The sympathy thing isn't happening today

An ex-student of mine just came by to whinge ask for advice about his Korean* class:

"The exam's tomorrow and it's going to cover all this stuff we never learned."

"Are you sure you never learned it, or could it be you were absent on those days? Have you checked what was on the syllabus?"

"I swear we didn't cover it. And the lecturer never gave out a syllabus."

"Really?"

"Or homework."

"No homework?"

"And there wasn't a textbook."

"Are you sure the class actually existed?"

"Well the exam does."

"It seems to me that it might have been a better strategy to talk to your lecturer about this -- and preferably to have done it earlier on in the course when there was still time for it to make a difference. Like, you could have asked for some homework... yeah, okay, I guess that wasn't going to happen. But did you try talking to the lecturer about these problems?"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"She only speaks Korean."

"In that case, I do have some advice for you."

"Yeah?"

"Learn Korean."

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* I have changed the language involved here to one we don't actually teach in order to protect the identity of the lecturer involved.