Liz Gooch of the NY Times has written article on Malaysia’s ban on English in the classroom, starting in 2012. Considering the focus in other countries — like South Korea — upon English and the rise of rampant nationalism (which pushed through this radical change in Malaysia) in different countries in Asia, the article is of interest.
An English Ban and An Uncertain Future
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Your post is almost inspiringly misleading – almost as if you didn’t actually read it. The article fairly clearly states the government is not banning English, it is simply no longer allowing physics and math to be taught in English – something that makes a lot of sense in the context of the article…
“tab”, I took the word “ban” from the title of the article itself “In Malaysia, English Ban Raises Fears for Future”. Perhaps you did not read that either.
This news make Konglish sound all the better. Although we should all probably scrap the US and UK textbooks and start studying Chinglish.
I have often said that the only way to really “fix” English education in Korea is to put a 10-year ban on all English and Konglish in the country– no teaching, no English/Konglish names for anything, no nothing. Then after 10 years or so, start learning English again from scratch. Konglish is a mental poison that makes speaking good English much more difficult than it would be without it.
Fair point – I didn’t actually read the title. My bad.
It depends on what you mean by konglish. If you mean “inventive” and/or wrong uses of English words, such as (cunning to mean cheating) or (eye-showping to mean window shopping), maybe you are right. If by Konglish you mean pronouncing words as if they were spelled in 한글, e.g. englishee for english or lunchy for lunch, obviously that 10 years wouldn’t do anything, would it (unless you scrapped 한글/한국어 too). Plus, for ten years, they couldn’t say words like 컴퓨터 or even 스타크레프트.
10 years without 스타크레프트 might do some people some good.
@4 “good English”. lol.
That’s called an “adjective,” Adams-awry, and it’s correct.
lol. I was laughing at your linguistic prescriptivism. Real old-school. There I was thinking English was for communication, but you seem to believe Konglish incapable of communicating meaning. I know it isn’t in the dictionary, but if I call you an ass-hat, will you know what I mean?
From the article:
Hmm – perhaps he’s got a point, after all.
Whatever our thoughts on Konglish are, it isn’t about to go away. Languages aren’t static: they diverge, whether you want them to or not. Even if we could wave a magic wand and instantly cause everyone in the world to speak “prefect” CNN English, the various countries and communities of the world would immediately start to move in different directions linguistically. As those of us who’ve taught in multiple countries can attest to, every country has their own English flavor (ever heard of Singlish, la?).
Which is okay by me. Job security.
“Then after 10 years or so, start learning English again from scratch. Konglish is a mental poison that makes speaking good English much more difficult than it would be without it.”
Yes and no. Internally, there’s no harm in Konglish. Much in the way American pronunciations Anglicize French words, Koreans butcher the English language, but so long as no one’s the wiser, no harm done. However, if they use these phonemes around English speakers, they will often not be understood.
As for odd English phrases that mean something completely different in Korean, problems do arise when Koreans use the strange phrases with foreigners, assuming that they will be understood/interpreted in the same way. It leads to a breakdown of communication.
At Samsung, I saw numerous misuses of English phrases which led me to misunderstand the point whereas, had the Korean phrase been used, I would have immediately understood it.
One example: “workout,” which in English is a legal/banking term that refers to a debtor’s plan to take care of a debt, by paying it off or through loan forgiveness. Workouts are often created to avoid bankruptcy or foreclosure proceedings. At Samsung I saw it used as a buzzword in several reports to describe an entirely different concept, which I no longer recall. But when I asked around to check on what others took the word to mean, I found a divergence of opinion on the subject.
What this illustrates is that English is used in Korean to create deliberately obfuscating “jargon,” mostly to make the user appear erudite at the listener’s expense.
Speaking of the danger of misunderstanding, one hotel employee, attempting to be helpful to a guest who appeared confused meant to ask “what’s the matter?” Instead, he said, “what’s the matter with you?” and the man felt insulted.
Regarding pronunciation, English speakers are generally used to hearing foreign pronunciations from Europeans, and even Chinese and Japanese. However, there is something jarring and harsh about Korean pronunciations of English words that is difficult to describe.
My feeling about the struggles Koreans are famous for having with the English language is the following:
End mandatory English learning, and eliminate the stress inherent in speaking English that trips people up. Let the incentive to learn arise spontaneously. That way, a certain contingent who are genuinely interested will pick up the language in a meaningful way, and it is better to have a certain percentage of the population speak well than it is to have 100% speaking embarrasingly poorly.
MizarV, I agree with your suggestion to end the required study of English. It really would make more sense to let the market dictate the demand more naturally.
Regarding the use of ‘workout’ by Koreans, I can attest to its correct usage among Koreans involved in the fields of accounting and finance. For them, ‘workout’ means exactly the same thing it does to native English speakers familiar with the term.
Thanks. Speaking of language/cultural miscues, I believe someone on this blog related this story before:
A cop pulled over a foreigner who had had a few drinks and was weaving on the road a bit. He shoved a strange looking device in his face and said “Hu!”
The foreigner had never seen such a device and, taking it to be a microphone, said, “Richard Mullins, Toronto, Canada.”
The cop, looking confused repeated “Hu!”
Leaning in the foreigner said in a louder voice, “Richard Mullins, Toronto, Canada!”
I’ll remember that one if I ever get pulled over.
My favorite bad English-speaking Koreans joke–though some gyopos drowned around L.A. after their car crashed and the 9-1-1 operator couldn’t understand their English–is this one:
Korean guy gets in car accident. Car is flipped upside down.
Police officer pulls up, runs over to the car and says: Oh my gosh! Sir, are you OK?
To which the Korean guy says: I’m fine….Thank you…..And you?
My impression, from jaunts all over East Asia, is that Singapore has the highest standard of spoken English, followed by Malaysia and Hong Kong. I don’t think this kind of fluency is normal in populations that only take language classes. My suspicion is that all three countries not only have mandatory English classes in school, but also use English in the home and in casual conversation.
Seriously, what is an “ass-hat,” though? Like what is it? A hat for your ass?
Ah, the good old “language is for communication, so throw grammar out the window” argument, expounded by ignoramuses the world over. If I were to write:
i tink u r sooooo stoopid!!! i gong too pnuch u N da face!!!!
then I think you would understand what that means. But I would look like a fucking idiot (or perhaps an “ass-hat”), wouldn’t I?
Re: What this illustrates is that English is used in Korean to create deliberately obfuscating “jargon,” mostly to make the user appear erudite at the listener’s expense.
I think that is a very good observation. Obfuscation and lack of clarity in general seem to run rampant in Korea regardless of the language. I strongly suspect there is generally a low value placed on quality communication in Korean society. Debates turn into fist fights at the highest levels of society, meaning the legislature (or is it the lowest level of society?), management objectives and vision statements in the company are meaningless slogans, official government communication with potential and current foreign investors and customers are proof read by hagwon victims and are essentially meandering strings of useless jargon, many supposedly “news” items are just regurgitated press releases from companies and government… etc. I wish I spoke better Korean to see how meaningful the conversations can get.
“English speakers are generally used to hearing foreign pronunciations from Europeans”
Or from an east atlantic viewpoint, English are european and are generally used to hearing foreign pronunciations from foreigners including other europeans and americans.
I did not say “language is for communication, so throw grammar out the window”. You said that Konglish was “mental poison”. I said suggested that Konglish had its place.
When moving house one day, the bloke with the truck was trying to single-handedly carry my refrigerator off the back. He got himself into a bit of a tricky situation and although he couldn’t speak much English screamed “team-play.” I instantly understood what he meant.
Furthermore, had I been inclined to help him, he wouldn’t have broken his foot when he dropped the fridge.
Konglish (almost) to the rescue.
One possible way in which Korean could restrict the usage of Konglish would be to make a greater use of Sino-Korean. Thus instead of 컴퓨터, it could be referred to as a 전뇌 (電腦), literally ‘electric brain’ . Something very much on people’s minds these days are computer viruses. Instead of 컴퓨터 바이러스, the Sino-Korean equivalent would be 전뇌병독 or 電腦病毒. Chinese has generally resisted incursions of English into the language. The preference has been to make new words out of old roots.
Of course, for Korean to do something like this, it would probably mean studying Chinese characters more attentively, something not many people would want to do. Konglish is here to stay, alas. Still, it is nothing like the mangling of English which happens in Japan. マクドナルド (Makadonarudo) anyone?
Since the ’70s, I have advocated printing English words in English and native language words in the native language. This would apply in Korea, Japan, China, Thailand, Malaysia, and wherever else. Printing English words in the native language guarantees pronunciation-related difficulties, both receptively and productively.
What do they do in Europe? Do they leave the spelling of English words relatively intact?
If foreigners can learn to pronounce English loan words as rendered in Hangeul, then Korean speakers of English should be able to learn the correct pronunciations of those words. My longtime experience with Korean speakers of English is that those with clear pronunciation extend those pronunciation skills to English cognates. The ones who use Korean-style pronunciation tend not to have clear pronunication, period.
Using new Chinese character compounds instead of English loan words isn’t going to help Koreans speak English correctly; in fact, it would reduce the number of cognates. I don’t want to launch into another unresolvable debate about the relationship between language similarities and ease of learning. I would just say that as a learner of several European and Asian languages, I consider cognates as net positives.
pronunication – pronunciation
My thought is, why not phoneticize English words using Japanese characters in order to help break down some of the psychological resistance to learning the language?
That is an interesting thought “mizar” because the Koreans used “idu” or Chinese characters that pronounced, yielded Korean words.
Putting English into Hangul sometimes yields surprises too. Going to Starbucks demonstrates this a bit more: 시나몬 instead of 계피 or while watching “Ahn-yong Franceska” one character talks about the “shi-tu-a-tion” (shit-u-a-tion)
If the Malaysians are serious about nationalism, the first ax to grind should be loan words like “komputer” (computer) and “kopi” (copy).
The French has a system of colleges set up to keep their language consistent and more “pure”. Perhaps the Malaysians should consider doing the same. Rather than loan words, they can develop new native Malay words to replace them.
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