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Thanks for the reply and mentioning the McGurk effect. Really interesting! Hmm, my teacher's husband said my pronunciation was excellent. I downplayed the co

by getsat 12y ago

Thanks for the reply and mentioning the McGurk effect. Really interesting! Hmm, my teacher's husband said my pronunciation was excellent. I downplayed the comment politely, and he said, "No, I'm serious. You have the best pronunciation of any of our students." I'm not really in a position to judge, though. I just copied the pronunciation/phrases/tone from men speaking in k-dramas I used when learning. None of the Koreans I tried to talk to in SK could speak English, even the young people. Perhaps they were just too afraid to try? The stares/glares also felt very unwelcoming compared to Taiwan and Japan, too. It's the only time in my life I have actually felt unwelcome somewhere.

sho_hn 12y ago
I should be clear that I'm definitely not trying to invalidate your experiences, because I don't really have any that compare, not having visited Korea just yet. I live in Germany, and the Koreans I meet here (we have a decently-sized local ethnicity, a multi-story culture center (http://www.kulturkorea.org/de/ http://www.kulturkorea.org/de/) and a significant Korean expat community (http://berlinreport.com/) http://berlinreport.com/)) are more likely to be attuned to and interested in dealing with Westerners, I guess. And any Korean acquaintances I've made online (IRC, Hello Talk, etc.) are in connection with language learning activities, so they're probably similar. The pronunication theory is based on my own experiences learning the language though (I e.g. found distinguishing and correctly producing some of the tense consonants vs. the basic versions quite tricky initially) and from Koreans admitting that it can be really hard to understand Westerners trying to pronounce their language. I think the above sort of hints at something though: If you're a Westerner curious about Asia, it's probably a good idea to try and make contact with natives who similarly have an appetite for relating to those foreign to them. No doubt there are Koreans not interested in dealing with Westerners; there are people like that everywhere. Doesn't mean you can't find your tribe somewhere in a 50 million people population, though. It's not like you like everyone back home either, probably. Gotta expect the same anywhere you go.

by getsat 12y ago

sho_hn 12y ago

I should be clear that I'm definitely not trying to invalidate your experiences, because I don't really have any that compare, not having visited Korea just yet. I live in Germany, and the Koreans I meet here (we have a decently-sized local ethnicity, a multi-story culture center (http://www.kulturkorea.org/de/ http://www.kulturkorea.org/de/) and a significant Korean expat community (http://berlinreport.com/) http://berlinreport.com/)) are more likely to be attuned to and interested in dealing with Westerners, I guess. And any Korean acquaintances I've made online (IRC, Hello Talk, etc.) are in connection with language learning activities, so they're probably similar. The pronunication theory is based on my own experiences learning the language though (I e.g. found distinguishing and correctly producing some of the tense consonants vs. the basic versions quite tricky initially) and from Koreans admitting that it can be really hard to understand Westerners trying to pronounce their language. I think the above sort of hints at something though: If you're a Westerner curious about Asia, it's probably a good idea to try and make contact with natives who similarly have an appetite for relating to those foreign to them. No doubt there are Koreans not interested in dealing with Westerners; there are people like that everywhere. Doesn't mean you can't find your tribe somewhere in a 50 million people population, though. It's not like you like everyone back home either, probably. Gotta expect the same anywhere you go.