My mother gets excited whenever anyone asks her how to say something in Korean and will provide long explanations with extensive cultural commentary...
Oh, yes! That was my favorite part, actually. Including stories from the women about being a young bride and meeting relatives, or being a small child and making the mistakes all children make, along with specifics about "what to do when your son marries and how his new wife should act" and "what you say to your sister when she still hasn't gotten married" and "what women call their husbands" (versus "what women call their husbands when their husbands aren't around" which is always hysterical in any culture, honestly, I think that's just part of humanity).
Hee, well, if you ever make that mistake again, you can smoothly turn it into an excuse to flatter her about how young she looks!
Believe me, they thought it was hysterical. There was a lot of good-natured ribbing going on (even when you can't understand the language, you can understand the tone and expressions!), but it was clear she was flattered to be mistaken (repeatedly!) for the young woman who worked there.
Big difference from the Vietnamese women I've known who will step back in shock if you use the wrong sound-ending for saying hello to them. I vaguely recall the rule was that in Vietnamese, there's value placed on gender, relationship (if you're related or not, that is, and whether it's work-relationship, I think), and age... of both speakers. So there's one hello to a woman younger than me, hello to a man younger than me, hello to a woman my age, my mother's age, my grandmother's age, but with some kind of change based on whether I'm a woman or man (though not, as I recall, a huge change, more like an inflection, so I guess verb-ending, there, too). Oh, that was tough. I greeted a friend once and she practically recoiled in horror, saying, "do I look like a grandmother!?" *dies of embarrassment* Or the woman at a local favorite restaurant who lectured me at least once a month for getting the ending wrong and implying she was ten years younger than me. No, definitely not flattered, more like amused yet despairing of the American who can't seem to remember There Is A Proper Way To Do This. *sigh*
ust another minor correction: modern standard Korean actually isn't tonal. There are certain regions in the southwest province that have tonal dialects...
I have begun to believe it's something about "the south" regardless of where you live. A Vietnamese coworker used to make fun of his mother-in-law's accent, and it sounded extremely sing-songy... and yep, her family is from coastal southern Vietnam. Or my step-mother, ridiculing the sing-songy accent of southern Sweden, or even the French I learned... in the south of France, which has a distinct twang-lilt to it, compared to the relative flatness of northern France. I have no scientific basis, but it just seems like "south" in any culture is going to have a stronger singing-style of accent. Maybe it has something to do with people who live where it's hotter than where everyone else (in the culture) lives. I have no idea.
As for tonal, I had no idea it wasn't tonal -- maybe I've only interacted significantly with immigrants coming from the south, because I've been lectured repeatedly on mimicking their delivery (a very lilting delivery) as closely as possible. I'm not a very good mimic, though, so it doesn't exactly help, compounded by the fact that I'm language-tone-deaf to some degree already. (Well, not entirely -- I can hear when someone else has tones, but I can't tell when I'm doing it.)
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Date: 27 Aug 2010 08:44 pm (UTC)Oh, yes! That was my favorite part, actually. Including stories from the women about being a young bride and meeting relatives, or being a small child and making the mistakes all children make, along with specifics about "what to do when your son marries and how his new wife should act" and "what you say to your sister when she still hasn't gotten married" and "what women call their husbands" (versus "what women call their husbands when their husbands aren't around" which is always hysterical in any culture, honestly, I think that's just part of humanity).
Hee, well, if you ever make that mistake again, you can smoothly turn it into an excuse to flatter her about how young she looks!
Believe me, they thought it was hysterical. There was a lot of good-natured ribbing going on (even when you can't understand the language, you can understand the tone and expressions!), but it was clear she was flattered to be mistaken (repeatedly!) for the young woman who worked there.
Big difference from the Vietnamese women I've known who will step back in shock if you use the wrong sound-ending for saying hello to them. I vaguely recall the rule was that in Vietnamese, there's value placed on gender, relationship (if you're related or not, that is, and whether it's work-relationship, I think), and age... of both speakers. So there's one hello to a woman younger than me, hello to a man younger than me, hello to a woman my age, my mother's age, my grandmother's age, but with some kind of change based on whether I'm a woman or man (though not, as I recall, a huge change, more like an inflection, so I guess verb-ending, there, too). Oh, that was tough. I greeted a friend once and she practically recoiled in horror, saying, "do I look like a grandmother!?" *dies of embarrassment* Or the woman at a local favorite restaurant who lectured me at least once a month for getting the ending wrong and implying she was ten years younger than me. No, definitely not flattered, more like amused yet despairing of the American who can't seem to remember There Is A Proper Way To Do This. *sigh*
ust another minor correction: modern standard Korean actually isn't tonal. There are certain regions in the southwest province that have tonal dialects...
I have begun to believe it's something about "the south" regardless of where you live. A Vietnamese coworker used to make fun of his mother-in-law's accent, and it sounded extremely sing-songy... and yep, her family is from coastal southern Vietnam. Or my step-mother, ridiculing the sing-songy accent of southern Sweden, or even the French I learned... in the south of France, which has a distinct twang-lilt to it, compared to the relative flatness of northern France. I have no scientific basis, but it just seems like "south" in any culture is going to have a stronger singing-style of accent. Maybe it has something to do with people who live where it's hotter than where everyone else (in the culture) lives. I have no idea.
As for tonal, I had no idea it wasn't tonal -- maybe I've only interacted significantly with immigrants coming from the south, because I've been lectured repeatedly on mimicking their delivery (a very lilting delivery) as closely as possible. I'm not a very good mimic, though, so it doesn't exactly help, compounded by the fact that I'm language-tone-deaf to some degree already. (Well, not entirely -- I can hear when someone else has tones, but I can't tell when I'm doing it.)