Friday 20 February 2015

Language Sounds

As an English teacher in South Korea, sometimes I have a hard time hearing different sounds in the Korean language.

For example, g and k share the same character (ㄱ) in the Korean alphabet, Hangeul/Hangul (한글).

Crab is ge/ke (게), while dog is gae/kae (개). It's very hard for me to hear the difference.

P and b also share similar sounds, as do d and t.

But it flips two ways.

In one class I have a student whose English name is Ally, and another girl whose name is Elly.  It is difficult for them to hear the difference in my pronunciation.  When I ask one or the other to answer a question or read something, they invariably point to themselves and ask "Me?"

I was reminded about language sounds yesterday when I was talking to a Korean friend.  I told her that sometimes my students make mistakes in their diary writing, and sometimes the mistakes are unintentionally humorous.

One time, I said, a student wrote that her family went to the beach and caught craps.  And then they ate the craps.

Of course, she meant to write crabs, but since the b and p sounds are similar the mistake happened.

I showed my friend how aspiration works, how you can hold a piece of paper or tissue in front of your mouth, and when you say p the paper moves, yet when you say b the paper doesn't move.

In another class I have one girl whose name is Gi-yeon, while in front of her sits a girl whose name is Gi-yeong.  I learned the first day that I have to make sure I pronounce that final g sound.

I find the whole issue of language sounds to be interesting yet sometimes frustrating, especially when my students or friends don't understand me.

After doing a survey of students I determined that Lunar New Years day in Korea, 설날, or Seolnal, is often pronounced (and usually spelled in English) Seollal.

That makes it even harder, when different pronunciations exist within the Korean population, but then again I think about American English and some words like envelope and creek and how they are pronounced differently.

It might be easier if we all spoke the same language and pronounced words the same way, but then language would be boring and I wouldn't have the job that I enjoy so much.


  --kimchimandu2.blogspot.kr

*Note: While I felt the urge to use single and double quotation marks in this posting, I had a short debate with myself and decided that inserting lots of additional punctuation marks would not look good and might detract from reading.  However, I accept any opposing criticism.  Thanks for reading!

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