6 ms·

Why is Korean horrible?

• adamnemecek 10y ago
  Most languages because they are evolved, not designed.
• lifthrasiir 10y ago
  In general natural languages are horrible but nevertheless working messes. They always change and each language is subtly different from each others, if not massively different. For example: Korean verb conjugations are massive [1] mainly because conjugations themselves are morphemes (or semi-words, if you don't know what it is) and not mutations or transformations thus the set of conjugations is essentially open. Native Korean speakers can probably easily list hundreds of different conjugations with different meanings. [1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXakcsoUkAEMPaj.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXakcsoUkAEMPaj.jpg for example.
  • JoelSanchez 10y ago
    How does it compare to Spanish? We don't have few conjugations either. "To be": http://www.conjugacion.es/del/verbo/haber.php http://www.conjugacion.es/del/verbo/haber.php
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • lifthrasiir 10y ago
      In many languages conjugations are defined by the fixed template (the template itself can be large). In Korean, Japanese and other agglutinative languages the template is virtually non-existent (Wikipedia seems to give a 7-part template [1] which looks quite absurd for native Koreans---it should be considered a "common" regularizable subset of what people actually say). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_verbs#Finite_verb_endings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_verbs#Finite_verb_endin...
    • phamilton 10y ago
      eh.... haber isn't really "to be" at all. "to be" is pretty well covered by estar and ser. The only case for haber to translate to "to be" is existential, and pretty much only conjugated in the third person when used that way. Otherwise it's just an auxiliary verb, where its usage parallels "to have" in english (but not indicating possession, which is tener). It's basically just a glue verb.
  • sho_hn 10y ago
    My seat-of-the-pants take (which I could qualify linguistically, but I think it's fine to posit these concepts colloquially in this context) on this: Most successful human languages provide a similar complexity space within which to express oneself richly. You need to be able to communicate mood, underrun expectations, frame or defy relationships ... in English, much of this is done by choice of words (especially adjectives and verbs) and word arrangement. In Korean, instead, while there's a giant repertoire of nouns, sentiment and relationships are more often injected via choice of grammar form and word choice is rather more straight-forward. For example, Westerners make much of Korean's various speech levels ("politeness") which need to be used correctly depending on age or standing of addressor and addressee, and mostly (but not solely) take the shape of different verb endings. But of course English has a complex register system as well - but it's done via word choice and arrangement instead. It's the difference between "I'm sorry, I'm not able to help" and "F*ck off". In Korean, you can conceivably scale this difference by leaving off a word ending aimed at the wrong person combined with body language. It's this difference - human interaction and the nature of eloquence remain the same in their essence, but the tools of expression have different mechanics - that's fascinating. (Also, greetings from #rust!)
    • lifthrasiir 10y ago
      Yes, Korean has very small number of irregular verbs and grammatical genders (to name a few) in turn. Therefore they are differently horrible :-)