Learn Korean

Nominated to Yonsei (and other achievements)

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오랜 만이에요!

It’s been a while. You’ve gotten prettier….ah wait, those are the opening lines to Monster. Ahem. Life’s been busy! I mentioned this in a previous post but I applied to an exchange program with Yonsei University in South Korea. About a month ago, my university accepted my application and forwarded it with a recommendation to Yonsei. And so now I wait until April 30th for the official news – although everyone tells me not to worry because everyone who passes the initial application to the program through my university is accepted.

But still. 긴장! 긴장! I feel like I have little Running Man variety show subtitles floating about my head whenever I talk to someone about it. It’s not official until it’s official.

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오 my goodness, what time is it?

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안녕하세요…I admit that the title is cheesy. But the topic of 오 (o) and what it means is exciting! At least to a word nerd like myself.

 

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New Year, Same Goals (and lots of complaints)

/ jaemijamie / 5 Comments

안녕하세요!

It’s 2014 already, and my goals are the same. Become fluent in Korean. Travel to South Korea. Do an exchange program between my university and Yonsei. Work out more, do well in my new classes, have time to meet friends. Write more fictional stories. Remember to post on this website ㅠㅠ

Ahem, it’s been a month since my last post….awkwaaaaaaard

And work. Make that money so that some of these goals become financially possible.

I’ve been working my way through the applications for study abroad Continue reading →

Dissecting Korean Quotes

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사진 3 (2)

안녕하세요!

Recently, I’ve been particularly interested in dissecting famous sayings/quotes in Korean. Or not so famous ones. Any quotes in Korean, in general, are super interesting. I’ve always loved ‘collecting’ sayings in English – I absolutely adore Quotables and I even buy the cards just for myself. When I said collecting…I mean it. I do actually collect quotes.

20131026_225235 Continue reading →

Speaking in Subtitles

/ jaemijamie / 2 Comments

오랜만이다! 잘 지냈어요?

I haven’t written a new post in quite a long time – and it was a long time before that post that I’d last written a post. I really need to get my act together and start actively blogging again. I thought that if I ‘took a break,’ I’d be blogging again in no time – once I had more time.

Image not mine.

And yes, college has been busy, life has been crazy, endless midterms and papers are all very awful, but it’s no excuse to ignore what I really love: writing, reading (in English) and studying Korean. And I’ve been ignoring them all far too much.

Something that has come to my attention over the past several months is what my best friend and I like to call ‘speaking in subtitles.’  Continue reading →

Running Man Word Learning Thing!

/ jaemijamie / 2 Comments

not mine

오래간만이에요!

So, yes, I’ve been missing for about 5,000 years. 나는 바빴어요….아직 바쁜데…But now I’m back!

Sup 내 친구

Sup 내 친구

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my 왜 of language learning

/ jaemijamie / 4 Comments

Do you ever pause and wonder why you’re doing something? What’s the point of continuing something? Maintaining focus and motivation while also keeping momentum is extremely difficult, and inability to do so can kill a passion if the passion isn’t strong enough to actually be called a passion. Continue reading →

Learning with 만화: Penguin loves Mev

/ jaemijamie / 6 Comments

안녕하세요!

I don’t know about you, but despite all the TTMIK lessons, the Family Outing marathons, and the vocabulary studying techniques I have, I still often feel like I barely know anything. Like I couldn’t survive if I were magically, happily, instantly transported to South Korea right now. 지금. Firstly, I’d die of joy. And secondly, I’d freeze up because of my poor vocabulary, rudimentary grammar, and propensity to mumble my way through Korean songs until I belt out the English phrases.

But aha! I have found another way to study Korean through direct absorption!

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Counting in Korean

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안녕하세요!

Recently I went on a road trip to attend a beautiful family wedding – however the road trip itself was not beautiful. It was awful. It stormed the entire ten hours it took to drive there (it was supposed to take just under eight hours), a flipped hazmat truck caused a massive backup, and at one point the fog was so dense that we couldn’t see any of the other cars around us. I sat in the backseat with my Korean notebook, reading through my notes, hoping we wouldn’t die due to rainy weather and crazy turnpike driving, and wishing I had something I could really concentrate on besides thinking I-refuse-to-die thoughts and staring at the road signs and passing semis.

Aha! I began counting the signs in Korean.

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Learning Korean Vocabulary with Naver

/ jaemijamie / 9 Comments

안녕하세요!

If you’ve ever formally studied a language in school, you’ve probably dealt with the usual awful assignment: Copy each of these vocab words/phrases x-times in insert target language and x-times in insert native language. Well, that’s great. You memorize the word for the test and then promptly forget it.

GIF not mine

So what’s the point in memorizing for a test? This is language-learning; hopefully you’re remembering for life.

But memorization isn’t all bad. Go ahead and memorize – just remember that the point is to keep remembering, so memorizing it in one sitting isn’t going to do any good. You have to keep using the word, keep practicing it in conversation, writing, listening, etc.

GIF from Bruce Almighty (not mine)

This is how I feel when I’m using new vocabulary.

For the summer, I’m coming up with a vocab learning plan Continue reading →