소희
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Rewind and repeat
I’ve been listening to 세바시 talks almost non-stop for the past few days. Sometimes I listen to the same one 3-4 times in a row, just to see how much more I can understand compared to the first time. Even though I don’t understand it all I actually do understand quite a bit, and I cannot…
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Korean building blocks
In my quest to improve my conversational skills in general and my narrative skills in particular, I have laid off all the grammar and vocab cramming for the time being. Instead I have been listening, reading, and speaking like crazy. For listening I’ve found the most amazing resource on youtube. If you type in 세바시 you will be…
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Korean ups and downs
Here’s a blog post about two very different Korean-learning days. The first one (Saturday) was a very unproductive day. I had so many plans and good intentions for this day. I was going to review my notes from my LP meeting, listen to podcasts, practice speaking and pronunciation, read a news article in Korean, look…
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Meeting my LP and finishing my drama
Yesterday, I met my language partner for a very interesting session about political systems. In three weeks we’ll have an election to the parliament, so the topic was motivated by all the political campaigns in the Danish media and all the mug shots of politicians and their slogans currently hanging from every lamp post in…
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The devil is in the detail
I don’t think I will ever stop being amazed at how detailed and nuanced the Korean language really is. Yesterday I was studying how to ask favors using fairly fixed expressions in Korean such as “부탁 하나 있어요”. This lead me to the following example “가게에 가는 김에 우유 좀 사다 줄 수 있어요?”. I…
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All or nothing?
This weekend I’ve been working hard on my listening skills through podcasts, Korean TED talks, and of course a few subtitle-free episodes of 여름향기 (currently have 4 episodes left). During all this listening I’ve made a strange discovery. It seems to me that I either understand everything (여름향기) or next to nothing (random Korean podcast on Korean culture from…
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Rusty Korean?
녹슬었을까봐 조금 걱정했어요. (I was afraid that my Korean had become too rusty.) I told this to my LP whom I was finally able to meet up with yesterday after a three-week hiatus due to various circumstances involving travel, changing schedules, and unplanned meetings. It was soooo nice to be able to speak Korean again, and she…
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“뭐”라고요?
This time I’m going about my Korean drama watching in a new way. I’m currently half-way through the classic “여름향기”, my last drama with 송승헌 before I’ll be able to cross “Watch every drama 승헌 오빠 ever starred in” off my Korean learning bucket list. For those of you who may question my motives; yes, I’m doing this entirely with an educational…
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Four-syllable words in Korean
Not to be confused with four-letter words, these are words of Chinese origin used idiomatically for linguistic efficiency. A few examples: 십중팔구(十中八九) lit. meaning: 8 or 9 out of 10; use: “most likely” 세면도구 (洗面道具) lit. meaning: syllables of various personal hygiene activities; use: “toiletries” 유구무언 (有口無言) lit. meaning: to have nothing to say; use: “offer no…
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A Korean listening challenge
Earlier this week, Jeremy from MotivateKorean kindly sent me a link to a youtube video where a Korean professor of philosophy gives a talk about how we currently live in a polarized society and how we may achieve the right balance. It is about 20 minutes long and quite challenging but I’m sure you’ll find it worth listening to.…
Sofie to Korea 