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
2 comments:
First, the photos are amazing, as always. I forget how beautiful Korea is during this time of year.
Next, I must have never paid attention to how the language works at that level. Heck, I don't do this in English, so no surprise that I wouldn't do it in Korean. However, it IS fascinating stuff.
I will say, though, especially for a linguist like yourself, and you mention this as a goal, to become natural-sounding, you have to just learn to turn off that analytic part of your brain for a while and roll with it.
It's very hard to do that, I know. I'm convinced that children learn languages quickly not just because of some flexibility of the brain but because of flexibility of will (the will just to talk, mistakes be damned) and flexibility of self-image (as in, "self image"?).
"Don't drink your kimchi soup first" Remember that time Wankyu drank like half a jug of kimchi at Audrey's birthday? Good times.
Speaking of Audrey, and I've been meaning to tell you this, your line: "Interesting? Uh oh. In Audrey speak that means fugly ;D" had me laughing out loud at my computer for a good 10 seconds.
And because I can't resist: So are dog cafes like where you whet your appetite before you actually go and eat the dogs? BA-ZING!
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