The New Language of Love?

When you hear the phrase “language of love,” you probably associate that with French or another Romance language. Those languages are known for their pleasant sounds. In an article that I read recently, “language of love” means something else.

As we have discussed in class, South Korea has a big appetite for languages. In 2006 alone, Koreans spent close to $16 billion on English-language tutors. Koreans want to learn English to succeed in the business world.

Young male expats, however, are learning Korean to meet Korean girls. Language exchange websites are now used for dating, not just for learning Korean. American men are engaging in language exchanges with young Korean women. There are 22,000 foreigners teachers English in South Korea and they are having no problems finding Korean study partners.

Are they even learning Korean in the process? One of the men interviewed for the article said he had not even learned Hangul (the Korean alphabet).

And in case you are curious where you can have a Korean study session yourself, the websites included in the article were: hanlingo.com, mylanguageexchange.com, and iaminkorea.com. You can make a profile and see the profiles of other members looking for language and love.

I find this phenomenon pretty funny because I first heard about it at Stanford. My friends who study Korean here said that half of their classmates are in the class because they want to communicate with their girlfriends. Also, when I was in high school, I observed that many Americans wanted to learn Korean. We had a sizeable contingent of international students from Korea. My Korean roommate taught me “sahranhey” and “anyung” along with other phrases. Many Koreans I know love teaching Americans to speak Korean and I guess Americans want to not only learn the language, but find a Korean date too!

Article: Speak Korean, the language of love

Source: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/south-korea/100506/learn-korean-language-dating-expat-life

Article: English Is The Golden Tongue for S. Koreans

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/01/AR2007070101259.html