It may well be when kids are swearing at you in another language.
Some language schools in Korea prefer their foreign teachers to not know any Korean. I used to think this was silly, since knowing a bit about the one’s students’ first language could be helpful in teaching them a second one. Looking at it from that angle, those schools may be in the wrong. Then again, they may have that policy/guideline/requirement for the teacher’s benefit. I know a smattering of Korean, and can sound out what I see written in it. My vocabulary mostly consists of food, basic conversational phrases – and swear words. Most of my swears I picked up when I was here with the army and worked alongside Korean soldiers. They wanted to know how to swear in English, but weren’t too keen on us knowing how to swear in Korean. I had to book of Korean slang, and when they realized I knew some of what they were saying, the actually corrected my pronunciation so I’d at least say it right.
My students like it when I get some of what they’re saying when we talk about food, or they’re trying to explain something to me that they can’t quite say in English. It makes things a little easier all around. They’re not too keen on me knowing when they’re saying something bad, though.
Except for one student, I’ve never had any of them swear at me. It’s still odd to hear them saying things like “fuck off” and “your mom’s a dog” in the middle of class. (The second one may require a bit of explanation. It’s not quite the same as calling somebody a “son of a bitch” in English. One’s family is taken very seriously here, and insults to one’s mother are often a prelude to a fight. Saying somebody’s mother is dog, a whore, or – god forbid – Japanese, is not a joking matter.)
Since my students know that I know what they’re saying, they’ve started making up justifications for their language. “개새끼” literally means “dog baby” in English, so when I catch them saying it they’ll say, “no, teacher. I said ‘dog baby. Like puppy. Very cute.'” Riiiiiight. Likewise “씨발” is almost identical to “십팔.” The first is an exclamation, roughly equivalent to “for fuck’s sake” and the second is “eighteen.” There’s also the new “magic word,” known only to children in Korea. It’s “즐” and means “fuck off” or “get the fuck away from me.” Every adult I’ve shown it to has no idea what it is. And I know I’m not just being bullshitted, because I can see a genuine lack of comprehension on their faces when they see it. As far as I know, it came into being earlier this year (perhaps around February of 2003), and every child in Korea instantly knew it. I don’t know who came up with it, but I blame Buddy Buddy, the Korea-only instant messaging program for its spread. Just like the old shampoo commercial – they told two friends, then they told two friends, then they told two friends – and so on.
It’s generally not a problem, but sometimes they really get on my nerves. I have to wonder if it wouldn’t be easier not knowing all this. Would it make the job easier (not that it’s really all that hard) if all I heard was incomprehensible chatter?