Speaking Korean
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Could you speak up, please? Korean speech levels
This post is motivated by some questions I’ve received here on the blog. How exactly does age and social status determine how people speak to each other in Korean? Since this is a quite technical matter, I’ll try to make it as simple as possible using my own experiences from different situations and interactions here…
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Awesome Korean slang expressions
I’ve started to become a regular guest at the Playground café in Hongdae. (If you look through their facebook pics, you’ll see proof that I was there.) This café is an awesome place where Koreans and foreigners can get together and exchange languages. This week, I went there on Tuesday and met a couple of…
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When “yes” means “no” in Korean
If you like watching Korean tv shows, and if you prefer to do so with subtitles, you’ll often find that the Korean word 네 (yes) is written as “no” in the subtitles. What the h… is going on!? Also, when speaking Korean, you may encounter conversations like this from time to time: A: 그럼 어제…
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Same but different
When I was a child, I could easily spend 90 minutes watching a Disney movie just to rewind the tape and watch the same thing all over again. With a child’s enthusiasm I enjoyed the second viewing no less than the first. If anything, I may actually have enjoyed it more the second time because I…
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Starting my day in Korean
Well, I usually start my day in Korean one way or another by either reading or watching TV, but today I started my day with my first italki lesson in over six months. Thanks to my awesome langugage partner I haven’t really had the need for italki lessons lately, and frankly I still don’t, but…
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Tips for improving your Korean speaking skills
Once again, I’ve reached a point where I feel that my Korean skills are developing a bit asymmetrically. I’m reading faster than ever, I understand most of what is being said around me as long as the topic isn’t too technical, and I generally feel quite comfortable with the language. So, what’s the problem? Lately,…
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Korean speech patterns
The more familiar I become with Korean, the more I’ve started paying attention to how spoken Korean varies from one person to another. In the beginning I didn’t hear any difference at all, Korean to me was just Korean. There was even a time when I didn’t think that the Busan dialect was different from…
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Video post: My second interview in Korean
A few weeks ago I recorded an interview in Korean with Jonson from Spongemind. For those of you who don’t know Spongemind, it’s a bilingual Korean/English youtube channel and podcast about language learning. Jonson’s partner Jeremy also operates the awesome channel MotivateKorean, which many of you may already know very well. In fact, Jeremy was…
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What happened to my Korean study routine?
I used to have a perfectly planned study routine. One hour of reading in the morning, podcasts throughout the day, grammar points and chapters in textbooks to study in the afternoon and evening. It’s worked like that for a long time but recently it seems I can’t make myself stick to it. I’m still studying…
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Korean “self-respect”?
All Korean learners should be well aware of the many different levels of formality in the Korean language. There’s a big difference in how you say things depending on who you speak to or who you speak about. In fact, I have previously written a whole blog post about this particular Korean concept called 앞존법. In…
Sofie to Korea 