A major difficulty in learning a second language arises when learners habitually project concepts from their L1 into L2 processing, resulting in an interlanguage that doesn’t fit in the L2 norm. If L1 schematization of objects and events for verbal expression is markedly different from L2, L2 learning requires not just the learning of its explicit rules and vocabulary, but also the learning of the L2 ways of conceptualization. In this paper, we investigate the link between language and perception by testing whether a particular linguistic difference between English and Korean affects the speakers’ immediate retention of the same observation: gender of a nonspecific person. We hypothesize that since the pronominal subject must be grammatically categorized and conveyed in English while it is often omitted in Korean, English speakers pay more attention to its gender than Korean speakers, thence more likely recall it later. We have conducted a pilot experiment to demonstrate this and make some suggestions for future research and applications to English education