Another example of why I don't speak Korean

Well it's Seolnal here in Korea. I won't type that word again because it is my least favourite Korean word. Why? Well that's a long story. Most people here haven't grasped the fact that Korean can't be "correctly" spelled. Every week I have a few kids ask, "Teacher, how to spell, Kimchi or Gangneung, or whatever?" To illustrate the point, take your pick of a dozen arguments online about this. It is an absolutely perfect illustration of my job security over here. The Korean language has no short I vowel sound. If you don't know what that means it's the sound of the I in "it," "sit," or "shit." I could have said "spit," but blue bloggin' this morning.

The short I sound doesn't exist in the Korean language or alphabet, and they never use it. (Even when saying "eet," "seet," or "sheet." But that is, I believe, the most common mispronunciation English receives. French, Russian, Spanish, I think most speakers of other languages have trouble with it. At any rate, whether you use a K or a G as the first letter in Kimchi, (the official spelling of many former K words like Kwangju and Kangneung, two places I've lived here, changed years ago from K to G and nobody pronounces them any differently), the "ee" Koreans are FIGHTING for at the end of the word, is the identical letter and pronunciation as the FIRST I in the word. They are both pronounced as "ee" by Koreans so they're not really wrong about the last sound and its spelling, they're just wrong about the word. Militantly wrong. I have heard the word spoken a million times and probably just over half the time it more closely approximated a K sound followed by an EE sound, the M is undisputed, nor is the CH, and then another EE sound. So Keemchee should be the spelling with Geemchee as an allowable alternative. Never seen either used. Job security.

I can't write Korean letters on this but the kiak, the original letter in the Korean alphabet, is properly pronounced, as it astutely says in this argument, about half way between a G and a K. "An extra hard G sound," as one person puts it. It has always been one of MANY confusions to me about the Korean language that when they double the kiak, it DEFINITIVELY sounds like a K. So why not just have the single kiak always sounding like a G? It's the same with the T and D, P and B, but we won't get into that. I am almost convinced that it is a very real part of the national pride in their language amongst Koreans that it is a complicated language. To them it seems that complicated equals sophisticated equals smart. Linguistically, I would lean toward the opposite. But oh my GOD never say that to a Korean! King Sejeong, (another word that can be spelled a dozen ways), was a genius! He's the guy who created the language.

Weeellll, judging from the number of undereducated retreads who have climbed to the educational elite postitions in the businesses that are the universities of Korea, and who just take papers written by their underlings and affix their names to them, King Sejeong might well have been a total plonker. Again, don't say that to a Korean! And he didn't invent the language, as you will be told by his biggest fans in Korea, he just gets credit for the alphabet, "Hangeul," (need I say that I have seen THAT word Romanized several different ways as well?). It is most commonly spelled "Hangul," with the U getting the appropriate English reading of the OO sound, which is not the proper pronunciation. It is an EU sound. The short A vowel sound doesn't exist in Korean either so usually the double whammy mispronunciation occurs when a rookie reads it spelled the usual way. The A gets pronounced more like the A in "hand." It's "Hahn geul," not "Han gool."

I think Hangeul IS absolutely brilliant!!!! for Korean. Nothing else. You will also be told that it is so brilliant that anything can be spelled with it. Uh, no. No it can't. Shut up and eat yer geemchee.

The reason Hangeul is so brilliant in my estimation is because it is simple. It took me no time at all to learn it. Ironically the hardest language I've ever been exposed to has the easiest alphabet. The scholars that King Sejeong took credit for were actually pretty good. But none of them are on the 10000 won bill. Here's a list of the faces we see every day here on the Korean won. Again, the word "won" could be spelled "weon" or "wun," I've even seen it spelled, "wurn." The vowel sound is one we don't have in English. Sort of half way between short U and short O. "UN," and "ON," are equally wrong. Somewhere in between, with a W in front, is the correct pronunciation of the money here.

So anyway, the reason I absolutely hate the word for the Korean celebration of the Lunar New Year is because it ties a few of these pronunciation oddities together and then adds the one that I think is MOST bizarre in the language, and all in one word. Maybe the most bizarre in any language I've ever been exposed to. I now live in Gangneung, the former Kangneung. I remember back when I first came to this city early in my days in Korea. I had only mastered the simple parts of the Korean alphabet so I had a big shock in store for me when I looked for the Kangneung bus. I found one that was headed to Kang Leung or Kang Reung. The letter for R and L is a malleable one too. I had no idea HOW malleable. Yes, friends, they sometimes use the R and L letter for the N sound even though they have a perfectly good N letter in the alphabet. But wait, it gets better. The Korean word for Lunar New Year is Seol nal. That letter for N is used. But for some reason NOBODY spells it that way. Weirder still, very few people SAY it that way! It's spelled Seollal and every time I say, "Seol nal," my students make fun of me. So is the N letter pronounced as an L in Seolnal? Sort of the reverse of the L letter being pronounced as the N in Gangneung? The answer is I don't know. And I'm at the point, having been here over a decade and not learned the language, I'm at the point where I can say proudly that, you know what, I don't really give a shit. Or a spit.

One of my friends here in Kang or Gang, Gong or Kong, Kahng, Gahng, Leung, Reung or Neung, started a thread on what she thought was the proper spelling of Seollal. I think she spelled it "Seorlar?" I can't remember. I said, "But it's the Lurnar new year not the Seorlar new year." Some other people got right rude on the thread! Name calling and commenting on how it's a totally wrong spelling. FOREIGNERS! One called her "fucking stupid." Incredible!

Folks, Korean and English are polar opposites and trying to spell one languages words with the other languages alphabet will always end in failure. Witness the entire country of people, Korea, who learn English through Korean, (because of their zealous pride in it), and have the exact same pronunciation difficulties simply because they are using Korean sounds for English words. It ain't that complicated. THIS is why the youngsters these days can say, "Ant," and not "Ent." They'll still say "ent," but have the ability to say, "ant," when corrected. They're learning young enough. But there's still a whole generation of people who can't do this. The bad habits are entrenched. They valiantly spend half their incomes trying to unstunt their language learning abilities, but rarely succeed. I'm just here, along with many others, trying to make this new generation the last one that makes these cherished and nurtured mistakes when learning English.

That being the case, who, then, will they put on their money? Hmmm....

They'll need a new entry on that webpage with the money. "Beloved rapper and dancer, hated landlord, Psy, is Korean treasure number 45,001." Gangnam Style used to be Kangnam Style I'd like to point out.

Anyhoo, it's, well, you know what it is. Lunar New Year time here in, well, you know where I am. I had planned to go to Seoul, (or Seo ool), to visit the Peet/Spiwak residence, buy some stuff I can only get in Seoul, watch the big game with them, but evidently they all have the flu or Zika virus or Ebola or whatever. The whole house caught it and it's been a great big vomitous mess for the last week. Patient Zero, as Heather calls Kelly, is fine now so I have hope that maybe everybody will have recovered by 8:30 Monday morning, but it's a slim hope. Besides, I have an ague of my own. Two months here and two colds. I guess having so many students exposes me to a lot more germs. My first year here I remember having 9 colds. I'm well on the way to busting that record. So I'm up at 4:30 or 5 drinking lemon tea with ginger in it, playing Simpsons Tapped Out and blogging.

Those are the perfect things to be doing on a snowy weekend here in the, um, city where I live. I'd guestimate we got about 8 inches of snow yesterday. And, damn the cold, I was out in it stocking up for the ghost town this place will be on Monday and Tuesday. During Lunar New Year everyone goes to their Grandmother's house in the coutry and celebrates. With the snow AND the heavy traffic there would have been yesterday, I think I'm glad I didn't go to Seoul. But I got a lot accomplished being currently on the mend. I got my wifi router so that now I can get a printer and stop paying so much for photocopies. I bought some other stuff for work too. Got the wifi set up even though I had to do it all in this language I refuse to learn. I bought an E-Mart pizza, my first pizza in this city. Two months without buying a pizza. I'm proud of that. It was not good, but it was BIG so I'll have some for the duration of the holiday I reckon. I also bought the fixins for chicken soup. That's what I'll be doing today. And if I go to Seoul to watch the game, I'll bring some for my fellow convalescents.

So I'm loving the holiday and the days off, but I hate that word. Incidentally, my favourite Korean word is "Goguma," the word for sweet potato. Jennifer, the friend who posted that string about "Seorlar," said it's actually, "Gogooma."

What EVER!