Sometimes I'm Too Good at Swearing

One of the first things a teacher of the Korean language will teach their bright-eyed new student is how to say the number eighteen. This is not because it’s a terribly important number to know. In real life I hardly ever have to count above ten, which is a fact I tried telling every math teacher I’ve had since I was six. No, a foreigner in Korea must know the number eighteen because it’s useful to be aware of the care that must be taken in pronouncing it correctly: Shib pahl. You see, if you say it wrong, specifically if you say shi pahl, people will think you’re saying something rather rude.

Translation: Is it “fuck”?

Now rest assured, the above scenario did not actually play out in my classroom. Only just about every time I have tried to count above seventeen in Korean. I am considerably luckier than a friend of mine, who found out in a class full of twelve year old girls just how close “Japanese self-defense force” (jawidae) is to “masturbation force” (jawigun).

Just use your imagination, perv. 

And then there are the homonyms. For instance, igoseun eum-o iyeyo can mean one of two things. It can mean, “This is a conspiracy,” which might be something you would want to know if you were detained in Incheon International Airport because your beard was too bushy. It can also mean, “This is pubic hair,” in which case the airport security might assume you have glued said lower body hair to your face to supplement your undoubtedly pathetic, patchy attempt at a neckbeard.

Of course, this sort of thing is a pitfall of learning just about any language. A student in one of my classes last year stumbled on the spelling of the word “fishing’” and told the class all about how he spent his summer “fisting at the lake”. But when it comes to Korean, I seem to tumble into this one more often than I really should. For example, in my very first lesson with my new Korean language tutor, I attempted to write a sentence that begins with the Korean ‘I’: cheo neun. I instead managed to write cheo nyeon. So instead of saying “I am American,” I told my now shocked teacher that in fact, “That bitch is American.”

And the writing of it is really the least of my problems. As English speakers, we tend to run our syllables together. That’s just how we talk. Do that in Korean, and you’ll get yourself slapped right quick. Take a different variation on the same problematic word: Geu nyeo neun nae chingu iyaeyo means, “She is my friend.” A lovely way to introduce someone to your Korean pals. Misplace one letter on a single syllable, however: Geu nyeon eun nae chingu iyaeyo, and you will gleefully let your native-speaking friends know that “This bitch is my friend.”

 Let's play "Spot the Misplaced Consonant Character!"

When you sign up to learn a language, people talk about expanding your horizons, learning about a different culture, and making friends from around the world. What nobody ever tells you is that you’ll subject yourself to endless humiliation and pants-loading embarrassment every time you actually try to use your new skills. The more I practice using Korean in my day to day life, the more I understand why eighty percent of my students are terrified of speaking English in front of anyone else.

Anyways, below you’ll find the latest update on my dramatic endeavors here in Korea. That’s right, you get two posts for the price of one today! Don’t you feel special? Yes, yes you do. ‘Til next time, dear readers!