Annyong haseyo!

It's always great starting a new language. There are those strange discoveries about how the language works. There's the thrill of a new alphabet, or at least a new phonetic system. There's the realization that there's yet another way you'd never thought of to order expression.

And then there's Korean.

I mean no malice to speakers of Korean, nor to those who love the language and the culture. It's just that the magical moment when having taken up a new language - however briefly - makes it a part of you... that moment has definitely not come.

I have acquired Teach Yourself Korean. The authors seem almost apologetic about having written it. The introduction reassures at multiple points that this endeavor is worth it in the long run, and that eventually knowing some Korean will even be fun. You never pick up a book about Italian to read that "Even though Italy is a lovely country with beautiful music and still finer cuisine, and even though Rousseau said it's the finest language to sing in, we encourage you to perservere and one day you'll come to love Italian."

French is ze langwage of luf. Italian is just so Italian you've gotta love it. Spanish and Portuguese call to mind the seafarers of Old Europe and the exoticism of the New World. Even German, whatever its phonetic defects, is thought to be logical and systematizing, perfect for engineers and philosophers. Russian is not, in my view, the finest of languages, but you'd be nekulturny to look down on the language of Dostoyevksy, Tolstoy and the Bolshoi. And on I could go. But I'm just wondering what you'd say for Korean? Hopefully, in a week or two I'll know.

One thing I do know: The How to Learn a Language Forum gives Korean a high chic factor because it's hard to learn and nobody knows it. The more I read, the more I understand this assessment. But the language will come, I'm sure, and in 6 weeks I will be able to say more than Annyong haseyo and Annyong kashipshio... or is it kaeshipshio?