Learning to speak fluent English was the strongest driving force for the first generation of Koreans who went abroad to study as young children. Yet a recent survey shows there is a vast gap between what they consider their proficiency in the language and the level their parents and Korean companies expect from them.

In an interview by the Chosun Ilbo of 100 people who went abroad to study as young children between 1994 and 2000, and only half said they spoke English like natives. Forty-four percent said they speak English distinctively better than Korean-educated Koreans, with no language problems in their daily lives, but not as well as native speakers. The remaining 6 percent said they speak better than average but there are times when they do not understand what is being said in a conversation.

The interviewees on average left Korea at age 15 and spent eight years in Anglophone countries, but English is still a second language to them. "It seems they speak both Korean and English well, but in fact these students often face an inability to speak either language perfectly," one of the interviewees said.

Nearly all of the 100 said they speak Korean in daily life, but only 34 percent said their Korean was at top level. More than half said they have no problem in their daily life but often find it difficult to understand Chinese-based words or vocabulary used by adults.

The reason is that fluency involves not only mastery of the language but also understanding of the culture and society. This pressure is reflected in the fact that 52 out of 100 chose as their major business and commerce, which do not require as much English skills as other fields such as literature or sociology.

Yi Soon-hyung, a professor at the Department of Consumer and Child Studies at Seoul National University, said, "Subjects like humanities and law for example must be more daunting for such Korean students because you also need to be well versed in the cultural tradition of the western world." But financial motives -- the promise of high-paying corporate or financial jobs to retrieve the costs of study -- may also have come into play.