Last night my husband and I were out to dinner with a few friends. The waitress asked, in Korean, if we liked the food, and my husband responded "mah-she-soyo" (delicious). Eyes wide, the waitress ducked down near our Korean friend and whispered to her. Our friend laughed and said, "She asked how many years you've been here- your Korean is very good!"

We've been here for about ten months. It's definitely not the first time Josh has been complimented on his language skills, but it led to a conversation between us about impressing people when you speak their language. Josh thinks it's silly when people assume he's fluent based off one simple word or phrase (he's not fluent in Korean), but I think it's the fact that he says everything with a really authentic accent that surprises them.

My example was this: Koreans hear foreigners butcher "thank you" all the time. The phrase "cam-sa-ham-ni-da" often comes out blurred; "cam-SAM-ni-da", missing a syllable and with emphasis in the wrong place. Josh may only know a few words, but when he says them he sounds like a native.

I wrote an article for EduBook about this recently- I really think this is where music training comes in handy. As musicians, we've been conditioned to listen carefully for tuning, tone, intonation, little inflections, and accents on tons of instruments. The difference between "cam-sa-ham-ni-da" and "cam-SAM-ni-da" seems to be unnoticeable to many foreigners, but to me it sticks out just as much as a trumpet not throwing out his third valve slide on a D while the rest of the section is perfectly in tune. (D's on trumpets are naturally sharp, hence throwing out the slide- sorry, I'm a band dork!)

When I stopped teaching band two years ago, many ESL students were being pulled out of band to be placed in more English classes instead. This angered me then, and now even more I realize what a bad decision that was. My school had a high percentage of Hispanic students who wowed me with their ability to be successful in all of their classes when English was their second language. I had quite a few students who loved band and were quite talented, but were pulled out by a panicky administration who wanted to shove extra English and standardized test related classes down their throats. Music training really can go a long way to developing a language student's listening skills.

So a suggestion...if you're trying to learn a new language, consider taking lessons on a new instrument as well! The ear training can make all the difference in the world when you're trying to understand and be understood.