월드미션프론티어

As a candidate for the Peace Corps in Korea, I learned a variety of techniques to teach the English language to Korean people. My favorite method of teaching pronunciation was something called a "minimal pair". To teach a minimal pair you must first identify two words that are identical in pronunciation except for one phoneme. For example, the English words "boy" and "toy"are a minimal pair, because there is a minimum of difference; only the initial B/T sound is different

The trickiest of all sounds to the Korean ear is the dreaded L/R. These sounds are called "liquid" because when produced, the tongue is liquid - somewhere between the teeth and palate. The problem is that Korean has one liquid sound (). while English has two (L and R). That's why the Korean surname "E" can be written in English as "Lee", :"Rhee" or "Yi" . When learning this troublesome English sound, I suggest that a Korean first learn to hear the difference. For example, a native speaker can say the words "lip" and "rip" The listener can hold up one finger if they hear "lip? and two fingers if t hey hear "rip". A person must hear the difference, before he can pronounce the difference.

The L/R confusion was with me to the end of my days in Korea. Just before returning to America, I was married at a small church in Seoul. The presiding pastor was Korean and during the entire ceremony, he spoke only a few words of English. As I was standing at the side of the woman that I would love forever, the pastor bowed his head solemnly and said, "Let us play". I smiled and made a mental note: "some day I'm going to use his words in a story".