Crash Landing on Korean

I took an impromptu trip to Seoul, South Korea, to spend some time nursing my younger sister who had broken both arms in a E-Bike accident. Yes, she crash-landed on the floor, but so did I, though figuratively, when I had to help her around without knowing any more than Anyongaseiyo! So, here I am ready to tell you about my linguistic journey from Toronto to Seoul, that although short, was very intense for my brain... Oh, Me me me...sorry. By the way, my sister is fine, she is fully recovered. So now that the worry and guilt are out of the way... let's dive into this process of trying to tread water in a sea of a language that is completely new.

First thing, the input. 

Our brains look for patterns in linguistic input, that is to say, linguistic information....language. And there was A LOT of input in Seoul! Both for your eyes and ears. Oh my! An ADHD person's nightmare. Colourful ads everywhere, Tv shows with stickers and subtitles, bright lit ads on the subway, ads regarding elevator etiquette, recycling instructions (lots and intricate), loud K-pop music playing in every store, subway announcements with jingles 💖, scripted phrases told by sales clerks in stores, and a long etc. My eyes were automatically drawn to those little stick characters, hangul, trying to find at least one of them again in another word so I could solve what was like a puzzle. My ears couldn't help but noticing how often sentences in PSAs would end in the same syllables, or how often my sister would say the same phrases and have people answer the same in short dialogues in stores, in the bank, or in the elevator. 

Peppero fav snack!

Recycling instructions in our building

All TV shows have supporting written information on screen 

Second, context. 

Once we recognize a pattern, our brains will look for meaning. Without meaning things make no sense, and without sense, we simply disengage, right?. Moreover, if input is comprehensible, learning is more likely to occur. (Krashen, 1970). Then we look for associations between the language spoken or written and the situation, since we want to understand messages. In my case, I tried to predict what phrases we usually use when talking to a clerk in a store and tried to listen for my sister's interaction with them. In ads, I love that Koreans love their drawings, since they give some pretty decent guessing material! I mean look at that thing in the pictures! So cute! But also, so useful. Let me add some examples below

Fast and safe transportation

Can you guess? Yes, it is ¨keep it low¨ please.

This one is about a pirate racoon....Just kidding, racoons would never engage in piracy!

Third, Interaction: your hypothesis testing

If all the patterns our brain found and organized with their associated meaning make a little system of knowledge, quite like Piaget's Schema, then it is time to try and see weather these work in real communication. We test our hypotheses about how a language works by using it in interaction with others (Swain, 2005). So, we need social exchange in that language. There I was, for example, trying to buy some groceries for my sister, who could not go with me everywhere, of course, she needed to heal and recover so no interpreter for me. Then, I try repeating the phrases that I had heard and everything went well when the interaction was a common one. This is when old-fashion learning by heart helps. A bunch of characters, a few keywords, prepared for the worse and hoping for the best. One day my sister was not feeling well to go out, I went grocery shopping to a combini (small convenience store). I was able to say hello, and say that I was paying with card, all expressions I learned by heart, but the clerk only answered half of the interaction in Korean before saying ¨good night¨ in English 😒.  A man of few words, I guess. For half of the interaction that worked, the brain would score a check on those phrases. However, the one day that would have probably gone great on my own, the interaction was not predictable, because the store was not selling my sister's favourite dish, so then, I ran out of language, input was incomprehensible and communication failed. 

My sister's fav.

Communication Strategies to the rescue

But don't fear! My sister didn't starve. Because another nice thing our language learning brains do, and more so if you, like me, are a late bilingual, is to restore to our strategic competence (Canale & Swain, 1980). We try to fix communication, we look for help. Either in Papago, the interpreter app, gestures, drawings, etc. In my case, I turned to my super puppy eyes technique, that I learned from my dachshund, and I looked around the store searching for social help. And it worked! A nice Oppa came to my rescue and translated for me! Lunch was saved!

And luckily translation was available in many places in Seoul. Mostly on public transit. This makes trips so much more fun in the subway. Reading subway stations and trying to guess the sounds and meaning of characters from that translation and romanized versions was like a game. I know you may be thinking "who can do that and not be in the smartphone like every other millennial", and yes, you are right, but when you need both your hands free to help your sister, you just don't take your phone out! A sad circumstance that turned into a perfect learning opportunity to engage in noticing what I needed to understand messages. 

 

Debriefing on the subway

All in all, experiencing a different language in a short and safe circumstance is a treat to your brain. As an adult second language learner I could actually pay attention to the aspects of the Korean language  and got a few patterns. On our long commuting to and from the doctor's office, my sister and I would engage in some collaborative dialogue (Swain, 2000) where she, a more advanced speaker of Korean as a second language, would help me learn little chunks of Korean on small simulated language interactions while talking to me in Korean. She would also confirm or reject some of the patterns I picked up regarding grammar. Some of the things I learned are morphemes related to polite requests, phonemes Spanish and Korean have in common, and a few character combinations to help me read the most important places, such as subway stations, and a drug store. 

In conclusion, our brains are actively interacting with the language we try to understand. The information around us provides a great source of material for our brains to engage in what is wired to do: finding patterns and building associations. In the case of language, we move all our cognitive resources towards communication and as such, the social component is golden! Gonna be, Gonna be golden. I certainly was lucky enough to try to figure it out without the pressures of a situation in which you would need the language to assimilate to a new community and fulfill your needs. I was lucky to play and enjoy the language in the songs I love, in the lips of K-poppers I admired, in the voice of my sister, who made me so proud! Overall, I beautiful experience I hope anyone could enjoy. And next time you go on vacation to a place where a different language is spoken, take some appreciation in all the effort your little brain is doing to help you navigate those waters. 

References

Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 1–47.
Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Pergamon.
Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children (M. Cook, Trans.). International Universities Press.
Swain, M. (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue (In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning). Oxford University Press.

Swain, M. (2005). The output hypothesis: Theory and research. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 471–484). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.