One of the many differences between English and Korean is how direct you are to people. The Korean language has a lot of ambiguity and people often don’t say exactly what they mean. Whereas in English we can be very clear and say exactly what we mean and it’s socially acceptable to speak like that as well. So while native Korean speakers can usually understand each other because they understand the subtleness of the language, it can be hard for someone learning the language.

What is also hard is when a Korean person speaks with the ambiguity of the Korean language but in English!

Sometimes my direct questions are answered this way too often and I can get a bit annoyed!

One time I asked my Korean teacher about this and he said, “If your husband says ‘maybe’ he probably means no.”

Then I asked my husband and he said, “I usually mean yes.”

See? Even Koreans can’t agree on it!