As with any second language learners, Koreans face considerable difficulty with learning English, a language very much unrelated to Korean. This is something many of us, particularly at universities with large numbers of Koreans or at companies where there are a large number of Korean employees, face every day. But what specifically causes the difficulties? We will explore this topic and more in this paper.
First of all, it is important to note that while English is an SVO language (Subject, Verb, Object), Korean is SOV (Subject, Object, Verb). This grammatical ordering alone can lead to confusion and jumbled order of words. It takes exceptional skill for the language learner to successfully learn and master this very basic difference, even though it is often exceptionally important in terms of conveying meaning and comprehension.
Phonetically, there are a number of differences between Korean and English that cause Korean learners to have difficulty with the sounds of English. One famous example, often made fun of in comedy involving Koreans in America, is the frequent confusion of /l/ and /r/. Both sounds are entirely absent in Korean (and other languages, such as Mandarin Chinese). They are also very closely related, and therefore, for someone unfamiliar with their use, can seem interchangeable. The two sounds that native English speakers perceive as “‘th”, /ð/ and /θ/, are also entirely absent from Korean. This can lead to substitution with phonemes that are found in Korean, such as /t/ or /s/. This is actually a problem for most second-language learners of English, regardless of native language, because of the relative rarity of /ð/ and /θ/ in languages the world over. Other consonants notably absent from Korean but existent in English include such staples of English as /b/, /d/, any labiodentals (/f/ and /v/), /z/, all the post-alveolar sounds (tʃ, dʒ, ʃ and ʒ), /j/, /w/, and /x/ (not present in all dialects) to name a few. Compared to a lot of language pairs, this is a massive phonetic deficit from the start that has to be learned from scratch in order to replicate the sounds of a language at a native level. In addition, Korean has a number of phonemes that don’t exist in English that might be substituted incorrectly, such as tense /p/ /t/ and /k/ or post-alveolar /t͡ɕ/. Korean also devoices nasal consonants in some cases, which is rare in English.
In terms of vowels, Korean lacks many that are present in most dialects, including Schwa, /ɜ/ and /ʊ/. It also has a multitude of diphthongs that are absent in English and could cause potential interference of the L1 with L2 production, producing sounds that simply do not exist in English.
Allophones existing in Korean can also cause difficulties. As mentioned above, Korean de-voices nasals in some situations; this is not done in English. On the other hand, English has allophones that are also non-existent in Korean. Aspiration of voiceless stops at the beginning of a syllable, for example, is not required. At the same time, at the end of a syllable in Korean, /s/ voices to /t/. This is not by any means the case in English. In Korean, voiceless stops become nasal stops before nasal stops, basically turning them into geminates; in English, this does not occur.
There are also some rules in Korean which require insertion of sounds in front of others. This is a concept well known in Linguistics, and often demonstrated in L2 English with the classic example from Spanish involving “school”. Spanish does not allow word-initial /s/ in this context, and so it is often rendered by Spanish speakers as “eschool”. Korean does so as well with some -eseo/-seo (-에서/-서) constructions. While the “seo” sound is not common in English, it is merely an example of how the rules of the L1 can interfere with production in the L2.
Korean is also a very formal language, with seven honorific verb forms to be used in different situations. Since English, in modern usage, has only one, this could on the one hand make it easier for a Korean to use English verbs as an L2 speaker than it would be for an English native to learn the complexities of the 7 verb forms in Korean and their various uses; at the same time, it could also make it difficult for the Korean learner to adapt to the relative informality of English, and cause them to feel uncertain using ordinary verbs in some situations.
Another area in which confusion can arise is in odd usage of certain English loanwords in Korea. In much the same way as the Germans call a cellular phone a “handy”, the Koreans also have English loan words whose usage would confuse a Native English speaker. For example, they call mechanical pencils “sharps”, and apartments are merely “aparts”. To the unknowing Korean speaker in the United States using these terms without knowing the difference in usage and merely thinking they are Americansims, confusion can certainly arise (most Native English speakers would not immediately recognize what was intended by “aparts”, and “sharps” are most often used to refer to needles in American usage, for example).
While Korean is one of the most distant languages from English, this should not be seen as any reason to consider these challenges insurmountable. To a large extent, the fluency of the learner depends on their particular aptitude for language and on their own commitment to learning it. One major area we have also focused on in this paper, as well, is phonology. But some may debate its importance overall once basic comprehension by the listener has been achieved. For example, Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s former Secretary of State, was a native German speaker, and while he spoke English fluently, he never learned Native English phonology. This did not appear to make very much of a difference in his career. The same can be said of Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann; as long as they were understood, their accents were largely ignored because of their accomplishments, despite the many decades all spent in the United States. A non-German example is also presented by Zbigniew Brzezinski, native Polish speaker and National Security Advisor to American President Jimmy Carter. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that there are basic advantages to learning the phonetics and grammar of your L2 flawlessly, because of the psychological effect this will have on those you are speaking to; they will not see you as “the other”. Therefore, it should be emphasized that, while this paper seeks to explain the differences and the difficulties they pose between the two languages, it is not necessarily saying that they HAVE to be addressed, merely that there would be a benefit in certain circumstances to addressing them, particularly for speakers who plan to live and work in the L2-speaking country long-term.
In conclusion, it is clear that while there are significant differences between English and Korean, there is nothing in these differences that cannot be looked at specifically by L2 learners of English from Korean and addressed on a specific level. While learners of any L2 face specific challenges stemming from their L1, we have identified the specific challenges Korean presents. Now it is up to the learners to incorporate them into their language study program.
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