Seoulo Journey

Evaluation of Sogang University's KLEC Program

2010-05-19T19:57:00.006-04:00

Oops, this would actually be my 52nd post :)

So here is my evaluation of the program:

In one word? Go.

If you are not a heritage speaker, I say that Sogang is an amazing program to be able to bring you up to a level where you will feel extremely comfortable communicating in the language with others. The environment of international students, most of whom do not speak English, allows for you to be forced to speak Korean, even without a language pledge. Also, you may not believe it when you first go there, but you will be able to cultivate very very deep relationships with these people who are mere strangers when you first meet them (especially if you go for a whole year). Being forced to use Korean in all kinds of situations with your friends, especially if you take trips or decide to talk about more difficult subjects, will let you slowly gain vocabulary and figure out different forms of speech.

One thing I would advise though is to meet with Korean friends as often as possible too. Although speaking with your friends from class will give you amazing practice, they are second language learners just like you and will not be able to correct you like a Korean friend can.

Yes, there are improvements that can be made to the program (one thing I think is that it would be nice if there were less students per classroom), but Sogang is indeed a young program, so it is rapidly changing and I'm sure will only get better over the years.

The teachers are, for the most part, devoted and very sweet and try to involve the students as much as possible in discussions, and you will find yourself being able to discuss virtually anything with Koreans by the end of your studies at Sogang.

As for workload--Sogang is probably one of the less intensive Korean programs, but don't take the work too lightly. It's very important to keep up by studying the next lesson's vocabulary and grammar (known as 예습) and important to review as well. Otherwise, you WILL find yourself quickly falling behind your classmates and unsure of what is going on in class. That said, the homework is not unbearable, which is a plus in and of itself, because it allows for you (for those who try) to expose yourself to the Seoul environment as much as possible and to meet friends often, which will skyrocket your speaking skills and make you much more familiar with Korean culture.

There are two tests per semester--the midterm and the final, which can be very stressful as 90% of your grade depends upon them. It's not ideal, and I would argue for more common little tests so that there isn't a lot of stress built up for two exams (not to mention, cramming--which is not effective for retaining information) or for class participation to actually count as more than 10% of the grade.Try to take them with as little stress as possible. If you 예습 every day and review often, the tests should not be horrible. My feelings about the test are, don't take them as indicative of your ability--they're designed to see how much you've retained from the course. One thing that I do think is done well, though, is the interview test at the end of each semester. Albeit super stressful, as oral tests tend to be, the teachers will often go off the set questions, allowing you to have a natural conversation and really show your ability to carry on a conversation in Korean. Memorization is a large part of the interview for the first three levels, but by level 4 and definitely by 5, if you go in with a general idea of what you want to talk about with the questions, you should have no problem, and the teacher will actually be able to evaluate well your ability.

Sogang gets a big plus from me--possibly one of the best language experiences I will ever have in life.

~*~

Now let's go into specifics:

SPEAKING: As I've emphasized, Sogang is centered around improving your speech skills in multiple situations. The makeup of the classes with students that do not share a common language allows for optimization in practicing your speaking in natural situations. By the end, you will find that Korean is almost as comfortable language for you to speak in as English is.

LISTENING: Levels 5 and 6 are wonderful examples of using media to improve listening skills. Although Levels 1 through 4 have normal, possibly dry dialogues, they are necessary for building a strong base in listening. Through those levels, if you have a television, it would be very good to try to attune yourself to listening to Korean through it. By Level 5, you get a video class, which is excellent for attuning your ears to natural Korean. Listening is done very well at Sogang. One thing that I found myself struggling a little bit with (as well as some of my friends) was listening to Korean men speaking. One reason is that they often slur their words more, but also, the vast majority of Sogang teachers are women, so if you want to even out your listening skills more, I suggest you to find a Korean male language partner.

READING: The Sogang readings are nothing super intense and you will be able to synthesize the vocabulary you learn from the chapters. By the end, you will definitely be able to read Korean at a very decent speed and be able to capture a lot, but if you possibly find time, I suggest looking for Korean texts on your own once you reach a higher level (perhaps from Level 4 or even Level 3 onward), because even if you do not memorize every piece of vocabulary, you will expose yourself to a lot and will find yourself recognizing more and more words and also be able to get a taste of natural Korean, as most of the texts in the books are artificially written to train certain grammar skills.

WRITING: One of Sogang's weaker points, but that's because of the great emphasis on speaking. I do agree that writing should come secondary to speaking, but my advice would be to take advantage of writing class to try to write creatively and incorporate as much new vocabulary and grammar as possible. Don't be afraid to experiment writing different sentences or using different words and seeing if they're acceptable in Korean or not. That's one of the best ways to improve your writing in the mere 50 minutes of writing class. The topics given are very diverse and so you'll have plenty to write about. As long as you take advantage, writing class can be very fruitful.

~*~

Okay, now I'll evaluate the levels that I took:

LEVEL 3: The first level I took at Sogang. Level 3 is a difficult level, partially because you start to learn many grammar patterns that are not quite translatable into English (not to mention the languages your classmates speak as well) and partially because there is a large jump from Level 2 (I have heard). 예습 is very important here and it's good to ask the teacher anything you're unclear about. As Level 3 is where you'll start to reach intermediate Korean, DEFINITELY try to hang out more with your classmates, as it will be very important to start cementing your Korean speech before heading into the higher levels. All in all, the topics are pretty fun, so Level 3 is a good, but difficult level.

LEVEL 4: Ah, the hazy Level 4. It's hard to tell exactly what goal Level 4 is trying to achieve. The grammar is nothing very difficult and the material is rather dry, not to mention, there's no color in the books! Alas, I had an amazing Level 4 experience, as it was where I met a few of my closest friends. As long as your classroom dynamic and teacher makes the material fun, it will be a fun level. Try to look past the dry material and focus on increasing your vocabulary. As the level is easier than Level 3 (in my opinion), take the advantage to hang out more and cement your abilities to speak. By the end, you should find yourself fairly comfortable conversing in everyday conversation.

LEVEL 5: The dreaded Level 5. Actually, Level 5 is a very fun level with lots of well-written chapters and interesting grammar points and a plethora of vocabulary. Yes, it is a difficult level. Yes, you will have to put in quite a bit of time if you want to get the most out of the level. 예습 and review are crucial and the level is very fast paced, so be careful not to fall behind. You will start to talk about advanced topics in this level so test the waters and don't be afraid to make mistakes. My teacher in Level 5, 오승은 선생님, was absolutely amazing and taught us very well. Don't be afraid to ask the teacher questions, as there should be nothing you should be unclear about. Take in the material and enjoy using your new knowledge with your classmates. Also, Level 5 is where Listening class becomes Video class, an excellent introduction to Korean media. You will watch one drama (새는...) and one movie (그해 여름), both obscure pieces of work. Although it may feel very difficult at first to understand what they're saying, don't give up hope, as by the end, even though you may not understand everything, you will probably understand at least 90% of the media in Level 5 and will probably be able to understand at least 50% in other Korean media you listen to. Level 5 gets a big thumbs up from me as one of the best designed levels at Sogang.

Level 6: The notoriously "boring" level. Level 6 is an interesting one. Reading past blogs and/or reports, as well as hearing from other Sogang students, Level 6 is well known for being "boring" and not very useful. I agree in the sense that Level 6 is not exactly the most fast-paced or fun level, but it is a nice break from the fast pace of Level 5. Also, I would disagree that Level 6 is a useless level. The lenience of the level and atmosphere in class allows for a LOT of natural discussion. You also really tackle advanced topics, and by the end of Level 6 you will be comfortable speaking to Koreans about virtually anything, from health care reform to population problems to the ethics of abortion, cloning, and euthanasia. It's a nice close to the curriculum (as most students graduate at Level 6--I can't speak for Level 7 as I did not take it) and will give you the skills to be able to study Korean on your own. Take the advantage of time to bulk up any skills you feel you're lacking in and make the most of your time in Korea in this level. You deserve it after Level 5! As for the video class, although my teacher was far from the best, the material is very useful. You will encounter all kinds of media (news, lectures, a drama, a game show, a talk show, and a documentary) which will bring up your listening to understanding probably at least 75% or more of Korean media out there. The one complaint I have about Level 6 (apart from that it would be nice if it were more organized and more interesting) is that there is no grammar taught. Yes, there are some patterns you go over in review session, but there is no core grammar, which would be very nice to learn as there is still a lot of grammar after Level 5 that would be useful to know.

All in all, as I said before, go to Sogang! You won't regret it :)! If any of you are reading my blog and decide to go to Sogang, say hi to any of my teachers for me :D. Just ask about 세창 and see if they remember me ^_^.

박다래: Level 3 Writing, Level 6 Speaking
이혜전: Level 3 Speaking
정영미: Level 3 Listening
신효원: Level 4 Writing
구은미: Level 4 Speaking
최연재: Level 4 Listening
박진희: Level 5 Writing
오승은: Level 5 Speaking, Level 6 Writing
조재희: Level 5 Video
윤혜숙: Level 6 Video

And with this I conclude my blog! It's been a good year :).

내일 보자

2010-05-18T12:19:00.011-04:00

"See you tomorrow"

A line I can no longer say to my friends in Korea :(. So sad how much circumstance and location affects friendships! Alas, our time together has come to a close. It's pretty crazy--none of us ever thought it would be possible to become close with people from other countries with whom we don't even share a common mother tongue, but we did it, through Korean. It makes me really see the importance of language in understanding and building relationships. Our graduation meant that all of us were leaving each other, and although it's time to part, we'll never forget the good times!

As I said in my goodbye to my friends:

여러분 만나게 돼서 내 운이 진짜 좋은가 봐. 정말 인연이라고 믿어...지금 헤어지는 날인지 믿고 싶지 않아도 마침내 왔네...건강하게 살고 우리 다시 만나길 바래~전혀 잊지 말자~9개월동안 모두랑 지내다 보니 정이 엄청나게 쌓였어. 이렇게 친하게 지낼 수 있는 줄 몰랐는데 이제 얼마나 섭섭한지...안녕~ 사랑해~

It seems like I was very lucky to have met all of you. I really believe it was fate...although I don't want to believe that it's our day of separation, it's finally come...I hope for us to live healthily and meet again some day~let's never forget each other~spending time with you for 9 months has made you all very dear to me. I never knew that we could become so close and now it all feels so sad...goodbye~ love you all~

Corny, I know :), but over the nine months, I learned not only Korean, but how dear such friends can become by the day of separation. If only our world were smaller...

Here are some final pictures from Korea ^^:
Our class, everyone so dressed up!
Our silly play, based off the show "Roller Coaster" hehe (also, it was rehearsed in less than a day LOL).
Oh Sogang students ;D
Level 6!
Our class, with 박다래 선생님.
The other class, with 곽 선생님.
Kana, Kevin, and me :)!
Me and 박다래 선생님~
All of us who were in the play, with the ever-so popular 김형일 선생님 hehe.
박다래 선생님 showing off the gift we made and the flowers we got her :).
The food was actually good for once! :D Although it was a bit much...especially the chicken XD.
Me and the professor who I helped with editing some papers and whose daughter I helped with English.
Eating at On the Border with 오승은 선생님!
My best Korean friend 문정 Munjeong and me ^^.
My other Korean friends 경민 Kyungmin and 정민 Jungmin.
Last meal! 팔색 삼겹살 ^^
Celebrating Henry's birthday early because we'd all be gone when his birthday came--May 30th!
So many faces!
Congratulations on graduating Sogang!
The final crew!
And the final goodbye!

Now that I'm back in the States, I'm of course readjusting ^^. No extreme reverse culture shock has hit me yet but I can bring up a few things:

1) You know those automatic words like "mm," "no," or "uh," etc. Well I've gotten used to the Korean equivalents of those. So, while talking to my mother or father, I've recently accidentally said 아니 or 뭐 in the middle.

2) Instead of cellphone, I accidentally said "handphone" to my dad yesterday.

3) While my parents were driving me home, on the Chinese radio that my dad was listening to came up a song, which sounded horribly familiar, and then I realized it was 8282 by Da Vichi, but in Chinese! Oh, how pervasive Kpop is.

4) Only after coming back to the States did I realize how different the atmosphere is between New York City and Seoul! Especially my neighborhood, which looks much older and less modern. Very quaint, different from bustling Seoul; although parts of Seoul, like Sinchon, do remind me more of places closer to Grand Central for example.

5) When I was ordering food for the first time back here, I almost completely forgot how to, having not ordered in English for a very long time, so I hesitated for a while before placing my order hehe.

6) I almost completely forgot to pay tip at a restaurant haha.

7) Getting used again to swiping my metro card as opposed to scanning the T-card, and also getting used to not taking out my Metro Card to scan when I get out of the subway haha.

8) The dollar feels so foreign to me!

Well this is some stuff for now, I'll write more if I think up some ^_^.

It feels very surreal to be back home right now--but relaxing at the same time. Just a lot of busy work to do ^^.

I'll write my evaluation of Sogang in a separate post, as it falls into a bit of a different category ^^.

As a last note, I feel it's very nice that this is my 52nd post--52 weeks in a year. Captures very well my year in Korea :D (summer two years ago + fall/winter/spring this year).

생일 축하합니다~

2010-05-13T08:38:00.006-04:00

"Happy birthday to you"

First birthday I've celebrated in a foreign country! And as my gift from Sogang? The final interview exam haha. Well, I guess I can turn it around and think of my gift as being done with everything today woo! Tomorrow's graduation. Crazy to think that it's all finally and truly coming to an end! Ah, the ambivalent relief and sadness that is bittersweetness T_T!

Alas, that will be a word saved for my final post, which I think I will do when I'm back in the States ^^.

As I was studying for finals with friends and practically living in Meeple (I think I went maybe 4-5 days in a row this past week...), I pretty much have their soundtrack drilled into my head. The cafe plays the same music all the time, including I swear, at least ten remixes of Amazing Grace. All the songs have a very peaceful aura, pretty much making you feel like there are no worries in your life! The atmosphere of Meeple definitely helps with that too, which I think is a nice feeling to have while sitting in a cafe and preparing for finals.

The relief of finishing my final level at Sogang is pretty great, and I'm sure it'll feel even better tomorrow as we each step up to the front. Congrats to everyone! It's been a wonderful year :). I wonder how the students who have stuck through from Level 1 must feel!

After the interview today, my friends threw me a birthday lunch at a yummy shabu shabu restaurant :). I also received two of my favorite flavors of cake--fruit and tiramisu mm mm! Lots of picture taking ensued, and then just hanging out. Of course, with the graduation up ahead and a short play to be done during it, everyone was a bit busy, but there will be time for goodbyes tomorrow night and the day after tomorrow, and then on Sunday, I'm on a plane back to the States!

Pictures from the week:

So we were being silly because of this funny ad we saw on TV about hair loss. Here's Kevin(who shaves his head)'s "before" picture.
And after, with the help of Yoshiko haha!
Of course, they then wanted to do that to me too.
Friends friends friends :).
Me and my yummy cakes!
As usual, camera-crazy friends!
Interesting piece of art near Kyobo bookstore, where I was buying Korean books to read back at home!

I'm bracing myself for the reverse culture shock hehe. It's gonna be big! :)

소통

2010-05-04T22:42:00.002-04:00

"Mutual understanding"

Language is such an important tool to people understanding one another, and it makes sense that that's why the Light Fellowship funds students to go to these far off lands to just focus on learning the language. Being a language geek, the Light Fellowship was like a dream come true, but I realize how much merit there is to just learning a language without taking other classes. There's definitely a large difference between studying abroad in a country (유학) and language study in another country (어학 연수), although they both have their merits. I think the one downside of studying abroad is if you take all your classes in English other than your language class. Yeah, you get to experience the country and meet natives, enhancing your experience, but I think that because a lot of time is put into the classes, you don't really learn the language as efficiently and effectively as if you were to just focus all your energy into language learning and utilizing it. I have two friends who did/are doing study abroad here and they felt/feel like they weren't/aren't able to learn Korean as well as they could if they were just focusing on the language. In that way, I feel that my choice to take a year off to just focus on learning Korean has allowed me to improve my Korean vastly, not to mention that being put in the same boat as people from all over the world has definitely allowed us to bond over mutually learning about each other's culture and Korean culture, as well as to create friendships with people thousands of miles away from my home. To sum it all up, yes, the Light Fellowship has given me an amazing opportunity to both foster my understanding about Korean culture as well as to dabble in the cultures of the friends I have made here. Woo Light Fellowship :)!

And to address this weekly question, I feel like I've probably mentioned this a few times in this blog, but it's definitely a different experience being an Asian American here (who is not Korean-American but still blends in looks-wise). On the one hand, I'm able to dispel many people's views of Westerners (for example, Westerners cheat often--a view created by dramas like Gossip Girl or Beverly Hills, America is a dangerous place and everyone carries a gun--well, look at how many violent American movies there are, and not so much a "stereotype" but rather a misconception, the West is a cold place). Of course, the flip side is that being Asian American, they can attribute me as just being an *exception* because my Asian background is different from that of other Americans. Alas, what can I do but continue to preach? Hehe. Funny enough, I did meet a Korean girl recently who has never really met a Westerner who asked me "젓가락질이 힘들겠죠?" "Using chopsticks must be difficult for you." For one thing, I did grow up using chopsticks considering my background is Asian, but for a second and larger thing, I'm pretty sure virtually everyone in the States can use chopsticks considering how prevalent Chinese food is...

I saw one of my Korean friends recently and watched a small play in Daehangno 대학로 (a popular area among college students that I'm surprised I hadn't gone to you--what a shame I didn't get to check it out more!). A picture with the actors :D (and my friend to my left):
With a little bit more than a week left, I've been finishing up work, saying some goodbyes, and doing some packing. Ah! Very surreal to be leaving here!

매애

2010-04-25T06:12:00.007-04:00

"Baa"

Just from that you can probably guess what this blog post is about...well, vaguely :). This weekend, my friend planned a day trip to 강원도 Gangwon-do, where we checked out a sheep farm, a mineral spring, and an herb farm. As usual with these trips, the actual bus trip itself took much longer than actually exploring the places but as usual with these trips, there's no time for bonding with friends like bus time!

Our first stop, the sheep farm, was, well, not too full of sheep, as maybe it was because of the weather? I'm not sure, but for some reason the sheep were in their pens rather than roaming the pastures. Still, because of the blue skies above and the somewhat chilly, but in the comfortable range, weather, we had fun wandering the scenery and taking pictures with the sheep and amongst ourselves.
Hehe is it just me or are they smiling like anime characters?

Our group!
Yup that's a patch of snow. Not quite my idea of the end of April...
Buds :D Kevin, Kana, Henry, and Xue Qing.
Ah, wouldn't it be nice to lie on the field and just watch the clouds float by? ^^
Jump!
Kick!

After that, we went to a restaurant for lunch where we had 황태찜 (a spicy pollack dish) after arguing with the ajumma for about a minute or two that we would be able to handle the spiciness (which, ironically, did not turn out that spicy in the end). Ah, one of the things about some Koreans is how they will assume that if you're not Korean you can't handle spiciness, when there are many cultures that are abundant with spicy food, but that's stereotypes for you ^^. I also got the other day, "Oh, using chopsticks must be difficult for you."
황태찜

But, moving on to the second place! The mineral spring was a short trip, but we tried the mineral water there from the spring and it tasted pretty gross...pretty much like water filled with a LOT of metal. On the bright side, it's supposed to protect against cancer, swine flu, and other diseases ^^. We also had a bit of fun here taking pictures with Kevin being a monkey hehe.
Our last destination was 허브나라 herb farm, which had very pretty gardens and had a delicious bakery that sold yummy herb pastries and delicious herb jam that I decided to buy as a souvenir :). There were also herb aromas and other neat products, not to mention we were able to take some nice pictures there =].
One thing that's been really nice is how we've all developed from Level 4 when we all first met (well I entered a bit late as quite a few had known each other since Level 2 ^^) but how we've reached the point that we can all talk to each other in Korean as if it's our language and how it's not awkward even to speak to our English-speaking buddies in Korean too! It's fostered a new kind of bond I've definitely never experienced before and has led to some lifelong friends =]. It just makes me sad that I'll be going back home soon and leaving them, unsure of when I'll see them next :'(. If only the world were just a bit smaller! It's at least metaphorically become so in recent times, what with all the travel and foreign exchange. Woo for Light Fellowship! :)

건배!

2010-04-16T06:02:00.009-04:00

"Cheers!"

Normally a word used when saying cheers to drinking beer or liquor but in this case what we said when we said cheers to our 갈비탕 kalbi tang that we ate for lunch--Suwon is famous for its kalbi!

Backtracking a bit for why we were in Suwon, today was the graduating class trip! That is, us Level 6 students and the Level 7 students took a bus with our teachers to 화성 Hwaseong Castle in Suwon as our trip. Although it's been fairly cold lately (I had to wear my winter coat yesterday and the day before, which I should not be doing in the middle of April...), today the weather let up a bit and we had a nice sunny day with a gentle breeze (what in Korean would be 산들바람). We didn't walk around the entire castle wall (a decent 5-6km) as it would have taken a while, but we took a decent walk, enjoyed the breeze, saw some very pretty areas, and had yummy kalbi tang! Afterward, we went to Yungneung 융능, the grave for king 정조 Jeongjo who was one of the rulers of the Choseon Dynasty.

The story of the king's father's death is pretty gruesome, as apparently King Jeongjo's grandfather put his own son to death by burying him in a rice bin for several days. Talk about being buried alive @_@! Granted, he was apparently a very unfavorable ruler, but even so, I dunno if anyone deserves to be killed by their own father! Would filicide be the right word? Aside from that story though (and apparently according to a professor who I told I was going to see Hwaseong Castle to, there were a lot of murders around there some time recently, the story of which was made into a movie) the place was quite peaceful and pretty. I'm not the biggest history buff so I enjoyed the landscape and absorbing the atmosphere more than the actual story, but it was a pretty good feeling to understand most of what the tour guide said (with several historical words that we don't know though, of course). Granted, she probably dumbed down the Korean a bit taking into account the fact that we were foreigners.

Some pictures :).
The East Gate, decorated with the dragon, who protects the East in Korean castles. The tiger protects the West, the phoenix the South, and the turtle the North.
The part just outside the gate is built as such to prevent an easy attack to break down the gate.
A hole to shoot through...although now you just see cars XD.
Winding road, and cherry blossoms!
It'd probably be really nice to live around here and go to this park just to relax or to walk around ^^.Sorry, I can't resist the Engrish :)!
Because jumping pictures are awesome :D!
건배ing the kalbi tang!
Patterns make for excellent pictures hehe (Kevin, Meng Ju, Jennie, and me).
Kana and 곽 선생님 (our next door teacher ^^).
Me and a cannon (and Kevin behind).
Hehe we like having fun ;D (Me, Kana, Meng Ju, Apple, and Casey).
Contradiction much?
Heading towards Yungneung, the king's grave. Pretty flowers on the way :)! (Kana and Meng Ju).
Yungneung grave.
Also, today marks exactly one month before I head back to the States. Wow! Talk about time flying by. I can't believe I'm already this close. It'll be quite the experience to adjust back to the Western world, New York, and Yale ^^! For now, time to make the most of my last month here :)!

바람을 쐴 겸 잘 됐다

2010-04-10T09:14:00.005-04:00

"And we can get some fresh air too"

A line from one of the dramas we watched in video class, and what we decided to do for this (short) vacation. For our vacation, as midterms were near and we were only allotted four days of rest, we decided not to go anywhere far. Instead, we headed down to Yeouido Park to rent some bikes and go biking. For some reason, I've always had a little bit of a fear of speed, especially when first trying out something (skiing, driving a car, as here, biking, etc.) so my paranoid self was worried about falling off the bike and breaking some bone as I haven't biked for a few years, but after a few minutes, I was used to the feel of being on a bike again and began to feel the exhilarating adrenaline rushing through my veins.
Looks like Manhattan :D!

When you're living in a city, it's really easy to forget nature--a solace that the tiny patches in cities known as parks allow. It was also nice how much Yeouido Park reminded me of Battery Park, a small riverside park (just like Yeouido next to Hangang) near my home. It was also the first time I'd biked with a fairly large group (there were at least 10 of us I believe), and as the inverse law of movement goes, we moved quite slowly due to being a large group. Very often, Henry, Kevin (who was on rollerblades), and I found ourselves ahead, due to, well, our friends lagging behind to take pictures! I thought I took lot of pictures (as can be seen by my blog), but our friends took the cake! I guess the stereotype about Asians loving to use cameras everywhere they go is quite true hehe. We even ended up losing them at one point because we had biked far ahead while they had stopped to take multiple fun group pictures.
These were fountains near the bike rental place that we went to. As we started to take pictures, some of the fountains just began to shoot up with no warning, soaking us all! T_T

And for something that's (almost) off topic, I am so addicted to Soondubu 순두부 (a spicy casserole with silken tofu) as I think I order it anywhere between 1 and 3 times a week @_@! Why it's remotely related is that we went to a restaurant after biking, which had soondubu that sadly disappointed me :(. I think my favorites will always be the ones at Dolkkemaeul Tofu House, the small restaurant across from school, and the Rotary restaurant near Sinchon Station :).
Another notable event from the weekend, other than studying fiercely for midterms, was seeing Hyunseok, my mom's friend's sister's son (phew, what a mouthful), for his birthday! The people in the picture are his family :D.
Yummy Italian food~
Cake at the end.
On the left is Hyunseok and in the middle is Heesoo, my mom's friend's son who's come to Korea to study in Korea University (and is Hyunseok's cousin).

Lastly, I've started my Korean linguistics classes with my teacher, which has been fun, as part of it is review of some of my linguistics classes but in Korean. It blows my mind how much you can apply these same principles to different languages (except that they may be backwards or turned around or whatnot, such as in Korean). And then just seeing all the Korean examples and how everything relates to each other--phew! Crazy :) (linguistics geek end).

시원섭섭하다

2010-04-03T08:54:00.007-04:00

"To be bittersweet"

One of my favorite words in Korean that we learned in level 5. 시원하다 means "to be relieving, refreshing" while 섭섭하다 is "to feel sad because of separation." So when you put them together, "to be bittersweet" is probably the best way in English to capture this feeling. A feeling that occurs pretty much at the end of every school year and especially at graduation. No different will I feel at the end of level 6! While on one hand it'll be relieving to think "Ah! I'm finally done with my last level at Sogang!" it'll be extremely sad to part with the friends that I've encountered and gotten close to over this year. Two of my Japanese friends, Hiroko and Naoko, felt the same as they left back for Japan last Thursday. As expected, it was a very tearful goodbye, but very feel-good as well, as we all put our hands together in the last moment, agreeing that we would definitely meet again!
The stars of the night! 누나들 얼마나 보고 싶다~Never forget Level 4 friends!

Two days after was Shaun's wedding, which, as most weddings go, was filled with a feel-good atmosphere and loads of hope. It was much longer than our teacher's wedding but still rather short, as Korean weddings go. The food was delicious and the procession very inspiring. Congrats to Shaun and Jiseon! :)
Groom and...
Bride with her father!
Adorable ring bearer and flower girl!
Shaun reading his vow in Korean.
And Jiseon reading hers in English.
Rings being exchanged.
And the bow!
Tossing the bouquet.
It's funny how I've already been to two Korean weddings and not a single American one yet! (well, I went to one when I was REALLY young so I don't remember...). It'll be interesting to see how they differ!

So, to answer last week's weekly question! "What is your marker for success on this fellowship? More vocab? More friends?"

Tough question, but really I'd probably have to say every little thing I *have* accomplished here! The fact that I have made friends from multiple nations who could last a lifetime and who I will miss dearly when we all depart has already been one marker of success. Not only have I learned from them how different and yet similar people from completely different parts of the world can be, but just by merit of meeting them, I've gained an urge to learn about their cultures as well. Alas, time is short and the world is large. What can be done? But we'll see, eh? ^^

Educationally as well, I have definitely gained a lot from Korea. Having focused all my energy into this language for the year, I've reached a level surpassing any other language I've ever learned, including the ones I speak at home (as I do not speak to my parents about "advanced topics" such as politics, the economy, etc. so I very much lack those vocabulary words and advanced written grammar patterns), leading me to feel a little ashamed about my noviceness in those languages as well hehe. As a Korean phrase goes, 배워도 배워도 끝이 없다 (you learn, you learn, but there's no end)! Although I've learned quite a large number of vocabulary and grammar pattern, even just living everyday life, watching Korean dramas, hanging out with Korean friends, and especially looking at practice TOPIK exams (a Korean standardized exam designed for foreigners to assess their level of Korean--but really it's an assessment of writing skill and memorization of vocabulary and grammar patterns, as well as inference skills), there's a humongous wealth of more vocabulary and grammar to learn. Overwhelming, but a bit exciting at the same time!

Another sign of success! I've been working on two projects lately ^^. One being translating my level 5 teacher's book, which is a Korean self-study book for English speakers (woo! my first translation job =]) and the second being translating Sogang's Level 5 grammar reference (which does not have an English version yet) and revising the Level 4 one! I've started a bit on both projects and even though I knew of how vast the difference between Korean and English was, it's very interesting to actually see it in action! Not to mention, it makes me feel like my learning of Korean is finally coming to fruition in actual work ^^. As compensation for helping in revising the Sogang grammar reference books, I'm receiving 20 hours of a class on Korean linguistics (국어학), which will start on Monday. Exciting! :)

So success? Living in a foreign nation for an extended period of time while making cherished friends and getting comfortable in a foreign language --I guess I now kind of know how my parents felt when they first moved to America ^^ (except the fact that I'm a student and they were working).

Lastly, a completely random picture, but why on earth would anyone name their coffee ship this???

방문 방문~

2010-03-24T19:36:00.006-04:00

"Visit visit~"

So as a quick update to what's happened these two weeks other than the ear issue and getting used to Level 6, these two weeks also involved two of my friends visiting from other countries!

Not just that though, but I've been seeing lots of familiar faces lately! Don't you love it when you haven't seen someone for a long time and you finally get to see them again? That's when Koreans say "반갑다!", which is also used for "Nice to meet you!" For one familiar face, those following my blog two years ago will remember my Japanese friend Yoshiko, who continued at Sogang after me but then returned to Japan and is now back and taking Level 6 with us, woo! :D So two weekends ago, Yoshiko, Kana, Henry, and I met up with Kyunghee (the girlfriend of my friend Greg from Level 3) and her friends to celebrate Kyunghee's birthday!
Tandoori chicken mm~
Chicken Paneer and Lamb Masala. Ah how I've missed Indian food :).
To butt in quickly here, living in Seoul for a long time has made me notice one thing--I cannot go for a long time without super varied food! Out of Korean food that is within normal price ranges, there really isn't much variation (this day 찌개 stew, that day 삼겹살 samgyupsal--Korean bacon, next day 볶음밥 fried rice, rinse, repeat). Korean food is very delicious, but as with anything (and perhaps because I am spoiled by how many different kinds of foods there are in New York) it does get tiring and repetitive after a while, and foreign food is normally very expensive (at least 3-4x more expensive than normal Korean food). Alas! Henry actually took me to an American diner the other day and we were both pleasantly surprised by how it actually was really good and reminiscent of good old-fashioned American diners! (and now back to the topic).
Hapypy birthday Kyunghee :D. Yummy pudding cake!
After dinner, we went to a cafe (not this one) but I just found this very amusing hahaha.
My green tea latte in the cafe.

Okay, now for the visitors! One was former Korea Light Fellow Heeseung, who is studying abroad in London this semester and came to Seoul for a few days. For people who have been following my blog (or Heeseung's when she was here, or River's when he was here) you'll recognize Meng Ju in this picture :D!
As you can see we had yummy yummy fried chicken (it's funny how popular fried chicken is in Asia! This place, called The Frypan also has really amazing fried chicken! I was pleasantly impressed :D).

My second visitor (unfortunately, did not take pictures that day) was Arthur, who is studying in Beijing and is my high school friend Angela's friend (phew what a link) and you'll have seen pictures of him if you saw my post about Beijing! He was here for a weekend and found Seoul awesome (who would expect less? :D) I also learned that day that the Korean practice of playing the most popular songs on repeat forever (such that it is impossible to not know what the popular songs of the moment are) extends as well to Lady Gaga (as we heard Telephone at least 20 times that night). Go Lady Gaga.
Another visit was from Henry's mother once more (who also visited earlier this year). She took Henry, Kana, and I to a yummy 한정식 restaurant (where you will get about 20-30ish small 반찬 small dishes of food as you can see below) in Insadong.
We then finished our trip in a tea shop where I tried an interesting drink--a ginseng smoothie haha. As expected, it was bitter and had that "good for your health taste" but to be honest, it wasn't bad! To be honest, I'd try it again ^^.
Also fun fact: for those who studied Level 4 at Sogang University, or seen the Level 4 book, they will know "Brian Barry" a famous 탱화 (Buddhist art) artist who became a monk and has lived in Korea for over 40 years. Funny enough, Henry's mom knew him from Peace Corps! What a small world! :D

What else to say in this post? I've been feeling much more confident about my Korean lately! Hanging out with my Korean friend and two of her Korean friends such that I was also able to hear how they spoke to each other (Koreans definitely speak to each other differently than they will to foreigners from my experience, but I guess that's anyone right?) and actually understand most of it was pretty awesome! Also, after going through Level 5 and a bit of Level 6 video class, I'm actually feeling good about watching dramas without subtitles. I've begun 찬란한 유산 (Brilliant Legacy, Shining Inheritance...you can translate it in a few ways) recently and even though there are some scenes where I have to repeat the scene to hear what they're saying, and sometimes even then I don't catch everything, I get a good deal! It's still frustrating to not understand everything though...I wonder if my parents felt that or still feel that when they watch American TV, hmm.

On the other hand, I think my English speaking skills have dropped o_O. I noticed that when I was talking to Arthur, I would ramble on about something and then think to myself, wait, there is no way that what I just said made any sense in English...almost as if I was saying it in a Korean way? I don't know! Weird! Hehe :).

To next time! Tonight's Naoko and Hiroko's last night in Seoul before heading back to Japan and Saturday is Shaun's wedding so look forward to a post about that :).

3월말에 이럴 수가...

2010-03-22T06:09:00.003-04:00

"This at the end of March..."

Phew, it's been a while! Sorry for the constant slow updates T_T. What with school picking up and preparing for my presentation time has not quite been on my side! But alas, tomorrow is my presentation and I'm set so now time has cleared up...for a bit at least hehe.

On the good news side, my Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss 돌발성 난청 seems to be gone (I hope)! I'm heading to the hospital once more tomorrow to test my hearing! That's pretty much my update for these past weeks--working on my presentation while dealing with my ear issues and relaxing a lot!

As for the point of this post? How crazy Korea's weather is! It's the end of March and somehow we got struck by a snowstorm today! Around 3PM as I was heading home with my friend, snowflakes began to fall and within a few minutes the snowflakes became huge, very reminiscent of the winter. Totally had that idea of New York being colder wrong, as did all my Korean (as well as other Asian) friends here who have the idea of New York snowing all the time haha. Of course, we have snow like this in New York as well but I don't think it's very common...and I've heard that the weather is what, between 50 and 70F there? It's definitely getting warmer here, with the average around 5 degrees Celsius (that's maybe low to mid 40s or so in Fahrenheit) but not warm enough! I'm guessing we'll probably have a few weeks of spring and then the temperature will just get super hot--but I guess that's what they say about Korea--3 days of hot and 3 days of cold? Some line like that that I can't quite remember!

Not to mention, yesterday was a perfectly sunny and rather warm day, while the day before we got hit by a sandstorm from China! Now that's the first time I've experienced 황사, literally "yellow sand," which blows in from deserts in China and Mongolia. Coming from a place that's not anywhere remotely close to a desert, I couldn't even imagine what a sandstorm would look like. I heard that the sandstorm in Beijing was one of the worst lately and that the one two days ago here was also very serious. It was quite an experience to look outside my window and see the sky covered in yellow. I have to admit, when I heard the bug screen door swing open from the strong winds, I freaked out for a second, thinking someone had climbed on to my balcony haha. Although the sandstorm was not as bad as I imagined it to be (I was expecting sand in my clothes and irritating my eyes, skin, etc.) but it actually didn't really feel like much when I headed out. What I did notice though was many cars' marred with sand today. Ah, I should've taken a picture of that sand.

For now, here are pictures of the snow today!
Oh and this was just because I decided to have some fun while washing dishes.

Wish me luck tomorrow! I hope my presentation on Optical Illusions will grab my classmates' attention ^^. Also, I think it's pretty awesome that I'm able to talk about such in a powerpoint presentation. Despite the fact that I am very far from being fluent or even close to proficient at Korean, there's a nice feeling of self-satisfaction in being able to say, "hey! I explained optical illusions in a powerpoint presentation in a foreign language!" :D

당신을 봅니다

2010-03-12T21:28:00.005-05:00

"I see you"

Probably the most famous line from Avatar, which I finally got around to seeing! And not just in 3D, but in what Korea calls "4D"! "What's 4D?" is the question I usually get and what I wondered when I first heard of it too. Well apparently it combines 3D with the experience of those motion simulators you have in theme parks and sights and whatnot. So the chairs will move when the ships fly for example, or when Jake jumps into the water, a tiny splash of water dashes across your face, Neytiri shoots an arrow and a sharp wind zips past your cheek, in fight scenes, something will hit the back of your seat, some strings or something whip your leg. It was entertaining for sure, but worth the 18,000W? Well, maybe just for the experience, but I wouldn't pay for 4D again. As for my thoughts on Avatar? Beautiful, amazing graphics. Like WOW I could watch scenes from that world for days. The story? Not original in the least bit (very much like Pocahontas actually...just add songs and you've got Pocahontas with blue people) but still a feel-good movie that causes you to hate the villains, love the protagonists, and possibly even shed a tear at the sad scenes. All in all, I enjoyed it a lot (I mean, I loved Pocahontas after all)! Not to mention me being a linguistics geek had fun listening to the Na'vi language--which was subtitled in Korean of course, so there was (a little) Korean reading practice! Also, strangely enough, some of the characters' mumblings were difficult for me to fully understand, at which point I ended up having to read the Korean subtitles to figure out what they said (I don't know if that's just me or if I'm really losing my grasp of English haha!).
The mall where the theatre was--very very modernized and cutting-edge architecture :).
Henry sports the 3D glasses.
Story Noraebang! Lots of fun since always! And free ice cream :)
The stars--singing Bohemian Rhapsody hahaha.

What else to update from this week? Well, our friend Xue Qing is back from China and starting college here! Level 6 is definitely a very different experience from 5, what with 5 classes collapsing into 2 and the complete difference of the lessons themselves. I have to say though, I'm learning a LOT of vocabulary (a never ending battle as always), including a huge list of "feeling words" we received (with, for example, 8 words for regret 아쉬움, 6 words for sadness 슬픔, 5 words for shyness/embarrassment 부끄러움, etc. you get the gest) and yet still more ways to say "because" (I think we may be up to at least 15 now...I will not bother counting). Regardless, the freer class atmosphere gives us much more time to talk--which I think is good for increasing our level to be able to talk about advanced topics. It's funny though when I can carry out a discussion about something like the different viewpoints of people on the former president 박정희 who was both criticized for being dictator-like but also praised for leading Korea to become one of the fastest developing nations in the world and yet I only learned the word for "light bulb" the other day. Go figure haha. Language learning really has no set order, but maybe that's what makes it so fascinating...

On the darker side, I woke up on Saturday with an intense ringing in my left ear, accompanied by a muffled sound and what I noticed was different pitch perception in both ears (lower in my left one) as well as a marked drop in my hearing ability. I went to the doctor on Monday, who was unsure of whether it was an issue with my nerves or what's known as Ménière's Disease, which can lead to permanent hearing loss. After a few days, I went back, and because I didn't experience vertigo or dizziness, he concluded that it's probably not Ménière's Disease, and I was put on medication for Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSHL), which I found out after doing some research on Google, is a great mystery in otolaryngology and so hopefully this medication will work and hopefully I will not experience permanent hearing loss (which would suck for video class and just for using a language in general =[). Ah, traveling has really led me to a bunch of random illnesses, eesh! Going to the doctor though made me yet more aware of how language learning is not linear. At one appointment, I understood virtually everything the doctor said, and then at the next almost nothing went into my head. Of course though, I was able to get and confirm the important information, so I can only hope this gets better! :)

And of course, I should end on a bright note--on Tuesday after seeing Avatar, I went to have dinner with one of my mom's best friend's son, Heesoo, who I've known since I was really really young. I hadn't seen him for a long time so it was quite interesting to recognize him again (I still have clear memories of home videos of us when I was maybe 6 or 7 and he was in his early teens). How the times change! He's starting studies at Korea University soon for graduate school. We had some delicious bibimbap at this Buddhist restaurant he took me too and then rounded off the (super snowy--there should NOT be this much snow in March...) night with tea.
The nutritious meal.
부추전--yummy Korean pancake with a scallion-like vegetable :).
Heesoo in front of the food.

Til next time! :)

你會說韓語嗎?

2010-03-04T10:11:00.016-05:00

"Do you speak Korean?"

So I'm cheating and using Chinese for this title instead of Korean ^^. I figure since I went to China on vacation I can bend my rule a bit here hehe. As I had expected, I had no occasion to use Korean in Beijing, BUT funny (and luckily) enough I was able to use it on my way there!

Because I didn't take a direct flight to Beijing, I had to transfer at Dalian, where I ran into quite a few issues...first off our plane entered the airport about 20 minutes late, at 12:20PM. After immigration, I waited for my bags...for about half an hour >_<. That led me to get to the checkout counter at 1PM, at which point I was told that it was too late to get on the 1:30 flight (which I don't think was true...). Regardless, all of us on the Seoul flight were moved to the 3:40PM flight, but at around 3PM the weather suddenly got super foggy and rainy, leaving us stranded in the airport. After a few hours, I tried talked to the lady at the counter, except my Chinese wasn't advanced enough to fully understand her and for her to understand me. Luckily, this woman, who apparently had seen me reading a Korean book, came up to me and asked the title of this post "Do you speak Korean?" I told her yes and after she helped translate, I learned that she was a Choseonjok 조선족 朝鮮族, a Chinese person of North Korean descent. Her accent (different from anything I'd ever heard and somewhat similar to a Chinese accent...somewhat) took me a bit of time to get used to, but through her help, I was able to get a hotel room for the night and realize what was going on in all the chaos! We were woken up at 1AM in the morning to be taken to the airport, where I fell asleep waiting for announcements. Luckily a Chinese girl woke me up, helped me change my ticket to the new flight. We finally arrived in Beijing at 5AM, where the girl helped me call my friend who was originally going to pick me up, figure out where my hostel was and how to get there, and give the information to the employees so that they could send my luggage there (which was delayed about a day). By 7AM I made it to my hostel and promptly passed out for a few hours before going to meet Ian!

_<).

Although I still feel rather ethnocentric (probably partially a result of being from America...) but I've been becoming increasingly ethnorelative I'd say. Nothing specific exactly, but I think being at Sogang has especially fostered this increased ethnorelative understanding. Being in such a diverse sphere of students really exposes you to all kinds of people and all kinds of thought. The fact that sharing the differences in our cultures is one of our recurring topics and the fact that we all use Korean as a medium to express our thoughts makes language school friends a very unique set. Not to mention it's a pretty sad thought, making international friends when you'll get close for some set time and then be able to see each other only every now and then once you all return to your hometowns you'll most likely never see some of them ever again and the others you'll rarely be able to see. Ahhh, 섭섭해 (the sadness you feel when parting) ㅠㅠ.

One thing that's really interesting to see in different languages is humor...I've noticed that even though sarcasm can be used in Korean, it's executed very differently from English, although from learning with all my language friends, it's still kind of fascinating to see how we all crack up at very similar thoughts (disconnected thoughts, running jokes, inside jokes, etc.) Back to the sarcasm point, in English it's very easy to say "Noooooooooo" in a sarcastic manner, with a certain tone of voice, but somehow dragging out or changing the tone of "아니요" doesn't quite have the same effect...of course, things can be said very deadpan but there isn't the same effect as in English where there's a mutual understanding of sarcasm. Very very interesting. My language partner recently had a unit on jokes in her English hagwon and some of the questions included whether they had ever heard "running jokes, inside jokes, cruel jokes, sick jokes, etc." It's funny how we have all these kinds of separations for jokes. In Korean and Chinese (and possibly, probably, other Asian languages) there are "cold jokes" which involve a completely unexpected answer, which is where the humor is derived from. At the same time where it's amazing to see how much we can differ just because of language and culture, it's pretty crazy to think about how much we match and are similar too, and how there are so many things that are considered universal humor. Time for a photo update--this time filled with pictures from the dog cafe in Hongdae that Henry, Xue Qing, Ayano, and I went to last week. First a picture of adorable bunnies we saw on our way to the cafe.
Henry with a puppy.
Me with a beagle (this one took a liking to me ^^). Oh and by the way, yes, I did dye and perm my hair!
Xue Qing and her favorite dog--the bulldog, that is, Handsome Dan, woo Yale Pride! :D
Ayano and a golden retriever!
And now featuring the dogs!
Awwww ^_^!
A sad looking (Handsome Dan!)
Awwww, this husky peeked out right next to my leg haha.
Hahaha crazy looking dog eating my treat!
This dog looks so elegant!
Awww ^^.
Cute! Although the beagle liked me better ;D!
Hehe don't know what's going on here.
Awww, yawn!
I am totally getting a dog when I have my own place and money.
This family was popular with the dogs hehe. And this place is called Bau House in case someone wants to look it up ^^.
Afterwards Henry, Xue Qing, and I went to eat at a sushi buffet. Ahh, how I miss Sushi Palace back at Yale!

So, tomorrow is graduation ceremony and then two weeks of break until (hopefully) Level 5! This weekend = Taiwan with Bob and Sneha, woo! We'll see what's in store :D.

남의 떡 더 커 보인다

2009-10-26T10:51:00.011-04:00

So Chapter 6 of our textbook (I can't believe we're already on Chapter 8 and that finals are next week, ah!!!) was about 속담, that is, proverbs/sayings. We had to share proverbs from our own languages too and it's fun to see how different and farfetched proverbs can seem! The title of the post is the English equivalent of "The grass is much greener on the other side," in Korean, that's "Someone else's rice cake looks bigger," which is a cute image haha.

To my class, I explained "It's not over 'til the fat lady sings" and "The poop's (ahem) hit the fan," both of which my class found very amusing ^^. My favorite Japanese ones were "It's like eye gunk laughing at a booger," meaning that there are two people in similar bad situations but one still laughs at the other, and one that made us all laugh because the connection seems to bizarre: "Ignorance is Buddha." The Korean equivalent is "Not knowing is medicine," better known to English speakers as "Ignorance is bliss." The idea that Buddha is peace and goodness in general is why the saying goes "Ignorance is Buddha" but it seems so random that it's funny hehe ^^.

The chapters we've been covering lately have been very geared on having us explain, narrate, and describe, all skills that are definitely required for advancing to an "advanced level" (which I guess are what Level 5 and 6 are meant to be). Maybe this is the next flat level of language learning, boo. Sometimes I feel so proud when I can explain something without too much trouble and then other times when I do so I hesitate so much or have so much trouble with grammar/vocabulary that I feel super disappointed in my ability. And especially when narrating a story or movie or whatnot, applying even the simple grammar we learned in level 1 and 2 to connecting sentences and spreading the conjunction phrases throughout to sound natural is a tremendously difficult task! Argh. Language learning is such a neverending process!

Really though, I'm so glad I've made Korean friends that I regularly hang out with and can practice telling long stories and describing and basically applying all the skills I've been learning in class to conversations with them. After hanging out for a few hours or so with them I feel much more confident in my ability and excited for the next time! It's a nice thing to know though that I can basically circumlocute and pantomime, with a little help of the handy-dandy electronic dictionary sometimes, super-difficult topics and that with my other-country friends, it isn't horribly difficult to get what we mean across! I also feel much more comfortable using 반말 (the less formal speech) and sounding rather natural with some sentences. Working on subtleties and naturalness is my next goal, and I've been trying to get my Korean friends to help me speak more natural and more well-used phrases so that I can actually start sounding like a Korean! It's hard, though, because when you get caught up in conversation, you don't really want to correct every little thing the other person says!

As for subtleties, the intricacies between different grammar structures in languages and especially the subtle differences between words is so fascinating to me! Allow me to be a linguistics geek again and note the beautiful remnants of vowel harmony that the Altaic languages (assuming Korean is an Altaic language) left behind in Korean.

For those who don't know what vowel harmony is, it's when vowels in morphemes (the smallest unit of meaning--such as -ed meaning the past tense in English--so "discontinued" is made up of "dis-" (a prefix meaning not) + "continue" + "-ed" for example) change to conform to the vowel quality of the root. The most touted example of this is Turkish, in which vowel often conforms to the "roundness" (basically whether your lips are rounded or not--so in English the vowels in "eat" and "ask" are not rounded but the vowels in "boot" and "code" are rounded.

So for example if the root had a rounded vowel, every morpheme following the root would conform the vowel to be rounded (but maintain the other qualities). Yeah, it's a bit hard to explain the meaning .-.;;.

In the Korean example, the "light" vowels are ㅗ (o) and ㅏ (a) and the dark vowels are the rest. Light vowels go together in conjugation and so do dark vowels (most canonically ㅜ (u) and ㅓ (eo)--pronounced sorta like "uh"). So for example "녹다" (melt) becomes "녹아" when conjugated--both having light vowels, whereas "울다" (cry) becomes "울어" when conjugated.

The more interesting part of this, though, is when you get to native Korean words, of which a LOT follow vowel harmony, especially onomatopoeic words. What's even MORE interesting is that you can have words that have a "light" version and a "dark" version, or something of the sort! I find this fascinating, and the example in English I could liken it to is adding the "-ish" morpheme to something.

So as examples:
동가랗다: very round VS 둥그렇다: very round (and large)
빨갛다: to be red VS 뻘겋다: to be deep red
파랗다: to be sky blue VS 푸르다: to be deep blue (like the sea)

Not being a native Korean speaker, it's very hard for me to quite sense these words but I can get a faint idea that will hopefully grow with time. A few other words escape my mind as to what the difference could really be and I'd need a Korean person to explain to me again!

살금살금 VS 슬금슬금 (both a coloring of "stealthy, furtively, secretly"

Also notable is that virtually all (that I know of) the onomatopoeias follow the verb conjugations in the light and dark conjugations, remnants of Korea's linguistic history ^_^!

껌충껌충 (with a leap)
찐득찐득 (sticky, muddy)
팔딱팔딱 (hopping--like a frog)
꼬물꼬물 (squirming)
물렁물렁 (soft, fleshy)

And etc. I'm also pretty amazed by what specific words Korean has! Phew! Of course, though, English has plenty too ^^--it's just crazy to see how when you get to super subtle differences! My language partner taught me a while ago the differences between words that barely have any difference.

미세하다 - delicate, fine, "minute difference," subtle
미미하다 - very small, insignificant (in a small way)
사소하다 - insignificant, trifling
근소하다 - small (in the sense of "by a tiny bit" when speaking of differences--like "winning a race by a hair")
미묘하다 - delicate, fine, in a sort of beautiful way

If you notice, a lot of these words have the morpheme "미" in it, which is from the hanja 微, meaning "subtle" or "minute." It's interesting how when the words are derived from Chinese characters, looking at the individual parts (as Chinese words work completely in morphemes) is what's important whereas native Korean word meanings are more dependent on the shape of the word (as in the vowel harmony).

Okay, time for the end of geekiness and pretty pictures yay! This Friday we took our trip to Bukhansan 북한산 slightly north to see pretty fall leaves! 10 kids from our class showed up and we went with 구은미 선생님, our 말하기 speaking teacher. Needless to say, the scenery was beautiful and it was an awesome bonding experience :). Enjoy the clear pictures from the new lens that my friend Kyunghee helped me buy yay!
At 대흥역 waiting for the train.
We get out at 구파발역 to catch a bus to Bukhansan.
One of the mountains!
단풍! Autumn leaves :D!
A dried up river.
Red leaves are my favorite.
Sunlight peeking through the trees~
Yay group picture and pretty fall leaves!
Just before we ate lunch!
Raised the shutter speed to capture the water movement ^^.
Everybody's got a big leaf ^_^!
Yay detailed pics!
Red red red!
After the mountain we headed to a cafe near Gyeongbok Palace.
Cute cute ^^.
Yay slow shutter speeds!
Afterwards we went to 구은미 선생님's home and bonded with her wooo! Such an awesome teacher :). And she got us fried chicken and pizza for dinner haha (I also explained to her that Americans don't eat pizza or fried chicken for dinner very often hehe ^^).

Oh and by the way, our class was invited to 구은미 선생님's marriage! Yay! :D

소원을 말해 봐~

2009-10-25T01:35:00.006-04:00

The lyrics of a recently popular song (well considering how fast Korean pop moves maybe it's not even that popular anymore!) called "Genie," these lyrics mean "Tell me your wish."

This was the first song we sang at karaoke yesterday, that is, that Yukiko sang, doing the dance along with it as well haha! (which I believe Dana taught her haha).
Class bonding is really one of the best parts of Sogang :). Sadly there will always be people who never come to any of our events ;\, as is the case with some people in our class. Alas, the rest of us can have our fun :).
Unfortunately we didn't do much this week :(. It was one of my classmate's, Yuki's birthday though, so we surprised her and celebrated her in class :D.
Quite funny the process we had to go to to surprise Yuki haha. First, our teacher thought her birthday was the week before so we had a card with the wrong date that we ended up having to rewrite completely XD. And when the time came to surprise Yuki, our teacher during the break time asked Yuki to go with her to her office. It was funny how much she had to stall though, because apparently she began to ask Yuki questions like "So...what do you think of the teaching materials?" Hahahaha.
Our makeshift cake made of Dunkin Donuts hehe. It was really yummy! Celebrating Yuki's birthday made me think of how sad it'll be that my birthday is on the day of the final test of Level 6 T_T!

Continuing with the theme of adding food pictures to my blog--here are some more...but this time it's a bit different because none of this is Korean food haha.
That's risotto from an Italian restaurant Sneha took me too. Koreans and their cheese! I guess Italian food must be pretty popular in Korea. It's crazy how expensive cheese is here though. Getting cheese added to anything (weird to think of it in rice and noodles and tteokbokki [rice cakes] right? but I guess it's not any weirder than putting cheese in spaghetti since that's a carb too!) adds at least 1000won to the price--and that's for like a slice of Kraft singles lol.
And before karaokeing, the "meal" we had at Naoko's house. They had bought pizza and fried chicken and spiced chicken. It's funny how this is other countries' perceptions of "American food"! At the same time, it's kind of ironic that most Americans (at least that I know...) would not eat this for *dinner*--that perhaps it would be more of a lunch meal? Regardless it's super popular in Korea. It's also interesting how Korean pizza has SO many toppings on it--it does make it quite delicious though :) (I think I might have mentioned Korean pizza the last time I was here too--how fancy it is haha).

Ahh, I can't believe finals are approaching so fast--two more weeks! Eek! Time sure moves by fast. At the same time I can't believe I've only been here for two months--it feels like it's been forever. Funny how time can move so fast and slow at the same time.

Okay, our mountain trip was moved to this weekend instead, so I'll take lots of pictures! And, I'll try to get a new lens by this weekend to make up for all these awful blurry photos!!!

네가 남자이건 외계인이건 상관없이 좋아해

2009-10-18T04:56:00.007-04:00

"Whether you're a man or an alien I don't care--I like (love) you."

Shoot, that line sounds so lame when translated into English haha. It's a line from the famous Korean drama Coffee Prince that [SPOILERS] Han Kyul says to Eun Chan just before he kisses her, saying that he likes (loves) her even though she is a man (little does he know that she's actually not haha).

The reason for this line is that Bob and I visited the real Coffee Prince shop, yay! :D We went with our friend Margaret and her friends 건희 Kenny and Ryan. Sadly, as a lot of realities (but not all!) are, the place wasn't too amazing and the coffee wasn't any better than other shops. And most disappointingly, the designs on the coffee were so subpar! Sure I didn't expect crazy cute designs like in the show, but c'mon, what is this, a mushroom???
Here are some pictures of the Coffee Prince though, as after all, it does have celebrity status ^^.
That is not a very flattering exterior lol.
Viewing Bob and Margaret from outside like a creeper. And the cute figures that Eun Chan in the drama drew!
최고 means "The best"!
The flower mural that Han Yoo Ju painted!
Where all the customers sit. You can see other people are going camera crazy too.
Sorry for the blur :(. This is an autograph from 윤은혜 Yoon Eun Hye--the actress of Eun Chan.
Kenny, Bob, Margaret, and Ryan.

Maybe I'll go to the Coffee Prince again since our stay was kinda rushed. Considering how many people go to it though I dunno if it's the best place to study haha. It is really nearby (about a 10 minute walk). Fun experience though!

Last Saturday, I met up with 경희 Kyunghee, the girlfriend of my friend Greg, who I studied Korean with last year in Level 3, Susie (Greg's other friend), and some of Susie's friends to eat Shabu Shabu, mm! I've always wondered what country Shabu Shabu originally came from. No one I've asked seems to know haha [according to Wikipedia, it came from China, which makes sense, as it basically reminds me completely of hot pot 火鍋].
Thursday, Leng, Xue Qing, and I met up with Leng's 도움인 친구 ("help friend"--that is, a language partner assigned to her by Sogang--but only to speak in Korean, not to exchange languages). We went to Hongdae to see this art festival called the "Wow flask festival." I wish I knew what the flask symbolized...
There was really interesting modern-art like stuff too
A heart made of...plastic pipe-like things? Pretty detailed ^^. I can see the aorta and veins and arteries and vena cava and whatnot (phew, 9th grade Bio rushing back to my memory haha).
A person made out of candy. Mm mm, maybe? XD
Leng, Xue Qing, and Leng's 도움인 친구 Dae Gyu 대규.
Yesterday before going to the Coffee Prince, Bob, Margaret, Kenny, Ryan, and I ate at a Chinese-style restaurant. This is delicious 자장면 jajangmyeon, which you might know if you've eaten "Chinese-style Korean food." Granted, this is very different from Chinese zha jiang mian. What's fun is that the noodles here are green! Never seen green noodles used for jajangmyeon before haha.
And last night Bob and I met up with Sneha to eat at a yummy Indian restaurant. It was fun listening to the Indian chefs speak in Korean too haha. They sounded like natives! Hope I can reach that level too T_T!

Look forward to pretty fall leaves next post if we do end up going on the trip! :D

이 세상은 얼마나 작은지...

2009-10-16T09:31:00.007-04:00

"This world is so small..."

I figured I'd utilize the new grammar point I learned yesterday:

얼마나 ~(으)ㄴ/는지 _______

"It's so ___ that ____"

So I've been having quite a few small world experiences lately! Seriously, six degrees of separation! To start off with one that's not so surprising, I found out a few days ago after my speaking interview test that my 말하기 선생님 taught Hisashi and Sneha for their 읽기 듣기 (reading and speaking) class!

Now for more fun connections:
- Yu from the class over went to college friends with my cousin's friend Karen who I met when she came to Korea!
- Henry also from the class over knows TWO of my friends from elementary school--he went to middle school with one of them and high school with the other, the one he went to middle school with being one of my best friends from elementary school haha
- My friend Sagwa (Apple)'s friend Edwin had commented on her note on facebook--and I noticed, one of our mutual friends was Angela 선생님 from back at Yale! Crazy! Apparently he had her as his teacher at Brown!

Phew, Sogang really has a way with connections haha ^^.

After taking the interview midterm I've noticed that all us foreigners have quite the same pronunciation issues. But what still is ridiculously hard to distinguish to all our ears are the difference between the "slightly aspirated" consonants and the aspirated consonants (that is, consonants that are articulated with a breath of air--like if you say "p, t, k" in English you'll have a puff of air come out of your mouth).

ㄱ ㄷ ㅂ ㅈ (g d b j)
ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅊ (k t p ch)

Unfortunately, the first line is really closer to "k t p ch" but only with a SLIGHT puff of air. This makes it really hard for any of us 외국인 (foreigners) to distinguish them because Korean is possibly the only language with this distinction. On the other hand, the "stiff voice" sounds:

ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅉ (kk tt pp jj)

Whereas a lot of people have trouble hearing what this is, growing up with Thai, I have no trouble hearing the difference between these consonants and the other ones.

A weird distinction I find though that's harder to hear is:

ㅅ (s) and ㅆ (ss)--the first one is weaker than the English 's,' kind of sounding like an s followed by a bit of an 'h' sound (not sh). The second one sounds like a strong "s" sound. The easiest way I find to distinguish the single consonants from the double ones is that there's a tensing of the throat in the double consonants.

One that I will probably almost never hear the difference between though are:

시 (shi) and 씨 (sshi)

A tense version of "sh" is really hard to hear in my opinion. I've noticed though, that although Korean's not tonal, there seems to be a sort of tonal difference between the sounds. The "slightly aspirated" consonants tend to have a middle tone whereas the aspirated ones and the stiff voice ones have high tones (or sort of rising).

The issue our teacher came up with was the word 체육관 cheyukgwan (gym), where our "ch" sounded more like the Korean "j" sound ㅈ.

Ahh language differences. Okay, I'll stop being a linguistics geek :).

Last Friday was a fun day! Every year (since maybe 10 years ago? maybe less?) Sogang holds an international cultural festival 서강 세계 문화 축제. Considering the language school is really diverse, there were different stands with foods from all over the world and all kinds of traditional games. Before going to the festival though, our class met up to eat 족발, that is, pig's feet. I was a little skeptical but it was pretty good--not my favorite food though haha.
Erghh, I really need to get a new focus! But looks tasty right? Maybe? ^^
Yay for class bonding! Once again...sorry for the blur T_T.
Meng Ju is a beast! Hehehe, this picture is so fun.
At the festival! Henry sits on a seesaw (not sure what tradition this is...isn't it everywhere? haha). Funny story--the reason Henry's wearing a suit is because his teacher told him to, and when he showed up in one, she said that it was a joke!
신효원 선생님 (my writing teacher) and Sagwa in a yukata (traditional Japanese dress)!
Mashing...떡 (rice cake dough) maybe?
A Japanese ajumma, Keiko, Xue Qing, Leng, and Keiko's son Yosuke! Hahaha so adorable :D.
Seriously, Sogang is the epitome of diversity. Here's some Kazakhstani food and dress! Other exotic countries students are from include Maldives and Fiji, among Myanmar, Uzbekistan, etc. which I think I've mentioned before.
A Vietnamese traditional game--you have to jump between the sticks then out of them with both feet without tripping. Fun!
Class bonding is the best! :D Shame we're missing three people (Yuki, Xiang Yang, and Keiko) in this picture though!
These girls put on a belly dance show, not to mention some other ones too that'll come up soon!
Flowy!Their second show--I'm not sure what kind of dance this was supposed to be though.
Early 20th century American showgirl style!
Another demonstration of the seesaw. That's a pretty high jump!
Hehe I rubbed these ballloons in Xue Qing's hair and attached them to her. Yay for static electricity! And next to her is our speaking teacher 구은미--she's so awesome and sweet! :D
So much happiness in this picture!
A bboy show! I dunno if he can match up to the likes of John Pyun though hahahaha.
Yay traditional clothing haha! Some hanbok clothing and a yukata on Anastasiya.
Later on there was a lottery drawing with the first prize being a wii! There was also a prize for a 2 night 3 day stay at a resort and some MP4 players. This guy sang some yodeling songs he learned in Switzerland in between the lottery drawings.
This girl won the wii. So lucky!!!
Sagwa won an mp4 player!
Laura wins the stay at a resort!
Eating at a nearby restaurant after the festival.

I've gotta say, that cultural festival was one of the most uplifting events here so far :). Next week our class is planning to travel to a mountain to see the beautiful autumn leaves, yay! Look forward to another update soon ^^. I've gotta catch up hehe.

다섯 손가락 안에 드는 책이다

2009-10-09T12:29:00.008-04:00

"It's one of my top five favorite books"

Or literally "It's a book within the five fingers." Expressions in foreign languages are always fun hehe, especially when you take what they mean literally. I just bring this one up specifically because on our midterm (sorry for the late post--midterm was the reason ^^) one of the questions was choosing an appropriate response for a line. This was one of the lines and the correct response was "The book's that good?" But one funny response that our class had to stifle our laughter for was "There are five fingers inserted in the book?" I guess it's similar to the expression "Break a leg" in English, which would sound pretty appalling if you took it literally haha.

I've also noticed how much "advanced" language depends on "feeling." Chapter 8 of our 4A book was called 감상하기 or "appreciation" (if you literally take the hanja [Chinese characters it's derived from] 感想 it means "feeling thought"). Levels 1 and 2 were based a lot on getting basic important grammar down but level 3 and especially level 4 has been introducing a lot of grammar points that express feelings or can only be understood by "feeling" the sentence. Instead of asking what the 뜻 or 의미 (meaning) of a grammar point is and how it differs from another grammar point, we ask/the teacher tells us that the 뜻/의미 is basically the same but the 느낌 (feeling) is different.

비가 와요
비가 온다
비가 오네
비가 오구나

These sentences all mean "It's raining" but each has a different "feeling." Our teacher explained it to us using "sounds"/remarks before each sentence. The first one is just neutral: "It's raining." The second one can be preceded by 와 (Wah!) and is basically a remark to oneself. The third one can be preceded by 어 (Oh! Or Huh?) and is a reaction to something new learned--so if one were to just walk out and think oh! It's raining! The last one can be preceded by 아~ (Ahhh) as it's apparently a reaction to something new learned after processing the information and realizing the implications. Which is why the phrase 그렇구나 (그렇다 means "to be that way" and 구나 is the grammar that I just explained that can be proceeded by "ahhh") means "(Ahh,) I see."

This is what makes it so difficult to understand grammar points that don't translate into English since we depend so much on intonation whereas Korean depends on actually particles that have this meaning (which is very much like Cantonese and Thai). We've been learning phrases like -지 (adding one's opinion to someone else's statement or in order to oppose someone's statement) and -잖아 (reminding the other person of a fact that they should know in order to persuade them of something) and -거든 (which implies that the attached statement is either a reason that the other person wasn't aware of for something said or that it's background information). Crazy how tiny morphemes like this can mean so much.

We also had our last "drama class." After the interview, we learned how as foreigners, we say "sorry" a lot more often than Koreans do. As I think I said before, the teacher wanted to research how foreigners and Koreans answer differently when refusing requests (such as "Let's go to lunch"). We always preempt the phrase with "Sorry, I'm busy today" whereas I guess it's more implied in the Korean language. Also, (hello linguistics geek in me again) Korean is much more heavily based on adjectival clauses. So:

갈데가 있으니까 다음에 만나자 (Because there is a place I am going to, let's meet next time)
어디에 가야 하니까 다음에 만나자 (Because I have to go somewhere, let's meet next time)

They both have the same basic meaning but the first sentence is more natural. It makes "a place I'm going" into an adjective while the second sentence just implies an obligation. Interesting how basic grammatical structures sound more natural in different languages.

Okay I'll stop being a linguistics geek ^^. Here's the picture update on last week, which basically consisted of studying for my midterm while trying to enjoy Chuseok (the harvest festival).
Two quick scenery pics: I haven't been able to take scenery pics lately and I'd been kinda missing them ^^. The first one is just one with a quicker shutter speed and it highlights the colors of the sky and darkens the building. The second one is a slower shutter speed so it captures the city lights better. I know I'm still an amateur photographer but I have fun with these things :). I do seriously need a new lens though--the lack of working focus is bugging me.
On Friday I went with Bob and a group of people whose relations I'll explain in a bit to Noryangjin 노량진 Fish Market, where you buy raw seafood and get it prepared for you in a restaurant adjacent to the market. It was delicious and I've definitely gotta go again :).
Mm mm, you can't see most of the food now, but there was yummy sashimi, prawns, and scallops. So at the far right is Mark, who is Bob's former Korean TA Dawn's friend's friend. The guy behind Bob is Greg, who is Mark's host and the girl is Jamie, one of Mark's friends. Then the guy behind Mark is Jamie's friend's friend whose...name escapes me right now x_x. Essentially, that guy is a friend of a friend of a friend (Jamie) of a friend (Mark) of a friend of a friend (Dawn) of a friend (Bob). Wow. 7 degrees of separation? Oh social connections.
감남 Kangnam (south of the river) is just so nice! Check out that hive-like building. Also, this subway station is the 9 line, which was built between when I was here last summer and when I came here again. I love how efficient Seoul can be haha. Makes me sad when I think of the T line in New York not being finished until, what, 2016? (Probably later).
Saturday, Bob, Sneha, and her friends Tessa and Marissa and I ate at an Indian/Nepali restaurant. It wasn't amazing, but it wasn't bad. What was funny was that we were all still a little hungry after we finished our food (the portions were small) and we were talking about how it wasn't enough food. A few seconds after that, the really really sweet waitress brought us a bunch of extra naan! ^^ Strangely enough, we were the only non-Nepali people in the restaurant (apart from the waitress who was Korean) haha.
Afterwards we went to a very chic-looking "Indian-styled" sort of bar. Unfortunately, it was pretty expensive so we probably looked like really cheap people ordering the cheapest stuff on the menu haha.
Some 된장찌개 (bean paste stew) that Bob made for us. Mm mm :).
And closing with some more scenery ^^. I like the bit of sunlight that peeks through the clouds in the last picture. I'll add a new post soon on the Sogang International Cultural Festival that was this weekend! Look forward to fun pictures :).