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The Korean American Community Services center offers classes in Spanish. It seems that a number of Korean immigrants are studying Spanish to better communicate with their often Latin American immigrant employees. Given what seems like huge cultural differences that both groups have, this is a solid way to begin breaking down some of the problems that often arise due to culture clash.
Immigrant Korean Americans are learning Spanish to improve work relationships
chicagotribune.com - 2 weeks ago - 41 views
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Organizations: Korean American Chamber of Commerce
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Speaking a second language shouldn't be seen as intruding on La Raza prerogatives, fellow Windy Citizens. Who's up for a little Korean class?
Considering how bad the cultural clash got between Koreans and African Americans in Los Angeles, it's a smart move by those business owners who employ many Latino workers.
Asian languages are difficult to learn if you come from a Latin based language system. Similiarly, Arabic and Hebrew also use a completely different alphabet system.
It's got to be incredibly challenging for anyone to learn English and be 100% immersed in it, when it's not your native language and you're already an adult (it's easier to learn another language when you're young). To then study Spanish is really a huge move.
My Korean Senior Citizenship classes, which I taught in 1994, helped me see the linguistic challenges of which you write, Tamale Chica. I still remember the single Korean character used to represent the American concept of the law & how my Korean students loved to answer the name of the Vice President of the United States as "Al Gore."
The Japanese language has three alphabets, two are phoneme based. Of those, one is used to denote non-native words, such as Coca Cola or if you are in Japan, tacos. The other phoneme based alphabet is for Japanese concepts and names. They also use a third alphabet, borrowed from the Chinese which is like the one you described, which conveys larger concepts. It makes our 26 letters seem like a relief.
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