Korean classes in Korea

So I started taking Korean lessons about a month ago. We found out that there are free classes at the  Multicultural Family Support Center near our home . I didn't even take the placement test, because there was no way I could possibly end up in any other group than beginner, even though I have learned a thing or two over the past years. So here I am, taking two two-hour classes a week, plus a one-to-one extra class with a volunteer teacher. And I'm very happy I'm in the beginner group, because it's actually quite difficult for me to keep up already. There are about twenty students in my class, most of whom
1) are Asian women (from Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, or China)
2) already have a certain command of Korean, unlike me.

These two points don't make things easier for me. First of all, as suggested by the many signs in Vietnamese and Thai at the multicultural family center where the classes are held, the class and the textbook we use are designed for women from these Asian countries who married a Korean man. This could be explained by the high number of marriage agencies arranging international marriages between Korean men and women from Southeast Asia (whom the press refers to as "mail-order brides", see this article from the Washington Post). This doesn't mean that all my classmates' marriages have been arranged, but our textbook has clearly been designed to speak to these married women. So a lot of the vocabulary I learn and the situations described in the book are a bit far from the life of a French man in his forties. I also learned how to talk about my in-laws : 시아버지 and 시어머니, until Her pointed out to me that this is how women talk about their husband's parents. As a man, I should use other terms (장인어른 and 장모님), but the textbook doesn't even mention them.

Women are foreigners and men are Korean.

No French flag?

Just as a side note, I feel a little uncomfortable when I see how society and the family are described in that textbook. Basically, foreign wives like shopping and having coffee with friends, they take care of their in-laws and are in charge of all the housework while their Korean husbands bring home the bacon and never even help around the house. I can't help but find this a little stereotypical and outdated. I'm sure even language textbooks could play a role in the fight for gender equality in Korea.

What about sharing the housework?

Still, I'm learning a lot of basic vocabulary, useful expressions, and basic grammar (which can be quite a bit of a headache). I'm a diligent student and I'm getting good grades. The problem, so far, is that I am unable to reuse what I have learned in my everyday life, and my comprehension of spoken Korean is still terrible.  I can't recognize the words I have learned at school when somebody else than Her or my teacher uses them...

To make things worse, as I said earlier, many of my classmates know much more about Korean than me. That's where the shoe pinches. I understood that some of them already took that class last year, so they're not beginners per se. They can make sentences in less than five minutes. Or complete a drill before I have figured out what the instructions are. Some are even able to joke with the teacher, or even make phone calls in Korean. The problem is that with such a heterogeneous group the class is going fast...VERY fast! And I must confess that on a good day I understand about 25% of what's happening in the classroom. Plus, the teacher speaks Korean 90% of the time. As a language teacher myself, I find it great that the class is taught in the target language, which is the best way for students to make progress. But teachers sometimes forget how little the students understand. So I'm having a hard time trying to keep up in class and I have to review all my notes at home with Her to catch up with the group and not lag too far behind during the following class. Her is very helpful, even though she sometimes makes fun of me when I make mistakes. One in the picture below (which she even posted on her blog) is apparently very funny. Go figure...

So on the plus side, I can tell that I have made a lot of progress in one month, but on the minus side I'm also realizing how long it will take before I can actually communicate in Korean. I need to work on:

- my pronounciation and comprehension of sounds that are identical to me when they're not (allegedly). For instance 바, 빠, and 파 .
- my vocabulary : there are so many words that sound alike (or vey similar), and I'm really mixing them all up. When I learn a foreign language, I usually use mnemonic devices that help me remember the meaning of words, but it's difficult in Korean as words just sound so unfamiliar there's nothing I can associate them with.
- my grammar : when exactly do you use 이, 가, 을, or 를? Should I say 예요 or 있어요 (this one drives me crazy!)

- how to count : when  should I use "하나, 둘,셋, 넷,다섯" and when should I use "일, 이, 삼, 사, 오" , and why?
The list  goes on and on. And to make things worse, Korean has apparently seven different speech levels (not all of which are commonly used, fortunately). This means that assuming I can make a perfectly correct sentence, there's a chance it will still sound inappropriate to the person I'm talking to, depending on the situation. Sigh...

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy learning Korean. Class is fun, and it's good exercise for my brain. I'm always a bit upset when I hear five-year-old kids speak fluently, but I know one day I'll be as good as them!

With a little help from a wizard, maybe?

Getting to grips with Korean

I've been living in Korea for about six months, I've known Her for over five years, and yet, as I said in my first post on this blog, I can't speak Korean. It's not for lack of trying. But I must confess I should have tried harder. In fact I am eager to learn, but so far I have learned in a haphazard way, which means I know a few complicated things like conditionals but only recently have I learned the days of the week. This makes Korean a confusing language to me.

And yet, things had started off easy, as not everything is crazy complicated in Korean. Hangeul (the Korean alphabet), for instance, is comparatively easy to learn. It works exactly like the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). This means one symbol equals one sound. 

In French for instance, one letter can be pronounced in so many different ways. Not in Hangeul. So Korean is pretty easy to read. I remember an article in The Economist calling Hangeul "fantastically easy to learn"  which is not untrue, only slightly exaggerated.

So when I started "learning" Korean a few years back, I tried to read or decipher everything I saw, and I was surprised to see that oftentimes I could actually recognize the word(s) I was reading. That's because a lot of words you can see on signs or ads in the streets, are English words transcribed "phonetically." With one big difference though : Korean is a syllable-timed language, when English is based on stress and reduction. This is one of the reasons why Koreans tend to add an extra syllable when speaking English. They will also add syllbales to French words with silent vowels or final consonants. So for instance my first name in Korean changes from Vincent (2 syllables) to 빈센트 or "Bin-sent-eu" (3 syllables). Some people's names undergo even greater changes, like French writer Bernard Werber (4 syllables) who becomes 베르나르 베르베르 or "Be-reu-na-reu Be-reu-be-reu" in Korean (8 syllables). The "v" in my name and the "w" in Werber's become /b/ because /v/ and /f/ don't exist in Korean. Add to this the fact that the "er" (or /ɚ/) sound is often pronounced more like "or" (or /O:/) and you'll see why this famous tennis player's name  sounds a little different in Korea

로저 페더러 or 

/‘lQdZO: ‘pedO:lO:/

Here are a few funny ones that I have come across over the past years :

캐치 미 이프 유 캔 ("Catchi me ipeu you can")

도리토스 ("do-li-to-seu")

스파클링 (seu-par-keul-ling)

Tetris, aka 테트리스 ("Te-teu-li-sseu")

Mixing French and English : "Ca-mang-be-leu mo-shu-loom whoppor"

"on-to-cho-beul" (note that the name of one of the actors, Omar Sy (/si/) is pronounced /sai/ in Korean)

I haven't only learned the alphabet, I have also learned a few chunks that I can use in my everyday life, but at the end of the day I don't know much more than a two-year-old kid (I can say hello and goodbye, talk about eating, sleeping, and that's pretty much it). So in order to go a little further, when we were in France, Her had the very good idea of labeling all the furniture, appliances, and room doors in our apartment with their names in Korean. We also put up posters made for kids to teach them how to read or count. But to little avail. I ended up living in this apartment full of Korean words and signs without really paying attention to them.

화장실 = Bathroom

Having moved to Korea now, all this is far from enough for me to be able to live a normal life, by which I mean not having to rely on Her whenever English isn't enough to make myself understood. Last year, at the time of the Pyeongchang Olympics, I came across this ad at Incheon Airport.

I beg to differ...

Although the idea is great (multilingual information and assistance for foreigners), I really do think that not speaking Korean in Korea is a problem. I already mentioned emergency messages. I also hate it when I want to use this app to collect points when buying something and I get this pop up message and I don't know where to click so I give up on using the app unless Her is around.

That's why I have started taking Korean classes. There are free classes at the  Multicultural Family Support Centers in Busan ( https://english.busan.go.kr/bslearning ). Two classes per week, two hours each. I've been going there for three weeks now, so it's quite recent but I have already reached two conclusions : 1) I like it, 2) Speaking Korean will be an uphill battle... I'll post more about that in a while when I've found my bearings.

나중에 이야기하자!

Surmonter ses difficultés linguistiques en Corée

Ne nous mentons pas: je ne parle pas coréen. Il est vrai qu'au cours des cinq dernières années, j'ai appris quelques expressions grâce à  ma femme (elle s'appelle Elle, pour information), je peux "lire" -ou déchiffrer- le coréen (mais je ne comprends pas ce que je lis) et dire quelques choses fondamentales que seule Elle comprend . Les autres personnes ne semblent même pas se rendre compte que j'essaie de parler leur langue (pour paraphraser Mark Twain, il semble qu'ils ne comprennent même pas leur propre langue). Cinq mois après mon installation en Corée, je commence les cours de coréen, mais il faudra du temps, et beaucoup de temps, avant que je sois autonome sur le plan linguistique. Cela peut parfois être difficile ou problématique. L'autre jour, dans le métro, j'ai reçu un message d'avertissement sur mon téléphone. Les seuls mots que j'ai compris étaient "emergency alert". J'ai paniqué quelques secondes avant de remarquer que personne autour de moi ne semblait s'en soucier. Puis j'ai réussi à lire le mot important "masque" (마스크) et j'ai compris : ils nous avertissaient d'un pic de pollution, pas d'une guerre nucléaire ou d'un tsunami.

En dehors de cela, il y a beaucoup de choses dans ma vie quotidienne que je ne peux pas faire sans l'aide d'Elle (obtenir ma carte de résident, choisir un forfait téléphonique, ouvrir un compte bancaire, et ainsi de suite). Mais cela n'a pas vraiment d'importance, car je me suis rendu compte que l'on peut facilement survivre en Corée du Sud sans parler la langue. Beaucoup d'amis et de membres de ma famille me demandent comment je peux vivre ici quand je ne peux pas parler aux gens ou faire grand chose par moi-même.  Tout d'abord, l'anglais aide beaucoup, ne le nions pas. Deuxièmement, les Coréens sont très bienveillants envers les étrangers comme moi, et je ne me suis jamais retrouvé dans une situation où il n'y avait personne pour m'aider. Parfois, les gens m'offrent même leur aide avant que je demande. La première fois que je suis allé à la piscine de Yangsan (dont je parlerai plus tard), Elle a dû venir avec moi parce que je ne savais pas où aller ni quoi faire. Mais bien sûr, elle ne pouvait pas être avec moi dans les vestiaires. À un moment donné, alors que j'essayais de comprendre la signification d'un panneau, un homme est venu me voir et m'a demandé "Can I help you?" Ce n'est qu'un exemple parmi tant d'autres. De plus, beaucoup de Coréens me disent "Hello" ou "Hi" dans la rue, certains me demandent même d'où je viens (quand je réponds en mauvais coréen que je viens de France, on me répond habituellement par une référence à  Emmanuel Macron, Napoléon, ou Charles de Gaulle).

Pourtant, il arrive que certaines personnes m'ignorent parce que je ne parle manifestement pas coréen. Elle aime beaucoup quand quelqu'un qui distribue des tracts dans la rue nous évite pour éviter de me parler. Et il m'arrive très souvent de passer à la caisse du supermarché sans que la caissière ne dise un mot ou ne me regarde. C'est, semble-t-il, parce que beaucoup de Coréens ne peuvent pas, ou pensent qu'ils ne peuvent pas, parler anglais et la simple idée d'avoir à parler à un étranger en anglais les terrifie. Beaucoup de publicités télévisées pour les instituts anglais jouent sur cette peur, montrant des citoyens coréens transpirant à grosses gouttes quand ils doivent parler anglais. Jetez un coup d'œil à cette publicité :

La chanson (sur la mélodie de "Ring my Bell", par Anita Ward) dit "영어 마비". (yeong eo ma bi bi), qui signifie "paralysie anglaise". Et pourtant, si vous voulez mon avis, les Coréens ne sont pas aussi mauvais en anglais qu'ils ne le pensent, ou du moins pas pire que les Français, mais ça n'engage que moi. Bref, je ne parle pas coréen, tous les Coréens ne parlent pas anglais, mais j'ai Elle, les gens sont sympas, et on dirait que je vais me plaire ici !

Overcoming linguistic hurdles

Let's not split hairs : I don't speak Korean. True, over the past five years I've learnt a few chunks from my wife (her name is Her, btw), I can "read" -or decipher-  Korean (but I don't understand what I read) and say a few basic things that only Her understands . Other people seem to not even realize that I'm trying to speak their language (to paraphrase Mark Twain, it looks like they can't even understand their own language). Five months after I settled down in Korea, I'm starting Korean lessons next months, but it will take time, and a lot of it, before I'm linguistically autonomous. It may be difficult or problematic sometimes. The other day, on the subway, I received a warning message on my phone. The only words I understood where "emergency alert". I freaked out for a few seconds before I noticed that no one around me seemd to mind. Then I managed to read the important word "mask" (마스크) so the penny dropped : they were warning us of a pollution peak, not a nuclear war or a tsunami. 

Apart from that, there are a whole lot of things in my daily life that I cannot do without the help of Her (Getting my Alien Registration Card, choosing a phone plan, opening a bank account, and so on). But it doesn't really matter, as I've come to realize that you can easily survive in South Korea while being Korean-illiterate. A lot of my friends and family members back home ask me how I can live here when I can't talk to people or do much by myself.  First of all, that English helps a lot, let's not deny it. Second of all,  Koreans are very kind to foreigners like me, and I've never found myself in a situation where there was nobody to help me. Sometimes people even offer their help before I ask. The first time I went to the swimming pool in Yangsan (which I'll post about later), Her had to come with me because I had no clue where to go or what to do. But of course she couldn't be with me in the locker room. At some point, as I was trying to figure out the meaning of one sign on the wall, one man came to me and asked "can I help you?" This is just one example out of many, which makes me feel more comfortable than most people would expect. On top of that, a lot of Koreans say hello or hi in the street, some even ask me where I'm from (when I answer in broken Korean that I'm from France, the usual response I get is something about Emmanuel Macron, Napoléon, or Charles de Gaulle).

Still, it happens that I'm ignored by some people because I'm obviously not a speaker of Korean. Her likes it a lot when somebody who hands out flyers in the street shuns us to avoid talking to me. And it happens very often that I check out at the supermarket without the clerk saying a word or even looking at me. This, it seems, is because a lot of Koreans can't , or think they can't, speak English and the mere idea of having to talk to a foreigner in English terrifies them. A lot of TV commercials for English institutes play upon this fear, showing Korean citizens sweating bullets when they have to speak English. Take a look at this funny Korean commercial : 

The song (on the melody of "Ring my Bell", by Anita Ward) says "영어 마비" (yeong eo ma bi), which means "English paralysis". And yet, if you ask me, Koreans are not as bad at English as they think, or at least not worse than French people, but that's just me. In short, I don't speak Korean, not all Koreans speak English, but I have Her, people are friendly, and it looks like I'm going to have a good time here!