I’m not gonna lie. I didn’t always like Korean. I thought it sounded whiny the first time I heard it. I was teaching ESL to Korean nationals then, in a Korean-owned company with Korean supervisors who speak Korean amongst themselves and who rarely, and I mean rarely, speak English to any of us. So, I pretty much heard it all the time. It was ear-grating and I admit it was mostly because I hated the sound of whining.
So, even though they fed us all these Korean materials and made us memorize Korean phrases we could use for beginner students, I’ve never been interested in truly learning the language. In fact, I threw all those materials away when I left the industry and moved on to writing.
My opinion of the language didn’t change until many years later, and only gradually, starting from My Love From The Star— the first Korean drama I liked well enough to search on the Net and watch with English subtitles on (In the Philippines, Korean dramas are dubbed in our language).
The Hallyu wave reached the Philippines long before MLFTS but I’m kind of a hermit when it comes to dramas on TV. I prefer zero to little contact because the idea of sleep always appeals better.
But it wasn’t really until I heard this talented Korean singer– who will remain unnamed– singing Korean songs in a beautiful, sexy voice that I also heard the beauty– and yeah, the sexiness of the language. It was what made me want to learn the language.
That and the frustration of watching badly subtitled dramas and uncaptioned YouTube videos of Korean stars I’m crushing on. (Hello Kim Nam-Gil aka Bidam and Gong Yoo!) And yes, it’s also because of my SongSong loves.
The point is, even though I still hear that tiny bit of kvetch, somehow, that grating quality is gone. Now, when I hear a man speaking Korean, I hear sexy. When I hear a woman speaking the language, I hear sweet.
It sounds innocent like a child. It sounds honest and unpretentious. It doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t. It’s just is. And, it’s either you like it or you don’t, but it doesn’t care either way.
And though it’s difficult to learn, Hangul itself is simple. It does not have dreams of being grand nor does it impose the same grandiosity on you. What you see is really what you get. Except for words beginning with vowels, there aren’t any words where there are alphabets you’re not supposed to articulate (yes, I’m talking about you denouement, pterodactyl, indict, and you too, receipt).
My Korean-learning journey is fraught with hardships and time challenges. I’m taking online lessons when I could but I’m still very far from my goal. I hope to someday really carry a conversation in Korean, watch Korean films and dramas without subtitles, and maybe translate professionally. For now, though, I’d be totally content to read just a little bit faster than five words per minute. And no, I’m not exaggerating.
Most Things Chell 