Find a language friend

I have to say, making friends with a native Korean speaker (via conversationexchange.com) was one of the best things that could have happened for my language learning process. I highly recommend finding a native language partner/buddy in your linguistic endeavors (preferably one who is learning English, so that the teaching and learning process is not one-sided). In case you aren't convinced, here are a few perks:

Perk #1: Having a Cool New Friend
Really, who doesn't like having a new friend? Unless you're a total grumpy old grandpa, the idea should sound at least mildly appealing. Furthermore, it is a friendship that might otherwise be unlikely due to cultural differences and/or language barriers. I stand by the notion that friends are like Jell-O: There's always room for more.


Perk#2: Instant, Interactive Language Feedback
A real live person is ALWAYS way more interesting than a language textbook, as well as way more useful and interactive than the glossary at the back of that textbook. For instance, a textbook probably won't tell which words you should be careful NOT to say (ex. The number 18 is a very bad swear word in Korean). And that kind of stuff is good to know so that you don't wind up making major social faux pas and ostracizing yourself from a culture you're trying to embrace.

Plus, if your language partner is up to speed with the technological world, you can do fun things like texting back and forth in the target language(s). See for yourself...

To the left is literally the first all-Korean text I've ever written. Very simple language, but boy was I proud!

Korean Friend: Hi Kristy! Are we still on today? Do you have time?

Me: Hello! Yes, I have time. What do you want to eat?

Me: (wow that took a long time to type out, hahahaha)

Korean Friend: Hahahahahahaha really? Hahahahahahahaha

Korean Friend: Um (um)... I want to eat spaghetti. What do you want to eat, Kristy?

Me: Ooh! You asked the right girl! There is an Italian restaurant in Harvard Square...

I have to thank my new smart phone for being smart enough to handle various languages. There is actually an option to turn on other languages' keyboards on the iPhone that you should use if you speak or text in another language. Very useful and cool.

To the right, is a text I sent today using THREE languages at once. Yes, you read that right. Three. What that heck would I call it? Span-kor-glish? En-spa-rean?

Two great things are happening here. (1) My friend is acting as an instant human dictionary who--by the way--is complimentary and encouraging of my risk-taking. (2) He is teaching me fantastic new smiley faces that I can use in future texts to American friends, so that I can wow them and make myself seem even more awesome than I already am.

Kristy Friend #1: Dude, where is Kristy learning about all these amazing smiley faces? She must be in on some trendy information loop that we're not aware of.
Kristy Friend #2: Yeah, I know. That chick is seriously rad. Seriously.

I mean, that sort of stuff definitely makes people cooler, right? Like when people roll down their car windows and blast music at red lights. I don't know about you guys, but I always think, Who's that cool guy playing Metallica? He has GREAT taste in music.

Perk#3: Interest Level
You're only kidding yourself if you think that a real live person won't inspire you to study on the days that you're not meeting up. I mean, it's not foolproof, but it certainly helps. As I sadly found out yesterday evening, if I don't study, there is nothing for my friend to help me with. So, we just sat around sort of awkwardly staring at my notebook while I made promises to him that I would study specific things for next week's practice session.

It reminds me of playing trumpet in seventh grade. I stopped practicing at home at one point. When it came time to play the songs in school with the other trumpet players, I had to fake it and move the valves, pretending that I was playing along. Surprising part was, I started to get nothing out of it. Who knew? Not long after (and much to the dismay of the music teacher), I quit band.

Perk#4: Plane Ticket Justification
This is, perhaps, my very favorite reason of all to make friends from different countries! Now I have a friend I can visit when I finally make a trip to South Korea. I'd like to aim for next summer. At that point, my goal is to be conversational and impress his socks off when I open my mouth and actual Korean sentences come out. Goals = good.

In Conclusion
If you are studying a language, want to resume studying a language, or want to start studying a new language from scratch, go find a friend! Trust me on this one. You don't have to wait until you know how to say anything. The plus side of knowing nothing is that anything your new friend teaches you will be helpful and useful.

It's a decision you will thank me for later. You're welcome.

The death of my enthusiasm

Well, here it is, ladies and gentlemen... I have hit a wall.

My studying for Korean has been suffering lately because of what I call the dreaded "shoulds." Now, "the shoulds" are pretty scary. Consider what they did with my ability to create artwork. I set these impossible goals and expectations for myself based on past successes. I expect so much from myself artistically that I fear I won't be able to deliver. I should make great things. I should inspire and impress others. I should be drawing and painting in my spare time.

So I don't bother to create. Too much pressure.

And that seems to be what has happened this week with my Korean. I stopped advancing through the levels because I was feeling this drag... this pull on me to go back and review and make flashcards of all the words I've been learning. I should be going back and reviewing. I should be studying in my spare time. I didn't have a place for "the shoulds" before because I simply didn't have to motivate myself to study language. Right now, though. I'm tired. I'm tired, I'm ready to be on work vacation, and what used to be fun for me (studying Korean) has become a task that I should do, but am too tired to enjoy or understand now.

How can a tired person even think to try reading stuff that looks like this? 보스톤에 현존하는 가장 오래된 공공 건물로, 신세계에서 최초로 선출된 의회가 활동을 시작한 곳이다. 지금은 보스톤 소사이어티가 사용하고 있으며, 프리덤 트레일을 따라 둘러 볼 수 있는 많은 역사 유적지 중의 한 곳이다. Aaaack. Blargh. Makes my head hurt more than it already does.

Here is the problem that I think led me to the sudden halt in funness (지금 재미 없어요. = Now it's not fun.):

Basically, I haven't been retaining anything because I'm not in a class with a teacher or anything, so all the nouns and the verbs I've been learning are getting stored in my short-term memory for the duration of a lesson, and then getting carried away in the current before they make it to my long-term memory. I feel like I have zero recall. And, really, why would I? When do I use Korean? Next to never.

The only good news is that I wound up watching a YouTube video today and reading a random sentence (image at top of post). I heard the sentence read aloud and read the words. I actually didn't realize that I had fully understood the sentence as is (untranslated) until the video put the English translation below it a few seconds later: "I am twenty years old." I then thought to myself, "Why are they telling us what it means a second time? We already know." Then, I realized, that it was the first time the video was telling me what it meant. I had easily read and understood the sentence by hearing and reading it. Nice.

Okay, I'm going to bed. I hope I regain my language gusto. One more day at work and then I can sleep in for a week. Almost there.

Are you a bad speller or a good speller?

I think we've all known some bad spellers in our lives. Perhaps you are a bad speller yourself. In English, the spelling rules all willy-nilly as they are, I believe we have a certain amount of leeway that is acceptable as far as spelling slip-ups are concerned. It's not our fault! Truthfully, I admit it's a hard freaking language to master, even when it's your own. (By the way, let me know how good of a speller you are in the comments section below.)

These mistakes, in my opinion, can be chalked up greatly to the variation of letters and letter combinations that can stand in for one sound or to the letters themselves that can sometimes represent multiple sounds (just watch this I Love Lucy clip to see what I mean).

For a moment, I'd like to draw a parallel between sounds and colors. Once, I was in a linguistics class with a girl who did a report on a language (I remember it being related to Dutch) that did not have a word to distinguish between green and blue. Namely, they were considered variations of the same color. While this seems odd to us, it shouldn't be too hard to see that the names we give colors are far from black-and-white (pardon the pun). What we consider "red" has a very broad range. For each person, there must be a varying range of colors that would classify as "red."

All you have to do is go to any paint store and listen in on a conversation. You will quickly gather how up-for-interpretation color really is:

"I like that red over there."
"That one looks orange to me."
"Well, it's not red-red. It's more like an orange-red. But it's still red."
"Really? I see the red in it, but I still think it looks closer to being orange."

The same is true for sounds. Let me elaborate. Consider the English letter "s." In some cases, the letter has a soft sound, as it does at the beginning of the words "soft" and "sound." In other cases, the letter has a hard "z" sound, as it does at the end of the words "as" and "does." And, in many words, the letter "s" can take on two personas all together, as in the word "cases" and "personas" (first "s" has a soft sound, second "s" has a "z" sound). In any case, both sound variations are represented by the same letter. That leads to native English speakers occasionally arguing about how to pronounce or spell uncommon words. Again, I insist that it's not our fault that so many of us are awful spellers. It's our crazy language.

Well, the same stuff has come to haunt me with my Korean studies. In Korean there are letters that allow for certain acceptable variations in pronunciation that are different from the acceptable variations in English. This has been difficult to adjust to. Let me illustrate...

Hangul Spelling: ㅁ
Romanized Spelling: m
Variations in Sound: In the middle of words, ㅁ sounds like "m," but at the beginning of words spoken at regular conversation speed, this ㅁ sounds more like a "b." The word "sorry" that is supposedly pronounced "mian-he" sounds a lot like "bian-he."

Another example...

Hangul Spelling: ㄴ
Romanized Spelling: n
Variations in Sound: In the middle of words, ㄴ sounds like "n," but at the beginning of words, ㄴ sounds more like a "d." The word "yes" which is "ne" often sounds like "de."

This happens A LOT... it happens in Korean that the following sounds are variations of each other and are represented by the same character:

ㅁ = "m" or "b"
ㄴ = "n" or "d"
ㄱ = "k" or "g"
ㄷ = "t" or "d"
ㅂ = "p" or "b"
ㅈ = "j" or "ch"
ㄹ = "l" or "r"

The thing is... THEY don't hear it. Native Korean speakers, that is. When I protest and say that "mian-he" sounds like "bian-he," they don't hear what I hear. Therefore, I have had some low spelling self-esteem with my new foreign language. Despite the fact that the spelling system is faithfully true to the phonetics of the spoken language, I have a difficult time knowing which silly little characters to use after simply hearing a word. Sigh. Practice, I suppose will iron this out.

As a teacher, all I can do is tell your students to keep reading and learning from mistakes. And use spellcheck for goodness sake! Your welcome.*

How good of a speller are YOU?!
(*Bonus points if you noticed that "your welcome" should be "you're welcome.")

Pronunciation... 참 잘했어요! (Very good job!)

"Your pronunciation... it's like a native," my Korean friend told me the other day, as we sat in a small cafe in a local square. Before you become overly impressed, let me give you the context. He was giving me nouns and verbs and I was forming them into Korean sentences that he would then read aloud word-by-word with me trying to parrot him.

(Note: Purple stamp to the left is a famous "VERY GOOD JOB!" stamp in Korea that teachers often put on student papers.)

"Subject is Kristy..." he would say, pointing to a section of my notebook in which his beautiful handwritten Korean said '침대 (bed), 자다.'

"Okay." And I would painstakingly write,

크리스티는 침대에서 잤어요
(Kristy-subject bed-in slept.)

Then, what happened next sounded roughly like this... (my friend's speech in bold italics and mine in regular italics)

Jaah-saaaaaw-yo.
Jaah-saaaaaw-yo.
Jah-saaw-yo.
Jah-saaw-yo.
Jahsawyo.
Jahsawyo.
Chim-daay-eeh-saw jaah-saaw-yo.
Chim-daay-eeh-saw jaah-saaw-yo.
Chim-day-eh-saw jah-saw-yo.
Chim-day-eh-saw jah-saw-yo.
Chimdayehsaw jahsawyo.
Chimdayehsaw jahsawyo.
Keu-ri-seu-ti-neun chim-day-eh-saw jah-saw-yo.
(Pause)
Can you say that again?
Keu-ri-seu-ti-neun chim-day-eh-saw jah-saw-yo.
Keu-ri-seu-ti-neun... chim... day... Wait, again?
Keu-ri-seu-ti-neun chim-day-eh-saw jah-saw-yo.
Keu-ri-seu-ti-neun jim-day... eh-saw jah... saw-yo.
Chim-day. Chim. CH-im. Chim. (Pointing motion to lips .)
CHim-day.
Yes.
Okay. (Sigh.) One more time?
Keu-ri-seu-ti-neun CHim-day-eh-saw jah-saw-yo.
Keu-ri-seu-ti-neun CHim-day-eh-saw jah-saw-yo. (Sigh.) Holy crap, that was hard to say.
Cham chal-haess-eo-yo! Very good! Your pronunciation... it's like a native.

And so it goes. Strangely enough, even when the sentences are ones that leave my own pen, they still have very little meaning to me as they leave my mouth. My brain still processes them as combinations of meaningless sounds that grow increasingly familiar with repetition.

Nonetheless, it was a nice moment. I do have a gift for mimicry. So much so, that I have a hard time finding my own singing voice, as I tend to copy the voice quality of anyone's song I am singing. This skill also comes in handy when singing karaoke.

Apart from the mindless repetition of practice sentences, the only words I can say with any real confidence and conviction are the ones I've heard countless times uttered by Korean drama actors and actresses. Questions like, "Oh my god, are you okay?!" or desperate pleadings like "Please don't go! I love you." I brought up the idea with my friend of recording his voice saying the sentences he's taught me. After all, it's only an audio recorder. There is nothing attaching his face to the words. Alas, he is shy. Perhaps I can bat my eyelashes at him next time and make my voice all whiny like a Korean actress. It's too bad he's younger than me, or I could drag out an appropriate, O-ppaaaaah! (+ pouty face)

I'm about THISCLOSE to buying a $10 monthly subscription to KoreanClass101 dot com because they have audio, time-spaced flashcards. It would be like having my own handy-dandy native Korean speaker to parrot anytime I wanted. For ten bucks. Good deal.

Some more interesting stuff (non-Korean).

Qué Onda Spanish. Practice your verb tenses and conjugations here! I'm going to have to do this with some of the trickier ones.

Boy am I glad I didn't decide to learn Chinese.

오모! Omo! (Oh my!)

I first watched the drama Playful Kiss in October. It was the first Asian drama I had ever watched, and it was well before I made the decision around Christmas time to actually learn Korean. Since it was long enough ago, there is really no way that I would remember what any of these characters said verbatim.

That's why I could not believe today that I almost completely followed part of a YouTube scene compliation without subtitles. Whaaaaaaaaat?! Really?!!! I actually owe a lot to the amazing teachers at Talk to Me in Korean dot com. I'll explain why after I talk about the dialog.

Here's the video (funny name): White Girl Falls in Love with Korean Guy.

Here's what the dialog sounded like to my brain. The words in italics are the words I heard and understood, the other ones I guessed from context. It helped that I knew the background story on the characters because I had seen the scenes before.

I... want to eat [name of food]. Please give me [name of food].

Then she's eating and exclaims, It's delicious!
The man motions to the guy in the kitchen and probably says something like "he made it," to which the girl exclaims again, It's delicious! And adds something that likely means "well done!"

When the girl is sitting by herself at the table, she asks the guy, Bring me a fork, please.
And he replies with, A fork?! and then, by his tone, clearly tells her that she shouldn't use a fork, but needs to use chopsticks instead. He then puts a pair in her hands and says, Here, take these.

Then there's a little musical interlude and when the speech comes back, she uses the words, drink and friend, trying to get him to try the drink. And he responds back negatively using the word friend. Like, "I'm not your friend," or something to that effect. She replies with something shocking that makes him turn around and say, What?! And then she answers boldly back with, I like you.

The rest of the scene is lost to music.

Yessssssss. In the words of Charlie Sheen, I am winning.

Now, I'll tell you why those awesome people at Talk to Me in Korean dot com deserve a giant round of applause or a big hug or something. Over the last month or so, I have been very studiously dedicating myself to listening to their leveled podcasts, reading their leveled PDFs, and watching their YouTube videos (which are fantastic and hilarious and entertaining, as well as any other positive adjective you can think of). Not only is all of this material free, but the teachers are dedicated to answering questions and comments posted to all of the lessons, even if you post today on a lesson that was created two years ago. They are amazing.

Over the course of 18 lessons, I have learned how to say, Please give me ______, I want to eat _______, It's delicious, as well as the words drink, friend, what, and like. Nearly every word that I encountered in this scene was something they created a lesson about. 멋있었어요! Meo-si-sseo-sseo-yo! (It was awesome!) I am nothing less than floored.

Now I just have to figure out why the comments are so hard to post after the lessons... one step at a time.

Not too rusty, thank goodness

Signs that my Spanish is not getting too rusty through disuse:

1. At parent-teacher conferences last week, a parent asked me if I was from Spain. (1)

2. In a cab ride home Thursday night, I noticed a Spanish typo while reading an outward-facing window sticker. Backwards. While buzzed.

3. I can read this:


(1) For all the times I've been asked if I were Spain-Spanish, I don't think I'll ever be mistaken for Korean. Just a guess.

Went to the Super88... 맛있어요!

So, on Saturday (and today after work as well), I decided to make a trip into the Super88, which is an Asian foodstore near where I used to live. I figured I'd go there to, you know... reconnect with my Asian roots.

(Joke.) You can laugh now.

Anyway, I imagined that I could put my new-found language interest into context by poking around in the Korean section of the store (which is huge, by the way). Actually, let me clarify. The store is huge. The Korean section... is non existent. Or, in other words, "Korean section eop-seo-yo." There was a Chinese section. There was a Japanese section. There was a Thai section, There was a Southeast Asian section. No Korean section. Jin-jjah? (Seriously?)

Jin-jjah. (Seriously.) No word of a lie. So, instead, I had to hunt and peck around the entirety of the store (warehouse size) and have occasional ah-ha! moments where I would realize something was Korean. A lot of dried seaweed was, so I bought that. Didn't get any kimchi because I thought the sodium content would stop my bodily functions. A jar of that stuff... 40 servings of two tablespoons? Give me a break. Who eats only two tablespoons of anything worth eating? That jar would have lasted me three sittings, tops.

What I did find (but didn't buy), was this bag of twisty-somethings. I can't begin to tell you what this says since the rest of the bag is in Japanese, but the part in red that looks like 맛있어요! is a new word I just learned two days ago. Ma-si-sseo-yo! (It's delicious!) I was so excited to recognize this word that I literally did cartwheels in the aisle.

The other Korean find that made me whip out my camera was the pack of Tako Chips below. They are (get this) octopus flavored. Blows the multi-colored shrimp chips I used to eat at my friend's house as a child clear out of the water.


When I looked up the word 자갈치 that is up at the top of the bag of chips, the Google translation is either literally Jalgalchi (apparently, Korea's largest seafood market), or the word "gravel." Eating octopus flavored chips might be right up there with gravel in the list of things I won't be eating anytime soon. Amen.

WHAT I'M STUDYING
Talk to Me in Korean: Level 1 Lesson 14 / What do you want to do? / 뭐 하고 싶어요?
Talk to Me in Korean on YouTube: Level 1 Lessons 13 + 14
Korean Word of the Week #11: How to say PLEASE in Korean

INPUT STATS
Current KDrama:
시크릿가든 "see-kuh-rit-gah-duhn" (Secret Garden)
TV hours: 16
Total TV hours: 106 (394 left to goal)

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