Jiwon's Log (Hindi, German et al)

[Jiwon]

Do you practice your other languages much? Notably your forums posts are, of course, English and showing you have a very fluent level at that. I'm wondering here about your Mandarin and Japanese - do you keep those going while also studying Hindi?

No, my Mandarin and Japanese are at the basic tourist level - the level at which you can get by as a foreigner on a week-long trip. I don't plan to study them intensively in the near future, and am quite happy with the amount I can already speak and read.

The only language I can really "speak" are Korean and English, and German comes in very close, although my speech is not as fluid as in other two languages.

[Jiwon]

Just a quick update:

I haven't progressed any further than chapter 13 on Teach Yourself Complete Hindi. This really upsets me, as I only need to do 5 more chapters to complete the book.

Past two weeks have been very hectic for me, with 2 concerts and a 20-page sociology paper (about HTLAL!). I only had 3-4 hours of sleep for most days of last week, and spent the whole of yesterday recovering on my futon.
I still have final exams for my last semester at university. I don't know why I enrolled for 16 credit hours, when I only needed to take 7 to graduate. I was so enthusiastic to take all the music-related courses, that I signed up for more trouble - "Music and Society (which is more or less the history of popular music)", "Introduction to Korean Musical Culture", and "Principles of Music". Not to mention I need to inculcate three different approaches of musicology (sociology of music, ethnomusicology and European classical musicology), I have to submit 3 papers and take three exams - one for each of the three courses.

On the brighter side, I just booked an air ticket for a 3-week trip to India at the end of the month. I hope this will give me more motivation to finish that book before the end of year.

[Xelian]

Past two weeks have been very hectic for me, with 2 concerts and a 20-page sociology paper (about HTLAL!). I only had 3-4 hours of sleep for most days of last week, and spent the whole of yesterday recovering on my futon.
I still have final exams for my last semester at university. I don't know why I enrolled for 16 credit hours, when I only needed to take 7 to graduate. I was so enthusiastic to take all the music-related courses, that I signed up for more trouble - "Music and Society (which is more or less the history of popular music)", "Introduction to Korean Musical Culture", and "Principles of Music". Not to mention I need to inculcate three different approaches of musicology (sociology of music, ethnomusicology and European classical musicology), I have to submit 3 papers and take three exams - one for each of the three courses.

On the brighter side, I just booked an air ticket for a 3-week trip to India at the end of the month. I hope this will give me more motivation to finish that book before the end of year.

I know how you feel, and a trip can be very motivating!!! Good luck on those finals! 화이팅!!

[qeadz]

Trips are very motivating. I hope you can keep everything under control until then - your schedule sounds very hectic.

I'm somewhat interested in your sociology paper on HTLAL! Is it something you would be prepared to share?

[Jiwon]

Sorry for not putting any posts in December, but I have been rather busy during the past few weeks.

Good news
I have a flight to India tomrrow! I am treating myself to a three-week trip around Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. I have been to the two states last winter, but since I have a travelmate, I decided to go back to places I liked the most + some cities I didn't get the chance to visit on my first trip. Plus, I would like to stay within the Hindi belt so that I can interact with many of the locals. Last year, I ventured as far as Gujarat, but since I don't speak and read any Gujarati, the experience was very "interesting."

Bad news
I could not complete Teach Yourself Complete Hindi before the trip. With 5 final exams, a concert and two dissertation papers, I just couldn't find the will power. My slipped disc is also acting weird. I hope 3 weeks of backpacking isn't too much for my poor back.

My current life problem
I am at THE turning point of my life - I graduate in February, and I still haven't decided what I want to do after graduation. My original plan for the past few years was to go to the graduate school for Sociology, but I lost all motivation and research interests earlier this year. As an alternative, I ended up sending applications to law schools in Korea. Now, I have received an offer at a law school two weeks ago, but I am still not sure whether I want to pursue a career in law or stay in the academia. I have until February to reply to the law school, although I must pay a deposit of $1000 by 3rd January. If I decide to go to law school, that means I must attend the pre-admission seminars for two weeks. If I decide not to, I will have until next September to start studying at the graduate school, and I would be able to get some rest, take therapies for my back, get a GRE score in case I want to pursue a PhD in the USA.

I hope this trip will help me decide on what I want to do with myself and my life.

[Tristano]

Wow that sounds exciting and a bit scary! Good luck with your choice

[Jiwon]

Wow that sounds exciting and a bit scary! Good luck with your choice

Thank you Tristano.

Now I am on my way from Delhi to Udaipur on a night train. I can't wait to go back to Lake Pichola and see the sunset of Udaipur.

Since most tourists to India hardly speak any Hindi, I am getting lots of "आप कहाँ से आये?" (Where are you from?). One of the guards at Qutub Minar jokingly told me that I couldn't be a Korean - I must be Indian from Manipur, Nagaland or some other northeastern state. It's all very encouraging, but I wish I spoke better Hindi so that I could sensibly respond to something more than "Where are you from?" and "Where did you learn Hindi?"

[Jiwon]

I have finally returned to the forum.

Actually, I came back to Seoul nearly a month ago. The trip to India was a meaningful exercise both language-wise and contemplation-wise. The trip helped me make some important decisions about what I want to do with my life, what kind of life I want to lead, etc. All the reflecting led to the conclusion that I would have a go at studying at the law school.

This means that most of my time is now spent on pre-studying civil law before the semester begins. I'll be taking compulsory courses in Civil Law (Contracts I, Torts), Criminal Law I and Constitutional Law I. As an elective course "American Law and Legal System" which will be my only English-conducted course.

What does this mean for me language-wise? There will have be to some major cutbacks, and I may only be able to study languages once a week as a Sunday treat. I have yet to decide whether I want to continue on Hindi and bring it up to B1-B2 standard, or start brushing up on German, so that I would be able to use it career-wise. Both will enrich my life in very different ways, but it seems I won't be able to pursue them both.

[Jiwon]

I haven't posted anything for the past nine months. There have been many things happening in my life.
To cut it short, after one semester in the law school, I decided to quit and come back to Sociology. Different people are better attuned to different areas of intellectual activities, and studying law in Korean fashion was definitely not my piece of cake. It was an exhausting semester. I hardly got more than three hours of sleep per day from late May to mid-June, and couldn't spare any time for languages and music.

My summer
It was very interesting language-wise. As soon as I decided to drop out, I booked myself a trip to Vladivostok. Although I don't speak much Russian, "Gde tualet?" and "Ochen xarasho" plus body language managed to keep me safe on my second trip to Vladivostok.

Then a trip to Osaka-Kyoto with my mother. When you live in Korea, watched a few animes and have visited Japan twice, it isn't that difficult to pick up enough to fulfill your touristy needs. My mother was very impressed that I could get by with Japanese despite not having any formal Japanese lessons, although little did she realize that my Japanese was merely communicable. But I DID manage to buy all the tickets, ask for an English menu and make orders in Japanese.

Upon hearing the news that I dropped out from law school the department of Sociology at my alma mater managed to grab me to help organize an international workshop for East Asian sociology students. It was a real test of on-the-spur interpretation as I was expected to interpret speeches by guest speakers during our fieldwork on the spot.

Current Situation
I am working on a Korean-to-English translation of a text book on fundamental rights. It was written by a Korean professor of constitutional law and very heavy with legal jargon and precedents. The fact that Korean is an agglutinative language with so many verb endings and suffixes makes it really difficult to anglicize the sentence structure, but it is proving to be a good challenge for my verbal skills. I have long loathed translations as an exercise in language learning, but now I see that once you gain proficiency in both languages, it becomes a very good mental exercise, stretching your understanding of verbal expressions and languages in general.

Tomorrow I must accompany a professor of music from Germany on his tour around Seoul. Since I have not touched German at all since taking the test at Goethe Institut last summer, I spent this evening brushing up on vocabulary that could be used to describe the sights.

New Language Goals
I have just finished reading Peter's Bengali log, and it really rekindled my passion in language learning.
I do have my translation work to do, but I wish to finish off Teach Yourself Hindi once and for all.
The next language for me would be Japanese. I have many Japanese friends with whom I would love to communicate in their native language. Not many East Asians (including Koreans) are comfortable speaking in English, and the more I spent time in the international workshops and conferences over here, the more I was frustrated by the fact that we had to use English which was the native language of none of the participants. Although, I don't regret learning German (it enriched my life so much), I do wish I had spent more time learning languages of our neighbouring countries.

I will come up with a more concrete plan soon. Now, I should get some rest for interpretation/tour guide work and choir rehearsal tomorrow.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Law is very, very, boring. I know becasue all my family studied law except my brother and me. They've got lots of enormous books that are extremely boring and long, and you must memorise so many stupid things as well.

It's firework night in England and there are fireworks, fortunately my dog isn't frightened.

Viel Spaß Morgen