[KS] failed Koreanists littering the streets

[Yuh Ji-Yeon]

I have been following this thread with interest and just want to toss out a 
few questions and comments.

It is no wonder that S. Korea should be more interested in spending limited 
resources on students who want to learn Korean. Is this not eminently 
logical? So shouldn't we take a look at why North Americans aren't as 
interested as others in learning the Korean language? And without a market, 
why would Korean language related folks, Korean or otherwise, spend the 
resources and the time to develop the variety of materials etc. necessary 
for decent to excellent language instruction? Especially when such 
materials tend to work only for one group of people. That is, materials 
developed for English speakers don't work easily for speakers of other 
languages, and vice versa.

Given the lack of interest from potential students and therefore the lack 
of a market, it's no surprise that Korean as a foreign language is an 
underdeveloped area. And regarding the kind of 
grammatical/vocabulary/syntax explanations etc. that have been bemoaned as 
lacking for the Korean language: it seems to me that much of this is what 
is found in ESL materials, and it's not quite fair to wonder why such 
things don't exist for Korean. It's fairly obvious -- market forces of 
demand. Also, many of the things that people seem to want -- detailed 
explanations, etc. of various quirks and principles in the language, aren't 
available for other languages either. And some of it just isn't possible. 
It's like asking for a really good, detailed and accurate explanation of 
the use of the articles the and a/an in English. Or the various situations 
in which you can put an adjective after the noun it modifies. You can't get 
it because it only follows general rules and the actual usage depends a 
great deal on convention and what sounds good to a native ear. The same 
holds true for elements of any language, including Korean.

Before pounding on the Koreans, foundations, etc., for turning their 
attention away from N.A., we might want to ask, why aren't North Americans 
interested in learning Korean? We also might want to compare the situation 
with that of learning Chinese or Japanese, about which there is much more 
interest, despite similar problems with difficulty. And by the way, we once 
had lots (relatively speaking) of North Americans learning Russian, and 
that's not an easy language either.

Which brings me to another issue -- language education and interest in 
learning languages is quite deplorable in North America. Many don't even 
bother learning an "easy" language like Spanish or French. So why expect 
that they can be induced into learning Korean?

In short, in addition to complaining about/discussing the low level of 
resources/materials for Korean language education, we might want to 
complain about/discuss the low level of interest among North Americans in 
learning Korean, or any other foreign language for that matter. For 
Koreanists located in North America, increasing interest in Korea among 
North Americans would be a priority. But the reality is that such interest 
will not increase unless North Americans can be convinced en masse that 
Korea is an important country and Korean is an important language to know. 
This, sadly for us, is not likely anytime in the near future. But of course 
that should not deter us from our efforts!

Yuh Ji-Yeon

>Ross King wrote:
>I don't think Korean is any 'less difficult' for this group or that the 
>members of these groups are somehow better language learners than the rest 
>of us -- they are just given better resources and opportunities to go 
>about learning it: missionaries have a training network that provides the 
>opportunity for extended in-country study, and are backed up by reasonably 
>well organized and reasonably well funded home institutions. And of course 
>they have God on their side. Mind you, I've met a lot of missionaries with 
>rubbish Korean, too, but they still do a lot better than anybody who comes 
>out of a North American university program. Peace Corps members, too, had 
>well organized language training, and the opportunity for extended 
>in-country study (typically AWAY from Seoul, always a good thing). But of 
>course that route is now defunct. As for soldiers and spies, if you are 
>familiar with the Defense Language Institute, you will know that they run 
>classes of at most 6 students, often offer one-on-one training, and in 
>general (even though their administrators are always moaning about 
>finances at conferences) have at their disposal vast government and 
>military resources (plus salary incentives) that university Korean 
>language teachers can only dream of for their students and programs.
>
>And as you rightly mention, all of these groups (one presumes) are 
>characterized by a high motivation and a sense of purpose -- very 
>important in language learning. They're not just learning Korean as 'their 
>fifth class' as most of my UBC students are.
>
>In any case, these groups all invest heavily in Korean language training, 
>and have at least a vague sense of the magnitude of the investment 
>required. But North American universities, North American Korean American 
>communities, and the organizations/ foundations/ governments/electorates 
>that support them, don't have a clue and/or don't give a damn, and are not 
>making the investment. This lack of investment is understandable and not 
>all that surpising in all but one case: the South Korean foundations.
>
>It is part of our job as Koreanists to raise awareness about Korea and to 
>pound home to those who would listen (in fact, even to those who would 
>not) that learning Korean is a whole lot different from (and a whole lot 
>more expensive than) learning French or Spanish.
>
>In the case of South Korean foundations (and their government sponsors), 
>one would assume that they DO in fact realize how very much in the Korean 
>national interest it is for North American students of all ages to be 
>learning Korean, and that under the new Korean administration they might 
>try to increase what, at present, is a wholly insufficient level of 
>support for Korean language study overseas.
>
>But sometimes I wonder if even the Korean government funding organizations 
>fully realize what is at stake and how expensive it is to get this right. 
>My feeling lately over here in Seoul is that many of them (and their 
>Korean professoriate advisors) have given up on North Americans ever 
>learning Korean, and would rather spend their limited resources on 
>'cheaper' countries where students are more enthusiastic about learning 
>Korean: south-east Asia, the former USSR, and China, in particular.
>
>Ross King
>Associate Professor of Korean, University of British Columbia
>and
>Dean, Korean Language Village, Concordia Language Villages