When I came to KU as a freshman from Seoul, South Korea, I could write and read English a lot better than I could speak it. About all I could say was “excuse me,” “how are you?” “thank you,” “nice to meet you,” and “have a nice day.”

But I was optimistic about my new adventure, at least until I arrived. I had heard all about studying abroad being a fun and unforgettable experience. My English proficiency was my only concern, but I decided not to take that much into consideration. In my mind, everything was going to work out just fine. Unfortunately, the reality was more brutal than I expected.

My dream of speaking English fluently with Americans was shattered from the very first day of school. I was overwhelmed by all kinds of culture shocks including food, clothes, people, weather and even those strange skeleton costumes at Halloween. But the language shocked me the most. People here didn’t speak English with a Korean accent. And of course, people didn’t understand my English pronunciation.

The very first pronunciation I realized I had difficulty distinguishing between were the l and r sounds. In Korean, the l and r sound just the same. So, “I pray for your election,” can sound just like “I play for your erection.”

When I was a freshman, a classmate asked me what my favorite food was. I answered, “I like fried rice.” Well, there’s no distinction between the f sound and the p sound in Korean, either, so you can probably imagine what that sounded like in my Korean tongue. I had to say, “I raiku pride lice” five times for him to understand what I was saying. However, this little incident was nothing compared to the most embarrassing day of my tangled-tongue days.

I still remember that day vividly. I was taking notes in my western civilization class, and I was out of paper. I whispered to a classmate sitting next to me.

“Can I have a sheet of paper?”

I thought I whispered only to the classmate, but a few people around me stopped scribbling, lifted their heads and stared at me for a second. Like I always do in these types of situations, I repeated what I just said in my head: “Can…I…have…a…sheet…of…paper?” Hmm… nothing seemed unusual. There were no l or r sounds, no f or p sounds, and I was pretty sure my grammar was correct.

As I was pondering the what-did-I-say-wrong question, one of my classmates said,

“What did you say?”

I repeated the exact words. People started to giggle, and then I repeated the words again to myself. And there it was. I could see why people laughed. My face was blushing and I was stammering as I explained my mistake.

“No no, I said shit of paper. Oh…not again… I mean sheeeeet of paper, not the S-word. I meant....a piece of paper. Yes! Synonym for a piece of paper.”

I was totally embarrassed. Just when I was feeling more comfortable with my pronunciation, this incident had to happen. I started to laugh along with them. After all, I just discovered another sound I could not make properly.

That incident gave me the motivation to fix my pronunciation, and I thought of a brilliant way to improve: TV. I started to watch TV a lot and repeated sentences whenever I heard some that sounded hard. It took me a while to get used to this, but eventually, my confidence toward English increased dramatically.

A few months later, I was as confident about my pronunciation as if I were a bear in front of a fish. I believed I had mastered English pronunciation because I had fixed various sounds that were not part of Korean language. But just when I thought I was ready to say goodbye to my beloved Konglish, another incident happened.

I was in an economics discussion session. We were doing a group activity to answer a few questions. Unfortunately, the guys in my group didn’t seem to care too much about the assignment. They started to talk about some random things too fast, of which I had no clue. I finally realized that it was time to step forward to show off my English a little and complete the assignment. My brain started spinning as I tried to make up a perfect English sentence in my head. This time, every little detail seemed important to me.

It took me about 30 seconds to just make up a sentence that finally seemed right to me. Then I spoke up.

“Hey guys, this assignment is really difficult, so let’s focus.”

I was proud of myself. I had finally spoken a daunting sentence to a native speaker of English! Haha! Besides, I was pretty sure I made the f sound this time. A victorious aura wrapped around me.

Then I saw the puzzled faces of the group members. Could it be another pronunciation mistake? I certainly said “focus,” not “pocus.” Even before I repeated what I just said word-by-word in my head, one of the group members laughed and said energetically;

“Yeah! That’s right!”

I felt confused. If I was right, why did the guys look so puzzled? But a few seconds later, when I repeated the words in my head, I could hear the mistake I’d made. Perhaps I put too much emphasis on the f sound.

“Hey guys, this assignment is really difficult, so let’s fuckus.”

I’ve cursed twice in English unintentionally. But thanks to those experiences, I have tried hard to overcome my weakest area of the foreign language. I no longer have to repeat sentences over and over again. It’s truly a nice feeling that somebody can understand the words coming out of my mouth these days.

Right now, I can proudly say to those who are learning foreign languages: “Don’t just concentrate on grammar and don’t just write out vocabulary on a SHEET of paper to memorize! FOCUS more on pronunciation!”

I hope you understood what I just said.