Talk to me (in Korean or English) ? :D

Talk to me (in Korean or English) ? 😀

OR IF YOURE A KPOP FAN TOO ESP. SHAWOL AND EXO STAN. WE CAN SPAZZ TOGETHER ❤

(Update) Hiatus :((

Heey guys! Long time no see/hear. I’ve been really busy with school since its my senior year in highschool. I havent touched any of my  Korean ever since summer and I’m ashamed.. ;—-; I didnt mean to neglect my korean studies but due to my really busy schedule, all I could manage to do is listen to kpop everyday,read/sing the lyrics and watch wwm. Now, I’m gonna try to squeeze some korean studying in whenever I have the time. I doubt I’ll be able to update often but oh well. The important thing is to get back to my studies haha.. Fighting!!!!

Korean to Japanese

I made a new blog dedicated to my Japanese learning journey. I’ve decided to take a break from Korean (nope not giving up, just taking a break) due to lack of resources. I’ve gotta admit I’ve been into Japanese longer than Korean but i love both of them the same way. I’ve tried a million times before to learn Japanese but i always end up failing.. Anyways, since there’s plenty of resources as in grammar books and stuff for Japanese in where I live, I decided to give it a go again and stick to it. If only shipping fees aren’t so expensive for me to able to order a Korean textbook. 😥

Anyways, feel free to check out my Japanese journey: http://www.mylangjourney.wordpress.com

PS. To people who say Japanese is easier than Korean, all I can say is あの。。。진짜?! For me, Japanese is 100000000x harder than Korean. ._.

으르렁 – 엑소 Vocabulary

I swear I fell inlove with this song as soon as I heard it. The dance, the beat, their voices and faces = me fangirling all throughout the song. This song hasn’t even released for a week and I feel like I’ve listened to it a million times already (typical me).

Anyways, I searched for the lyrics in korean and tried singing along to it but obviously failed. The beat’s to fast for me to read and sing at the same time :S So I kinda gave up on that and tried looking up words that caught my eyes. Like I mentioned before I learn words more quickly when I hear it all the time. Not only do I learn the word, but I also have some idea on how the word is used in a context.

Anyways, so these are the words I learned ^^
– 위험 : (명사) danger
– 자극하다 : (동사) to provoke
– 감추다 : (동사) to hide, to conceal
– 불꽃 : (명사) fireworks
– 튀다 : (동사) to splatter
– 눈앞 : (명사) before one’s eyes (sight or view)
– 캄캄하다 : (동사) to be gloomy, dark, hopeless
– 쳐다보다 : (동사) to look (at), stare (at), gaze (at)
– 자꾸 : ( 부사 ) repeatedly, over and over again, again and again

Please correct me if I’m wrong. ^^ 감사합니다!

Reading Widely

I know sometimes reading can be a pain when you dont understand 90% of what you’re reading. To be honest, I hate reading because of this, but then at the same time, its kinda fun once you get the hang of it.

I tend to read children picture books, song lyrics, webtoons, and sometimes articles about my favorite kpop groups if its not too long. I tend to read articles that I’m interested in. If I cant find any short articles I like, I tend to go for literatures that looks pretty simple to digest but still a bit challenging. To be honest, I really prefer reading (more like sing) song lyrics the most; especially my favorite songs. I’ll explain why later.

Anyways, I came to realize some benefits reading widely could offer. It helps you:
• expand your vocabulary – come a cross a word that you’re not familiar with? Stop and pause for a minute and search it! and write it down on your notebook. Skipping it would really pointless if you’re aiming to improve.
• fasten up your reading pace (maybe. depends on how much you read)
• become familiar with unfamiliar words and phrases

Tips:
• Read widely and often.
• Read the article you’ve read more than once and then read it again the next day to see if you’ve made some improvement and understood more without the help of a dictionary.
• Read out loud. Read as if you’re reading it to someone else.

Back to why I prefer reading song lyrics.
• English subs/translations are basically everywhere. I could just search for the lyrics and look at the engsub and see if what I thought it meant was right.
• It helps me remember vocabulary more efficiently. I hear a lot of words like 약속, 거짓말 and stuff in songs. Once I hear the words plenty of times, specially in a pumped up beat, it sticks to my brain really easily. For example, whenever I see or hear the word 거짓말, B1A4’s song ‘이게 무슨 일이야’ starts playing in my head.

Anyways, these are all what I could think of from the top of my head right now. I had plenty of ideas earlier but i forgot them ㅠㅠ . Since everyone is different, sorry if these doesnt work that great for you. These are just what works for me and I just felt like sharing. Anyways, I’ll proof read this later. Its 7am here already and I still havent slept so yeah, it probably didnt made any sense. Hehe time to sleep now. Goodnight/morning! ^^

Problem with Lang-8

Dont get me wrong. I love lang-8 because it gives you the opportunity to get your journals corrected by Native speakers. It’s just, how will I know if the correction is reliable or not? What if the one who corrected my work is just playing around? I think I’m a doubtful person. LOL There’s always these what if’s going on in my head. As for lang-8, I guess its a risk I’ll have to take. Ofcourse I want to get my work corrected by a native speaker. It’s just I dont wanna write wrong corrections on my notebook and study the wrong ones, you know?

[Review] Korean Made Easy for Everyday Life

As promised, I will be doing a review on this book. This is my very first book review, so please bare with me ㅎㅎ

Overview:

Click for larger image.

This book is divided into two parts – Part 1 and Part 2. Part 1 is consist of 10 units. Each unit has its own topic and introduce 5 expressions related to this certain topic. They also give a brief explaination of when to use this expression. Each unit also consist of 3 simple dialouges and a “Try It Out” section where you can practice and see how each expressions are use in everyday life.

Dialouge from Part 1

Part 2 is a little different. Part 2 is consist of 6 chapters and each chapters has 4 scenes in it. Each scene is consist of one main dialouge, a grammar focus, a “flashback” section, Additional vocabulary section (that is related to the dialouge), a “coffee break”, Pronounciation Tip and Quiz Yourself section,  and lastly a Director’s Commentary section.

Click for larger image.

 The last section of this book is the appendix. No, not your appendix . The appendix is divided into 3 section – the grammar chart, answer keys and the index. Hopefully I didn’t ruin the book that much :$

Click for larger image.

The section I love the most in this book is the Director’s Commentary section. This section talks about Korean culture and practical information about life in Korea. I think this (picture on the left) is my most favorite part in the entire book. I dont really know why but I love learning about Superstitions (미신)

What I like about this book: 

• There’s pretty much no romanizations. I only saw a few in the Director’s Commentary which is pretty barable. I don’t really know why but I find romanizations distracting. I only find it useful when it comes to learning 한굴 other than that, I hate it.
• Everything is in color. It keeps me from getting bored. It keeps me interested and flipping through the book.
• All the dialouges have english translation.  The english translations are also located on the right in a smaller font. Which is great because its not distracting at all. I understand why some people hate having translations with the context or article, but to be honest, I’d rather have english translations to refer to whether I’m understanding the context or not. The only times I hate it is when its located right below the context (i think i sound like a hypocrite right now lol) .
• All the Grammar Focus section has a “Becareful” tips right below it and they also give a pretty decent amount of sample sentences which is a thumbs up.
• The Quiz Yourself section is all in Korean which makes it looks a bit intimidating (but its pretty simple though). The only part in English are the directions. I also like how they give examples on how you should answer it. I only answer the questions in my head though because the book is too precious for me to write on ;_;
• Oh yeah, did I mentioned it comes with a CD ? No? Well, now you know. I really like how they include the track number on everything that has an audio recording.

What they could change to improve the book:

• I wasn’t really that satisfied with their explainations in the Grammar Focus. But since they included a pretty decent amount of examples/ sample sentences and a “Becareful” tip, its not that bad. I mean, you can still understand what theyre trying to convey but yeah.. Idk maybe its just me haha
  
• Oh yeah, at first i tried the cd on 2 of my cd players and it didnt work so at first I thought it was broken/damaged. But then I tried it on my brother’s computer and it worked so I figured it only works on the computer. Which is kind of inconvinient for me because I have to borrow my brother’s computer to use it because my laptop doesnt read cds. ._. But I figured out a solution for that. ㅎㅎ I transfered some of the audio files onto my ipod and then yaaay – i can listen to it without any problems 😀

My thoughts about this book:

Darakwon’s summary of this book is that it’s meant for intermediate learners, but I kind of disagree. To be honest, I dont know what level I am on but I’m certain that I’m not a beginner-beginner nor an intermediate (because I still dont understand 80% of TTMIK Iyaki sections which are meant for intermediates). Anyways, and since I already know 80% of the grammar points that they talked about on this book, I think this book is meant for mid-upper beginner learners. Also, I’m pretty certain that intermediate learners would already know the basic greetings and such (aka Part 1 section). I would also recommend this to people who are planning to stay in Korea for a few weeks to a few months or so because it teaches/shows you the basics that you need to know to be able to survive/communicate in Korea for a short period of time. Ofcourse you would have to learn 한굴 first because, like i said, this book is entirely in Korean (aka no romanizations).

(I dont really know if this made any sense but hopefully its helpful. Sorry in advance if it doesnt make any sense. I wrote this in the middle of the night so yeah, my mind’s kind of dead haha. anyways, 안녕~ )

Korean Proverb

So, a few minutes ago, I decided to search up some korean proverbs with english translations ofcourse. If youre learning a new language, proverbs are a must learn. You dont wanna be like “huh….?” when you encounter it in real life; dont you? Anyways, so i found this proverb that caught my eye. It’s :

잠을 자야 꿈을 꾸지

Literal meaning: You must sleep before you can dream.

It is used to remind people that things don’t just happen; you have to work for them.

I wonder if this is really what it means haha. Anyways, I decided I’m gonna make this my motivational quote well, proverb but you get the idea…. Why? Because I need to work hard to be able to speak Korean in ease. It’s not like I would become fluent overnight, right? I wish though hehe

소포 왔어요!!!

As you all knew (or maybe not), I was the 3rd lucky draw winner from the lucky draw that twochois hold weekly. Twochois is a Korean Store that basically sell all sorts of stuff internationally. From magazines to cookbooks to books to stationaries. They have it all. If they dont, you can make a special order where they buy the stuff for you and send it to you. Isn’t that cool? If you’re a Korean learner like me, this store is heaven for you. They have tons and tons of Korean books/textbooks meant for us and I noticed that their list of products is expanding day by day. Learning Korean from a different language? Not a problem. They also have a solution for that. Visit their site if you haven’t yet. You won’t regret it!

Today, during lunch, I picked up the package that they sent me from the postal office . I was so happy it actually got here. I felt a bit closer to Korea after I received it. I swear, if I wasnt in class when I opened it, i would’ve screamed due to happiness and excitement. Sorry about the really bad quality (taken from ipod thats why), but as you can see, they wrapped it in bubblewrap. Its been a while since I last played with touched a bubblewrap. Everything was also wrapped in plastic. Thank goodness we werent really doing anything in class and my teacher didnt mind about all the plastic noises I made.

The package they sent me contained:

• their business card “We send you Korea.”
• a hand written message
• a Korean magazine called “1st Look”
• a cute, tiny notebook
• and ofcourse the “Korean Made Easy: for everyday life” textbook

 

  

Since I have exams next week boo, I’ll read the book the week after and do a review as soon as I can. Please wait patiently. ^^

Time to study for next week’s exam now. ㅠ-ㅠ

Something is better than nothing

My fail attempt

This is basically a continuation of my previous post lol. So like i said the other day, im gonna be practicing my korean on my new twitter since no one would care if I end up spamming there plus i have no followers to annoy yet lol. I’m gonna try to post atleast one sentence per day. Since I wont have a lot of time to dedicate to my korean studies in the next few weeks, this’ll be the only way to sneak some korean in my busy schedule (studying for exams and homework). I know my grammar and stuff isnt perfect but oh well, something is better than nothing. Plus they say that you need to use the grammars and vocabulary you’ve learned in order to actually fully absorb the information. Besides, practice makes perfect. ^^