Caveat: Pretending to Pretend

I have reachd a point where I can often understand simple questions and comments made by my students in Korean, especially if they are pertinent to what you might call "classroom administration": "What's my homework?" "Do we have to memorize it?" … that kind of thing. It is especially comprehensible when my students stick to what's called 반말 ([banmal = half-talk]), a kind of stripped-down, informal version of Korean used by children and in intimate settings, mostly devoid of the baroque complexities of the intimidating Korean verbal system.

So the kids get lazy – they start asking me stuff in Korean, and, if I understand, I sometimes just answer in English without forcing them to figure out how to say what they want to say in English. Consequently, over time, the kids have become convinced that my level of understanding of Korean is higher than it really is, and sometimes when I don't understand, and ask them to please say it in English, the students accuse me of pretending to not understand in order to force them to speak English.

I have started to play along with this, and thus, I am pretending to be pretending not understanding, when in fact, I don't undertand.

[daily log: walking, 5 km]

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