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Korean Language in International Business:
an Apology
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By Tom Coyner
Korea Times
February 28, 2008
In a literary sense, an apology can be an opportunity for not
having to say one's sorry. If one looks up the word in any good English
dictionary, one definition of "apology" is a formal statement of
justification or defense. With that word use in mind, I'm going to get
something off my chest that has really bothered me for at least the past
decade. Namely, the dearth of the Korean language in international business
― including when conducting commerce in Korea ― continues to exist.
This matter has come up several times over the years among my discussions
with both expatriate and local business people. The most notable, recent
example was a couple of weeks ago. At Seoul Rotary Club, we honored a
departing German executive who had been a leader in the EU business
community. A long-term member of the British community softly challenged him
about his ― and others ― not learning Korean, while allowing quite modestly
he himself had not mastered Korean as well as he should be given his long
tenure in Korea.
The German noted, in English of course, that when he was assigned earlier in
his career to Mexico, he had learnt Spanish as a matter of necessity, but he
had not found it truly necessary to learn Korean.
Over the past several years, I have had multiple conversations with foreign
professionals on this issue. Many other mature business people, who have
lived and worked abroad, have found the time and incentive to master the
local language, at least to the business conversational level. And,
parenthetically, the last time I lived in Japan, for a decade, I spoke and
wrote in Japanese as a matter of course in doing business in Tokyo.
Korean is often classified by the U.S. government as one of the "hard"
languages, along with Japanese and Chinese, etc. In China and Japan,
however, medium- and long-term resident foreigners make a point to speak
much better than "survival language" during their tenures there. And in all
fairness, I have often witnessed foreign managers carrying on in Korean when
dealing with simple issues such as asking for items, answering telephones,
etc. What is rare, however, is to see foreigners in Korea carrying on
serious business negotiations or handling complex personnel issues in the
Korean language. In Japan and China, these days, if one has been in country
more than a couple of years, it is generally expected to do business in the
local language, with the possible exception of senior executives who are
frankly written off as being "too old" to learn a new language.
So what makes Korea different than the two neighboring countries?
Over the past years talking with polyglot expatriate managers who have
fairly consistently given up learning Korean, I have found some common
reasons, which I may lump into two groups ― linguistic and cultural.
Linguistically, beyond the brilliance of the hangeul writing system, Korean
is a very difficult language for two major reasons. First, while the grammar
is similar to Japanese, it is not as consistent as Japanese and as such it
needs to be learned more in terms of sentence patterns than grammar. So
while memorizing sentence patterns can be applied to new situations such as
learning a grammar, sentence patterns are not so readily applicable as
grammar.
But, second and much more significantly, Korean has fairly unique phonetics.
The closest I have so far found among Western languages may be German, but
only as far as the vowels. Yet while there are many Koreans who speak German
beautifully, there are few Germans who can do the same in Korean. Even worse
is the case for other foreigners. The reason is that many of consonants and
vowels do not correspond with most other languages' phonetics. Consequently,
if the ear ― and the tongue ― have not learned to differentiate correctly
among sounds of a foreign language, it is almost impossible for the brain to
internalize and replicate new vocabulary. And even if new vocabulary is
studied and yet the foreigner cannot properly pronounce the words, quite
understandably he or she is not going to make as much progress as hoped.
(I have noted that skilled musicians and those who easily sing in tune have
an obvious advantage over tone-deaf people such as me. But perhaps I am just
adding another layer of the apology in my own case.)
The second group of reasons for foreigners not really learning Korean ― and
this is a big one ― is cultural and to a degree social.
With the exception of blue collar labors who must speak Korean as a matter
of survival, white collar foreigners find themselves in linguistic
completion with English-speaking or wishing to learn English Koreans. This
is also true in China and Japan, but what really sets Korea apart is the
number of English-speaking Koreans at many levels of commerce. The sheer
volume of bilingual or near bilingual ethnic Koreans or Koreans who have
studied abroad one encounters in business frankly diminishes the incentive
for many foreigners to try to become truly conversational or better in
Korean.
Unlike the Japanese and Chinese languages, few students abroad study Korean
as a foreign language. It is common to find people, such as myself, who
studied Chinese or Japanese in university, before coming to Asia. The few
universities that teach Korean language find most of their students being
ethnic Korean who study out of family obligation and/or a desire to better
connect with Korea. There are some notable exceptions of non-ethnic Koreans
studying the language before coming to Korea, such as missionaries and
military/government employees. But only few of these make it into business,
albeit those who do generally do very well indeed.
Having gone through the elementary phases of learning Japanese in Japan and
replicating the experience here in Korea, I find the experience to be
remarkably different. And from my conversations with other foreigners who
have studied foreign languages abroad, my encounters with Koreans are not at
all unique.
Even today, walking into a common restaurant as opposed to an international
class establishment, it is not unusual to get the "deer in the headlights"
panic stare from employees. While a few, rudimentary words of Korean does
work wonders in many cases, there are other times when it can be painfully
difficult as a foreigner struggling to be understood beyond ordering from
the menu. While rare with younger Koreans, older Koreans -- particularly in
the countryside -- can display a confidence-destroying reactive behavior to
beginner speaker's efforts by abruptly turning away, since they don't wish
to deal with the hassle of communicating with a foreigner. The Japanese, on
the other hand, may actually have the same feelings, but a strong cultural
trait of "tatemae'' or social decorum mandates that they smile and at least
pretend to be nice, regardless of whatever they may be thinking. For the
beginning Japanese speaker, this is a good thing, since it gives to the
foreigner, at the worst, a false sense of competency.
So is there hope? Maybe. When I first lived in Tokyo in 1970, no one
expected foreigners to speak Japanese. Just saying "ohayo gozaimasu'' each
morning earned us foreigners undeserved accolades for our fluency. Today, if
one cannot carry on a reasonable conversation as a Japan resident, one is
regarded as being, well, culturally challenged, to put it nicely.
Decades from now, in spite of Koreans' fanatical drives to master English,
will Koreans expect others to speak their language as the Chinese and
Japanese do today? We can only hope they may. We may likewise hope future
foreigners will resume the challenge of truly learning Korean for use in
business and elsewhere.
Tom Coyner is president of Soft Landing Korea (www.softlandingkorea.com),
a human resources and sales-focused business development firm, and co-author of Mastering
Korean Business: A Practical Guide.
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