Purangi's Log

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
Purangi
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:57 pm
Languages: French, English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish
x 635

Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:30 pm

SPANISH

I wanted to get away from Spanish and spend more time on German or Korean, but I keep coming back.

I engage with Spanish mostly passively through Cuban podcasts and telenovelas. I fell into a rabbit hole of amazing Spanish music on YouTube, jumping from recommendations to recommendations. This led me to discover a number of great artists, including Cuban-American musician Roberto Torres. His album “Roberto Torres Y Su Charanga Vallenata” from 1981 is really all killer no filler.



Some great songs by Carlos Mejía Godoy have been stuck in my head for many weeks now. He is a Sandinista troubadour from Nicaragua with deep roots in folk music. His best compositions are about guerilla warfare and he became sort of a poster-boy for the Sandinista regime, but like for Silvio Rodríguez, I find it easy to separate the music from the musician. A quote from his Wikipedia: “Many of his songs during the late 1970s gave instructions on how to use, assemble, and disassemble the rifles people were capturing from dictator Somoza's National Guard during street battles.”

There is also this amazing guy from Colombia called Octavio Mesa Gómez, called the “rey de la paranda”. His songs are a mix of explicit sexual jokes, cursing and black humor. I don’t understand everything, but he seems like a pretty good starting point for anyone wanting to learn Antioquian slang.

I already knew and liked Maria Dolores Pradera thanks to her song “El Rosario de Mi Madre”. I am not sure why, but I always assumed she was Mexican. Turns out she is from Madrid. I listened to her live albums and discovered quite a few I like.

But my biggest “coup de coeur” was Mexican legend Jose Alfredo Jimenez, “El Rey de la Canción Ranchera”. What a voice! I have yet to find one of his songs that his not a perfect blend of emotion and trumpets.



I went looking for spoken Spanish content – anything but news, politics or economics podcasts – and I discovered that there is a whole galaxy of YT channels that post hundreds of episodes of Filipino, Indian, Korean and Chinese series dubbed into Spanish. Channels like EcuadorTV and TvPeru also put entire seasons of telenovela and other entertainment shows online.

I couldn’t decide which one was worth my time, so I ended up watching La Reina del Sur. I thought if I have to watch stupid Narcodramas, I might as well watch the most famous one. I have the censored version, which is a bummer. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be funny, but the acting, the script, the stereotypes all make it absolutely hilarious. The entertainment value is certainly better than sitcoms like 3 Familias. I am on episode 10, so we’ll see how it goes. Not sure I will have the strength to sit through Season 2. I also started watching Ingobernable, and what a disappointment! They should have cut some of Kate del Castillo’s salary to hire better writers. I did learn quite a few words:

Nel – No.
En el gabacho – En el extranjero.
Ser pico de serra – conservar el secreto
Hacer panchos –armar un problema
Chivaton – Persona que delata a alguien
Espabilar – Hacer desaparecer el sueño, despejar
Quilla – Pieza alargada de madera o de hierro, que va de proa a popa por la parte inferior de una embarcación
A currar – A trabajar
Engatusar – Ganar la voluntad de alguien con halagos
Ostras – Sinónimos: hostia, hostias.
Culebron – Mujer intrigante, de mala reputación
Una pasta gansa – Mucho, mucho dinero
Chorradas – Tonterías
Borrico – Rudo e ignorante
Sudar la gota gorda – Esforzarse mucho mental o físicamente para conseguir algo
Peliagudo – Que es muy difícil de entender o de resolver
Algo chungo – De mal aspecto, en mal estado, de mala calidad.
Puñalada trapera – Acción hipócrita y traidora que perjudica a una persona.
Cascabel – Persona muy alegre / poco juiciosa
Chiringo – Pequeño, corto, escaso.
Pirarse. Piráte! – Irse de un lugar.
Barriobajera – Que pertenece a los barrios bajos.
Decir ni mú – No decir palabra alguna, permanecer en silencio.
Talego – Cárcel
Mover fichas – Hacer los contactos pertinentes para lograr algo
Cachondo – Que tiene un gran deseo sexual.
Chucherias – Objeto de poca importancia
Que conste que – Que quede claro que... Que se sepa que...
Cebo – Comida que se da a los animales para cebarlos.
Urraca – Persona que habla mucho, especialmente si no dice nada interesante o resulta molesta.
Canoso – Que tiene el pelo muy blanco
Achique – Acción y efecto de achicar, extraer el agua de una mina, de un dique, barco, etc.


ENGLISH

I have been preparing a short trip to Andalucía and reading history books about the Spanish civil war. I finally got around to reading Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. I admit I don’t read much original American literature, so I don’t know how it compares, but Chapter 10 has got to be one of the most powerful things I have ever read in English. It tells a massacre that was apparently inspired by real events that took place in Ronda.

KOREAN

We made a short trip to “la Ville Reine” and decided to stay in North York, the very heart of Koreatown. We visited a local H-Mart and I had my best Dakgangjeong yet in Canada. It’s quite amazing how they are able to reproduce the exact same taste as in Sokcho’s Dakgangjeong Alley. They were giving out Korean newspapers and I took some copies, but unfortunately most of the content is real estate ads. Not sure I will ever find the courage to read those.

Korean is hard overall, and one of the hardest things in Korean for me is to understand the literal vs the figurative meaning. In that Toronto H-Mart we bought a particular kind of noodles called Teumsae Ramen 틈새라면. Of course I know 라면, who doesn’t, but 틈새 ? No idea. I looked it up on Naver and it says: 1. crack; crevice 2. a spot inside a crowd 3.opportunity 4.distance. I was still confused, so I assumed Teumsae was just the name of the company and there was no further meaning. Turns out I was wrong. I asked my wife and she explained – as if it was the most self-evident thing in the world: Teumsae also means a “small gap in your schedule between two events” so Teumsae Ramen means the “noodles you can gobble up during your short break time in your busy schedule.” How could I have guessed that? That’s why having a native speaker nearby is priceless.



In related news I got my hands on the latest edition of Assimil Le Coréen and I set myself a goal: to transcribe all lessons in a workbook by hand. I am now at lesson 75 out of 100. I am not sure if this helps me in any way, but seeing pages and pages of hand-written content in hangueul makes it feels like a very productive activity.

I continue to watch Korean content regularly. I have been a fan of Korean travel shows for many years now and I am glad they restarted shooting abroad with the borders reopening. Battle Trip 2 is same-same, but they seem to have more budget now with better destinations.

I am not a big fan of “I Live Alone” 나 혼자 산다 but they had a two-part New Year special in Vietnam and it was hilarious. A new show called태어난 김에 세계일주is taking place in Peru and Bolivia with illustrator Kian84, and Korean travel blogger Pani Bottle. It was quite interesting and I got some bits of Spanish exposure through that show. Pani can manage to communicate basic things.

Dopojarak 도포자락 was filmed in Denmark. It was impressive to see that so many of the visitors could speak some Korean, but disappointing to see that the vast majority could speak only a few words. Korea seems to be the ultimate “hobby language”: learn some hangueul, learn how to say hello, and move on. The only exception was a girl who completed her master in Seoul, she could have a normal conversation.

I watched the movie “Decision to Leave” 헤어질 결심. It was easier to understand than I thought, probably because of Tan Wei’s speaking level is more or less similar to mine. There is a funny scene where the lead detective tries to explain a technical Korean word (I think it’s “방수”) to Tang Wei’s character using simple Korean words. In fact these words are almost always based on hanza (“防水”) and so much easier to understand than native Korean words for Chinese speakers. Overall it was interesting although I had to double check some things to understand the subtleties of the plot.



We also watched the movie “Broker” 브로커 with Song Kang-Ho and IU. I found it meh-meh. The storyline is interesting, but it ws told in a boring way. The movie is filmed in Korea and in Korean language, but directed by a Japanese.

Netflix has a Korean drama about Suriname (“Narco-Saints” 수리남) which was a real disappointment. It was filmed in the DR and doesn’t include any Sranan Tongo, just some bits of Dutch. It was worth watching for one thing only: there is one Chinese-Korean character that is played by an actor with zero command of Mandarin, and his performance is hilarious – it is not even close to Mandarin, it is more like how Koreans think Chinese sounds.

Unfortunately, the new season of Journey to the West신서유기 appears to have been canceled, but Na Yeong-seok came up with a similar concept with lesser knowns participants called Earth Aracade뿅뿅 지구오락실. There is a lot of slang, a lot of screaming, and the girls have much more energy compared to the older comedians, but overall I found them easier to understand.

PORTUGUESE

I watched a few interviews on YouTube’s Inteligência Ltda. It looks like a great source with a diversity of content, although probably ideologically skewed. The interview with Jair Bolsonaro was enlightening, and I think it’s absolutely hilarious that YouTube’s auto-generated Portuguese subtitles cannot recognize the words that come out of Jair’s mouth. During the interview there is also a part where they talked about ‘studying Portuguese’ and how hard it was… Fascinating how they talked about Portuguese as if it was a foreign language!

GERMAN

I recently reached a big milestone: I finished reading my first book 100% in German. It’s called Ladylike, by Ingrid Noll. I didn’t really choose the book: it was left in one of the book boxes on my street and I just happened to find it. I wasn’t sure I would enjoy the story at first, but it grew on me as I was reading and I ended up enjoying it a lot. The story was engaging enough, but the characters were the main attraction: two funny, witty and conspiracy-prone retired ladies. There were tons of unknown words, mostly related to items of clothes, jewelry, dishes and plants.

I did mostly extensive reading, and when I felt I wasn’t following the story anymore, I would got back a few pages and do intensive reading. I was surprised I could get many of the jokes, although most of the humor probably flew way over my head. There was significant improvement in speed and comprehension between the first chapter and the last one. Every other sentence seems to include either Bloß or Zeug or both, two very useful words that teaching materials don’t cover enough.

Like with Korean, I also acquired Assimil L’Allemand, and I transcribe one lesson per day by hand in a notebook. It is useful? I don’t know. Does it feel good to see pages and pages of German text written by hand? Yes. I am at lesson 75 now.

QUECHUA

I saw that LanguageCrush now offers lessons in two Quechua dialects. When all lessons will be uploaded with transcript and recordings, it will surely become the most precious source of Quechua material. Needless to say, this has triggered some serious wanderlust for me.

ESPERANTO

I got an email from an app I had long forgotten: Amikumu. I wondered if there were any users in my town, so I retrieved my old account (last login was in 2018) and guess what? There’s not a single user around. Nearest one is 200 km away. How disappointing! I was really looking forward to some Esperanto chatting. They even held an Esperanto Congress not far from here, so I thought that it would have increased Esperanto-activism, but not at all, it seems.
Last edited by Purangi on Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
9 x

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23128
Contact:

Re: Purangi's Log

Postby rdearman » Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:41 pm

Purangi wrote:ESPERANTO

I got an email from an app I had long forgotten: Amikumu. I wondered if there were any users in my town, so I retrieved my old account (last login was in 2018) and guess what? There’s not a single user around. Nearest one is 200 km away. How disappointing! I was really looking forward to some Esperanto chatting. They even held an Esperanto Congress not far from here, so I thought that it would have increased Esperanto-activism, but not at all, it seems.

It might have increased the Esperanto-activism, just not the App signup rate. :)
2 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

Purangi
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:57 pm
Languages: French, English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish
x 635

Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Sun Jan 29, 2023 11:13 pm

rdearman wrote:It might have increased the Esperanto-activism, just not the App signup rate. :)


Good point indeed! In fact I have no idea if Amikumu is any popular these days among Esperantists. I remember it was a pretty big thing when it originally came out, with press coverage, etc., but I don't know how it has fared since then. It's probably not a good indicator of the health of any given Esperanto community.
1 x

User avatar
jeff_lindqvist
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3135
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:52 pm
Languages: sv, en
de, es
ga, eo
---
fi, yue, ro, tp, cy, kw, pt, sk
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2773
x 10462

Re: Purangi's Log

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon Jan 30, 2023 5:53 pm

I too got an email few weeks ago, almost having forgotten that the app existed. (At some point there were three people in my area, one whom I think I knew about, one who never responded, and one couple whom I met - but I already knew them.)
2 x
Leabhair/Greannáin léite as Gaeilge: 9 / 18
Ar an seastán oíche: Oileán an Órchiste
Duolingo - finished trees: sp/ga/de/fr/pt/it
Finnish with extra pain : 100 / 100

Llorg Blog - Wiki - Discord

Purangi
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:57 pm
Languages: French, English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish
x 635

Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Sun Feb 26, 2023 9:49 pm

A few thoughts about a recent trip to Morocco and Andalucía:

MOROCCO

Morocco is definitely a French speaking society, but a little less so than I thought. Of course Arabic is king, and we heard some Tamazight in and around Ouarzazate. We spoke French everywhere and with everyone and about 90% of the time there was no problem. I expected that number to be higher. Perhaps because of my exposure to the Moroccan community where I live, who are fiercely and thoroughly francophone, I thought the whole country would be too, but no. Surprisingly the first Moroccan I met - the official at the border - didn’t speak a single word of French. People in the tourism industry were all fluent, but there was a clear age division: older people tended to prefer French, and younger people tended to prefer English. Every time I offered the option to choose between English or French, younger Moroccans opted for English. I wonder how much of their language preference is linked to France vs USA tipping culture?

In Fes we met a bazar shop keeper who could mimic Quebec French good enough to make us laugh. He told us he has never been to Canada, and learned the expressions exclusively through TV and internet.

The more we went up north, the more we felt that French soft power was yielding to Spanish influence. Starting from Chefchaouen some people addressed me in Spanish instead of French in the streets. From Tetouan, everyone was speaking only Spanish to me. People didn’t seem comfortable with French nor English, and Spanish seemed like the go-to language with all foreigners. It makes sense given the place’s history.

ANDALUCIA

Overall people in Andalucía seemed pleased to see I was making efforts to speak Spanish. They seemed pretty unbothered by my (poor) LatAm Spanish. I called everyone Usted and got some amused smiles, but no major misunderstandings. I have enough issues with Spanish as it is, so adding another verb form is out of the question for now.

Basically I had the same problem as in Colombia: most of the time when Spaniards first initiated contact with me, they probably thought I was local and talked to me in their machine-gun speed peninsular Spanish, and most of it flew right over my head. But as soon as I asked them to repeat, they slowed down and almost immediately everything became much clearer.

As always, my understanding varied vastly from people to people. Interestingly, while I usually struggle to understand older people in LatAm, I found that in Spain older folks are a bit easier to understand than younger people. Probably due to my lack of exposure to content aimed at younger people.

Some people changed to English on me a couple of times, exclusively in touristy places in Sevilla and Granada. I didn’t feel it was out of disrespect, just that they looked pretty busy and didn’t want to wait for me to find the proper conjugation ending.

I got to watch a bit of TV and it was fascinating to see how subtitles differ from the spoken language: different verb endings (vosotros vs ustedes), character says “con vos” but subtitles say “con usted”, le instead of lo, imperative form with -ad instead of -a/-e, etc. I guess they could hire someone to clean up the subtitles file and harmonize it with the audio? Maybe locals are so used to it, no one really cares.

We had a nice conversation with a Granaína woman in Morocco. I told her that I love the sound of European Spanish. She told me that she didn’t actually speak Spanish, just “bad Andalusian.”

On this note, Andalusian Spanish is truly remarkable. Some local people seem to speak it more strongly than others, but when they do, they do it with such gusto and panache, it’s beautiful. We heard a group of older dudes shouting ¡Vamo! ¡Vamo! with the almost complete elision of the final s — quite interesting.

I discovered a TV show called “First dates” on Spanish TV. It’s full of self-descriptions and natural, spontaneous interactions. Most of the time people don’t actually say anything substantial, it’s just silly small talk and flirting. Examples: “Tiene un culo muy trabajado.” “No tengo pelas en la lengua”. People say “joder” a lot, and some words are censored. I am not quite sure why joder is fine and what other words are censored. I think I heard “ostia” a couple of times.

Candidates on that show come from all over Spain and cover a wide range of age groups. One girl complimented a guy on his sexy Catalan accent -- I had no idea he even had an accent, he sounded like any other Spaniard to me. I can more or less identify the Andalusian accent by now, but that’s about it. When I was learning Russian and Mandarin I used to watch similar trashy dating shows. They were such a well of knowledge about idioms, colloquialism, speech crutches, etc. I should try to find the equivalent in Mexico/LatAm. If they could put subtitles, it would be an awesome learning tool.

I had a couple of embarrassing failures. I saw a restaurant advertising for “Calamares del campo” and I thought the price was amazing for seafood, so we had to try it. I ordered “calamares, una ración” and the waiter quickly corrected me: “¿del campo?” I thought: yeah, whatever, I guess it’s just a very specific kind of calamar. Turns out its fried onions and peppers, made to look just like fried calamari. Anyhow it was delicious. You live, you learn. There is a delicious Chinese animal called 田鸡, which is literally “field chicken”, but refers to the East Asian bullfrog. At the time I also got confused and thought I was ordering field-raised chicken, but turned out it was batrachian meat. I have loved spicy fried bullfrogs ever since.

I found out about the podcast “La Verdadera Historia de Mexico”. Behind the pompous title is a nice show with a amateur Mexican historian. The content is nice enough, but their main asset is that they put out more than 400 episodes, 300 of which are available online. I am about 30 episodes in. The first one is about Santa Anna and his severed foot.

MANDARIN

I started but did not finish the Taiwanese drama One day or some day. Taiwanese Mandarin sounds foreign and yet perfectly understandable to me. The only time I was thrown off was when I first heard them pronounce 2 as 饿 instead of 二. Weirdly comical.

I watched “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and I loved the code switching between Mandarin, Cantonese and English. As I understood it the main couple are two non native speakers who end up adopting Mandarin has their common tongue. I saw the same thing many times in China but also more recently in Fes, where a local Chinese restaurant owner from south China told us he had to adapt his Guangdong ways of speaking to find common ground with the Northeastern cooks. The result being a sort of Mandarin pidgin you hear all over China.
9 x

Purangi
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:57 pm
Languages: French, English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish
x 635

Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Thu May 04, 2023 12:16 am

English

I just got back from a short trip to Washington DC over the long weekend. I enjoyed every minute of it. I spoke Spanish with the US border agent, Mandarin in the dim sum restaurant, French with the Cameroonian employees at the corner store, Korean at another restaurant, etc. Some notes:

    • My French guidebook translates “Freedom is not free” on the Korean War Memorial as “la liberté n’est pas libre” – which doesn’t make any sense. I asked around about other people’s interpretation and everyone agreed the actual meaning is something along the lines of “la liberté n’est pas gratuite” or “la liberté a un prix”. I have no idea how they could misunderstand that.
    • I was carrying a take-out box that said “Big bites” when we passed a couple of inebriated French tourists. They saw the box, they stopped, pointed and laughed as if it was the funniest thing they ever saw. “Le mec a une grosse bite, putain!”
    • It was my first time south of the Mason-Dixon line, if one doesn’t count Florida, but I didn’t get to hear the famous southern drawl. I guess DC is still too up north to have a real feel of Dixieland.
    • DC is full of places with French names, Dupont and Lafayette being the most common, and pronunciation is more or less like I expected it to be. What I did not expect is the way they pronounce “Chicago”.
    • On the way back, the flight attendant providing French translation for the captain was an Acadian with a pretty recognizable accent. As she was speaking, a group of Toronto youngsters began mocking here: “Ew, why is her French so weird? Why is she speaking like that?” It made me disappointed to see how we pat ourselves on the back for being such an inclusive society, but the slightest deviation from accepted norms is immediately ridiculed. Honestly I don’t know how Acadians manage to put up with so much crap.
    • On that same flight, another flight attendant surprised us with her nearly perfect Korean. It was the first young Québécoise I saw who could speak with such speed and confidence in the language (I don’t count Arianne and Guillaume, as I only saw them on TV). Sadly I didn’t get to ask her how long she studied to get to such level. Seeing her really gave me a kick in the butt and made me realize it is possible to reach high level in Korean, I just need to focus and get my act together.

Korean

There is a non-zero chance of me going to Seoul this summer, which means that Korean has taken priority over everything else for now.

    - I adopted a new strategy: I always thought verbs were my weak point, but now I realize that my complete lack of vocab might have been the issue. I started using two vocab books for TOPIK preparation. I went over the first one in three days instead of recommended 40 days, as I knew almost every word (a good sign). The second book was harder, and full of useful vocab. I transcribe the words in a notebook with one example sentence and review them in the evening.
    - Focusing on vocab also helped me overcome some long-lasting confusion such as 배달 vs 배탈 and 경기 vs 공기. After much effort, I was finally was able to distinguish 쉬어 from 쉬워 – a major breakthrough for me. I still have issues with쥐and취 though.
    - I saw The Point Men교섭 (2023), a movie about Korean hostages in Afghanistan. I understood more than usual, although not enough to do without subtitles. A confusing thing is that rhetorical questions are so different in Korean: X모르는 사람이 어딨어? Show me a person that doesn’t know about X?
    - I enjoyed the drama재벌집 막내아들 “Reborn rich”. This first and second episodes were especially exciting, reminded me of Succession, just a bit less funny. There were some strange translation choices, as usual with Netflix. I was glad to see that my superficial vocabulary review had increased my comprehension: I was able to catch words I had seen just a couple of days before. I was able to guess a few words solely based on context or hanza such as불매 (boycott), which was a hugely satisfying.
    - I watched a couple of new shows: the one with Pani bottle (Earth Marble World Tour) is great, but the three participants are YouTubers, and they speak way too much slang. The girl has a strong사투리and is hard to understand.

    Image

    Genius Paik’s new shows in Morocco and Italy is good and real, with much simpler dialogues. It was painful to see them struggle with French and Arabic. I saw a visible improvement of my reading speed and ability. I can more or less read on-screen hangeul as fast as it appears.

    Image

    Jinny’s Kitchen in Mexico is much worse than previous seasons, and suffers from a similar lack of Spanish from participants. Mexicans having to order food in English in their own country feels wrong. I get that their goal is to spread Korean food abroad, but Jinny could at least show some interest in local culture.

    Image

    - I have read through Coréen Assimil a few times, doing 7 lessons a day, and plan to do so multiple times before the trip.
10 x

Purangi
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:57 pm
Languages: French, English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish
x 635

Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Sun Jun 11, 2023 2:10 am

Korean

Listening to a recent EconTalk podcast, there was a great discussion with an Italian author about ergodicity and how risk is managed in the long term.

The main takeaway is that you win the race not by being the fastest, but by being the fastest of those who finish the race. To do this, you need to prioritise long-term consistency (“staying in the game”) over short-term gains. In essence, showing up is half the battle. And finding ways to keep showing up regularly and in the long term – without burning out and ending up “game over” – is the secret.

Language-study-wise, I think this is nothing new. It’s been discussed over and over again on this forum. Being consistent and doing 20 minutes every day over one year is more productive and less conducive to burnout than doing binge sessions every now and then.

Although I understand that rule, and I fully agree with it, I don’t follow it. In fact, I do the exact opposite. On an average day, I will do the very basic minimum to maintain my languages, without any deliberate vocab or grammar study sessions.

Suddenly, I see an opportunity to travel and I buy airplane tickets. I get excited, I book hotels, make travel plans, etc. I then launch into an intensive binge study sessions of the local language until my head feels like exploding. As the date of departure comes nearer and nearer, I get more intense with my study, stockpiling podcasts and PDF I’ll never have time to work on. When I finally leave, I’ve crammed my head with so much new vocab that I can’t possibly think straight and fell already tired.

This leads to a feeling of lack of accomplishment. I’ve spend so much time on this language over the last month – and I still can’t understand that song/dialog/article/TV-show? Duh. High expectations cannot possibly be met over short time frames.

Obviously, there are limits as to what one can achieve over a 6 to 8 weeks period. It would be so much easier to spread that same number of study hours over a 52-week period, and I could achieve so much more… But that’s not how I do things and it wouldn’t be half as exciting.

Anyway.

I’m flying to Seoul this weekend.

With just a few weeks’ notice before the departure date, I didn’t have time to achieve much. I decided to focus on three things: vocabulary, pronunciation and shadowing.

First of all, I was dead-set on increasing my vocab before leaving and that’s where I made the most progress.

- I made a list of 1500 new words that I wanted to assimilate before getting on the plane. Most of the new words came from two books called 쏙쏙 한국어, for Topik I and Topik II respectively. Despite a few strange translations, the books are a great way to focus on useful vocab. Some words were quite straightforward, some less, but all appear to be common. Many were easier to translate through their Chinese equivalent, than through English (과연 and 차라리, among others).

The good thing is that I immediately saw an increase in my listening comprehension. Now I pick up way more words than I used to, and that’s true for all kinds of TV shows. Those who know, know: Korean entertainment shows really like to put text over the screen, sometimes it’s subtitles, sometimes it’s just commentary on what’s happening. Well, I am finally able to read much of that text, fast enough before it disappears.

And that’s with just 1500 new words! Imagine if I could double or triple that numbers, it would be awesome, even with diminishing returns.

- Despite my best efforts, some vocab remains stubbornly impenetrable. 들다 and all its derivative and close sounding parents (들르다, 들이다, 들려오다, 들여다보다, 드리다, 드러나다) are an especially tough nut to crack. I can more or less understand them when I read, but to produce them correctly is out of reach.

- Hangeul is phonetic and that’s great – except when it’s not. Thank god I have a native speaker next to me who makes sure to point out when my pronunciation is off. It’s written조건, but it’s pronounced 조껀. It’s written 굳이, but it’s pronounced 구지. And so on…

- Topik doesn’t cover everything, far from that. So I also focused on stuff that is useful to me. I am finally able to put words on things that are ubiquitous in my life, but for which I never really bothered to learn the Korean name. 낙지볶음, 깍두기, 누룽지, 돌솥 , 공기 as in 밥 한공기, 단지 – all very useful things when travelling in Korea. It feels great to finally put an name on things, instead of using the easy-but-lazy그것, 저것.

- Chinese influence on Korean helps me most of the time. I can very much “see through” some Korean vocab thanks to their Chinese roots, and the fact that word construction follows the same rule as in Chinese. Except that sometimes, it can get misleading. Let’s say I want to order fresh kimchi – 겉절이. The Chinese-speaking part of my brain wants to say: 신김치, because 신 is obviously the Korean equivalent of 新. As in : 신기술 – 新技术,신시대 – 新时代, 신상품 – 新商品, etc. But no, you fool! The 신 in신김치 is pure Korean and comes from시다 – meaning “to be sour”. 신김치 is the opposite of fresh: it’s fermented kimchi. If you want fresh kimchi, you forget about Sino-Korean and you order새 김치 – or겉절이, of course.

As for pronunciation, I really wanted to fix my specific problems before going. I sat down with my lovely wife and made her miserable by reading through a list of random words – trying to identify what I needed to work on. Turns out, quite a lot.

- I always thought of으 as somewhere between French “eu” and “e”. It’s not. It’s not a rounded-lip vowel, it’s more a flattened-lip vowel. So now I pronounce it as saying “eu” while doing a forced smile. It feels ridiculous, but it works.

- Turns out I have been mispronouncing 위 and 외for many years, and everybody around me was too polite to tell me. I always thought위and 외 were the exact same sound. But no! 외as in외국인is pronounced “wé”, while외 is pronounced “wè”, as in “ouais”. Thank god I fixed that.
- Distinguishing between 위and 외 becomes even harder with an initial consonant. 취 and 쥐are specially challenging. People kind of understand me in context, but if I try to say a single word in isolation, forget it, they have no idea that I am even trying to speak Korean. It’s strange because they keep telling me “취” sounds just like “tu” when spoken by affricate-loving Québécois – but I can’t quite get it right.

- Overall, aspiration is such a b*tch. I learned English relatively early in my life and I still can’t quite get the initial “h” right. Hearing it is even more difficult: my ears are completely numb to it. No wonder Korean aspiration feels like a bridge too far. Nevertheless, I’ve managed to make some progress here also. I can now distinguish between 불을 꺼 and 불을 켜 when speaking. But I can’t yet hear the difference, specially not in a fast conversation with a stranger.

Finally, I also worked on shadowing audio files, because you gotta do what you gotta do:

- I went through TTMIK beginner conversations, shadowing the 40 lessons every day for about 7 days. Too easy for me at this point, but full of useful conversation connectors and expressions.

- I also worked through the 40 TTMIK intermediate conversations. I remember that book as being really hard from a few years ago, and I was happy to see that there were less than a handful of unknown words in every lesson. Reading the dialogs is easy and feels totally comfortable. Shadowing while listening is harder, as their speed is a bit fast for me.

- After going through both TTMIK conversations, I didn’t have any more material, so I dug out my old copy of the Assimil Le Coréen Sans Peine from 2004.

I used that book when I first tried to learn Korean, about 5 years ago. Back then, the whole book seemed to me absolutely terrible and I remember writing a pretty harsh review. The learning curb was too fast. Dialogs seemed dried, uninteresting, with useless vocab. I never really finished to book, and ended up putting Korean on hold in favor of Spanish.

Now that I picked it up again, the whole thing appears pretty decent. The content is much easier than TTIMK intermediate conversations. Dialogues are much shorter than the newer Le Coréen and certainly way shorter than older Assimil editions. But what made me feel really good is that I was able to listen to every lessons and get if not everything, than about 90% of what was said. When reading, my comprehension went up to almost 99% – except the odd words here and there, easily guessable based on context.

That’s such a good feeling – picking up a book you thought was impossible, and realizing it’s now a walk in the park!

I also appreciate the fact that every lesson ends with a proverb – a very nice cultural introduction. I checked with a native speaker, and all of the proverbs are widely known. I made a list and I plan on using them should the situation arises (tbh even if no situation arises, I will try using them).

All of this was accompanied by a steady consumption of native material.

뿅뿅 지구오락실 is back on with the same cast and remains incredibly funny.

After Morocco, 장사천재 백사장 moved to Napoli. I was very happy to see that they actually learned some Italian before going. I watch with subtitles, which can be more confusing than helping sometimes. 백 said something like내 눈치 계속 봐!!, which was translated as: You have to tiptoe around me! Totally makes sense to translate with an idiom here, but my brain doesn’t make the connection between눈치 and tiptoe.

텐트 밖은 유럽 has a new season in Norway. The ajussis on that show are famous for their dad jokes – and I am happy to say that I can finally understand them.

나 혼자 산다 had a series of episodes in Mongolia, which were quite funny. Kian will soon starts a new travel show in India, which promises to be entertaining.

I even came across this old trot song. I can’t tell if it’s a joke, but I enjoy the energy and the lyrics, simple enough for me to understand.



---

In other news, between my cramming sessions I managed to run a half-marathon, and with my best time. Nothing extraordinary in terms of performance, but it was very satisfying considering I couldn’t walk just three years ago after an injury. The downside is that I was so exhausted I couldn’t open my books for the next two days.

The half-marathon was also a kind of training for what’s waiting for me on the peninsula: I hope to hike the great Jirisan and a couple other mountains while I am there.

Also, I got my hands on the new Le Hindi Assimil – a future project maybe? I can already feel the wanderlust taking over me, help!
8 x

User avatar
MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2114
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
x 4824

Re: Purangi's Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sat Jun 17, 2023 12:52 pm

Interesting to compare your work in Korean with Rdearman's. He doesn't have a "live-in Pimsleur."
1 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

lichtrausch
Blue Belt
Posts: 511
Joined: Thu Jul 23, 2015 3:21 pm
Languages: English (N), German, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean
x 1382

Re: Purangi's Log

Postby lichtrausch » Sat Jun 17, 2023 2:04 pm

Purangi wrote:I even came across this old trot song. I can’t tell if it’s a joke, but I enjoy the energy and the lyrics, simple enough for me to understand

Here's another food song for you :)

2 x

Purangi
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:57 pm
Languages: French, English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish
x 635

Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Wed Jul 05, 2023 11:30 am

MorkTheFiddle wrote:Interesting to compare your work in Korean with Rdearman's. He doesn't have a "live-in Pimsleur."


And I would add that his progress in the language is only more impressive knowing he doesn't.

lichtrausch wrote:Here's another food song for you :)


Thanks for sharing this gem of a song!

***

I am writing this on the plane flying back from a two weeks trip in South Korea. My Korean was fiercely put to the test, but it managed to make it through. A few ramblings:

-I was able to read everything, fast enough without having to stop to decipher 한글, which made it so much easier to navigate the subway and the city overall. My vocabulary is enough to cover everything that’s essential, but still lacks when it comes to more elaborate things such as explanations in museums, discussing religion or science.

-My listening skills are an embarrassment. While I am mostly able to understand what’s happening around me such as the topic of conversations, so much just fly right over my head. I had a few long conversations, over an hour or so, but it is really taxing the patience from my interlocutors - because I keep asking them to repeat or to specify who’s doing what exactly. I tend to zone out completely when people speak too fast or do not make any effort at slowing down their speech.

-On the bright side, speaking was easier than I imagined at first. I was able to solve a couple problems using nothing but Korean. I did use a few grammatical connectors, but not as much as I would have liked. I still constantly mix and confuse levels of politeness such as using 나 with 요 or using 제가 without 요, that is probably my most common problem right now. It’s especially confusing when older people use 반말 with me. I am expected to answer in 존댓말, but when I hear “했다” and “됐어”, I automatically tend to repeat what I just heard.

-To my regret, my Korean was almost non existent the last five times I visited, and people expectations were consequently low. Now that I can more or less formulate my thoughts, I also feel that people expect me to abide by cultural rules much more than before. I was getting away with speaking 반말 all the time last time, but not anymore. One older person gave me a nice lecture about using not only 존댓말 with elders, but also the respectful version of certain verbs. So pressure to abide by politeness rules tends to increase with speaking abilities. That same person told me that using 반말 with strangers was unequivocally bad, but also insisted that it was still better than using English.

-A good thing now is that my level is good enough that I know what I don’t understand. I can search on Naver words I hear but don’t know and I can ask people to spell it out. Super useful question: 아이 애 아니면 어이 에? I heard 부드러워 in a context where it didn’t make sense and turns out it also means “flexible,” not just “soft.”

-Korean is filled with too many Konglish words, many impossible to guess. Even native speakers around me get confused. I saw 리즈 on TV and couldn’t figure it out, turns out it’s a reference to a football team describing the best season of one’s life or career? That’s an obscure reference if you ask me. Other foreign words are more straightforward such as 두숏.

-I was able to use my two first ever proverbs in a real life context: 머르는 길도 머러서 가 and 병 주고 약도 준다. Very satisfying. On the downside, I kept using 도로 아미타불 the wrong way.

-My first day was spent in Bupyeong, where there is a huge market with all kinds of interesting things. That district was always home to many Southeastern Asians workers and Chaoxianzu, but I feel they are even more visible now. Since I visited last time a coup happened in Myanmar and I think many Burmese fled to South Korea, because there is now a small “Myanmar village” around the station. The Burmese script can be seen next to hangeul on a lot of shops. I happened to arrive on the day of the anniversary of their leader and there was a small protest against the junta with local Korean politicians. Second day was spent in Gimpo, a newly developed district west of Seoul. From the third day I started my hiking trip: 북한산, 이원산, 지리산 and 남한산성 (for recuperation day!).

-Korea is a hikers’ paradise and Koreans are probably up there with Sherpas as the biggest mountain enthusiasts. There is something utterly impressive in seeing ladies half my size and double my age going up and down mountain paths that would be difficult for anyone in shape — all while carrying a backpack as big as themselves.

-While hiking on the northern slope of 북한산 I met two older ladies who kept using 반말 to me in a way that felt quite impolite, borderline rude. It’s funny because the more I understand Korean, the more I also get stuff that I don’t need/want to understand. They were basically trying to get me to move from where I was sitting to take a picture - which I would have gladly done if they had asked nicely, but instead they kept saying: 빠리 나가! 여기 내려가! 실허? 왜 싫어? Later I explained how the situation unfolded to people I know and everyone told me that it was unacceptable to use 반말 with strangers, even people younger than you, especially so when asking them for a favour. They offered me two ways to react: 무시, which is basically to completely ignore the person, pretending that the 반말 can’t possibly be directed at you; or to confront them directly by saying things like: 저 언테 왜 반말 하세요? 저회 무슨 사이에요? 친구? 가족? Social shame would then do its magic. The second option is a bit overly confrontational, so 무시 it is.

-I also found a trick for numbers: if I can add 개, then I just use the Korean numbers. I thought people would understand me whether I use Korean or Sino-Korean numbers, but it confuses them more than anything. Especially because Sino-Korean “four” 사 sounds close enough to Korean “three” 셋.

-I watched a bit of TV in the evening. I tried political news, which was entertaining but absolutely opaque. I kind of get the gist of it because of the on-screen hangeul, but that’s about it. Some channels have full subtitles, just like in China, which is a real gift. Can’t imagine how much I would improve if I could watch TV all day. It feels strange to see shows I only find on obscure pirated websites live on TV. Korean content keeps finding new ways to entertain - there is even a show called 시골경찰 that is funny and easy enough for me to watch without subtitles. On the other side, there was a show on TV that features stories of North Korean refugees, and I understood next to nothing.

-It feels like small talk is barely a thing in Korea, at least with strangers. This is unlike the US and China, were at least some level of small talk is expected in bus stops and elevators. Koreans prefer to keep to themselves and I don’t blame them. I have the habit of saluting everyone I encounter in these situations and I’ve been told by Korean friends to stop doing that, because it’s strange.

-Maybe my ears are deceiving me, but I swear that when ㄱ is followed by 율, some Koreans pronounce it 쥴 and not 귤. I heard someone say 쥴 when they meant 귤 (mandarin orange) last time I was here. This time, I heard the subway announcer say 쥴현역 instead of 귤현역 when announcing the station in Korean, but when announcing in English, the voice clearly said Gyul-Hyeon Station with a hard G. I asked around, and they say I am crazy!

-I already knew Chinese Chaoxianzu 조선족 were numerous in Korea, and we met quite a few, working in restaurants and in the tourism industry. I find it impressive that people near me can pick up of the Chaoxian accent in just a few words. But then again, I can tell a Québécois from a Frenchman just by listening to a couple words, so it’s probably the same.



-On the fourth day I took the night bus to Jirisan 지리산, the highest peak on the southern part of the Korean peninsula. As I mentioned, Korea is a real paradise for hiking: there is a night bus that departs at midnight from Seoul and arrives at Jilisan around 3:30 AM. People are expected to sleep a bit on the bus, wake up and go hiking all day. Even crazier is that the bus was full on a random Wednesday. I was not gonna miss this experience. It was absolutely amazing and I am glad I decided to do it. Unfortunately I didn’t see any snake or bear. The ascent was hard but not as hard as people were telling me it would be. Some parts of 자운봉 in 북한산 felt much more technical. It started to rain just as I got to the top and found refuge in the 데피소 near the summit, and got to experience a bit of that culture too. It was too cloudy at the top to see anything, but it didn’t take away anything from the enjoyment. It took about 8 hours, 40,000 steps and 500 floors ascended according to my iPhone.

-Korean hikers tend to keep to their group. Anyway everyone on the way up is out of breath, so not the best place to do small talk. I still had a couple of nice conversations with fellow mountain climbers on the summit. I was able to ask my way around, to joke a bit with the 아저씨. I wasn’t sure about 인사 etiquette in Korea, so I saluted every single person on my path with a nice 안녕하세요. Funny that not one, but two people asked if I was Korean (!). But overall Koreans have a strong “mind you own business” mindset. Quite a difference with China. When I was climbing Huashan in Shaanxi Province, I think every other person asked to take my picture and add my WeChat. Koreans are much less impressionable, and I don’t dislike that at all. But I have to admit that as a language learner, I would have loved to have more of these constant small-talk interactions.

-The starting point I used for Jirisan is a village called 백무동. Everything was closed when I finished hiking and even the bus station didn’t have any employee: just a sign in Korean asking people to call a number should they need to buy tickets. That’s how I made my first phone call 100% in Korean - the first one with a complete stranger (family members not counting, because they have an infinite reserve of patience for me) and, surprisingly, it went perfectly well. It’s crazy how it’s the small victories like these that build the confidence.

-On the bus back from Jirisan there was a foreigner who couldn’t speak a single word of Korean. He was trying to understand the schedule and destination, and he was obviously struggling. Seeing him sweating his way through a conversation with the ticket clerk made me realize how easy this whole trip had been for me. I was able to call the employee on the phone, buy the ticket, confirm the destination, price and departure time, all in Korean. I wasn’t nervous of getting the wrong bus, I wasn’t afraid to be overcharged or misunderstood by the driver. Everything went smoothly from start to finish and it made me feel good to see how much I became comfortable in the language.

-Near the summit of Jirisan there is a very interesting explanation board about a bunch of dead trees. It’s eloquent and impactful and I think it’s aimed at leaving a lasting feeling of shame on hikers. I wish our boards were as entertaining:

“Originally this hill was so thickly forested that it was dark even during daytime.

However, the insatiable rapacity of human beings turned the area into a vast cemetery of dead trees.

During the 1950s, timber thieves secretly cut down some trees and fire quickly spread. The hill is now a stark dismal graveyard of dead trees.

The scene is regarded as a shameful monument to the impulsive behaviour of people who were blinded by greed, reminding visitors of the vanity of all life amid the eternity of time.”


Quite dramatic vocab here for a simple explanation board:

    탐욕에 눈 먼 인간 - human beings blinded by greed
    나무들의 공동묘지 - graveyard of trees
    부끄러운 자취 - a shameful trace
    어리석은 행위 - foolish act
    충동적으로 - impulsively
    고사목 군락지 - colony of dead dried trees 枯死木 群落地

If that doesn’t make you want to learn Korean, what will?

-I keep getting back to Sino-Korean etymology and hanza. It’s fascinating to see how much is simplified (some might say “lost”) when words are transcribed into hangeul. There are so many examples in daily life, 소화 (digestion) and 소화기 (extinguisher) for example. Two words that look almost identical in hangeul, but are actually different when written in hanza. To a Chinese speaker, they are easily understandable as 消化 and 消火器… I guess the fact that 化 hua and 火 huo sound exactly the same (화) is not a problem for Koreans who just learn by immersion and don’t think twice about it. But for foreigners learning the language? Must be a headache to work your way through all those homophones.

-재택 means “telework” and comes from 在拖, which seems to indicate that Sino-Korean roots continue to be very productive.

-I remember reading a blog a couple years ago where the author was arguing that any serious learner of Korean should learn (at the very least) the 1000 most common hanza. He received at lot of pushback from his readers, who argued back that Koreans themselves don’t know so many hanza - so why should we? But I think he was right in the sense that hanza are like a shortcut. Knowing Chinese gives me a huge advantage for vocabulary: it’s like having access to an etymological dictionary for all Sino-Korean vocabulary.

-The fifth day was spent on Iwansan 이완산 with perhaps some of the best views of central Seoul. Got down through the tourist market and walked a bit around the main palace. Thanks to the new president, I got to visit the 청와대, where people distribute posters with a very nice example of how case endings can make Korean a very economical language: 청와대 국민 품으로. No verb needed here, a simple case ending is sufficient.

-I went to the Korean War Memorial and I was happy to see that “Freedom is not free” was translated (correctly, in my opinion) as 자유는 거저 주어지는 것이 아니다 - literally freedom is not something that is given for free. Very nice example of passive verb usage here.

-Travelling in country makes it easy to pick up words that would be impossible to learn through material, but are part of the landscape, for better and for worse. I saw a car doing circles in front of the US embassy, playing loud patriotic music and shouting insanities. It had two giant hangeul 멸공 written on it. I couldn’t make out what myolgong meant: a quick search on Naver told me it’s the famous slogan of 灭共, as used by South Koreans during the war and if I am not mistaken by Chinese republicans also? Here's the car in question:

Image

-We visited a couple of 맛집 around Seoul, and my favourite area is near Yeongsan station. Around 17:30 all government employees working in the neighborhood gather here, where there’s a ton of restaurants and bars catering to them. That’s where I had some of my best meals in Seoul. I am now able to understand conversations around me better than never before. Business diners between colleagues seem to be a thing in Korea (as opposed to business lunch where I am from). It’s interesting because if an older/senior person is there, the level of language will be quite formal 존댓말 - and not the kind of more rowdy atmosphere you would expect from a bunch of drunk dudes in pubs.

-Hangeul is not an issue and I read it without even thinking, but I still encounter some unfamiliar/confusing font. The way they write ㅂ, for example, can sometimes look like the Russian letter ы, but reversed.

-We flew from Gimpo 김포 to Pohang 포항 in Gyeongsang Province 경상북도, home to the famous Posco corporation. Never have I seen such big a factory in my life. We had delicious 회 at the fish market and then walked along the beach. In many public spaces in Korea I saw either people protesting some forms of injustice, or a 기도회, or a 가수회. The last one of my favourite: a bunch of aunties and uncles with widely different singing skills, united in their passion for singing 트로트 songs in public.



-Next we flew to Pohang, we visited Yeongilde 영일대 - 仰日停, literally the place where one meets the sun. I asked if people could understand the meaning just by looking at the hangeul, and the answer is definitely no. I find that fascinating: how many places have hidden meaning in their name, that basically disappeared when hanza were discarded? But come to think of it, it’s not weird at all. How many Canadian toponyms are in Indigenous languages and no one cares about their original meaning - we just use them as they are. It’s interesting on an etymological level, but it that’s about it.

-Education and development being the greatest “levellers” of linguistic diversity, I honestly thought everyone in South Korea could speak the national language, in addition to their local provincial dialect. Turns out many people can’t or won’t switch to national language even knowing that they are not being well understood. Such a small country, that went through such social transformation and population displacement over the last 60 years or so - and yet local identities remain very strong.

-We had 추어탕 in a small restaurant in the market. The lady asked us if we wanted 제피? Definitely not a word I knew and even the Seoul people with me had never heard of it. Turns out Gyeongsang people love spice and 제피 is a close parent of Chinese 麻. When paying and thanking her for the meal we talked a bit, and for the first time I really noticed her intonation was different from what I hear in the north.

-We moved to Gyeongju 경주 and saw what needed to be seen. But as his usual in these big touristy towns, the best part was the local market away from the center, where we had 보리밥 with a surprising amount of 반찬 and freshly pressed 참기름. Best meal I had in Korea - for the reasonable price of 사천원!

-While waiting for the bus to 불국사, I sat down next to an older gentleman who was glad to have a conversation with me. Finally some small talk! His accent was thick, but I still managed to understand that he lives about an hour or so from Gyeongju, his 집사람 doesn’t eat 보리밥 so when he visits the city he makes sure to eat it for a very affordable price of 3000 won. We talked about the city and the foreign community and he acknowledged that 착한 왜국사람도 이죠. Although he was not using totally unknown words, his intonation really stood out. It sounded almost like a tonal language. I wish I would speak like that, but it would probably attract the wrong kind of attention. Anyway Seoul people really sound bland compared to locals.



-I kind of found a way around the politeness dilemma, similar to what I hear around me: I don’t finish my sentences. I just say things like 비슷 or 직진 or 화긴 or 완전 or 인정 or 짱 or 최고 or 불상 without adding the finishing verb, and everyone seems to approve. Since the sentence is left incomplete, no one seems certain how the deference level.

-I saw some written Gyeongsang dialect on signs in restaurants such 맛집이데이 / 뭐 무꼬? But the most striking thing is the local intonation. The only way I can describe it is like two consecutive rising tones. 시원해요 sounds like síwonheyo in Seoul, but like síwon-héyo here.

-Next was 여수 Yeosu in 전라남도 South Jeolla, a nice port city that reminded me of Vladivostok. The night view is especially beautiful, with all the big boats on the horizon. Probably one of the few places in the world where you can swim in a infinity pool next to an active shipyard, where thousand-tons boats are being repaired. Not something you see everyday! Looks like domestic tourists also enjoy the city: we took a cruise around the harbour with a bunch of drunk 아저씨 who were having the time of their life!

-In South Jeolla, we heard a guy speaking on his phone saying 얼두시에 에악을… instead of 열두시에 예약을… It’s hard to determine exactly where the personal idiosyncrasies begin and where the local dialect ends.

-About regional dialects, someone who works in Seoul told me that people from Jeollado are very good at changing their accent to sound “neutral”, but Gyeongsang people are unable to do so - there’s always some regional flavour in their speech. As a proof, she told me she worked with colleagues from Jeolla and only realized they were not from Seoul after a few years. But it took just a few minutes with Gyeongsang colleagues to know their 출생. She also mentioned something about negative stereotypes associated with the Jeolla accent, which is probably an incentive for them to quickly adopt Seoul dialect when in the capital.

-On 오동도 Odongdo island nearby Yeosu, there is a tree that was baptized 남근무 男根木. There is an little sign with a very straightforward translation: “Penis tree”. I asked around if people knew what 남근 meant, but they couldn’t say for sure. Meaning they had to go through either hanza or English to decrypt the meaning hidden behind the hangeul? Here is a picture of it - safe for work.

-Also on Odongdo, I saw a huge monument with 8 hanza: 若无湖南是无国家, where 湖南 is read 호남 and refers to Jeolla. It looks like the local equivalent of 没有共产党就没有新中国. Interestingly enough, China also has a 湖南 Hunan, home province of you-know-who, and Hunanese people are known to be fiercely parochial and to say things like 没有湖南就没有湘军就没有中国.

-In my hotel I came across a bunch of NSLI-Korea kids from the US. I overheard them speaking and their Korean level was still shaky, but they all looked like highschoolers, so no doubt they will improve fast. I think the whole point of the program is to start them young.

-Next day we took the slow train up north to 전주 Jeonju, in 전라북도 North Joalla. It’s nice, but it feels more clean, more organized, more polished than Yeosu. We saw quite a lot of foreigners wandering around, looking for bibimbab and other delicacies. Everything is concentrated around the hanok village. Even the market is cleaner and there is some English (compared to none in Yeosu). We ate the famous 육회비빔밥 on the main tourist strip, but we were not impressed. Later we walked around and found a 청국장 전문점 and let’s just say that I will never forget that meal! I am glad I tried but likely won’t have it again. Overall I preferred Pohang and Yeosu, which had a more rough feeling, just like I prefer local markets in Bupyeong than in central Seoul.

-Next was Suwon 수원 水泉, its chicken street 통닭거리 and Joseon fortress. The local palace is where famous historical/culinary drama 대장금 was filmed. It’s open and illuminated in the evening, which gives it a totally different atmosphere - really glad we waited until sunset to visit. Then back to Seoul, where we spent a few days eating our way around town and buying Korean food to bring home.

-Before leaving we sat down with an elder and we had a long discussion about her life. She was born in the mid 1930s, which means she lived through both Japanese colonial rule and the Korean War. She was schooled in Japanese for her first few school years, and then switched to Korean after 해방. She even showed us school pictures taken during the pre-war Korean republic. She recalls wounded Japanese soldiers coming to her village, demanding supplies and taking shelter. She also saw the NK army rolling in - and then rolling out - of her hometown. Crazy stuff and hard to believe it happened right here when you see the success that is today’s Korea. She also taught me how to play 윳 - a game often featured on Korean TV.

-Korean language prefers to avoid pronouns when possible, and I knew people will use professional titles to call each other at work such as 팀장님 or 사장님. What I didn’t realize is that even in a family setting, people will use kinship terms to talk about each other. Problem is that sometimes they use the kinship term in relation to them (my sister), and sometimes in relation to the person they are talking to (your aunt) - but without the possessive determinant, so you have to "guess" if they are talking about their sister, your sister, or another unrelated sister. Older people will also talk about themselves in the third person using kinship term (Uncle wants this... = I want this / Auntie went there... = I went there) - it feels quite surreal. This can get quite confusing, especially when many family members gather together. I had to stop the conversation quite a few times to ask who is the subject. They tell me it’s all self-evident from context, but I only half agree.



-In related news: while in Seoul I met the son of an acquaintance from Ningbo. The father has only an elementary school education and speaks only Ningbonese - I barely understand him. His son has a technical degree and speaks perfect Mandarin, with a slight Zhejiang accent. That’s a real generational change. China’s educational bulldozer has managed to impose Mandarin in places where only dialects were spoken just one generation ago.

Conclusion:

-I cannot say honestly that I had a significant breakthrough during this trip. At least I was able to put to use a lot of what I learned by myself over the last few months. The main frustrating thing is that my ability to understand lags behind my speaking skills: more often than not, I can formulate exactly what I want to say quite clearly, but I understand less than half of the reply. It’s quite upsetting, as the conversation is then cut short. I had the same feeling during my first year in China: able to speak, but completely deaf. Spanish at first was the opposite: I understood much more than I could speak.

-Overall I think Korea is very receptive to foreigners learning the language. Very few people addressed me in English, and when I initiated a conversation in Korean, no one changed language on me - there was only one exception, in an hotel. They all sticked to Korean, which was very appreciated. Many people were nice enough to slow down a bit and enunciate more carefully when talking to me.

-Most of my interactions were incredibly simple - 인사. Where is this? How much is that? Is this the road to X? Can you keep my luggage? Is there a discount if I pay cash? Can I get a refill of this 반찬? Where can I get more 쌈? Then 감사 and 인사 again. I became quite good at complimenting chefs after a meal. For all this, I manage just fine, even quite good. But when it comes to “real” topics such as family, work, money - I lose my footing quite fast. I still have years of practice before having a normal fluid conversation on serious topics.

-Because I understand more, I am also much more aware of social dynamics and the way social norms are enforced. I knew older family members would constantly nag younger people, but I didn’t realize even total strangers would take the liberty to do 잔소리 to younger folks. It happened quite a few times that older people such as taxi drivers tried to teach us the “right” way of doing things - without us asking them anything. And we are supposed to sit there and nod and say 내 내. It’s nothing dramatic, but it can get very annoying when it keeps happening over and over. That’s a real cultural difference and not one I enjoy. Another is when people pretend to do 혼자말 to criticize out loud someone without actually addressing them directly, and everyone has to listen. It happens much more often than I realized before. I was completely oblivious to these things when I visited last time. Ignorance is really bliss, or as Koreans say: 모르는 것이 약이다.

-After this trip I’ve now been in 7 of the 9 provinces of SK. The only missing ones are both Chungcheong North and South and some of the bigger metropolitan areas like Ulsan, Sejong, etc. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it there. The only downside to travelling in SK is that the food is so incredibly delicious, that I put on quite a few kilos. Highlights were 청국장, 딹간장, 족발, 회, 보리밥, 꿀빵, 간장개장, 당수육, 자장면, 추어탕, and all kinds of 떡, 초밥 and 만두. I drank at least of bottle of local 먹거리 in every place we visited, which means we tried at least 10 brands. The best ones where the local ones, the one you find only in one small shop tucked in the corner of a market. I brought enough 소주 to last me a few months. My only regret is not having tried the infamous 홍어. I saw it in the market in Suwon, and I even asked the shopkeeper for a sample - but the fish was uncooked.

홍어:

Image

-Anyway, despite the difficulties and occasional embarrassment, I never spoke so much Korean with so many people over such short time, so mission accomplished!
8 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: niphredilorn and 2 guests