Learning Korean with Dyslexia and Other Learning Disabilities

What is Dyslexia

First off, for those who do not understand what dyslexia is I will explain. As defined by the Mayo Clinic “Dyslexia is a learning disorder that involves difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words (decoding). Also called reading disability, dyslexia affects areas of the brain that process language.” We most commonly hear about the typical switching the letters b and d or p and q, however; it is much more complex. From person to person it is different. In my case before I learned to manage it, I would skip whole lines of text in a book or read something out loud with it sounding like another language because I could not read the word right. In my case it would also mess with my ability to spell words correctly.

Dyslexia and the Korean Language

Now let us focus on the last line of that definition on dyslexia. “Also called reading disability, dyslexia affects areas of the brain that process language.” It highly effects language comprehension. Now this does effect people differently, keep that in mind. This makes learning another language quite difficult, especially one that heavily relies on characters in the form of symbols rather than the standard romanization we are use to in the English language. For example, hello is written out in Korean Hangul is 안녕하세요. Looking at this word and being familiar with the Korean alphabet, (which I will post a picture of bellow), most of these will look similar. As one with dyslexia, it has made learning the language much harder, but not impossible.

The Trick

The tricks I use to help teach myself the language besides repetition and memorization is by using correlation. When I was first learning the Hangul alphabet, I assigned each character with a mental image that describes both the shape and sound such as for ㄱ which has a g sound I assigned it as gun or ㅂ which has a b/p sound with bucket. This helps because the character looks like the word and the sound is similar. The other tool I use is labeling. I will go around and label things in my home with a sticky note with both hangul and romanization written on it to help with linking.

Image acquired from MeridianLinguistics.com

What's in a Rating

I think that the film viewer rating system needs improvement, but it has a good foundation. In my opinion on the language part of things, the curse words that we grow up being told are bad are really just part of an extended vocabulary. When used in the right context they could change the whole outcome of a movie. The movie example that I want to reference is Logan. This movie is a good example of the use of the rating system. During production the studio actually pushed for an R rating not just because they said the F-word basically the whole movie or because of the all violence. It was because they could effectively portray their story to the psychological degree they wanted to and to handle the issues they wanted without loosing the integrity of the film due to parental rules. You could witness the raw emotion and could feel what they felt.

So what is my point in all this exactly? Well what I'm trying to say is that a movie shouldn't be solely rated on language (of course sex, nudity, and all that falls under those types of categories should be taken into account), but it should also reflect the target audience in terms of their level of understanding and the psychological toll it takes. An example of what I mean could be Star Wars: A New Hope. It is rated PG, but it tells a good story that can be understood and enjoyed by all ages. Now relate that to the movie Logan again. Even though Logan is a "superhero" film it is directed to an older audience due to the matters it covers. look at the psychological toll the two films have on a person. Star Wars is slightly more lighthearted and conveys good messages and Logan has a much darker tone where they cover loss with a very strong emotional connection, they show the slow decaying death of characters. Yes these are two science fiction movies, but can you see their intended audiences? 

So again, whats my point in all this? My point is that the system needs to be reworked, but it needs to involve the intended audience and what impact it will leave on the viewer in terms of will they understand what is happening or are they just watching it just to say they saw it, but lacked the true understanding of what they are about. They need to include the psychological impact that it would take on the viewer because you wouldn't show a young kid War of the Worlds right? 

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash