werent sure of what you were talking about.

threwaway35346 3y ago

Working with many IT workers from Indian origin, their English always frustrated me in that when they ask questions they won't say it in the interrogative form. It was always in the declarative. "We are deploying the code, right?" versus "Are we deploying the code?" "This is Boolean, correct?" versus "Is this Boolean?" Is this cultural, or are they afraid to ask questions? It's almost as if by stating the question in the declarative form they are hedging their doubt. As an American English speaker, I find this annoying. If you don't know, be bold to ask straight, don't doublespeak it.

IIAOPSW 3y ago
English actually has this one backwards. Just think about the concept of a question mark. You're already specifying at the end of your sentences "the preceding was a question". Some languages have a literal spoken grammatical word that functions just like a question mark at the end of a sentence. In Chinese this word is "ma" (specific to yes/no questions). Also in Chinese, the way to pose a more general question mirrors the answer you are trying to get. You just substitute the information you don't have with the question words who/what/when/where/why. Eg "The bathroom is where?" "The bathroom is out back". When you stop and think about it, its actually kind of strange for English to pull the question words to the front, completely changing its sentence grammar for this one particular use case. I can't think of any other context where you can pull the verb to the front, violating the usual SVO ordering. English is weird, they aren't being timid (I think), you're projecting an interpretation of how they phrase things which actually has a simple linguistic explanation.