Just one of the reasons why I love learning Korean

It’s a bit long, but keep reading, and you might understand why I chose the title. By studying Korean at a university, I’m not just learning a set of words or a grammatical code by which to interpret them and I’m not just learning about Korean culture and my culture. I am also learning about how Koreans see their own language and culture and by extension all language and all culture.

Unsurprisingly the Korean text book is divided into the same sections in every chapter, one of which deals with grammar and another vocabulary. Today’s grammar was about turning verbs into nouns and using them as the subject of a sentence: “Swimming is difficult” as opposed to “I swim with difficulty”. This can be done in different ways in Korean, but today we dropped the -다-da and added -기-gi to the stem: 수영하다 > 수영하기suyonghada > suyonghagi / to swim > swimming. Then to make it clear it’s the subject added the subject particle -가ga. 수영하-기-가 어려워요suyongha-gi-ga oer-yeoweo-yo

In fact we had already learned this -기-gi form in the context of 때문에ddaemunae / because of . So 수영하기 때문에 피곤해요suyonghagi ddemunae pigonheyo becomes because of swimming I am tired (not great English, but you understand it!). Now as a student of European languages and culture, it seems obvious that 수영하기suyeonghagi / to swim can be used anywhere in a sentence where you would use a noun. As the subject, object, indirect object, following a preposition etc. etc. So I was a little confused.

Why teach it as the subject only. Can this -기-gi form only be used as the subject? My European brain was instantly applying some kind of order or grammitcal pattern to this and I began to question the the whole schema, why would they teach us this in only one case when you can learn all of them at once? (see how latin is taught for reference). So I asked the teacher “can -기-gi nouns only be the subject?”

Can you guess her answer? If you’re Korean you probably can, if you’re European, you probably can’t!

She told me “this(어렵다oer-yeopda / to be difficult) is an intransitive (descriptive) verb (ie, it takes only a subject eg. sleep), so it can only be the subject”. ARRRGHHH!!! She didn’t answer the question. She saw my problem in terms of only the example sentence. My question on the other hand dealt with rules and grammar, and not the example sentence.

This experience highlights the day-to-day communication breakdowns that occur when West meets East. In the context of language learning it specifically demonstrates how Eastern and Western views of language differ. Essentially for a Korean 수영하기suyonghagi / swimmingas subject, object etc. etc. is a different 수영하기suyonghagi / swimmingevery time. Where for the European it’s always a “gerund” (or whatever name we choose to give it). With these parallel views, everything must seem different, depending on the language you speak and the culture you grew up in. And that’s why I chose the title!