Running Head: Learner Challenges: Korean to English
Learner Challenges: Korean to English
Nathan Meeker
University of Southern California
November 19, 2013
Learner Challenges: Korean to English
Learner Challenges: Korean to English
Language learning is a daunting task for many learners that is only made more
challenging for ESL/EFL students due to the fact that the English alphabet contains only 26
letters while there are more than 40 sounds that can be produced with those letters. This
challenge is compounded for speakers of other languages, like Korean, that do not share over
half of those sounds. While there is a multitude of differences that make learning English for
Korean speakers a challenge (grammar, morphology, phonetics, syntax, dialect etc.), the most
impactful area in which difficulty occurs is phonetics. Phonetics makes up the base of a language
and because Korean speakers lack many phonemes of English in their first language (L1) they
have a huge challenge ahead of them to learn new sounds in English, their second language (L2).
In addition, phonetics is something that makes many L2 speakers extremely self-conscious and
reflective of their own speech. It is something that they are able to hear, something they know
they have not produced correctly, that, unlike grammar and syntax, may give them undue stress
in speaking and listening in English. This study will discuss the differences between English and
Korean phonetics, the challenges that Korean students face as they learn their L2, my personal
experience in the classroom teaching Korean students, and finally some suggestions to help
improve English education in Korea.
Linguistic Awareness
There are three aspects of English phonetics that give problems to L1 speakers of Korean:
fricatives, liquids and vowels. All three of these share one common characteristic; they do not
appear, or appear in a vastly different usage, in Korean. This creates a problem because learners
are not exposed to the sounds on a regular basis and have trouble distinguishing them from other,
more native Korean, sounds. In addition, learners have no linguistic awareness of the rules that
Learner Challenges: Korean to English
are associated with the spelling and pronunciation of these sounds. All of the examples below
which use Korean words and alphabet characters have been translated using the Revised
Romanization of Korean system which is what is currently in use in Korea for English
translation and is the commonly accepted spelling for words that have been Romanized. I
recognize that this system is not perfect and does not represent all Korean sounds as they are
intended to be pronounced, but it the best available system at this time.
The first, and most notable, difference between English and Korean phonetics comes
from fricatives (Curzan and Adams, 2012). With the exception of /s/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ and /h/ all other
fricatives do not appear in the Korean language. The remaining fricatives fall into three
categories for Korean speakers. One category gets replaced with the Korean letters ㅍ(usually
pronounced as a /p/ sound as in the word 팔 (pronounced pal) which means eight) and ㅂ (usually
pronounced as a /b/ sound as in the word 변개하다 (pronounced byeon-gae-ha-da) which means to
change). The fricatives in this first category are /f/ and /v/. No matter where in the word these
fricatives fall novice, and many times advanced, Korean learners of English will replace them
with the closest approximations from their language.
The second category of fricatives which cause problems for Korean speakers are the TH
sounds in English represented by /ð/ and /θ/. It should be noted here that Koreans have much
more trouble producing these sounds at the beginning of words and in the middle more than at
the end. To my knowledge there has been no research done on this subject, but in my experience
words like math are produced just fine by Korean speakers but thigh and Nathan cause many
problems. At the beginning of words, Korean speakers will replace /ð/ and /θ/ with their version
of /t/ the ㅌ sound (which strangely enough, only occurs at the end of words in Korean like 팥
(pronounced pat) which means red-bean. In the middle of words these fricatives get replaced
Learner Challenges: Korean to English
with the Korean version of the fricative /ʃ/ represented by the ㅅ and ㅆ sounds (usually
pronounced as a /ʃ/, but can also be /s/ like the word 소화기 (pronounced so-hwa-gi) which means
fire-extinguisher).
Finally, the fricative /z/ is non-existent in the Korean alphabet and is especially
challenging for Korean speakers when they mispronounce words such as zoo which ends up
coming out as jew. As the example above indicates, the sound /z/ is replaced in by Korean
speakers with their closest approximated sound the ㅈ (which gets translated as the affricative /dʒ/
but I feel more closely resembles the fricative /ʒ/ as in the word 전 (pronounced jeon) which is a
type of Korean pancake). This misrepresentation of the sound /z/ occurs at all points in Korean
production and can even be heard with extremely high level speakers of English as an L2.
In addition to fricatives, Korean speakers also have problems producing the liquids
(Curzan and Adams, 2012) /r/ and /l/. The Korean language does have a liquid sound, the ㄹ, but
it is a very malleable sound in the language. Depending on where it is in a word it can elicit a
huge variety of sounds. However, none of those sounds are truly an /r/ or /l/ and in practice often
fall somewhere in the middle in their production. For example, the Korean word 란도셀
(pronounced ran-do-sel), meaning satchel, contains the character twice and both would be
pronounced slightly different by Korean speakers because of its placement within the word.
English on the other hand does not have such rules and many words are very dependent on
correctly producing the /r/ or /l/ sound, especially at the beginning of words where Korean
leaners seem to have the most difficulty.
The final aspect of English phonology that gives many Korean speakers problems when
speaking English is vowel sounds, especially vowel sounds that are produced in the back of the
Learner Challenges: Korean to English
mouth (Curzan and Adams, 2012). It is important to note here that the Korean language contains
21 vowels and the English language contains 20, but less than half of those sounds overlap. For
example, the English vowels /ɑ/, /ɔ/, and /ə/ all get translated into one Korean sound ㅏ that gets
Romanized as a but sounds closest to /ɔ/ such as the word 아니 (pronounced a-ni), which means
no. The diphthong /ʊə/ also overlaps with Korean speakers in the cases of /u/ and /ʊ/. L1
speakers of Korean learning English will often associate all three sounds with the Korean vowel
ㅜ,
which is Romanized as a u, as found in the word 국수 (pronounced guk-su) meaning noodles.
Learner Challenges
According to the research that was done, Korean students, while not alone in their
struggles, are having three specific problems with the English language in regard to phonetics.
The first problem that impedes their progress is the fact that many features of English phonetics,
which were mentioned above, are not present in their native language (Mcallister, Fledge and
Piske, 2002). This is causing interference for the students because they are not being taught the
differences between the languages; rather they are being taught how to translate the sounds that
they hear into Korean. These aspects of phonetics that are absent from Korean, but are present in
English, need to be addressed before the learners are able to master their L2.
The second issue that Korean learners of English are having stems from the fact that the
Korean language does not reduce vowels in their word structure while English does so frequently
(Han, 2011). For example, young L1 learners of English (and often times L2 learners as well)
will learn about eleven vowel sounds in English. They are known as long vowels, short vowels
and the letter y. However, these eleven sounds do not tell the whole story of the pronunciation
and, in fact, fail to take other letter combinations into account when they determine letter
Learner Challenges: Korean to English
pronunciation. This causes a problem for Korean learners because they have not learned the
phonetic system of English, rather they simply learned the basic vowel sounds.
The final problem that Korean students have with English phonetics and pronunciation
comes from the fact that English has a multitude of sounds that are unmarked and do not appear
in the spelling of a word (Monroy and Gutierrez, 2001, p.5). Wang, Koda and Perfetti (2003)
also agree with this statement and write that students have trouble determining the pronunciation
of words even if they know the phonetic system of English because they were never taught how
to use it effectively. This stems from the fact that English is a stress timed language while
Korean is a syllable timed language (Han, 2011). In essence this means that English
pronunciation and phonetics vary from word to word depending on where the stress is placed in
the word and that can cause quite a bit of confusion for Korean speakers since that aspect of the
language is completely foreign to them.
Personal Experience
In the more than six years that I have been working in Korea I have seen many students
struggle with English phonetics. These students have not been limited to any one group. Many of
them have been young learners just starting out in the language and many have been olderuniversity aged students looking for an edge in applying for their entrance into US universities.
No matter the age and experience level, I have noticed problems with phonetics. In my opinion
these problems stem from two complications. The first complication was detailed extremely well
by Monroy and Gutierrez (2001) as I mentioned above. Students are simply unaware of the
change that letters go through in the English language and that causes problems with their
speaking and listening. In addition, they have problems identifying sounds within words that do
Learner Challenges: Korean to English
not appear on the surface. I have seen this issue most frequently with homonyms. While many
native speakers might dismiss this issue, it is actually quite a big problem because there are
hundreds of these words that we use every single day. Many students have a hard time grasping
the concept that words can be spelled differently, yet retain the same sound in English phonetics.
For the most part, the students who struggle with the concept have never taken a class based on
English phonetics and that lack of knowledge is causing a problem.
The second issue that I have noticed in my classes in Korea is that there is a distinct
variation between the problems that are experienced in speaking and listening with regard to
phonetics. I have found that students, far more frequently, make mistakes with fricatives and
glides rather than with vowels which hinder communication and meaning when they are
speaking. However, when students are listening they have a much harder time distinguishing
between native production of vowels when compared to the production of glides and fricatives. I
was able to find no research to support this observation, but my best guess as to why this is
happening would be that: while speaking, students are effectively able to blend the vowel sounds
of English into a sound that closely resembles the correct sound which sounds ‘correct enough’
to native speakers and L2 speakers alike so as to not cause any confusion. However, the fricative
and glide production are much further from native Korean sounds and are therefore harder for
the students to reproduce accurately. On the other hand, while listening, the fricative and glide
sounds are pronounced with quite a bit of difference by native speakers while vowels are much
harder to hear.
Suggestions and Conclusion
Learner Challenges: Korean to English
In order to alleviate these problems that students are experiencing in the classroom there
are three solutions that teachers should incorporate into their classes. First and foremost, teachers
must begin teaching the phonetic chart to students from a very early level. This will help teachers
avoid the problem of answering students’ questions with a response like, “That is just how it is”
(Schmitt and Marsden, 2006, p. 127). The problem with this type of answer, especially in regard
to phonetics, is that students get a sense that the English language has no rhyme or reason to its
rules that is simply not true. They must instead help their students to understand the concept of
phonetics through the use of studying the sounds of the English language. Park (2010) writes that
this will be especially helpful for Korean students trying to master English because it will help
them identify the sounds, most notably diphthongs, that they have trouble pronouncing and
hearing.
The second change that teachers need to make it in their methodology. Gardener (2008)
suggests that teachers should structure their class from a social constructivist point of view in
order to help the students utilize their L1 in their understanding of the L2, which in this case is
Korean. A methodology that is focused in social constructivism will help the students understand
aspects of the language much more clearly because they will not simply be memorizing rules and
words, but instead will be using those rules in classroom interactions with their fellow students
and teacher in top-down, student-centered instruction. In addition, this approach will help
students gain more knowledge about their own production because it would involve them
listening to each other and native speakers of English to identify where the differences in
pronunciation might occur. It must be noted here that this approach would be a massive change
in methodology for many teachers in Korea due to the fact that it is quite literally the complete
opposite from what they are currently using to instruct students in grammar and phonics.
Learner Challenges: Korean to English
Finally, teachers at all levels need to start teaching their students to be more aware of the
sounds that are different between Korean and English. This language awareness will enable the
students to correct the mistakes and misunderstandings that have with regard to the English
language. In order to do this, teachers must setup a classroom that allows the students to hear
various forms of English pronunciation, proficient Korean speakers of English and their own
speech. This is especially important for adults who may have fossilized a bit in their
pronunciation due to a variety of factors. As readers saw above in the illustration of the phonetic
differences between Korean and English, students often try to directly translate the sounds of
English into Korean sounds that simply does not work for more than half of the sounds in the
language. This issue must be alleviated by incorporating the above two solutions and simply
trying to make the students more aware of the sounds in the target language, English.
Throughout the discourse of this paper readers have seen the problems that Korean
students have with English phonics, the reasons why those problems occur and some solutions
for the problems. Teachers have a responsibly to students to make sure that the education they
are handing out is of the highest quality so students may achieve their goal of becoming not only
a proficient speaker, but a master of English. In order to do that some changes must be made to
methodology and classroom interaction. It is my hope that teachers are able to take a more
proactive stance teaching phonetics of English to not only Korean students, but any student
struggling with their pronunciation and listening identification as an EFL or ESL student.
Learner Challenges: Korean to English
References
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MA: Longman.
Gardner, S. (2008). Transforming talk and phonics practice: Or, how do crabs clap? TESOL
Quarterly: A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages and of
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Han, J., Hwang, J., & Choi, T. (2011). The acquisition of phonetic details: Evidence from the
production of english reduced vowels by korean learners. Second Language
Research, 27(4), 535-557. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0267658311408184
McAllister, R., Flege, J. E., & Piske, T. (2002). The Influence of L1 on the Acquisition of
Swedish quantity by Native Speakers of Spanish, English and Estonian. Journal of
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questions. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan
Underhill, A. (2011, March). Introduction to pronunciation teaching workshop.
Learner Challenges: Korean to English
Wang, M., Koda, K., & Perfetti, C. A. (2003). Alphabetic and nonalphabetic L1 effects in
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