Netflix and chill? Move aside.
Let’s go back a few years. When I studied abroad at Yonsei University in 2014, I frequently went to festivals and events held in the area. 신촌’s streets would fill with booths, performers, and music, and my friends and I would wander through it all. My favorite festival was a big art festival where my friend bought a painting and I bought two sets of artist-made postcards. Continue reading
안녕하세요!
It’s been a while since I’ve updated my Miss Interpretation section. Not because I’m not making mistakes, but mainly because they’ve been relatively boring mistakes. I haven’t said anything really inappropriate or completely grammatically incorrect in a while, but I’ve continued to make little mistakes without advancing much. Sigh. I need to get down to business to defeat the Huns and actually get back into intense studying.
Actual photo of me. I’m secretly a muscular Chinese man, but don’t tell anyone.
I did, however, have any interesting conversation with one of my language partners on Skype Continue reading
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.
안녕하세요!
I seem to have a propensity to put my Korean foot in my mouth whether it’s because I mix up words, misunderstand, or completely misspell a key word. My most recent mistake was Continue reading
안녕하세요!
I seem to have a propensity for making awful mistakes while learning Korean. If you think of either an inappropriate or an extremely simple, everybody-knows-this word, I’ve probably already used it accidentally in a conversation with a language partner. The mistake I’m focusing on in this post is one that I must blame entirely on my lazy Google Translate ways. I have brought dishonor on my language-learning.
In one of my early conversations with an italki language buddy on Kakaotalk, we were discussing college. He told me that studying in college would help my Korean. I replied with,
“그죠? ^_^ 흥분해요~”
“Right? I’m excited*~”
I hadn’t already known the word for ‘to be excited,’ so in my haste to reply, I had grabbed the phrase from Google Translate. If I’d gone to Naver‘s online dictionary or used my Naver app for it, maybe I’d have already known what he was about to say.
“haha 흥분해요 usually means sexually excited.”
If you search 흥분 in Naver’s dictionary, you discover that not only does the word have several usages meaning excitement, agitation, upset, to be thrilled, but it also turns up as parts of phrases that mean to arouse and to stimulate.
Talk about being an awkward conversationalist. You’re jealous of my mistake-making abilities, aren’t you? Have you made any awkward mistakes while learning a language? Or do you know how to properly tell someone in Korean that you’re excited (to hear good news, to do something fun, to try something new)? Please leave a comment!
감사합니다!
안녕하세요!
Everybody makes mistakes. The point is that you’re supposed to learn from your mistakes. I’ve decided to start posting about mistakes that I make on my journey of learning Korean (and I’m learning Japanese, too!) in order to help myself not make them again – and to help others not make them in the first place. Continue reading
서울드림 