chapotraphouse

Very similar to learning Korean which I suck at. I’m not going to idealize Koreans, but I definitely started to notice the general incredible rudeness of Americans as a result of learning Korean, even when they think they’re being nice. Like, in Korea, when you see someone you know, you always greet them, no exceptions. American acquaintances in my experience just kind of greet each other when they feel like it. Their insistence on referring to each other on a first-name basis is also kind of annoying, it’s meant to ease social distinctions but I think it actually intensifies them. I used to think Koreans were ridiculous for constantly using titles (sir, uncle, aunt, teacher, professor, older brother) for addressing each other, but I can see now via Confucianism that it establishes that each person has a role to play in society with relation to everyone else. American individualism (“My name’s Pat but everyone calls me Stacy” like shut the fuck up nobody cares) leaves everyone drowning in a meaningless void. At the same time, getting angry and talking down to strangers in Korea has that much more force. Americans often treat each other like barbarians; Koreans rarely do.

Learning the little Korean that I know also taught me not to fear the difficulty of other languages, in my opinion at least. It’s certainly one of the hardest major languages for English speakers to learn and honestly way harder than Chinese and in a completely different league from Spanish or French. The only major languages I can think of that come close are Japanese and Arabic.

I also sound like a child when I speak Korean so it’s humbling and has taught me to have greater respect for language learners. Americans, few of whom have ever struggled to learn a foreign language, are completely oblivious to this.