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A Korean culture lesson
Last Friday turned into one of the longest language exchanges I have ever had. While my head was spinning at the end (for more than one reason, since it involved a fair amount of beer) it was also one of the most fun exchanges since we got around so many aspects of our cultural differences. We…
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Specialized Korean vocabulary: Legislation and politics
Yesterday’s article for my language exchange meeting was about legislative matters in Korea. I do enjoy a challenge, but OMG this one took the prize. (For interested parties, the article is here). As usual, I started reading the article out loud for feedback on flow and pronunciation. My reading of the article was pitiful and I don’t…
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How my office dinner turned Korean
Yesterday I went out to dinner with some colleagues. The purpose of the dinner was to entertain a Japanese professor who is briefly visiting our department. This is common practice at my uni whenever we have a professor visiting from abroad. Since the professor was from Japan, the talk of the evening naturally centered around cultural…
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Korean, not so foreign after all?
Despite Korean and English being very different indeed, I’m often surprised by phrases or idioms that are stunningly similar. This past week I’ve collected a few of these in conversations with my language partner. I actually rather enjoy how such expressions may help me to see my other languages in a different light. The first one…
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Dreaming in Korean
I love to ask bilingual people this question: “Which language do you dream in?” Since our dreams are determined by our subconscious mind they are in many ways a true reflection of the exposure we get to a certain language. I came to think about this yesterday, when I woke up from a dream in Korean.…
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My best Korean book purchase yet: A review of TTMIK’s “News in Korean”
Regular readers of my blog will be fully aware that I’m a HUGE fan of TTMIK and all the awesome materials that they make available to us – mostly for free! As a long-time subscriber to their service “News in Korean” where you received 6 short articles every week complete with full study notes, vocabulary lists…
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Test day in Korea
Today marks the day of the annual college entrance exam, 대학수학능력시험 or just 수능, in Korea. All over the country high school students are taking the Korean equivalent of the SAT. This test plays an important part in determining the academic future of the students and consequently it’s a much feared event. Several students take the…
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Specialized Korean vocabulary: International politics
Today is “video day” according to my schedule with my LP. This means that we each select a video, TEDtalk or 세바시, to watch together followed by a discussion on the topics covered in the video. To maximize our learning and retention of the newly acquired vocabulary we also write an essay on the topic for our meeting the next…
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Making your Korean come alive
I spent this weekend studying with the awesome book called 유행어보다 재치있는 우리 100대 속담. This is a Korean children’s book with 100 short chapters each explaining the background story and use of a certain proverb. There are many reasons why I enjoy this book. The first and obvious one is that I become more familiar…
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Do you believe in destiny?
I recently learned a very beautiful Korean proverb: “옷깃만 스쳐도 인연이다” This roughly means that even though you just quickly brush by other people, they will somehow become part of your destiny. I honestly never used to believe in destiny, and I still don’t think that I do. However, I do believe that we may shape…
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Sofie to Korea 