Same Sky Magazine

Should Korean Golfers All Speak Perfect English?

I hope I wasn’t the only one who was shocked to hear that thanks to a new LPGA policy, it will be compulsory for all female golfers on the world tour to speak English.

Coming so soon after the Beijing Olympics, a time when I regularly admired the excellent English language skills of many of the athletes, I understand that if you’re successful on a world sporting level, it would undeniably be useful to speak good English. A lot of media interviews will be in English, and it’s become the international language by which you communicate with people from other language backgrounds too. But that’s a long way from making it a requirement to success in your sport.

The biggest outcry against the LPGA policy has come from Korea, because a lot of South Korean golfers have become successful in recent years and are on the LPGA circuit. Some of them speak great English, some only a bit, and use an interpreter for many media interviews. So what? I ask. Do any of the foreign journalists think to speak to them in Korean instead? Of course not, because the number of native English speakers who have been able to successfully learn to speak Korean is tiny!

I really dislike the arrogance of the English native speaker who thinks that everyone else should learn English. Most of these people don’t speak a second language themselves and have no idea how difficult it is. And it would be difficult enough for them to learn Spanish, or French, say, languages with lots in common with English. Imagine if they had to learn Korean, with an entirely different writing system, no common vocabulary and an utterly different grammar system. It would be a struggle.

So in answer to the title of this post - my opinion is a strong NO! I appreciate that it would be an advantage for international sports professionals to speak English. But until all the English speakers are prepared to learn another language now and again too, it seems completely wrong to me to expect that of others. Just my loud and angry two cents worth.