David Grajal

This is how a word in korean looks like:

The picture is taken from the wikipedia, don't ask me what it means

Do you think Korean is complicated? It is, but not as much as you can think.
Korean looks crazy because the alphabet is strange, but once you overcome that difficulty you discover is way simpler than all of the other asian languages. As happen in English, Korean language is extremely precise and easy to learn. The pronunciation is not difficult for native English speakers. The grammar is easy because Koreans don’t use articles. Verbal conjugations are extremely difficult but they are really difficult even for them so they will never expect you to conjugate korean perfectly.

Said that, the language is easy to learn for kids, probably easier than English or Spanish is. But for full grown people is different because learning a completely different language with a new alphabet and a whole new set of  vocabulary is difficult without the correct motivation.

In my case there were no clear balance between effort and results and I never tried hard to master the language. I just relied in some easy  basic sentences. This is all the basic korean you need to survive in Seoul using Spanish phonetics!

• ‘Hello’  ‘Ángyon jaseyo’
• ‘Bye’  ‘Angyógni jaseyo’
• ‘Yes’  ‘Nee’
• ‘No’  ‘Annio’
• ‘Thanks’  ‘Gansahamida’
• ‘You are pretty’  ‘No chámb iéputa’

They have an alfabet. Hangul only have 10 vowels and 14 consonants. They combine them in groups of two or three to create sillabes, and they join between two and four sillabes to form a word.

The only really complex part of the language even for Korean people are the different degrees of politeness when speaking with the people. And is not as simple as in spanish, where we use a bit more polite conjugations and pronoms when speaking in a respectfull way. No. Korean language change completely. Pronombs, verbal conjugation… the whole sentence change!.

They need to take into consideration age and status of the other person.  They need to know that information and that’s the reason the first question a Korean always ask is how old are you. It is completely normal for them to ask that question, which is considered extremely rude in our side of the world. This is a bit of cultural shock, specially for girls.

Do I speak Korean?
No, not at all. I can read at a very slow pace. But I didn’t develop a vocabulary so I although I can read, I can’t understand what is written. Reading is easy because once you have clear the alphabet in your mind and you are able to recognize each one of the characters is easy to read text.

The huge problem is the vocabulary. Is completely different to Spanish or English so I needed to memorize a complete set of new words from the beginning.

There is another problem on top of that. The sounds. Even Korean pronunciation is very simple (thanks god it is not a tonal language) I have a very hard time trying to speak the language. My mother tongue (spanish) has a extremely simple phonetics. That means that without extensive training I can’t make (or recognize) the sounds I don’t have in my mother language and Korean vowel sounds are quite similar to each other. There are a couple of consonants I have a hard time to pronounce too.

Do I speak Japanese or Chinese?

No way. In my last month in Korea I was learning basic Korean, Japanese and Mandarin meeting different people in lenguage exchanges. I can’t speak any of the languages but at least I know how to say hello in all of them and I can easily differenciate the languages when I see them written or when I listen people speaking. I also know enough of three languages to say that Korean is the easiest by far. Japanese is extremely difficult to learn because they use 3 different written scripts (Hiragana, Karakana and Kanji).  and Chinese has two problems. On one hand, they don’t use an alphabet but a symbol system that is extremely complicated. On the other hand Chinese is a tonal language, which means that they can say the same word with different meanings depending of the (extremely subtle) differences in the pronunciation.

After almost two months of living in Seoul, I frequently lose the notion of where I’m living until I leave home and I realize I’m surrounded by Korean script in the streets. Living in a country with an alien language is an extraordinary experience and is helping me to understand the world (even myself!) better than ever.

That’s how Hangul looks like

It’s not easy though, It’s specially frustrating when Koreans don’t understand super basic English or corporal language and it’s even worse when you don’t understand what the people are saying to you.

If I’m listening to very complicated English conversations and I’m tired, my mind starts wandering because I get lost. But here the problem is a bit different. The Korean guy can be saying something as simple as “do you want a bag?” in the supermarket or “Do you want a cup or a jar?” in the bar. And you don’t have any idea or what they are saying! It’s completely frustrating.

We are used to living comfortably in our country where we always understand everything, but when there is a huge language barrier, you need to put yourself in the place of the other and think: “If I were him, what I would say to me now?”.

Namdaemun Market

I’ve been always very easy going and open minded but everything reaches new levels when you need to speak with people whom you have basic communications issues with. Placing myself in the position of the other is a good way to discover the real me. Furthermore, I’m starting to question myself if it’s worth to use as many superficial words as we use when speaking our native language.

At least Korean people have lots of patience. If you try to speak or understand them in their own language, they are really nice. Even when you are trying to communicate with them in English they are nice. They are usually shy because they are afraid of making mistakes but when they open their mouths, they usually use perfect grammar and good pronunciation.

In contrast, if you are in Spain you can’t expect the people to even look at you a second time if you are speaking English or even if you are trying to speak Spanish with a strange accent… unless you have huge boobs! If that is the case, they will speak with you in Korean if necessary!