http://tinyurl.com/RhiannonBrooksbank

Haha wow, that's something.

Wow, yeah. I'm pretty sure I'd just accept the bad accent and continue... Or pick a different language. lol

Interesting, thanks. I'd do it. Sounds like a minor operation to me. But I wouldn't tell people. Plus between struggling to speak, and speaking with ease, it's not much of a choice, since speech therapy doesn't seem to apply here.

She'll fit right in, Korea is all about plastic surgery. I take my hat off to her though. She's obviously going to succeed at language learning... she even goes to a Korean church. It's the people who truly make it their lives that actually succeed.

I don't wanna change the topic but what scares me a bit is that she has never been to Korea. I hope she doesn't get disappointed or regret her decisions later on. If I was her I would've invested the money in a Korea trip and put off the tongue surgery for a while.

I know it's just for the picture (I hope), but the fact she's holding a book that just says "Korean" is a bit scary.

ThomasB Wrote:If I was her I would've invested the money in a Korea trip and put off the tongue surgery for a while.

What money? She had it done via the NHS - which means it cost her nothing! Hurruh for free socialist healthcare!!

Any as someone said already, this is a really minor "operation". No blood, no pain, wouldn't even require a trip to hospital, just a quick snip - her doctor probably did it. Many piercing shops offer this same procedure...it's handy lengthening your tongue to add extra tongue bars, or to please your lover (if you know what i mean..)

ThomasB Wrote:I hope she doesn't get disappointed or regret her decisions later on.

Unless she gets nostalgic for her minor physical anomaly, I don't really see her regretting this later on. The headline makes it sound like they actually lengthened her tongue, but all they did was remove a piece of skin that most people wouldn't have. I had similar surgery on the inside of my top lip because it was pushing my front teeth apart and I certainly have never regretted it. Anyone who has had an impacted wisdom tooth removed has had more extensive surgery than this.

What scares me is this quote:

Quote:'Some might say it's extreme, but you could apply the same argument to plastic surgery.

Has Britain reached the point where plastic surgery isn't considered extreme anymore?

No, but maybe Korea has...

ThomasB Wrote:what scares me a bit is that she has never been to Korea.

I was thinking the same thing, but more to do with the amount of effort she's put in to learning korean and the years of dreaming about going there than the surgery, which sounds risk free and useful. I just hope she likes it when she finally goes there.

Until I hear the final result, my comment is: retarded.

It's very minor surgery, she got it done for free and her accent has improved. Sounds good to me.

pudding cat Wrote:It's very minor surgery, she got it done for free and her accent has improved. Sounds good to me.

Yeah, I don't see any problem with it. Even if she abandons Korean next week, she hasn't done anything she'll regret -- like, say, getting a tattoo in Korean.

Also, I'm impressed that she thought to discuss her pronunciation issues with her dentist. I'm not sure that would have occurred to many people, especially if they had no pronunciation issues in their native language.

mezbup Wrote:She'll fit right in, Korea is all about plastic surgery. I take my hat off to her though. She's obviously going to succeed at language learning... she even goes to a Korean church. It's the people who truly make it their lives that actually succeed.

Can't disagree with that, expect the surgery part.

She's hot.

bcrAn Wrote:She's hot.

...if you say so.

mezbup Wrote:She's obviously going to succeed at language learning... she even goes to a Korean church. It's the people who truly make it their lives that actually succeed.

But let's not leave out all the ones who succeed at language learning without truly making it their lives... :-)

Thora Wrote:

mezbup Wrote:She's obviously going to succeed at language learning... she even goes to a Korean church. It's the people who truly make it their lives that actually succeed.

But let's not leave out all the ones who succeed at language learning without truly making it their lives... :-)

What are you saying Thora, that you should only focus on efficiency and reduce how much L2 exposure you have? I don't understand. ;p

So she did a lingual frenectomy — that's relatively common in Brazil, because if you have this condition you can't pronounce many things right and other people, especially children, will point that out (sometimes even mock those who speak that way, heh). I believe that, if someone also has the same condition as her and can't eliminate it with the help of a speech therapist, a frenectomy can help immensely even if the target language is not Korean but also Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Greek... actually so many languages there isn't even a need to list them all. English is a "lazy" language when it comes to moving the tongue so this kind of thing usually remains unnoticed if it's not physically detrimental (like it is when it makes eating harder), but it becomes visible when someone tries to speak those other languages correctly.

ThomasB Wrote:I don't wanna change the topic but what scares me a bit is that she has never been to Korea. I hope she doesn't get disappointed or regret her decisions later on.

But having a frenectomy usually improves the lives of those who undergo it, if not just so that they can now lift their tongues better and lick stuff the way they're supposed to be licked (yeah).

Or, if you're talking about studying Korean with the intent of living and working there without having ever visited the country, I can't see how studying the language can be something to be regretted — not even the time spent can be mulled over, as most people usually do worse things with theirs. Also, the cognitive enhancement and expansion of horizons it brings certainly may help her doing numerous other things in case that plan doesn't work out as expected.

I got 99 problems in language learning and a short tongue ain't one of them.

Someone a little over obsessed with language learning. With various different accents in English it just seems to be an unnecessary procedure. From my view learning something incorrect is more of an impediment in ones education. However, there is a great pleasure in learning how to do something correct, without any short cuts.

Hmmm. Being tongue tied is an actual condition.

Couldn't resist.

EratiK Wrote:Couldn't resist.

LOL, I thought of the same thing when I saw bodhisamaya's comment!!!

You know you can get Red Dwarf dubbed into Japanese btw? The voice actors are excellent..v funny..