My Blog

I am still writing entries from my trip to China and Korea. It seems that I may have a second chance to go to China for business soon. The goal is to finish up the previous entries BEFORE I leave for the second trip.

There is a topic I've been wanting to blog for a few weeks, and it addresses one of the mysteries in my life. A little background: I was born in South Korea, and lived there for the 1st 7 years of my life. I was "fluent" in Korean and did not learn English until I moved to the States. So, for the 1st seven years of my life, I spoke, wrote, dreamt, thought in Korean... IF we explicitly use a specific language for such things. Someone once asked me... do you still "think" in Korean. My reply: "no, when I construct thoughts, that's done in English.". So, the natural question to ask is: "when and how did you make that transition to 'thinking' in English?".

I have never been able to answer that question. Was it gradual? Was it relatively sudden, say within a few days or a week? Was there a impetus? Is the question moot, as the kind of thoughts a seven-year old is likely to have would be insignificant? But there are larger questions: "how does thinking in one language actually shape the thinking?" and "what other kind of transitions were there for the seven-year old, such as cultural and relational?".

I was given a glimpse of a possible answer while I was in Korea a few weeks back. My Korean is not very good, but did improve during my time there. It was much more practical to blunder my way thru simple Korean than to try to communicate in English. I still had my pocket dictionary and phrasebook with me. And since I knew how to read Korean, and was with relatives, it was easy to get by.

I was being driven somewhere by my aunt, and I was taking in the street signs that had both Korean and English. As I was sounding out the street names in English, I distinctly remember thinking, IN KOREAN, "that sign is wrong, isn't it?" ("wrong", in how the Korean was phonetically translated into English... it turned out that it was correct*).

The reason why I thought this on Korean was NOT because my mind was in "Korean mode" or because my Korean had improved. I think the reason why I thought this was it was more "efficient" in terms of number of syllables and the construct required to express this sentiment. Sure, "that sign is wrong, isn't it?" is not a complicated English phrase, but the Korean was more efficient, "simpler", and more "at the ready" at the time I needed it.

So if my theory is correct, my guess is that I made the transition from English to Korean gradually, as my English improved and my ability to express what I needed to express became easier in English. This also explains why adults generally still think in terms of their first (or original) language. Their first language skills are developed enough to express the thoughts required. I don't know how quickly the transition came for me, but only that it probably came very naturally. The other transitions (such as my relationship with my parents and brother, cultural, school, etc.) probably played a key role, as it was probably easier to utilize new English words to deal with my new American life.

This may also explain why it seems easier for me to speak Korean to relatives compared to speaking with other Koreans. The Korean I know is mostly tied to my being a child. To my relatives, including my parents who have also been in the States for 30 years, I still have Korean words and constructs that work. I once tried talking in Korean to my fellow Korean counterparts when I was with a large consulting company. That was a difficult conversations... I lacked the words, the customs, it was awkward at many levels.

* The reason why the sign was "correct" is due to the fact that I was sounding out each Korean syllable in a strict sense, without taking into account that it fluent speaking, some of the ends of syllables are changed to accommodate the next sound. It reminded me of this.