A lazy apprach to Korean + Update

Despite my super positive approach to studying sometimes I do , too, feel super lazy. Recently it seems like I just cannot fall asleep before 4 a.m. , therefore my energies during the day are all over the place.
In addition to that, I recently finished the KGIU Beginner to Lower Intermediate book and it seems like I feel in pit of desperation. This pit is called ”I am not a beginner anymore but not yet intermediate” and is making me crazy just a little bit. This transition from beginner to intermediate happened incredibly natural when I first took up Japanese, I didn’t really feel the difficulty gap at all. On the other end though, the experience with Korean is significantly different. Not that it is a bad thing… I am just struggling a little. I am proud of the quick improvement with my Korean but I need just a little bit to consolidate my beginner skills to do the jump and immerse myself into 중급!

Given that, I decided that my ”break” would’ve been a massive dose of dramas and 예능 쇼.

So it has been for the past week. I am currently going on and off between Hello Counselor and Marriage, Not Dating. Even if I am currently on a break I cannot switch K-learner mode off, I must be always ready to capture new words, new grammar points and bits that I can understand. I still feel uncomfortable without subs but I try to switch them off every now and then and it is not that difficult compared what I thought, I still struggle though. I am considering to try the Korean sub option on Viki but there aren’t many dramas that I am interested to and have this option, unfortunately. Anyways,  I am trying to be as active as possible and it is working.

These are my notes for the past week, 9 pages, I am quite proud!
I haven’t memorized all of the words, rather I try to remember the context in which they were used and only after writing them down properly on my notebook. A little bit risky for a beginner but I see that words stick better this way rather than vocab lists or flash cards.

It’s mostly stuff I see written, little bits I am able to write down and random words I can pick up while watching.
Also, I love this little post it pack I used as a little notebook, I often bring it whenever I go to revise a little.

Another thing I’ve been doing because I am lazy and a fangirl is writing down drama quotes from hangeulquotes and see how much I can understand. Surprisingly, I could understand more than I expected, I am getting used to Korean syntax which can be quite tricky from time to time.

So this is how I keep Korean rolling while I am technically on a ”break”. Well, break is a weird word to use let’s say ”not textbook studying”. It’s me bidding farewell to beginners’ club and starting to adventure into 중급. I think I’ll be consolidating what I learnt in beginner level for a little bit longer, I assume few more weeks before fully start intermediate.

These days 자우림 and 椎名林檎 have been keeping me company all day long.

Total Jam!!

I’ll be leaving here, thank you for reading and see you soon!

There and Back Again + Let It Go

Hello!

HISASHIBURI DANE~~

It’s been a while! I wonder if you guys have wondered where I’ve been all this time, probably not but ,anyway, I am here again! I am not the type that suddently leaves without a reason and my reason this time was SCHOOL >w< I don’t know how it works in your contry but here January-February along with May-June are the worst months for every student. 3 or 2 tests tests everyday for weeks, time for yourself? None… Aside that I am ill again and I haven’t had any interesting thing to say to you. I believe that this kind of blog(you know, like mine…) should be first of all informative and helpful for those who read it. Not that I have something against personal blogs, I also write pretty personal posts too, but I prefer focusing on languages and stuff. And, come on, who says we can’t write personal things without putting languages in between??

*The title “There and Back Again” is not mine(of course!), nor it has a particular meaning in this occasion, I just wanted to use it 😀 

 

Since I said that along with personal things we should also add something informative to this blog, I decided to share with you a song I’ve really been into in these last few months~ 

First of all guys, have you seen Frozen? You know, the new Disney animated film 🙂 Well, I did and I fell in love ♥ I know I seem pretty childish, indeed I think I am, but this film was really really great that I went 3 times at the cinema to watch it (I am hopeless!!). Like many of you already know, the soundtrack won several prizes and the main song “Let It Go” is nominated as Best Original Song for this year’s Academy Awards. Given that I love this movie with my whole heart today I wanted to talk about the song. I decided to translate the various version of the song into English and Italian, I already did Korean, Japanese and Chinese and since my blog is mainly about those languages I decided to post a little vocabs list for every version of the song I’ve translated , so you can learn some new vocabulary too~

 

ありのまま= the truth, fact, as it is

姿=すがた= figure, shape, appearance

囁く=ささやく= to whisper, to murmur

打ち明ける=うちあける= to be frank, to speak one’s mind, to open one’s heart 

戸惑い=とまどい= confusion, wanderment

悩む=なやむ= to be worried, to be troubled 

少しも=すこしも= anything, (with negative sentence) not one bit

冷える=ひえる= to grow cold, to get chilly, to cool down 

ほっと= feeling relieved 

Those are the new words I learnt translating this song, did you know them already? 

 

little ps. before leaving: Yesterday I turned 17 ~ I hope this year to be good 😀

SO~~ Bye bye guys~ 再见～~!!!

What 2 weeks(pretty much) of full immersion in Korean have done to me

Hello~ 

I kind of woke up(again) from my lethargic status, I was ill(again..)

Anyway, let’s talk about other (funnier) things!

2 weeks ago I posted a picture of Super Junior my mobile pone, telling you I was going to full immerse into Korean for some time. Now about 2 weeks are passed and I can see some positive results! ^^

Having studied for about 2 years Japanese actually made me a little bit too used to Kanji and Kana that, graphically speaking, can make reading comprehension a lot easy, because you can work out the meanings more fast. To be honest, even if I studied and learned hangeul quite some time ago, I could read it well but the immediate comprehension was a little bit hard for me, still a beginner.. Putting everything I learned in a context helped me a lot from that point of view. Sometimes we study too much grammar and vocabulary without seeing the actual “usage” of it in the spoken language.

I give you a quick example: I use a lot this application for smartphones called LINE(It’s a chatting app), when a new message arrives a green box appears in your screen and you have to options: close or view, in Korean —>  닫기 and 보기. Now I know the two verbs 딛다 and 보다 and I also came across the -기 form that makes the verb into a noun. I got how to use it and the meaning but seeing how it’s used in “real life” makes things easier for me… 

Another thing I did during these 2 weeks was watching and listening to a lot of Korean medias(Dramas, TV shows, Music… ). When I was listening to a song or watching a drama, everytime I heard some familiar grammar patterns or vocabulary, the little light bulm inside my head switched on: “Hey, I can recognise that word!”, “Wow, I understood what he’s saying”, “So this is how it is used..” you know things like that. Of course it’s not like I can understand everything or that with two weeks of this I became a pro in Korean, I am a mere beginner, I still have to learn A LOT! 

To conclude, this full immersion thing ain’t new and I’ve tried it already with Japanese but this time I was able to get into the language more quickly. I think that the actual point of all of this is that when learning a language things should become obvious to you. When I listen to a song I watch a drama I always keep my brain working, ready to get some new words or grammar from the context, always trying to understand the situation. It’s like being a baby when learning how to speak, catching informations and make them his/hers. I don’t know if you get what I mean though^^` I think I am starting to get complicated here…

Now I can only say that I think you should also try to put books aside and get more active in a language!

So.. this is everything for today, if you read untill here, thank you for your patience ^0^

See you next time~`

Ps. there are some “CONs” in all of this, you’ll start swearing around like the sassiest protagonist of a romance drama… 아이씨~~~

Dealing with “Asian Numbers”

I started school just yesterday, everything is fine and I actually haven’t started to study yet, I have to meet new teachers so I still can consider myself a free girl. Usually I wake up really really early in the morning, I am really slow and I prefer to do things without rush. Said that, I usually am ready to at 7.30, it’s a pity that school starts at 8.30 ^^` A whole hour for myself, what to do? Personally during exams time I use this time to review subjects but since I had nothing to do for today I decided to review some Korean and Japanese!

Since I started I always had problems with numbers, in every language I’ve studied. Numbers are a very simple thing, it’s beginner level but for me it has always been difficult, not memorizing them but use them in everyday life. Sometimes I would pick up my phone and say out loud the numbers in my contact list but sometimes it’s not enough, especially with Asian counting systems.

after some time you can get used to it but, in my modest opinion, Asian languages(Japanese, Korean and Chinese, I can’t speak for the others because I don’t know about them unfortunately) have a particular relationship with numbers. I am talking about counters, and dual number system things..

Both Korean and Japanese have 2 counting system, and one of them is based  on the Chinese numbers.

I actually love studying Chinese because of this too… You know, this connection between these languages, it’s what keeps me motivated, and also because it’s beautiful! 

Back to the numbers…

    Chinese                  Korean          　 Japanese

一 yī                          일   il                 一  ichi

二 èr                         이   i　　　　　　　　二  ni  

三  sān                      삼  sam　          三  san

四  sì                         사  sa                四  yon\shi 

五  wǔ                       오  o                  五  go

六  liù                       육  yuk               六  roku

七  qī                        칠  chil               七  nana\shichi

八  bā                       팔  pal　　　         八  hachi

九  jiǔ                       구  gu                 九  kyuu\kuu

十  shí                      십  sip　　　　　　　十 　juu　　

Of course languages evolve but you can see an obvious connection between these three languages. I wondered about this all the morning  at school :

If they already had their own numbers why to adapt a language to another one?

And, How to use them? Are there specific rules  or motivations to use one instead of the other?

The first one can be easily answered looking through an history book, or a Wikipedia page if you prefer. I think we could say that Chinese people were to Asia what Romans were for Europe, no matter what, the influence is visible. I don’t know it this comparison can work, but Chinese left its mark around!　At a certain point the populations who had commercial or political relationships with China had to adapt to deal with Chinese and its writing, that’s how it worked. I recall I watched a episode of 日本人の知らない日本語 about this matter but I really can’t remember which one…

The second one is more difficult, because after hours and hours on the Internet I couldn’t find a proper answer>< I got that usually Native numbers are mostly used with things that express a ordinal usage, but I am not that sure of it and I am almost sure there are more exceptions than actual rules….

I am really sorry for this long and boring blog post, but this is basically how I demonstrate my love for languages, I don’t just learn them but I wanna go to the roots and understand more and more! 

Now I go, tomorrow I will have my first philosophy lesson and I am pretty nervous… wish me good luck! I hope you all will have a wonderful day!!~