소희
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제 이름은 김소희…
I met with my language partner today and somehow we ended up talking about Korean names. I told her that I had gotten better at telling whether a Korean name belongs to a man or a woman but that I still make mistakes from time to time. That led us to the pronunciation of my…
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Bye bye, subtitles!
I’ve been waiting for this day for… well, ever since I started studying Korean – so that’s 8 months! I am finally able to press a nice little button on my iPad that turns off the subtitles on my Korean dramas. Well, technically I’ve been able to do this all along, but at least now I…
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The law of large (Korean) numbers…
When I’m not living out my inner (Korean speaking) polyglot on this blog, I’m actually working as an economist specializing in policy evaluation. Over the past few weeks I’ve learned lots of valuable vocabulary from my TTMIK News subscription that has made it so much easier to explain in Korean what I do for a living.…
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The challenges of Korean intonation
Yesterday I met with my awesome language partner for two hours. I had told her that I still considered my speaking skills my biggest weakness (well, essay writing too but we have to start somewhere), and she suggested that we warmed up my Korean vocal chords by reading an Iyagi lesson out loud. The lesson…
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If something is worth doing…
Growing up I remember hearing quite often from both my parents and my teachers that “if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing properly”. I believed this statement for many years and tried my best to live by it. As a result I’ve always been a perfectionist afraid of losing face. What if someone found…
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Grammar post: Turning nouns into adjectives
I thought is was about time I wrote a real Korean-learning post. Today, I chosen to write a brief grammar entry on how to turn Korean nouns into adjectives and adverbs. Like in English, where we turn nouns into adjectives by adding e.g. -al /-able as in nature –> natural or love –> lovable, Korean, too,…
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Happy White Day!
While the rest of the world celebrates Pi Day today (3.14), Korean people celebrate White Day. This is a time for the Korean men to reciprocate for the gifts given to them by their girlfriends on Valentine’s Day exactly one month ago. Usually, Korean men present their girlfriends with candy or chocolate gifts on this…
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New language partner(s) – and my first compliment in Korean
“한국어 이렇게 잘 할 줄 몰랐어요” These encouraging words were uttered by my new language partner ^^ Yes, I finally managed to find a new language partner through facebook and yesterday was our first time to meet. She’s a super sweet Korean girl from Sogang University doing a one-semester exchange at the uni where I…
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The challenges of building vocabulary (…and how TTMIK once more saved the day)
In my recent book haul from www.heyeonni.com in Korea, I got two books on how to prepare for the TOPIK. While I’m still undecided about whether I should actually sign up for the test in October, I convinced myself that educating myself on the format of the TOPIK probably wouldn’t hurt. I soon realized that my supposedly “solid vocabulary”…
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Back to basics
Ever since I started learning Korean I’ve been learning lots of new vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structures. Whenever, I felt that I had learned something I would always quickly progress to something new. On days when I had more time to study Korean, I would sometimes go through 3-4 grammar lessons and write 40-50 sentences. Too…
Sofie to Korea 