I never learned Hangul……

Being a linguist, I immediately, when I moved here in March 2011, started up to learn the native Korean language, Hangul. However, not very long into my studies I noticed that the Koreans are perfectionists and have their specific area pronunciations of the same words. This resulted into the fact that I was constantly corrected, which made it not very much fun to continue, so I stopped.

Coming from minor language areas I’ve studied and use several international languages. But none of them helped me here in Korea. Instead I became an expert on body language, but this made me very much aware of the fact that the overall competence in the English language is at a very, very low level, with of cause some exceptions.








After more than two years in South Korea this has become an area of irritation for me. Even in the Korean military, English is bad and this surprises me since the Korean military has worked with the Americans for over 60 years. One can’t learn all the different languages, but one can at least learn and speak one major foreign language.

It’s nice to be proud of your country; it’s also nice wanting to be good at what you do, but this being proud and perfect isolates the people of this country. Fifty million South Koreans, twenty million North Koreans and about ten million South Chinese people speak Hangul which makes it for me: a minority language.

What Doktoro Esperanto*) wanted hasn’t been achieved. However, English is today the most used second language bringing people together and enabling us to learn from each other. So I sincerely hope that the Hangul speaking people throw their perfectionism aside and interact with the international communities and widen their horizon.  

 

 

Ludwig Zamenhof 1887    

 

 

*) Doktoro Esperanto means a doctor with hope and was the pseudonym of the Polish Doctor Zamenhof, who in 1887 published his international language. Esperanto was meant to be a second language for all people. His hope was that this would lead to increased understanding and lesser risk for war and conflicts between different countries.  

 

The Korean alphabet, also known as Hangul or Chosongul is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It was created during the Joseon Dynasty in, and is now the official script of both North Korea and South Korea, and co-official in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of China’s Jilin Province.

Hangul is a true alphabet of 24 consonant and vowel letters.










But it surely looks beautiful!!!