Purangi's Log

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Purangi
Orange Belt
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Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:57 pm
Languages: French, English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby Purangi » Sat Feb 15, 2020 12:10 pm

Some other random thoughts 2 weeks after my arrival in Seoul:

—Immersion definitely facilitates vocabulary learning. Every time I go out on the streets, I just have to make the small effort to read signs and advertisements around me and I am automatically exposed to new and old vocabulary, again and again. I have seen so many times 임대 and 부동산, I don’t think I’ll ever forget them. The fact that I have a Korean speaker with me almost at all time is also a fantastic resource. While native speakers are usually of no help when asked about grammar, they are extremely useful when it comes to teach vocabulary and to help me decipher why a particular ad is funny (or not). No need for flashcards here: the streets are a SRS in themselves.

—Another effect of immersion is that my listening comprehension is definitely improving — not as fast as I would like it to, but it’s still a good thing. I was sitting near one of the city gates in Seoul today and there was an announcement on the speakers. I was not expecting it nor was I prepared to listen to it, but I still managed to understand the meaning (the place will close at 18:00, please prepare to leave) and get more than 80% of the words. Same thing with subway announcements. Random conversations around me are still mostly just a bunch known and unknown words without any obvious or coherent meaning. Conversations among family members are much easier to understand, most probably because I have context about what’s going on. Communication has improved slightly and is easier than when I just arrived.

—Something also “clicked” as I watch the drama Crash Landing On You: I managed to understand not just random replies, but an entire scene, from start to finish. I wouldn’t be able to repeat what they said exactly and I probably misunderstood some verbal endings here and there, but the meaning and almost all of the vocab were clear and made sense: it was not just a bunch of words, it was a logical stream of conversation. It was a fleeting satisfaction, but it really felt good. I look forward to many more of such moments.

—I had a long conversation in English with a young Korean guy just out of the army. We talked virus, China, both Koreas, his life, etc., it was very interesting to compare points of view. We also talked about politeness levels and he told me that he also struggles with it when he was in the army. If I understood him well, if someone lower in rank, let’s call him X, talks to someone higher in rank, Y, they should use polite speech. But if X talks to Z, who is higher in rank to both X and Y, then X should also use high politeness, except mentioning Y, then he should use low politeness level. This is also the case in any hierarchical organization such as a large company. From what he said, it can quickly become confusing and you can get severely criticized for mixing things up.

—Korean language loves verbal nouns too much. There is no “exit” in the subway, but there’s the “place where you go out” (나가는 곳). There is also a “place where you can transfer line” (갈아타는 곳) and a “place where you get on the train” (타는 곳). This makes reading easier: there are definitely words for Exit, Tracks and Transfer in Korean, but you don’t need to learn them to navigate the subway: actions and places are described rather than directly named. For speaking, though, it’s hard. My French brain still has trouble getting used to this. Instead of describing what I want to do using 것 as the “pivot” of my sentence, I keep looking for the right word that will describe exactly what I want to say. The irony is that sometimes I overdo it and end up using 것 when there’s actually a simple noun to describe what I want. I will need much more exposure to correct this.

—But there’s much frustration also. Often, I understand what’s asked and expected of me, I understand the questions, and I even know many words that I could use to answer and have a normal conversation, but I don’t know where to start. I am missing the sentence structures and connectors to frame my answers. So I end up replying either with unconnected words or with the same three or four simple comments I know well (Awesome! Very good! So-so! Not quite good!) without any sort of nuances or details to explain my reaction.

—I have been reading on the forum about so-called “language islands” lately. I think that could be a great way to address the issue. If I can identify 9 or 10 everyday topics useful for me in Korea and compose and learn by heart a short conversation around these topics, let’s say around 300-350 words for each topic, that would give me a ready-to-use framework for the next time someone asks me these questions. And they will — the same topics come around every day. While reading the old and new posts about language islands, I suddenly remembered that that’s basically what I did when I started learning Russian and Mandarin. In Moscow, our teacher forced us to learn and recite by heart an entire set of Q&A for our final exam. In Haerbin, our teacher again forced us to learn verbatim every single text in our textbook and to recite them in class. At the time it sounded crazy, and yet with hindsight, it was probably the most useful thing I did. I figure that if I write myself with the texts to be learned verbatim, the effect could be even more powerful, as I will be able to choose content that is truly relevant to me. That’s something to think about.

—On a personal level, I am under strong pressure from my workplace to return to China. All my friends and things are still there, including bank accounts and important documents, so I will have to go back eventually, if only to sort things out. Things are changing fast on the ground. What seemed impossible a month ago is now business as usual. The rumor says that this year’s 两会 will not be postponed as that would be a sign of weakness. State media have started emphasizing anti-US propaganda again — never a good sign. My neighbor told me CPC members and policemen have set up a checkpoint at the entrance of our building. The self imposed quarantine in Beijing is mandatory since yesterday and not abiding is punishable by law — up to the death penalty. Beijing city has set up “concentrated observation camps” (集中观察)where they plan to send the patients, both confirmed and suspected. I am healthy now but if I go back, I will most likely become a prisoner in my own flat, and if I get a fever (any sort of fever) it will be very hard and potentially very dangerous to hide it from the authorities. Needless to say, I don’t want to go to any camp.

It’s amazing how things that we take for granted can be taken away from us so easily. Everything that seemed 100% secure in my life just a month ago —my home, my work, my income, my personal freedom to walk outside and travel internationally— have basically been taken away from me. Luckily, there’s plenty of 막걸리 here to drown my sorrow!
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby iguanamon » Sat Feb 15, 2020 5:53 pm

Purangi wrote:It’s amazing how things that we take for granted can be taken away from us so easily. Everything that seemed 100% secure in my life just a month ago —my home, my work, my income, my personal freedom to walk outside and travel internationally— have basically been taken away from me.

I can relate to that. When Hurricane Maria struck us on September 18/19, everything changed. No electricity, no water, no gasoline, everything was closed. There was a curfew in place for a month. I couldn't work. The airport was closed. Everything is ok until... it isn't. Hurricanes have taught me this. It can all be ripped away in a moment.
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Purangi
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby Purangi » Wed Feb 26, 2020 3:56 pm

I am back in Beijing, and officially in quarantine for the next 14 days.

The city is quite unrecognizable. The subway and streets are mostly empty, except for the ubiquitous checkpoints manned by CPC committee members and public security officers. To reach my flat from the nearest subway station, I had to talk my way through four checkpoints, which was great Mandarin practice! My body temperature was checked every time.

I flew directly from Korea, where the virus has now started spreading. People in my building’s committee know about this and so they first refused to let me in and wanted me to go to the quarantine hospital. We finally had to call the local police station, who came over and confirmed that there was no legal basis to block me from entering my home. I was given a small green card and told that I have to stay home for 14 days and that breaching the quarantine is a criminal offense.

Beijingers are not exactly known for their kindness in normal circumstances, but I have never seen people here so tense and aggressive. It’s fascinating —and incredibly scary— to see how fear can easily make us territorial-minded, mistrustful, almost tribal. Add a Kafkaesque bureaucracy, and you got a recipe for disaster. I have plenty of water and food at home, so I have no plan of going out for as long as possible. The checkpoints won’t let me go anywhere anyway. Foreign websites are completely blocked and VPNs have mostly stopped working.

So what should I do, alone at home, for 14 days? Korean language immersion, of course!

First of all, I decided to return to Korea and stay there for at least one year, starting from next summer. That’s exactly what I needed to keep me motivated and focused on the language. I got about 6 months ahead and I need to make real improvement. The last 3 weeks in Seoul really helped me gauge my level and identify what I need to work on over the next months. A lot of it is about focusing on basic memorization work and filling in the gaps in my previous approach. In many ways, it is the right time to adjust the way I do things. That means less passive listening, and more active work.

1. I need to stop learning only infinitive forms of verbs and start learning to conjugate verbs in the different speech levels;
2. I need to learn by heart a number of “language islands” about frequent topics relevant to my life;
3. I need to definitely solve gaps in my pronunciation (ㄸ!ㅆ!ㅃ!).
4. The above should help me work on my listening skills.

To improve verb conjugation, I will rely on a book called 500 Basic Korean Verbs. It might be a crazy idea, but my plan is to learn to conjugate every one of them in 40 different endings. Most of the verbs are regular, so it's not impossible. The goal is really to develop patterns and make conjugation automatic and natural. When I was in Seoul, there were so many times where I could not finish a sentence not because of vocabulary gaps, but because I knew only the infinitive form of a verb! Together with learning the islands, I think this might be a shortcut to real improvement in spoken skills. I will work through the book systematically, and I already got the two first verbs down, so only 498 to go.

To improve speaking skills, I will write, correct and learn a number of language islands. I already wrote and corrected the first two islands with the help of a native speaker—one about self-introduction and the other about my family. Each has around 350 words. I looked about ways and tips to memorize verbatim short texts and found many useful info online.

It seems that repeatedly listening to/reading a text is the least efficient way to remember the content (which explains why I remember so few of Glossika, despite the many hours invested!). It seems I need to activate memory neurons, and one way to do that is to create a second version of the text by including only limited information, and have the brain fill in the gaps. This will help the brain works towards memorizing and not just understanding the content.

Here’s an example. These are Korean sentences from my first “island”:
만나서 반가웠습니다. 저는 우리가 다시 만나길 바라겠습니다. 저 먼저 가볼게요. 저 먼저 갈게요. 안녕히계세요! 조심히가세요. 빗길 조심하세요. 잘가요! 안녕히가세요!

The second step is to reproduce the same text, but with only limited information, such as with only the first syllable of each word: 만.반. 저. 우.만. 바. 저 먼. 가. 저 먼. 갈. 안. 조. 빗. 조. 잘. 안. I can use this to memorize the text, eventually using nothing but my memory to recall it verbatim.

About pronunciation, I am working my way through the excellent book The Sounds of Korean: A Pronunciation Guide. It has everything someone could need to learn Korean pronunciation thoroughly. I really feel I got my hands on this book at the right time in my studies: reading hangeul is not a problem anymore, which makes understanding its intricacies so much easier! So many of my questions have found answers in the explanations provided by the book. The audio exercises are also very extensive and complete. I recommend using it when you are comfortable enough with reading and have a good understanding of basic grammar patterns.

For listening, there is not much to do except exposing myself to the language. That means more dramas and podcasts. But I don’t want to make it the bulk of my approach anymore: memorization will take precedence. Same thing with flashcards. I watched the first episode of High Kick last night while reading the transcript — it was not exactly enjoyable, but I am sure it was useful.

Oh, and I am also working my way through FSI Headstart Korean and Pimsleur Korean. Not sure if I will really benefit from it, but there’s so much free time in quarantine, so I might as well use it.

Before coming to China I went on Archive.org and downloaded a few travelogues written by French travelers to Korea around 1890-1900. It’s quite interesting to read their stories and see what has changed and what remains the same. For one, Koreans used to dress only in white at the time, which must have been quite a sight and seemed to have left a strong impression on foreigners.
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Purangi
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby Purangi » Tue Mar 10, 2020 1:20 pm

Quarantine is over for me. I got out yesterday for the first time in 14 days and got my official neighborhood card, which means I am healthy (for now) and can come in and out of the building – provided I get my temperature checked every time. If I ever have a fever, they will call the ambulance on the spot.

2 weeks stuck inside my little flat is quite a long time. I managed to stay healthy by eating only one meal per day and doing an insane amount of push-ups. I even jogged a distance of 2 km from my kitchen to my bed a couple of times. I stayed sane by reading a lot, listening to hours of podcasts, watching TV and studying Korean. I also worked a lot, much more than usual. It is somewhat ironic that this whole epidemic might actually result in an income raise for me.

My travel plans to Central Asia for April were cancelled, but luckily, I got a full refund. VPN is back online, but only partially. I was able to access twitter and it’s interesting to see how people react back home: there is a strong feeling of déjà vu.

Things are looking up in Beijing. It’s not the apocalypse, not yet. What I am afraid is that the control measures will probably linger well past the end of the epidemics, which will make life here even more miserable. The overall mood seemed to have changed a lot in just 2 weeks. People are more optimistic now, more relaxed, and controls are sometimes a bit lax. But not always – I saw a grandpa who forced his way through a checkpoint because he didn’t have his neighborhood card. There was a lot of screaming, police was called, a lot of screaming again, and an arrest.

Going out also meant I was able to go to my workplace and pick up my flashcards.

So what did I achieve over these two weeks?

I watched the 16 episodes of Descendants of The Sun. I understood quite a lot, but still not enough to remove subtitles.

I finished reading The Sounds of Korean: A Pronunciation Guide. I can’t think of a better book to learn Korean pronunciation. It helped me correct many of my problems. The chapter on Hangeul transformation was incredibly useful and explained so many things.

My “language island” project is going strong. I already got two down: I can recite them by heart, although not at natural speed yet, but I am still working on it. I wrote a third one. The way I work is simple: every time I see a sentence I think might be useful in my grammar book/Harry Potter book/on TV/on the Web, I write it down. Then I combine the many sentences in one dialogue, making it as natural as possible. I get my dialogue corrected and recorded by a native speaker, and then I learn it by heart. My current goal is to complete 10 dialogs over the next few months or so, every time on a different topic.

I studied the first 50 verbs in 500 Basic Korean Verbs. A lot of them are하다, 되다, 보다 verbs, so I tend to focus on the other ones, which are sometimes a big tricky. I think this approach is proving effective, as I already recognized a few verbs on Korean TV, which I would not have recognized otherwise.

I have been reading A History of the Korean Language. The first chapter on the origins of Korean is quite informative. The comparison with Manchu is quite convincing, even more so than the potential Japanese relations. It’s also interesting that the Altaic family theory is widely accepted in Korea. I remember watching a TV show about travel to Hungary and the host started by saying Koreans and Hungarians are part of the same ancestry tree, and everybody just nodded in agreement.

I also started reading the first Harry Potter book. I read one paragraph in English, and then the same paragraph in Korean. I can more or less follow the story. Verbs and nouns are not really the problems, but adverbs and adjectives, and anything too descriptive go way over my head. I haven’t been using my flashcards, but reading a book is really the same thing.

One thing made me really happy: I have been going through FSI Headstart Korean and Pimsleur Korean lessons at about one per day each, and I found them to be very easy. So easy, in fact, I learn almost nothing new. I remember that was definitely not the case last time I tried those two courses, so that is one sign that I am actually progressing.
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Purangi
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby Purangi » Tue Mar 24, 2020 3:40 am

I was so happy finally to get out of quarantine that I decided to take up running again. I was going to shake off those two weeks of sedentary stress and get back in shape. Streets are empty anyway, which make running a real joy, if not for the mandatory facemask. Unfortunately, after a sudden running streak of four days, an old stress fracture reopened in my left foot... So now I am back where I started, isolated at home, unable to walk even around my little flat! Painful irony.

In other news, the virus has finally landed in my hometown in Canada, where my parents are in isolation. I do not worry much for them as things seem to be under control for the moment. But really, who knows? I am now entering my five weeks in quasi self-isolation. Time passes very fast. I keep myself busy, so busy in fact that I can’t possibly do everything I want to do in one day. The silver lining in all that is that my work is going even better than normal. Getting rid of commuting and putting everything online has nearly doubled our efficiency. That’s a real luxury given how many people will lose their jobs now.

I am halfway through my first book in Korean – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Reading is getting easier, but I still have to rely on the English translation. Hangeul doesn’t feel foreign anymore. Dialogues are easy, but descriptive passages are still a problem.

I tend to meet an increasing number of onomatopoeia and mimetic words. Korean is full of them, and they look so fun that I can’t wait to start using them. My favorite as of now is어마어마하다 (eoma-eoma-hada), which means “formidable, amazing,” but can also literately be translated has “something that makes you go ‘Oh, my! Oh, my!’” A few examples below:
중얼중얼 - muttering, murmuring
부글부글 – boiling, bubbling up
슬금슬금 – stealthily
두근두근 - palpitating
사근사근 - debonair
소근소근 – whispering
슬근슬근 – stealthily
추근추근 – persistently
둥글동글– easygoing, well-rounded
방글방글 – smilingly
싱글싱글 - grin from ear to ear
이글이글 - blazing, glowing
지글지글 – sizzling
쭈글쭈글 – wrinkled
노긋노긋 – elastic
뜨끈뜨끈 - burning hot
따끈따끈 – warmly
미끈미끈 – slippery
지끈지끈 – snappingly
미적미적 – hesitatingly

My language-island project is still on-going. I learned the first three islands verbatim, and the fourth one is written, corrected and recorded. I force myself to recite out loud all of the islands at least one time per day. The texts are also getting longer and more complex. It helps me both review and learn new vocabulary, as well as getting used to grammatical patterns.

To be completely honest, I don’t know how useful this is, but I figure it can’t hurt. So much of what I do in terms of language learning feels inefficient – I always learn something, of course, but I am always thinking in the back of my mind: is this really the most useful way to spend an hour? I do not feel like that when I tackle a language island. It gets me speaking material that is corrected and proofread by a native speaker, and so it cannot be bad. It certainly is more useful than flash cards.

Here’s the latest island I wrote, maybe it can help and give ideas to some other Korean learners out there:
배 안 고파요? 점심 뭐 먹을래요? 냉장고에 먹을 게 아무것도 없어요.
쌀, 빵, 과자, 달걀, 우유, 고구마, 이런 거 밖에 없어요.
그럼 우리 뭐 좀 먹으러 나가요. 괜찮은 집을 알고 있어요. 그런데 너무 많은 걸 바라지 마세요.
그럼 우리 같이 먹을래요? 그래요 그럼. 그러지 뭐. 뭐 먹으러 갈까요? 짬뽕 먹어본 적 있어요?
한식 싸고 맛있으니까, 거기 갈까요? 근데 거긴 서비스가 좀 별로여서...
우리 여기 왔던 데 인가요?? 저는 아니고요. 저 혼자 왔었어요, 그 때 당신은 없었어요.
어서 오세요! 몇 분이세요?? 세 분이세요? 두 명이에요. 이쪽으로 오세요. 저쪽에 앉으세요.
메뉴 갖다 드릴까요?네, 갖다 주세요. 주문 하시겠습니까? 여기 뭐가 맛있어요?
이 식당의 대표 요리는 무엇인가요? 유명한 메뉴 다양하게 있어요.
이 메뉴 중에서 추천해 주세요. 만약 해물을 좋아한다면, 회냉면,생선구이,낚지볶음이 괜찮아요.
국물이 먹고 싶다면, 김치짜글이, 된장찌개, 삼계탕, 설렁탕, 곱창전골, 해장국, 감자탕, 순대국, 만두전골이 있어요…
음료수, 콜라 탄산음료, 사이다, 이런 거는 전혀 안마셔요. 거의 마시지 않아요.
커피, 인삼차, 홍차, 보리차, 녹차 이런 거 무척 좋아해요.
저는 고기와 해산물 다 잘먹어요: 생선,소고기,양고기,닭고기,돼지고기,게.
오뎅도 있고, 어묵도 있어요. 이 요리는 일본 거 아니에요. 그럼, 어느 나라 거예요?
주문하시겠어요? 네, 불고기 이(2)인분하고 냉면 두 그릇하고 피자 한 조각 주세요.
불고기하고 냉면 같이 갖다 드릴까요? 아니요, 불고기 먼저 갖다 주세요.
여러분 잠시만 기다려주세요. 맛있게 드세요. 잘 먹겠습니다!
중국 음식처럼보입니다. 하지만 좀 매워요. 여기 옥수수 들어있어요? 물론 있지요!내 말이!
이거 좀 매울 것 같아요. 한 번도 안 먹어봤는데. 다음번에는 꼭 먹어봐야겠어요.
저는 한 번 먹어본 적 있어요, 별로 안 좋아해요. 그런 종류의 음식은 저 아내가 좋아해요. 저는 별로 안 좋아해요.
후식 드시겠어요? 디저트는 저는 주로 초콜릿, 호떡, 요구르트, 팥빙수를 먹어요.
한 번 먹어볼래요? 아니요, 사양하겠습니다. 저는 백설기는 별로... 이게 팥이죠, 초콜릿 아니구요.
여기 오기 전에는 캐나다 음식이 맛있다고 생각 했는데 여기 와서 살짝 마음이 바뀌었어요.
이거는 단거예요. 이거 새콤달콤해요. 이 게 진짜 원래 맛이에요. 맛이 원래 이런 건가요?
맛이 너무 싱겁고, 밋밋하고, 풍미가 없어요. 맵거나 달콤한 것을 좋아해요. 매운 거 잘먹어요.
맛이 나쁘지 않았어요, 분위기가 시끄럽고 사람으로 붐볐어요. 많은 사람들이 담배를 피우고 있었어요.
좋대요? 얘가 싫대요. 저는 상관없어요. 신경 안 써요. 신경 쓰지 말고 걱정하지 마세요.
생맥주 한 잔에 얼마죠? 한 잔에2600원이에요. 됐어요, 시키지 마요!
뭐 필요한 거 더 없으세요? 저기요. 여기 물 한 잔만 더 주세요.
젓가락 좀 주시겠어요? 반찬 좀 더 주세요. 여기 밥 하나 추가요.
이거 안 시켰는데요. 이거 주문 안 했는데요. 맞아요, 이거 서비스 에요.
다 드셨어요? 네, 다 먹었어요. 계산서 좀 갖다 주세요.
저기요! 포장해 주세요. 비닐 봉지 있어요? 포장비 1,000원을 추가로 내야합니다.
다 합해서 9천 원입니다. 지불은 현금으로 하시겠습니까? 신용카드로 하시겠습니까?
현금으로 낼게요. 만 원 받았습니다. 천 원 드렸습니다.
좀 깎아 주세요. 할인 없나요? 또 오세요. 안녕히가세요~ 다음에 오겠습니다.


I am almost halfway through the book 500 Korean Verbs. Technically I can now conjugate correctly 250 verbs. It helps that so many verbs end in보다, 가다, 오다 or 하다. It’s getting much easier to see repeated patterns. I estimate that less than 10% of verbs are really problematic, 90% are either completely regular or easy enough. I used to find it annoying and unnecessary complicated that Korean has so many verbs that are created by mixing to verbs together (돌아보다, 올라가다, etc.). Now it’s the opposite: it makes things incredibly easier, as you only have to conjugate the second of the two verbs, which always happen to be a very common one.

I am creating a different set of flash cards only for the 500 most common verbs. Every time I pick a card, I do not just translate the verb, I also review the 30 or so most common conjugated forms. It takes much longer to review cards this way, but it certainly is more useful.

I keep producing new flash cards based on the Excel sheet “6000 most common Korean words,” downloadable online. I also realized that I had too many flash cards and so I came up with my own version of the Leitner system to phase out older/easier cards. There are ten steps in total: five steps from Korean to L1 and five steps from L1 to Korean. After going through these 10 steps, the card is “graduated.” I found that I remember cards much better after encountering the words in real-life material, which makes sense and means that I should really transition toward native content as soon as possible.

I completed Pimsleur Korean 1 and will start Pimsleur Korean 2 as soon as possible. I also completed My Korean 1 and 2, a really great course from Australia that focuses on real spoken Korean. I also finished Manuel De Coréen from INALCO and Routledge Basic Korean.

I am still reading History of the Korean Language. I keep learning new things in every chapter and I find it very motivating. The part about the Idu script was fascinating. I can’t imagine how much work went into reconstructing early middle Korean, with linguists having to compare the way Chinese and Korean scribes used every character. I was also surprised to learn the “ancestor” of Japanese katakana apparently came from the small phonetic notes that Korean scribes used to write just after Chinese characters to indicate the Korean grammatical endings. Which kind of makes sense given that Chinese characters came to Japan through Korea: another thing I didn’t know. I don’t know why, but I always assumed that Chinese characters came from Chinese merchants travelling by boat from Zhejiang or maybe Taiwan to Japan? But thinking of it now, of course, the shortest route between Japan and China goes through the peninsula.

I have been reading a bit of Portuguese from Mozambique for work. In Spanish, I watched the first season of Narcos with Chinese subtitles. I was glad to see that I was able to understand a lot of Pablo’s Colombian Spanish. A good thing, considering that I completely neglected Spanish over the last months.

Stay safe out there!
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iguanamon
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby iguanamon » Tue Mar 24, 2020 3:07 pm

Mezanmi, ou gen yon zo kase, ala regrèt m regrèt sa. Gen yon fraz iwonik nan kreyòl- "Lè ou kouri twòp, ou kase pye ou." Fraz la vle di "lè ou prese twòp ou pa mache byen". Men pou ou se yon fraz vrèman vre,
non ! Mwen espwa ou refè byen talè, monchè !

Here in the Virgin Islands, as in the rest of the world outside China, we are social distancing and staying home to try to prevent the spread of Covid19. We have a population of about 105,000 and 17 active cases, all but one imported but... it's only a matter of time.
Purangi wrote:... I have been reading a bit of Portuguese from Mozambique for work. In Spanish, I watched the first season of Narcos with Chinese subtitles. I was glad to see that I was able to understand a lot of Pablo’s Colombian Spanish. A good thing, considering that I completely neglected Spanish over the last months.

The actor who plays Pablo Escobar is actually Brazilian- Wagner Moura... and he's not the only one with an iffy accent in the series. 9 Things Colombians Hate About Narcos
Culture Trip wrote:... In Narcos, Escobar is played by Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, who—although he attempted the Colombian accent—didn’t quite get the hang of it. It doesn’t stop there: Escobar’s wife (played by Mexican actress Paulina Gaitán) has a thick Mexican accent; his business associate Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha (Luis Guzman, Puerto Rican-American) and rival Jorge Ochoa (André Mattos, Brazilian) are also played by non-Colombians. Many locals don’t understand why the show doesn’t use Colombian actors, and many refuse to watch the show for this reason alone. A Bogotá local compares Moura’s accent to “someone with a strong southern American accent play Sherlock Holmes.” ...
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Purangi
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby Purangi » Wed Mar 25, 2020 2:04 am

iguanamon wrote:Mezanmi, ou gen yon zo kase, ala regrèt m regrèt sa. Gen yon fraz iwonik nan kreyòl- "Lè ou kouri twòp, ou kase pye ou." Fraz la vle di "lè ou prese twòp ou pa mache byen". Men pou ou se yon fraz vrèman vre,
non ! Mwen espwa ou refè byen talè, monchè !


Zanmi m, mwen pa ka kwè sa non! Proveb sa a, li te fè pou mwen. Mwen byen konprann sans proveb sa a, vrèman, haha! Men, bon, Pye mwen pi bon kounye a, jou apre jou, mwen kap mache kounye a.

Konsènan Pablo, ou fè m ri anpil! Mwen pa janm panse aktè sa a, li se soti nan Brezil! Sa eksplike poukisa li pale konsa. Li pale jis yon ti kras chak fwa epi li pale trè dousman. Mwen te panse li te nan pèsonaj la. An reyalite, se paske panyòl se pa lang li! Se poutèt sa mwen ka konprann li byen. Sa se twò dwol wi, haha!

Corona… wi, li fè anpil dega nan tout mond lan. Rete an sante sou ti zile ou!

Sonje byen : se mèt kò ki veye kò.

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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby Purangi » Thu Apr 02, 2020 10:33 am

- I finished reading my first book in Korean: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, 320 pages. Despite the fact that I had to read it with the help of the English version, it feels quite like an accomplishment. I already look forward to my next book, this time without any English translation, and with audio: The Tears of My Soul by Kim Hyon-hui.

- My reading speed has improved tremendously. At first, reading 2-3 pages was exhausting and excessively long, more than I was willing to spend on this project. At that point I almost thought about giving up. But I kept going (in part due to the situation keeping me from going outside) and something happened around page 180-200 or so: suddenly, I was able to go through 10 pages with little effort. By the end of the book, I was doing 40 pages a day.

- As I read, it became easier to identify and recognize Sino-Korean vocabulary, which made everything else so much easier. Words like 방어법 (防御法) and 장수약 (长寿药) made perfect sense in the context of the book, although I never saw these words in any of my Korean textbooks. Mandarin is paying off hugely.

- I am in no position to judge the style of the Korean translation, but I was shocked to find what I think are quite a lot of obvious mistakes. So obvious, in fact, I really do not understand how they could end up in the final version of the book. Harry Potter books are not exactly easy to translate, but there many examples of translators who having done a very good job, so there is really no excuse. For example, one of the characters (Hagrid) has a very peculiar accent, which is transcribed by the author in this way:
“There’s a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat.”

Apparently, this completely threw off the translator:
“어쩌면 저 쓰레기통 안에 심하게 다친 유니콘이 있을지도 몰라.”

Somehow “bin” (“been”) was translated as “waste bin.” (쓰레기통). The funny thing is that when the same character again uses “bin” instead of “been”, the translator gets it right:
“Ronan, ’cause there’s a unicorn bin hurt — you seen anythin’?”

“다친 유니콘이 한 마리 있거든- 뭐라도 봤나?”

Another mistake I found:
“We could all have been killed — or worse, expelled.”

“우린 모두 쫓겨날 수도 있었어. 아니 더 심하게는, 죽을 수도 있었다구.”

Here the translator obviously “overcorrected”: he or she reversed the order, making dying worst than being expelled, which makes logical sense, but ruins the joke. The whole point here is that Hermione thinks that death is better than expulsion. Another example is the inscription around a door (which can be read backward):
Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.

In the Korean book, it is not even translated, but simply transliterated:
"에리스트 스트라 에루 오이트 우베 카푸루오이트 온 워시"

Same thing about the name of the chapter: The Mirror of Erised, which is directly translated as: The Mirror of Desire (소망의 거울). Talk about ruining the fun for kids!
- I have now learned my fourth “island.” I have to say I was a bit apprehensive after having started this project, as it is a lot of work to write and learn texts. I was also worried I would end up “parroting” my way through the language, being stuck on my little islands while people talk about all kinds of things.

But I am glad to say that it works very well! At least for now. I have seen great improvement in my spoken Korean just over the last few weeks or so, and above all in my confidence. I dare to say I improved even more than during the time I actually was in Korea. I had an improvised conversation in Korean on the phone the other day, with very little hesitation and almost no awkward pause to find the verb ending. I managed to have fluid communication just by relying on the sentences I learned in my first three islands. Sometimes I use the sentence verbatim, and then they just roll off the tongue; other times I will use the same sentence construction but change the verb, subject or object. The key, I think, is to keep the content as flexible as possible (nothing too specific) and as close as one’s actual needs as possible.

I am so happy with results than I am now thinking about using the templates I already created and translating them into other languages I want to refresh/improve, starting with Spanish, and why not Haitian Creole? Portuguese? Russian? I could slowly build up my own set of resources, one that is inherently relevant to my life and my needs, instead of relying on never very satisfying resource (i.e. Glossika).

- I completed Korean Headstart FSI. It is quite good, although a bit formal. Audio quality is great, except for the last lesson, where they use a foreigner to do the dialogue. I didn’t learn anything new, but it was good practice. I am still doing Pimsleur Korean II. I am also slowly working through 500 Korean Verbs (about 350 down at the moment). I stopped doing flashcards for the moment, as I find reading much more enjoyable and a better use of my time.

- I finished the book History of Korean Language. It was a great read, although it raised more questions than answers by the end of the book. The part on the gradual disappearance of characters from Korean public life, as a result not of anti-Chinese sentiment, but of the anti-Japanese movement, was quite interesting. NK abolished characters faster and apparently more thoroughly, while the ROC took more time and still keeps characters for a very specific and limited usage, but their removal seems almost irreversible now. The author mentions the first Hangul-only newspaper, The Independence, created by So Chaep’il, which I remember well because I saw his monument in Seoul. The Harry Potter book I just finished also includes some characters, although very few (I think I saw 4 or 6 in total, and always in brackets to explain the preceding Hangul words).

- Another thing the author says is that dialects everywhere on the Korean peninsula are giving place to Seoul dialect, even in NK, where Seoul was the cultural reference before unification. I can hardly imagine someone in Hyesan or Rajin speaking like a Seoulite, but who knows? Another thing in the book is the statement that dialects are disappearing even faster in NK than in the ROC. Now, to me, that sounds counter-intuitive, and I really do not know how he was able to evaluate that, except perhaps through testimonies of NK refugees? But thinking about it, if the education system is uber-centralized and that a single dialect (Pyongyang) is enforced as the only correct one, than it makes sense. This is what we see in China with Mandarin, for example. But then, that would contradict his first statement?

- The author also says that no one under 50 in the ROC can tell the difference betweenㅐand ㅔ, which I found a bit exaggerated, as I know 20-ish and 30-ish Koreans who can hear and produce the difference very clearly. They might not actually make the difference when speaking at normal speed, but they will if you ask them to isolate crab게 and dog개, for example.

- The author describes English influence on the Korean language in an interesting way: he says the use of just about any English words is considered “fair game” in South Korea. I thought the expression really captured well what I experienced while I was there and when I watch Korean media. Whenever an English word is used, such as in subway ads or on TV, the burden is always on the listener to understand it, and seldom on the speaker to explain the concept -- except when confusion is likely, such as fashion패션vs passion 패션. It means someone with zero English abilities learning Korean will have a really hard time. In some way, this reminded me of Quebec, where English terms and concepts are commonly used with the tacit understanding that if you do not understand, then maybe you are not trying hard enough. The burden is on you. This is radically different from Mainland China, where tolerance for this kind of English “intrusion” is extremely low and can be considered outright offensive.

- I went home after work the other day and I found a “community worker” (those who operate the checkpoints all around Beijing) waiting for me at the door of my apartment. Apparently, someone had “reported” to the local police that a “foreigner was walking around the neighborhood.” She asked to see my papers and after making sure everything was in order, we started talking about the virus – of course, because every damn conversation I had for the last 2 months has been about the virus.

- She told me that COVID-19 did not originate in China, but instead was brought in Wuhan by U.S. soldiers last October, and that this was acknowledged by the U.S. government. This is a rumor I first heard from my Chinese friends weeks ago – and apparently it has now become an “established fact” in Chinese media... There is an interesting language twist: if you read the reports carefully, all of the so-called “evidences” and “acknowledgments” quoted by Chinese media to support this theory are actually mistranslations of statements by U.S. officials and politicians. Meaning the theory is believable only if you have limited understanding of English. The question is: Are Chinese media making a genuine mistake and do not realize it? Or are they manipulating facts on purpose to shift public anger from the CCP to “foreign forces”? (Part of the answer is probably in the fact that Chinese media will promote this theory only on their Mandarin-language platforms, but not on their English platforms…)

- Anyway, as we were speaking, I told her something about hospitals and I said bingyuan病院. She did not understand me, so I repeated: bingyuan病院. She looked at me and said: you mean yiyuan 医院? Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. My brain took a Korean word (byeong-won 병원), linked it to its Sino-Korean characters (病院), and then converted it to modern Mandarin pronunciation (bingyuan). That was the first time Korean interfered with my Chinese. Usually, it is always the other way: I will be speaking Korean, and suddenly I use numbers or verbs in Mandarin to fill the gaps. I don’t know if I should be happy about this (my Korean is improving) or worried (my Mandarin is deteriorating).

Stay safe, everyone.
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby Christi » Thu Apr 02, 2020 6:29 pm

Purangi wrote:

I tend to meet an increasing number of onomatopoeia and mimetic words. Korean is full of them, and they look so fun that I can’t wait to start using them. My favorite as of now is어마어마하다 (eoma-eoma-hada), which means “formidable, amazing,” but can also literately be translated has “something that makes you go ‘Oh, my! Oh, my!’” A few examples below:
중얼중얼 - muttering, murmuring
부글부글 – boiling, bubbling up
슬금슬금 – stealthily
두근두근 - palpitating
사근사근 - debonair
소근소근 – whispering
슬근슬근 – stealthily
추근추근 – persistently
둥글동글– easygoing, well-rounded
방글방글 – smilingly
싱글싱글 - grin from ear to ear
이글이글 - blazing, glowing
지글지글 – sizzling
쭈글쭈글 – wrinkled
노긋노긋 – elastic
뜨끈뜨끈 - burning hot
따끈따끈 – warmly
미끈미끈 – slippery
지끈지끈 – snappingly
미적미적 – hesitatingly



This is so useful! Thanks for sharing. I've also started reading Harry Potter, although at the moment I'm planning on just reading one page a day so I don't end up with too many new words to learn at once.
3 x
2020 resolution words learned: 472 / 1000
Pages read at end of 2020: 220 / 1500

Purangi
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby Purangi » Sat Apr 04, 2020 1:17 am

Christi wrote:This is so useful! Thanks for sharing. I've also started reading Harry Potter, although at the moment I'm planning on just reading one page a day so I don't end up with too many new words to learn at once.


Good luck! I don't know if you have the same version as I used, but keep your eyes open for things that don't make much sense. Here's another sentence in the book which I found quite funny!
Certainly. I have a special gift with trolls.
난 트롤들이라는 특별한 선물을 받았지

Of course, the advantage of reading with a parallel English text is that I don't need to look up every word. It also makes it easier to spot such mistakes.
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