Rachel Choi Blog #3 Language

Blog #3

I can’t remember if there ever was a period when I couldn’t speak English.  I don’t remember if I could speak English when I entered preschool, my parents would only speak in Korean in the house and my sister would speak in English since she was four years older than me.  As a second generation Korean-American, I am just thankful that I was born in America and could learn both languages as a child.  Although I can communicate in both English and Korea in a perfect tone, my Korean vocabulary lacks in special areas such as politics or history.   

Nowadays, an increasing amount of Koreans travel overseas to receive an American education which is essential to getting hired in Korea.  A lot of my friends both international and those who immigrated feel more comfortable talking in Korean so my skills also increased as I spent more time with them.  Whenever I travel to Korea, street vendors would automatically ask me if I was a foreigner even though I thought my accent was perfect.  Interestingly, there are some words in Korean that I cannot match an English word to even though my English vocabulary is larger than my Korean vocabulary.  

In Imagined Communities Benedict Anderson says that there is a “certain privacy” to all languages.  Though you can try to find a substitute for a word in Korean, you may never actually have the perfect translation of the word.  There is a certain vernacular that develops as you experience a certain culture.  Anderson describes print languages as the basis for which language became a unified field of communication and encouraged the spread of news.  The creole people in particular whose communities formed with the help of a common language and descent developed national consciousness before the rest of Europe. Different forms of technology such as the print technology, provide new gateways to communication between nations.