안녕하세요!
Proper pronunciation can make as much difference as the comma contrasting meanings: “Let’s eat, Grandma” and “Let’s eat Grandma”. While pronouncing things the wrong way sometimes can change the meaning of a sentence, it can also just make me sound more like a beginner and less like the fluent person I’m pretending to be.
You also don’t know that you’re doing or saying something wrong until someone tells you – this is the peril of self-taught language learning.
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.
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
오래간만이에요!
So, yes, I’ve been missing for about 5,000 years. 나는 바빴어요….아직 바쁜데…But now I’m back!
Sup 내 친구
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
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
안녕하세요!
미안합니다 for the long hiatus; I’m finishing up my senior year, combating AP tests, and karate-chopping major projects while deadlines pop out of my ears….but still, shame on me for neglecting my blog!
Can you forgive me if I give you a David Tennant GIF?
Let’s be honest; while I would love to be at the proficiency level of coming-home-and-tossing-my-things-aside-and-cracking-open-a-book-written-in-Korean-by-Koreans-for-Koreans (a level of proficiency also known as fluent) Continue reading
안녕하세요!
If you’re just starting to learn Korean, there are probably some phrases you want to learn. Like “Hello,” How are you,” “I really can’t speak Korean at all,” “What on earth did you just say,” and as many people like to look up first, swearwords. Continue reading
Sometimes at big family reunions, you might find yourself staring at a relative and wondering who on earth they are. Hopefully not in English, but you’re wondering this in Korean. 누구세요? Who are you? What do I call you in Korean? Or perhaps you think you know what to call them but apparently you don’t and you should just give up because you brought tears to everyone’s eyes when you called your older sister by the wrong title. Not that I’ve ever done that…
Ahem. So, go ahead and start learning all those titles. I have two sites to get you started. Firstly, here’s a site with a list of major relative titles, from close family members to your eldest brother’s wife and your younger sister’s husband. Unfortunately, it doesn’t include titles for cousins and such, so you should also check out this site, which includes a lot more! Like a video, which is almost always awesome.
Speaking of awesome videos, Talk To Me In Korean has a plethora of these.
Korean Kinship Terms Part 1 (Oppa, Nuna, Hyeong, etc.)
Korean Kinship Terms Part 2 (Parents, Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts…)
And by the way, if you’re a girl, don’t ever call your older sister 누나. Not that I’ve ever done that. 그죠, 언니?
서울드림 