SA+Language barrier

[akstylish]

Does anyone have this combination? The latter is not really a disorder, but it's definitely making my social life even worse. Even though I'm a U.S. citizen, I lived my life mostly in South Korea. Still, I have lived here for 4 years, and that's enough for most foreigners to speak English fluently. But my speaking/listening skills don't seem to have improved at all after the first year in the U.S. I still can't understand over half of what my classmates talk about or speak a tenth as well as they do. My written English is ok imo, but sometimes I have to look at the dictionary and grammar book many times to write even a very short essay. So, I'm basically in a worse situation than those of people who only have a problem with starting a conversation.
I'm visiting my country this July, and I don't want to meet my best Korean friends anymore. Most Korean teens are only insterested in good-looking, popular, or funny friends.(To yeah_yeah_yeah: this should answer why I think I should be funny to make friends) Some of my Korean friends already began making fun of me when we chatted online. I don't blame them because that's what I used to do before getting SA, but it makes me sad because not only I'm not getting any more friends here, but also I'm losing friends in Korea.

[barnabas]

barnabas has been in this country for eight years and she still doesn't speak english very well. D:

she reads/writes/listens well enough, but speaking is another matter. her pronunciation sucks. the letter r is evil, she's telling ya!

she likes to believe that when/if her spoken english finally improves she'll finally get to make real friends.

on an unrelated note, akstylish shouldn't feel like he/she/it needs to be funny to make friends if he/she/it isn't really funny. barnabas understands the pressure to be funny (her people are as weird as the koreans are), but as cliche as it is: a friend who doesn't like you for who you are isn't really a friend.

on second thought, if akstylish is only going to be in korea for a while, there's nothing wrong with pretending to be someone he/she/it is not.

[akstylish]

Thanks for the reply...but at least you're good at most types of English...I'm not good at any of those.(yeah, I know I need to stop looking only on my negative side, lol)

[barnabas]

if that's the case, ak may want to read a lot of books and watch a lot of tv.

[akstylish]

I don't read books much but do watch tv a lot...it doesn't help.

[jane]

Akstylish, as an English person going to a French school, anxiety is a bigger barrier for me than language.
I though that I could make friends more easily in my native tongue, because I could be quick and funny and never be at a loss for words. But because anxiety makes it difficult to open up, these friendships are often superficial.
Also, anxiety had a big impact on my fluency. I thought that making mistakes made me look stupid, so I wouldn't talk at all. Though I'm still working on it, I've let myself make grammatical errors, use hand gestures, spell words, do anything to get the point across. And now that I'm practicing more, it's getting easier. Practice (over radio, t.v., books,) is the best way to improve.

[nubly]

akstylish looks like your english writing skills are better than most americans

i was born and raised in the US but i have problems with pronouncing some words. i can read and write well but i have a slight spanish accent that gets deep when im anxious. its hard to talk to others when im uncomfortable around them. i have to force myself to speak sloooooow

by the way, dont they teach english in south korean high schools? i was stationed in south korea for a year and the south korean soldiers that were attached to the US army spoke english

[vicente]

Yes, totally.

I'm living in a neighborhood that's entirely Hispanic, all the adults speak Spanish to each other. I'm of "Asian" race so they kind of avoid contact with me because they assume I don't speak Spanish. Spanish is my third language (after English and French) so I feel self-conscious when speaking it, and I often have trouble understanding it. But I try my best, I greet people with "Hola" and at restaurants, unless people start talking to me in English, I talk in Spanish.

Originally Posted by akstylish

Does anyone have this combination? The latter is not really a disorder, but it's definitely making my social life even worse. Even though I'm a U.S. citizen, I lived my life mostly in South Korea. Still, I have lived here for 4 years, and that's enough for most foreigners to speak English fluently. But my speaking/listening skills don't seem to have improved at all after the first year in the U.S.

I don't know how quiet you are, but whatever you do, the best advice would be to not be a fob. If people see you as talking to Korean people only and having everything about you as Korean (e.g. Korean clothes/fashion, music, food), then American people will avoid you, and you will get socially anxious. Try to learn more about American culture and choose the parts of it that you like (you don't have to like everything!) and adopt it. Then people will come around to getting to know you and you'll be able to feel more at home here.

[barnabas]

I don't know how quiet you are, but whatever you do, the best advice would be to not be a fob.

pssh. we love being a fob. we happen to live in the fobbiest city where everyone thinks white-washed azns are an embarrassment to the human race.

not to mention hanging out with fobs can give us a sense of comfort. for some reason barnabas can speak decent english when she's surrounded by fellow fobs.

anyway, it really depends on where ak lives.

dont they teach english in south korean high schools?

they teach english in every southeast asian country that we know of, but most of them have horribly underqualified english teachers and the emphasis is usually on grammar and grammar only. hence we usually can read and write but not listen and speak.

[jane]

Hey! There's nothing wrong with being a white-washed asian whose biggest tie to the culture is a love of DDR (ask an asian friend), and it's not a crime to fit in.
But if you're a fob, be the good kind, the hip and exotic kind with a pretty accent who can spread the best of Korean pop culture to unenlightened peers (not the weird kind with smelly food and waaaay too many zippers for one pair of pants).