Even after being married for so many years, we still have language communication problems. But now we argue like the old married couple that we are!
By the way, it WAS dodgeball they were playing. I had to google it to find that out though.
Category: Bilingual Family Comics
We often go to the Natural History Museum near us in Seoul. It’s always fun for the kids and they enjoy the animal displays. Yul has started copying what Hugh does though, which is commenting on what animals he would like to eat. However, they are not the only ones who do it while there! I definitely hear others talking about what sea creatures, in particular, taste good. At least these just the taxidermy animals. I think it’s more annoying when it’s at a zoo or wildlife park.
There are cultural and historical reasons why Koreans seem obsessed with food. I can’t go into all the detail here, but it’s less weird to me now, after living in Korea for 10 years. But I have seen comments from those part of the Korean diaspora who can get quite angry at older relatives who make comments like this.
This comic has the English and Korean combined as that is how the moment is in real life. The bigger font is always the language that it was spoken in. This is a conversation in Korean but I am responding in English.
Also, a reminder that the majority of the conversation around my comics, now happens on social media rather than comment section here.
Yul is learning Korean reading and writing at school but I am teaching him to read English at home. I wasn’t raised bilingual so when I was learning to read as a child, I didn’t have this awareness of different languages that Yul has. The Korean language is almost completely phonetic and is quite easy to read but in comparison, English can seem like a mess. Koreans also know their history about King Sejong and the development of Hangul, so perhaps that’s why Yul was also asking about who invented English. Maybe when he is older he will learn to appreciate all the influences English has and how it grew and changed over time.
A challenge for parents raising kids to be bilingual is maintaining the interest in both language, so they continue learning both. As Yul is now in elementary school, there is a big focus on Korean, so he possibly feels like learning to read in English is much slower and more boring. I also try not to pressure too much because I want him to discover how amazing reading is for himself. I was a voracious reader as a child, and I want my children to also have that escape from the world too. We are lucky to have an English kids library close by to where we live in Seoul and Yul enjoys visiting it. Hopefully it is just a matter of time before English seems a bit less stupid.
Stop Talking!
Even while Hugh was helping me translate this comic, Yul was jumping on his back and demanding attention. And in case you think our child is starved for attention… he is not haha. He gets so much love and attention. He just doesn’t realise that Mummy and Appa need to talk to each other too, not just to him.
He has done this many times when Hugh comes home and I’d like to have an normal adult conversation and Yul puts his hands on our mouths and tells us to stop talking. It’s a good thing he is so adorable and it’s super cute.
Was that English or Korean?
Sometimes we can get so involved in trying to work out if something was an English word or a Korean word that we forget that little kids just babble and make up stuff themselves!
Our son is very aware that there are at least two different languages and that Mummy and Appa have different languages. There are times where he has asked if there is “Yul language”. I will reply and say that he can make up his own language if he wants, so he will try and make up some words. Sometimes the things he say is just a mix of English and Korean anyway!
It’s been quite a while since I’ve made comics regularly. Even though this blog started with comics back in 2012, I’ve made less of them as life got in the way. Also, there wasn’t much to talk about during pregnancy and just being at home with a baby.
However, these days our son is very talkative and I feel there are a lot more things to do with being bi-cultural that I can talk about, and make comics about. As always the comics are real moments from our life. With Hugh being so busy with work (busy CEO now!) there have been less moments of intercultural funniness between us, especially as we’ve been married for quite a while. But now having a three-year-old, there are a lot more funny moments to share!
New comic: Babo
Comics will be more bilingual now as well, as we are constantly switching between languages in our home. Translations will be in smaller text underneath the main words.
While I may not be fluent in Korean, and usually speak to our son in English, I can understand most of what they are saying!
The internet has changed a lot since I first started making comics. In the old days people would comment on people’s blogs but these days everyone just comments on social media. So comics will also be shared on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and YouTube community. See you there!
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