“What’s headache in Korean?” “두통.” [pronounced like doo-tong] The sixth graders shouted. They love shouting… “두 as in 두 for two?” I asked because Korean is mostly phonetically spelled but not always. Plus my ears are still being tuned to similar sounds and thirty masked twelve year olds yelling at the same time doesn’t help. “No,” they shouted with conviction, “두 as in 頭 for head. The Chinese 두.” I don’t know Hanja but I had some idea where this was going so I asked one student to write it in Korean for me. The spelling? 두통. That’s right— I asked if the spelling was 두 and they said no,…

Let’s talk about Hangul, Romanization, and why it’s always a bad idea to describe Korean in terms of English sounds. This all came to me when I was watching a YouTube video of a Korean woman quizzing English speakers about loan words from English. The native speakers kept hearing a /k/ sound even as the Korean hostess was convinced that the native speakers would surely hear a /g/ sound. I am also personally invested in this topic because every time I order at an American chain in Korea, the cashier corrects my Korean pronunciation of the English loan word. (At Subway: 안녕하세요. 써브웨이 맬트 주세요. Hello, I’d like the “seo-bu-way…

Another soul destroying ballad? Yes, please.