이 세상은 얼마나 작은지...

"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

"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 :).

폭죽 필요하세요?

"Do you need a firecracker/sparkler?"

So I've noticed that whenever buying something, I always have an issue with understanding...I still haven't quite gotten down the phrase of "For here or to go?" but I'm trying! Which results in a lot of 네s and 아니요s (yeses and nos). I don't know if it's because it's such routine that it's said really fast or what, but I've noticed there are some key phrases I should figure out...one I did find out recently was "현금 영수증 필요하세요?" I always wondered why when I said no to it I was still given a receipt (영수증 is a receipt). Apparently a 현금 영수증 has something to do with getting cash back on certain purchases or something. The line above refers to an event this weekend that I'll recount in a bit.

It's funny how the simplest things like these lines that you're asked after buying something can be some of the more difficult things to master in a language. Or maybe my listening skills are just bad hehe ^^. But as another example of it, I realize that whenever you're speaking a foreign language, numbers (especially large numbers) take quite a while to figure out how to say (as well as to understand) in the other language, especially considering that Korean works on the 10,000 system and not the 1,000 one (so 100,000 is "ten ten thousands" for example).

I've had a lot of fun with my language partners though ^^. The first one I met particularly takes an interest in the subtleties of English and likes to help me with the subtleties in Korean too. It's pretty tough but is really great for my vocabulary, not to mention explaining English subtleties in Korean helps my explanation and defining skills so much. One thing I've realized is that prepositions in English are a nightmare. Why do we say "Let's meet on Tuesday" but not "Let's meet on next Wednesday?" And why do we "arrive at the post office," but "arrive in Korea" and "arrive home" (with no preposition). Eesh.

My language partner also tried to explain the differences between 아깝다, 아쉽다, and 안타깝다, all words that express regret. The first one implies regret at a loss, the second one regret for having missed a chance, and the third one more like irritation and regret for not having been able to do something that led to a loss. Now, those are what I THINK are the differences. I'm not positive...and not to mention she also explained to me the differences between 미미하다, 미세하다, 세심하다, 근소하다, 미묘하다, and 사소하다, all words explaining smallness in detail. I won't bore you with the differences, but it was pretty fascinating for a linguistics geek like me haha :).
Wednesday night Margaret cooked dinner for Bob, Mirabel, and me. It was chicken breast with this delicious zesty sauce and scallions, mm mm!
Complete with yummy funny shaped cookies too hehe.
Now Friday was a particularly fun day because our class (well most of us) decided to meet up for dinner! And for once I wasn't a 청일점 hahaha, because Akihiro came too! Xiang Yang and Zhang Ming didn't come, but they often don't anyway, shame.
And Keiko (in the middle to the left of that snack wrap ad) brought her son Yosuke along! He was extremely popular with the girls as you'll see soon haha. From left to right: Akihiro, Yuki, Kana, Meng Ju, Keiko, Yosuke, Hiroko, Leng, Muriel, Bai Hua.
We ate at 지글지글, the samgyupsal/kalbi buffet place, mm mm. We were all really stuffed after it haha.
Seeing the grease slide off the pan into the trough is pretty gross...yet we still love it. Why! Hahaha. Also all that garlic, mm mm. Korea has made me fall in love with roasted garlic ^^.
Yosuke kissing Xue Qing. And the following picture showing his super popularity haha.

Yesterday, Bob, Sneha, and I slept over at Sneha's friend/mentor Jaeha's home (which is slightly south of Seoul). Sneha and I had a minor fiasco making it to Sadang on time to meet Jaeha and Bob. We first decided to check Crown Bakery for cakes and well, it was torn down--not even closed, torn down. So we're like okay let's go to Paris Baguette. Well, guess what, that was torn down as well. What luck, eh? Haha. Also goes to show how fast buildings are torn down and built in Seoul! We finally went to Tous Les Jours, where we got a pretty butter cake (which was less likely to melt than the ice cream ones). We don't really know what we were saying yes to when the lady asked us some questions, but the last question was whether we wanted a 폭주 pokju. After asking what it was, she made a hand motion of stretching something and she went PONG! Hahaha--we assumed it meant a sparkler or some sort of noisemaker and said we didn't need it. I guess we should have also paid attention to the other questions she asked us, because the cake box read "Congratulations!" For what? Having us over? Hahaha. Clearly, we're incompetent =).
His mom made this delicious delicious mushroom dish and I'm really curious now what kind of mushrooms they are...! Not to mention they had the delicious grapes that a lot of Korean homes appear to have. Hmm, I really should find those grapes, but I'm sure I'd devour them within a day haha.
Of course, being me, I had to find fun Engrish :D.
And in the morning as we left, we saw the really nice courtyard of the apartments.
Phew, I'm so jealous of people who live in places like these ^^.

Hehe, sorry for the rather dry posts lately :). Unlike last summer, I haven't been sightseeing much! But, we'll see what's in store for Chuseok 추석 (the moon festival) next weekend! Then again, with midterms coming up, not much might happen...but, we'll see! I'm also considering a trip to Thailand to see my relatives during the November break we have at the end. We'll see!

청일점

A phrase meaning "the only guy in a group of girls," literally "blue one dot" 清一點.
The counterpart phrase for girls is 홍일점, "red one dot" 紅一點.

And it's in reference to a "phenomenon" I mentioned last post, the fact that I'm always the only guy among all girls at Sogang! This was also the case in when I joined this pseudo-Korean drama class. My friend Meng Ju (who you might remember me mentioning before or seen in River or Heeseung's posts/photos) invited some kids in my class and me to join this 5 day pseudo-Korean drama class that her Korean friend would be conducting. The reason I call it a pseudo-class is that it's more of a "study." Our teacher is writing her thesis for her major on educating foreigners Korean so the first day she interviewed us, giving us situations in which a coworker, friend, or superior asked us a favor and we had to refuse. She had previously interviewed native Korean speakers and wanted to see how we foreigners differed in responding to the situations from natives. After we spend some classes watching Korean dramas, she's going to reassess how we respond to situations at the end of the sessions and write her thesis on it. Pretty neat ^^, considering I always think how interesting it is that language also affects how you react to certain situations and taking into account how indirect of a language Korean can be.

After our first session, our teacher took us to eat at this yummy (and very spicy!) Hong Kong-themed restaurant, Wan Chai. Again, I apologize for blurry photos T_T.
Mm mm 탕수육 tangsuyuk, the Korean version of sweet and sour pork.
Meng Ju and Leng! And Yuki's hand, because she doesn't like pictures haha.
Our teacher and 사과 Zhe Ping (her Korean name is Sagwa, which means "apple," because the Ping in her Chinese name means "apple" haha.

Afterwards, Leng and I hung out in Meng Ju's hasukjip, flipping through channels on her TV, seeing dramas, animes, news, and...English education programs.
I didn't quite understand what she was trying to explain here lol.
I don't know how you're going to learn English from this...but maybe it's a more advanced level? Then again, if it were more advanced, I don't know why she would have to explain it in Korean...I think one of the biggest issues I have with a lot of how Seoul teaches English is with focus on reading and writing. They have to take the Sogang approach and put focus on speaking! One of my language partners' English practice involved translating Korean sentences into English and I told her I didn't quite think she could learn English like that...so we're going to try to take a different approach. You know there's something wrong when you get an English sentence translated as "Let's try opening the dream box!" which sounds completely natural in Korean, but in English?
On the other hand this kids' show was cute haha. Also watching the dramas and animes made me kind of want to get a TV, but I don't know where we would put it and whether it would really be worth the cost. Probably not. I'll probably just get my fill from finding movies and dramas and whatnot online ^^. Also, I've never been much of a TV watcher

On Thursday, continuing my trend of meeting up with friends from last summer, I saw my Taiwanese friend 향진 Xiang Chen!
Blah, super blurry picture >_<, but this is Xiang Chen and her friend. We ate at a really yummy meat place, although I'm not sure I really liked the taste of intestine much. There was a bit of a weird side taste to it that I found rather unpleasant >_<.
Afterwards, as we always do in Korea haha, we went to a café. And mm I think I developed a love for green tea latte! I was turned off it ever since I tried it at Starbucks in the states but maybe other cafés do it better because this one at Paris Baguette made me quite happy :).
And in line with my previous posts, I now provide you with another strange picture. Hmm, I wonder if this is akin to dying your hair. These poodles kind of look like cotton candy in my opinion.

Lastly, some food pictures! Because food pictures are always fun.
Similar to 돌솥, where food is served in a stone pot, this is 무쇠, served in a steel pot. Mm mm, these dishes always make me happy, especially tasting the crunchy rice that sticks to the bottom ^^.
And a (blurry =[) picture of 냉면 naengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodles) that Bob made for us to eat mm mm. I normally am not too big a fan of 냉면 but maybe I'll give it another chance because I sure enjoyed this :).

Sorry for the boring post :(. Unfortunately, nothing much is quite happening. In response to the weekly question that Ann sent out this week, though, part of me is a bit sad that I'm missing out on an entire year at Yale. There's a bit of surrealness to coming back to a "new Yale," where a whole year of new students will have completed their first year, where the year younger than me will now be my equals, and where my grade will move on while I'm in a way frozen in time. It's a strange feeling, but I don't feel too horribly uncomfortable about it, because I know I have friends to return to :).

As for why I chose to come here again, I definitely didn't feel complete staying in Korea only for three months, especially considering I had only finished Level 3 at Sogang. I don't believe that fluency can really be attained in a language without having lived in the country, and I felt that one year (well, really 9 months) would be a good amount of time to spend abroad. I'll be able to complete Level 6, the last level required to graduate (level 7 is a culture class) from Sogang, and I'll be able to experience all four seasons that Seoul has to offer, an experience I think will be very interesting (albeit, probably not horribly different from New York's four seasons considering the similar latitudes). The whole idea of language learning being a staircase process is interesting, and, having felt on a plateau all of last year with Korean and wanting to quit, I think I've reached another increasing slope point, which makes me happy :). Listening to people talk and understanding almost everything as well as being able to express myself in various aspects makes me really happy, although it upsets me that I still have trouble understanding simple things like when I order something and they ask if I want whipped cream or if I'm having it to stay or to go, or if I have point cards and whatnot...T_T.

Regardless, although I may not reach "fluency," a level which I think is hard to define, by the end of this stay, I think I will be able to at least reach proficiency. Not only that, but forming bonds across nations, despite being very sad when you all have to part, I think is a nice feeling, and it's a very unique experience to learn about how different people from different parts of the world view different things...in a language none of us speak fluently, Korean.

Apart from the language learning aspect, I think having this year is also giving me an opportunity to see what I really want to do and to see what's out there (vague sounding, I know). There are still so many classes I want to take and honestly, if I had just continued into junior year, I feel like I might have made bad class decisions, just because I'm still thinking about what I want for my future. So in a way, I'm freezing time, allowing my mind to clear and think about what I will want to do and seeing better the connections between what I am doing.

Also, when else will I be able to spend a year in a country like Korea? And not just that but focusing JUST on learning a language, where hanging out with Korean friends is a form of studying. It's a pretty great opportunity, and appeals very much to my language-loving side :).

Hmm, all that sounded really corny haha. But I guess that's inevitable when answering questions of this sort ^^.