Korean vocabulary
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Korean election day
Today is general election day in Korea and also a national holiday so everyone will have a chance to cast their vote. This is not the presidential election, which will take place next year. Today, on the other hand, is the day when Koreans decide who to put in the national assembly. In the spirit of this…
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Emphasizing in Korean
Whenever you speak a language you know well, you will usually put a lot of emphasis on certain sentences to make things sound more natural. For example the sentence “I don’t know anything about this” is less strong than “I don’t know anything about this at all“. Other words or phrases in English, which may be…
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Specialized Korean vocabulary: Micro-economics
Since I’ll start teaching microeconomics from next week, I thought I might as well combine business and pleasure while I prepare my lectures. I therefore went on Naver and searched for 경제원론 (Principles of economics). I came across a set of lecture slides from Sogang University and quickly started reading. There were SO many new words…
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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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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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Specialized Korean vocabulary: Economics
Now that my speech contest is over I once more have time to actually study Korean. Oh, how I missed it! Not that I didn’t study over the past few weeks. But to once more be able to consume limitless amounts of Korean content without (at least for a while) worrying about pronunciation, intonation, and…
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How Korean can be like a game of tetris
When people first start learning the Korean script Hangeul, many refer to the process as a game of tetris. You have certain components – vowels or consonants – that you then mix and match to make all kinds of sounds. This is a true testament to the scientific origin of the script. Hats off to…
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Korean onomatopoeias
Isn’t this just the coolest word ever? Onomatopoeia! Ever since I first heard this it’s been one of my favorite words. So, what does it mean? It simply means a “sound word” that is a word where the sound mimics the actual sound. Confused? We have many examples in English. Examples can be when we mimic the…
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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”…
Sofie to Korea 