George
The Most Common Mistakes Koreans Make When Speaking English

Since I moved to Korea, I've noticed a lot of regular mistakes Koreans make when they speak English. To help English language learners improve, I've created a list of the most common mistakes that I've come across:

 

1. "It was really funny!" The Korean word for 'funny' and 'fun' are the same so I've heard a lot of Koreans tell me that they had a 'really funny time' with their friends, when they mean to say 'I had a really fun time'. Fun - you enjoyed yourself, it was entertaining. Funny - the situation was humourous, you laughed a lot. To say that you had a 'funny time' with your friends sounds strange to native speakers. It's more natural to say, 'I had a good laugh with my friends' or 'When I met up with my friend last week, I couldn't stop laughing. He/she's so funny!'

 

2. "I was so drunken." As my Korean isn't very good, I'm not sure why this mistake is repeated so often. The correct sentence would be, 'I was so drunk.' Drunken is an adjective so you could say 'I saw a drunken man on the street.' You can also change it into an adverb - 'drunkenly' - 'I saw a man drunkenly walk down the street.'

 

3. 'I'm so boring.' When you say you are 'boring', it means other people think you're uninteresting. The correct sentence is 'I'm so bored,' which means you find the situation uninteresting.

 

4. 'I was so scary'. To be scary is to scare other people, to be scared is to say that something is actively scaring you. Correct expression - 'I was so scared.'

 

5. 'I went to Swiss'/'I went to Czech'. Most Korean words for countries are the same as they are in English but there are a few exceptions. Country name - Switzerland. Example - I went to Switzerland. Adjective - Swiss. I love Swiss chocolate. Country name - Czech Republic. Example - I went to the Czech Republic. Adjective - Czech. Example - Czech architecture is beautiful.

 

That's all for now. I hope this was helpful!

Sep 19, 2014 5:49 AM
Comments · 1
1

Thank you. It is really helpful.

감사합니다. 참고할게요 ^^

January 29, 2016