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?

Spaniards with crappy instruction: bad English grammar, middling vocab, large cultural competence.

Korean Jin with no instruction: my prediction: no English grammar, small vocab, small cultural competence.

Unlike how he is on the show, which is NO vocab, NO competence. I don't have a problem with his great difficulty in acquiring useable English; what i have a problem with is the binary whereby you do speak English (and speak it practically native) or you don't. Both the Spaniard above and Sun & Jin should fall into some middling place, where the English is not perfect, but not completely absent either.