다섯 손가락 안에 드는 책이다

"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 :).