When I am in my Korean class and my Korean teacher is talking super fast :
I’m like:
Then:
My students feel the same when when I speak English to them.
I feel the EXACT same as them.
So I ask my teacher in Korean: Slow down.
But she thinks I am asking something related to the lesson and keeps talking super fast :
So I’m like:
In the interest of sparing people from information overload, I decided to split up #92 Storyaday into 3 parts.
Part 1: Korean Name Overview
Part 2: I attempt the Impossible
Most Koreans have three names: Family name and two given names. The family name always come first.
Example: Kim Min Ju
Kim= Family Name
Min Ju= Given Names (note that the names are 1 syllable each)
Korea is the land in which everyone has very similar or identical names. Here are the 5 most common surnames in Korea.
Just because a person has the same last name “Kim” does not mean they are directly related to another person with the last name Kim.
For me, it is impossible to know who is related to who unless they specifically tell me: “That girl is my sister. That boy is my cousin.”
I might think two kids look similar and are brother and sister, but then it turns out they are NOT related and they are boyfriend and girlfriend. Vice versa: I think they are dating, but they are brother and sister. That is an awkward mistake to make.
Now let’s look given names:
There seems to be a set of given names that Koreans like to use and they deviate from the names very slightly.
For example, in one class alone I have 8 kids (mostly girls) whose given names starts with “Ji”
Oh dear. That is a lot of Ji’s walking around.
Also, Koreans tend to like to have similar given names but like changing the order of the given names. So in a class I might see students with names like this:
Sometimes the names are very similar but different by one letter:
And, to top it all off, most of the times it is hard to tell who is a boy and who is a girl by looking at the names.
In America if you see the name “Sarah” and “James” you are going to know that Sarah is a girl and James is a boy.
Likewise if you see names like “Ashley” and and “Dylan” you are probably going to assume “Ashley” is a girl, “Dylan” is a boy. You could be wrong, of course, but more often than not the results will be as expected.
But here in Korea many names seem to be gender neutral which is a problem for foreigners.
For further reading on Korean names I suggest you read these posts. I find them really fascinating!!
Now Read Part 2: I attempt the Impossible !!