I found this in a journal called the Texas Linguistic Forum. The author does go on to say that English instruction in the schools is so bad that students have to get private lessons to develop any real competence. So it's true that few Koreans would be fluent.

Joseph Sung-Yul Park

University of California, Santa Barbara

South Korea (henceforth Korea) is a highly monolingual country; for virtually all domains of everyday life, Korean is the only language used for communicative purposes. However, there is also much emphasis on English language learning in Korea. English has been an important language in Korea since an intricate relationship with the United States began after the end of modern Japanese rule, but it has become even more significant in recent years, as the need to be competent in the international market has become more crucial for Korea’s economic stability.

Students receive mandatory English education throughout primary and secondary school, and English plays an important part in college entrance and graduation as well as in employment and promotion. For this reason, many Koreans strive hard to achieve good English skills, making large investments of time and money at private language schools both for themselves and their children, to the extent that English is often considered to be an emotional and economic burden.

Perhaps Jin was extensively tutored in Mandarin or Japanese as a child, giving her some experience in acquiring a language?

It occurs to me that Vonnie may come by any time now and give us the first person perspective on learning English later than sooner.

Sun's father, FWIW, also didn't strike me as type to put a lot of effort into turning little Sun into an independent woman, so I can buy that he might not have made English learning such a priority.

OTOH, having had some crappy english in school would explain why she might have been able to pick it up fairly swiftly once she had a driving reason to do so.

...I dunno, Brenda. My experience with Spaniards -- who mostly receive English instruction from about the 8th grade, and it seems to be always crappy instruction -- is that, when they are 30 and meet Americans, the only English they can come up with is "Star Wars. Que quieren decir los yedi? Es algo japones, no?"

(We had an extended discussion over Revenge of the Jedi vs. Return of the Jedi, and the fact that "Star Wars" sounds cooler than "Guerra de las estrellas". The whole conversation was in Spanish, peppered with (often inappropriate) random English words as my conversant remembered them.)

In sum, I think that crappy lessons in childhood may beat no lessons at all, but they shouldn't confer grammatical and vocabulary perfection in adulthood.

My experience with Spaniards -- who mostly receive English instruction from about the 8th grade, and it seems to be always crappy instruction -- is that, when they are 30 and meet Americans, the only English they can come up with is "Star Wars. Que quieren decir los yedi? Es algo japones, no?"

I'm confused, because I'm guessing we're to assume that your Spaniard's crappy lessons are better than Jin and Sun's no lessons, which leaves them both quite un-fluent, and supports Jessica and me.

If Sun went through twelve years of English instruction in the schools and learned absolutely nothing, then took a few months of private instruction and became spectacularly fluent, this is a great advertisment for the private instructions. They must be as magical as those audio tapes you see advertised in the back of magazines.

Of course, for Jin, not speaking English does add a bit of dramatic tension and obviously character conflict. Something that makes a drama with lots of character conflict really watchable.

For you DDK fans, Wed's Daily Star article.

If Sun went through twelve years of English instruction in the schools and learned absolutely nothing, then took a few months of private instruction and became spectacularly fluent, this is a great advertisment for the private instructions.

And if she didn't go through 12 years of instruction -- still a great ad. However you cut it, I wish that person had been around to teach me Japanese.

I'm confused, because I'm guessing we're to assume that your Spaniard's crappy lessons are better than Jin and Sun's no lessons, which leaves them both quite un-fluent, and supports Jessica and me.

My point was, this particular fellow had a number of English words to offer (and all sorts of amusing observations, like the fact that I do not pronounce the T in 'forty' as his UK-English instructors did), and a wide exposure to English language and American culture, but that poor schooling in youth meant his English wasn't as good as he'd thought it was.

I'll be happy if Sun's English is messy and broken. (In this modern age, I've even seen it done in a way that isn't insulting!) I think that's what her English should be, considering what we know of her. That middle ground, between Perfect and Helpless, is what I want to see more of.

I'm confused on your point on Jin, then. If these Spaniards (that would just feels weird) with English classes had crap-assed English, you're assuming Jin had studied, and should have retained some, or that he had no instruction, but should still have usable English?