(no subject)
Ok guys. You can just cut that out.
I went through a phase as a kid where I believed in Santa, and I believed in the Easter Bunny, but no one is going to convince me I did anything to deserve a visit from the Vaccine Formula Clue-notes Fairy, ok?
I'm working on it.
And in other random musings I realized recently how very little I learned or brought away from the war that I hadn't already known. You know? all those years over there, and I never mastered much of the language.
It's not that I couldn't have sat down and tried- well, no I probably couldn't have, I had way too many people to patch up to have much leisure time- it's that I couldn't get my mouth around the words, somehow.
To give you all an idea of how exactly a person's Korean accent sounds, let me describe to you how words are pronounced.
I will use one of Korea's favorite words: "Hangook." It means "Korea."
Hangook is made up of two words borrowed from China: "Han," meaning great, and "gook," meaning country. Great country.
When you say "hangook" naturally it is not pronounced "han-gook." It is pronounced "hahng-gook." When an N is followed by a G, the sound becomes NG-G.
"Hangookeo" means "Korean language." It is pronounced "hahng-goo-guh." Notice that the K in hangook moved to the third syllable AND turned into more of a G sound (it's actually neither a K nor a G in either case, but the sound shifts due to the vocalization). If you see the word written, the letters are not shifted.
Another way to say "Korean language" is "hangook mal." It is pronounced "hahng-goong-mal." When an M meets a G, the sound turns to NG-M.
So here's a whole sentence; "Hangook mal iya" means "it's Korean language." It's pronounced "hahng-goong-ma-reeyah," with a rolled R. Notice that the L moved to the fourth syllable and changed to an R.
All this makes sense in theory, but you try saying all that and get it right.
Basically, my accent when speaking to the locals just wasn't getting it right.
You never think of Maine as having its own 'accent' until you realize that it's messing up your way of talking something else.
I went through a phase as a kid where I believed in Santa, and I believed in the Easter Bunny, but no one is going to convince me I did anything to deserve a visit from the Vaccine Formula Clue-notes Fairy, ok?
I'm working on it.
And in other random musings I realized recently how very little I learned or brought away from the war that I hadn't already known. You know? all those years over there, and I never mastered much of the language.
It's not that I couldn't have sat down and tried- well, no I probably couldn't have, I had way too many people to patch up to have much leisure time- it's that I couldn't get my mouth around the words, somehow.
To give you all an idea of how exactly a person's Korean accent sounds, let me describe to you how words are pronounced.
I will use one of Korea's favorite words: "Hangook." It means "Korea."
Hangook is made up of two words borrowed from China: "Han," meaning great, and "gook," meaning country. Great country.
When you say "hangook" naturally it is not pronounced "han-gook." It is pronounced "hahng-gook." When an N is followed by a G, the sound becomes NG-G.
"Hangookeo" means "Korean language." It is pronounced "hahng-goo-guh." Notice that the K in hangook moved to the third syllable AND turned into more of a G sound (it's actually neither a K nor a G in either case, but the sound shifts due to the vocalization). If you see the word written, the letters are not shifted.
Another way to say "Korean language" is "hangook mal." It is pronounced "hahng-goong-mal." When an M meets a G, the sound turns to NG-M.
So here's a whole sentence; "Hangook mal iya" means "it's Korean language." It's pronounced "hahng-goong-ma-reeyah," with a rolled R. Notice that the L moved to the fourth syllable and changed to an R.
All this makes sense in theory, but you try saying all that and get it right.
Basically, my accent when speaking to the locals just wasn't getting it right.
You never think of Maine as having its own 'accent' until you realize that it's messing up your way of talking something else.