[KS] Finally, a proper Korean learners' dictionary

[Stefan Ewing]

Dear John:

Sorry for the late reply.  I agree with both your and Ross King's comments.  
The original Korean title that I posted is correct--_Oeguginu^l Wihan 
Han'gugo^ Haksu^p Sajo^n_--and it is just as problematic for me as for you 
two gentlemen.

I agree with Ross King's overall impression that there appears to be a 
certain unstated assumption that Korean for second-language learners is or 
should be somehow special.  Professor King's other concern--the aversion to 
grammatical treatment because "learners wouldn't be able to understand 
it"--is not an issue with this dictionary, as there is extensive treatment 
of grammatical issues--far more in fact than in most Kugo^ Sajo^n written 
for first-language users (thanks perhaps to Yonsei Prof. Pong Ja Paik's 
involvement in the project).  (The dictionary is also notable for the wealth 
of collocational information it provides: which counters, verbs, or 
adjectives go with which nouns, for example.)

The "specialness" of second-language Korean shows up in the vocabulary 
selection, however.  A typical decent ESL dictionary will have several tens 
of thousands of entries, but use a limited defining vocabulary of 
approximately 2000 words (on average--Collins and Longmans are examples of 
this).  This dictionary, however, limits the total number of entries to 
perhaps 5,000 or 6,000 (I'm guessing), and uses its entire selection of 
entries as a defining vocabulary.

The end result is that while arguably the most essential words for a learner 
to know are included in the dictionary, many words that often appear in mass 
media--for example--do not.  Two examples are _yo^dang_ and 
_yadang_--meaning "governing party" and "opposition party" respectively, in 
politics.  Does a beginning or intermediate learner of Korean need to know 
these words?  Absolutely not.  But will he or she encounter them in a 
newspaper article or TV news report and want to know what they mean?  Quite 
possibly.  Since they were deliberately excluded from the _Oeguginu^l Wihan 
Han'gugo^ Haksu^p Sajo^n_, however, the learner will have to shell out 
another 20 to 40,000 Won to consult another dictionary--be it a proper 
Korean dictionary, or a Korean-English, Korean-Chinese, etc., dictionary, as 
the case may be.  (By way of contrast, both "yo^dang" and "yadang" appear in 
at least two middle-school bilingual dictionaries I've seen.  If these are 
words that even middle-school native speakers are expected to know and need 
to use, why would they be excluded from an adult learner's vocabulary?)

So perhaps in the word selection we see evidence of this implicit attitude: 
"Oh, you don't really need to know what that word means: don't worry about 
it."  (Or, "No 'foreigner' would want to know what that word means, so let's 
not waste our time with it.")  This exclusion of a large part of the 
vocabulary that everyday, functioning, literate Koreans know or frequently 
encounter is a major reason for my choosing not to buy the dictionary, 
despite all its other useful features.

Anyhow, sorry again for the late reply, but I've been too busy 
sightseeing--the weather having been so nice here in Korea these last few 
days--to check up on my email!

Yours sincerely,
Stefan Ewing

***

>From: <johnfrankl at yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: Korean Studies Discussion List <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
>To: Korean Studies Discussion List <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
>Subject: Re: [KS] Finally, a proper Korean learners' dictionary
>Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 09:43:04 -0800 (PST)
>
>Dear Stefan,
>
>   Thank you for the update/clarification.
>
>   But I am still curious. The translated English title, to me, is not so 
>significant as the Korean title--if there is one. Is the Korean title the 
>one that you originally posted? If so, my question stands.
>
>   Best,
>
>   John Frankl
>
>Stefan Ewing <sa_ewing at hotmail.com> wrote:
>   Dear KS list members:
>
>To correct yesterday's posting, the dictionary mentioned does have an
>English title: "Learner's Dictionary of Korean." Please disregard my
>initial, ad hoc translation.
>
>Yours sincerely,
>Stefan Ewing
>
>***
>
> >Dear KS list members:
> >...
> >The _Oeguginu^l Wihan Han'gugo^ Haksu^p Sajo^n_ ("Korean Study Dictionary
> >for Foreigners"; ISBN 8995501715; 35,000 Won) ...
>
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