Comments on: Mobile Conoff http://diplodocus.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/mobile-conoff/ Sticking My Neck Out for America Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:16:08 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Driftingfocus http://diplodocus.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/mobile-conoff/#comment-12547 Driftingfocus Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:56:17 +0000 http://diplodocus.wordpress.com/?p=387#comment-12547 Yeah, due to learning the words most relevant to me, my Korean vocabulary is quite hilariously varied. While of course the first words I learned were things like "hello" and "thank you" (though not "excuse me", strangely, as saying it embarrasses Koreans and is not suggested), I very quickly afterward learned the words for "photojournalist" (me), "policeman" (my partner), "diplomat" (his family), and "artist" (my family). If I had stayed longer, I was going to figure out a clever way to say "just use XYZ pronoun for me", since Korean has about 8 levels of politeness in pronouns and yet no neutral one (it is impossible to be equal with someone - you are always higher or lower), and thus they ask you a million questions when they first meet you in order to try and determine how to refer to you; "what is your job?", "are you married?", "what country are you from?", "how old are you?", etc. Wow, that was an incredibly long sentence. How often do you have to deal with the variation in dialects? Yeah, due to learning the words most relevant to me, my Korean vocabulary is quite hilariously varied. While of course the first words I learned were things like “hello” and “thank you” (though not “excuse me”, strangely, as saying it embarrasses Koreans and is not suggested), I very quickly afterward learned the words for “photojournalist” (me), “policeman” (my partner), “diplomat” (his family), and “artist” (my family). If I had stayed longer, I was going to figure out a clever way to say “just use XYZ pronoun for me”, since Korean has about 8 levels of politeness in pronouns and yet no neutral one (it is impossible to be equal with someone – you are always higher or lower), and thus they ask you a million questions when they first meet you in order to try and determine how to refer to you; “what is your job?”, “are you married?”, “what country are you from?”, “how old are you?”, etc. Wow, that was an incredibly long sentence.

How often do you have to deal with the variation in dialects?

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