My struggles with Korean language

Studying Korean is hard, but it's also fun. Or as we say in Korean: 한국어 공부가 어렵지만 재미있어요. This sentence is by far the most used and popular sentence when we speak or write essays about studying Korean language between GKS Daegu University students.

Nevertheless, it’s true. Nowadays I’m super bored because of coronavirus (still safe in the most dangerous city in Korea, don’t worry 😉) I decided to write this blog post about my Korean language struggles and mistakes.

Let’s start with my own name. My formal name is Anna, but nobody calls me that way in the Czech Republic (just my boss in hospital used to call me that way). Most of my friends call me Áňa [Anya], Ani or Anče [Anche]. When my mum is super upset with me, she calls me Andula, so obviously I hate it when someone calls me like that. Or Anička [Anichka]. I introduce myself mostly as Áňa [Anya] - I like it and it’s easy to pronounce, but it’s super confusing in Korean. Because there are some words which start with the same syllables: 안녕하세요! [annyeonghaseyo] = Hello! or 안약 [anyag] = eye drops and the most confusing one 아니요 [anyo] = no.

Azizbek (my friend from Uzbekistan) likes to use the first two ones to make fun of me. But the word 아니요 = NO is really the worst. It happens all the time that somebody screams 아니요 and I turn around because I think they’re actually calling me. Well, no… But few weeks ago, my Indian friend Amrutha told me that when we came to Daegu, she asked my Chinese roommate Peipei who her roommate was, and she was very confused when Peipei answered [Anya]. So, she asked more times, but she got the same answer. Well, she thought that Peipei didn’t want to tell her. But after she met me, she realised it was actually my name. 😂

Today I was listening podcast and they were saying in the podcast that it’s hard to explain the polite and unpolite way of speaking we use in Czech to foreigners. Please, don’t make me laugh. We are using just tykání (unpolite, friendly) and vykání (polite)! But in Korean language it is much more complicated: the way you speak to someone who is ‘under/same level/above’ you, the way you write, the way you speak in ‘formal/unformal’ situation etc. And you can combine all of these. It’s a mess.

Because of coronavirus there are informative posters everywhere, but we noticed one thing immediately – why is there chicken on the Korean version and rat on the English and Chinese version? We will never know.

Rat = chicken?

And lastly. I must confess something. Super stupid. I was always confused why are the teachers asking us: “왜 우세요?” [Wae useyo?] = Why are you crying? And I found out only around Christmas (yes, that late) that they are actually saying: “외우세요!” [Oeuseyo!] = Memorize it! It sounds the same! Ok, the intonation is totally different, but still! Let’s just hope none of my Korean teachers will ever read this blog.

Mimochodem, jestli někdo ze čtenářů požaduje články v češtině, tak mi dejte vědět.