After learning the alphabets, the next step would probably be proper lessons to learn grammar and new words along the way. I find Talk To Me In Korean's curriculum great. I'm currently nearing the end of the first level. Things that gave me the most problems were the topic/subject/location/object (I jumped ahead cos I encountered this and was curious) marking particles, and the past and present tense transformation. The particles are something new that didn't exist in either English or Mandarin. Plus the nuances that come with it, just complicates things further. For the past and present tense transformation, I actually had an exercise to practise transforming the verb's dictionary form to present/past tense. I had kept a list of all the verbs (in dictionary form and their meanings) that I had encountered so far in lessons, songs, dramas, variety shows, everywhere. Still, I'm not that familiar and take time to understand when listening or reading.
I've just finished watching Coffee Prince. It's a great show. I love how the cast and crew put in the effort to include things that happen in our life, but are seldom acted out in a drama because it isn't comfortable in an ideal world setting. For example, Eun Chan's boyish demeanour, and using her feet to push her sister or her boyfriend. It made the show feel more real and sweet.
Also, I'm trying to learn to sing all of G-Dragon's One of a Kind concert set list by heart. I already know my favourite G-Dragon song Today's rap mostly, and now I'm trying to pick up Heartbreaker too. Ahhh.. Why does he rap so fast? I still use romanisation to memorise lyrics though, cos it's easier…
Here's the first line.
나도 어디서 꿀리진 않어
I'm lacking of Lysine* somewhere
*Lysine is one of the essential amino acid which can only be gotten from diet. Apples (heart) contain lysine (love?).
Lyrics and meaning credits
Romanisation
나도 어디서 꿀리진 않어: nado eodiseo kuliji naneo
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Fan Letter to Hyun Bin
In 3 more hours, Hyun Bin (of Secret Garden and My Name is Kim Sam Soon fame) is going to touch down in Singapore. I'll be at the airport to welcome him, since I have nothing better to do. :x And since it's not good to be empty handed when meeting someone for the first time, I bought three cupcakes from Twelve Cupcakes (why only three? Cos if I don't manage to pass to him, I'll have to finish all on my own) and wrote a letter, in Korean. I had help, of course. Online help. Google Search, Google Translate, and a very helpful ahjusshi on Twitter (@KoreanHelp) who thoughtfully kept a log of all his translations here. Unfortunately, he hasn't been tweeting lately. Hope it's only going to be a short hiatus.
So here's my short fan letter.
현빈 오빠
Hyun Bin oppa
싱가폴에 오신걸 환영합니다!
Welcome to Singapore!
여기 계시니깐 제가 정말 흥분이 되네요.
I feel really excited that you're here.
기자회견 그리고 팬미팅에서 봐요.
I hope you will enjoy your stay in Singapore.
맛있는 컵케이크를 먹고 즐기세요.
Please enjoy the delicious cupcakes.
일찍 주무세요...
Have an early night...
진짜 남자 김태평
Real Man Kim Tae Pyeong
화이팅!
Hwaiting!
me
2013년4월25일
p.s. 실내있어. 뎅기열경고...
p.s. Stay indoors. Dengue fever alert...
p.p.s. 재미있는 김주원이. http://youtu.be/hQfp-8OwWak
p.p.s. Funny Kim Joo Wonie. http://youtu.be/hQfp-8OwWak
I got to prepare to go out now. Won't be doing romanisation. :/
So here's my short fan letter.
현빈 오빠
Hyun Bin oppa
싱가폴에 오신걸 환영합니다!
Welcome to Singapore!
여기 계시니깐 제가 정말 흥분이 되네요.
I feel really excited that you're here.
기자회견 그리고 팬미팅에서 봐요.
I hope you will enjoy your stay in Singapore.
맛있는 컵케이크를 먹고 즐기세요.
Please enjoy the delicious cupcakes.
일찍 주무세요...
Have an early night...
진짜 남자 김태평
Real Man Kim Tae Pyeong
화이팅!
Hwaiting!
me
2013년4월25일
p.s. 실내있어. 뎅기열경고...
p.s. Stay indoors. Dengue fever alert...
p.p.s. 재미있는 김주원이. http://youtu.be/hQfp-8OwWak
p.p.s. Funny Kim Joo Wonie. http://youtu.be/hQfp-8OwWak
I got to prepare to go out now. Won't be doing romanisation. :/
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Mistakes, part of the journey
When starting to learn a new language and its alphabets, it’s inevitable that we sometimes mix up similar looking words.
For example,
긋 , 굿 and ㄱㅈ (as in stacked one above another): I personally mixed up the first two, while my bf mixed up the latter two. If you remember that words always comprises of consonant-vowel or consonant-vowel-consonant, you would realise ㄱㅈ wouldn’t be possible as that would be consonant-consonant. About my mistake, I guess I just have to look more carefully. @.@
ㅔ and ㅓㅣ: Just gotta memorise this special vowel like the w- vowels. made up of two different vowels.
크 and ㅌ: I make this mistake sometimes, because I’m more used to seeing ㅌ, and would read 크 as that. =.=
좋 and 물: I really need to scrutinise when the ㅗ or ㅜ are sandwiched like this
ㅏ and ㅓ: somehow I mistake them for one another depending on which I'm more familiar with at the moment.
Romanisaation
긋: geut
굿: gut
크: k’eu
좋: joh
물: mul (water)
For example,
긋 , 굿 and ㄱㅈ (as in stacked one above another): I personally mixed up the first two, while my bf mixed up the latter two. If you remember that words always comprises of consonant-vowel or consonant-vowel-consonant, you would realise ㄱㅈ wouldn’t be possible as that would be consonant-consonant. About my mistake, I guess I just have to look more carefully. @.@
ㅔ and ㅓㅣ: Just gotta memorise this special vowel like the w- vowels. made up of two different vowels.
크 and ㅌ: I make this mistake sometimes, because I’m more used to seeing ㅌ, and would read 크 as that. =.=
좋 and 물: I really need to scrutinise when the ㅗ or ㅜ are sandwiched like this
ㅏ and ㅓ: somehow I mistake them for one another depending on which I'm more familiar with at the moment.
Romanisaation
긋: geut
굿: gut
크: k’eu
좋: joh
물: mul (water)
Starting Point: Learning the Alphabets
Over the weekend, I decided to teach my bf (and he agreed to learn) Korean. Since I sort of now regret not blogging abt my Korean learning journey right from the start, I’ll start with blogging about his, then merge it with mine.
I remember being afraid to learn Korean at first, thinking that it is similar to Chinese (blocky looking and all) where the writing doesn’t relate to the pronunciation, and I had trouble memorising how to write Chinese words. Of course, now I know it’s pretty similar to English instead, each ‘letter’ having a sound and how it was specifically designed to be easy to learn. Well, at least the simple ones are easy to pick up, but the w- sounds complex vowels still took me a while to memorise and I can’t really tell when to use ㅂㅃㅍ or ㅐㅔ. Guess that really comes with more exposure?
One mobile app that really helped me out with learning the alphabets is TenguGo Hangul. They have well thought out lesson plans, coming in bite sizes, with quizzes in between to test your understanding. I used the Android version, but there’s an iPhone version as well. Both are free! They have similar apps for learning other languages as well, though I’ve not tried them. A note about the Android version, sometimes when I open it, it’ll only show a white screen and not load, but it’ll be fine after closing it (going to home screen) and reopening it.
Lame tricks I used to memorise the alphabets
1. ㅗ and ㅜ are similar looking, and I sometimes mix them up, so I came up with this…
ㅗ: o sound. like a pin (ㅗ) waiting to burst a ball/balloon (o) 오 *pop*
ㅜ: u sound. ㅜ fits snuggly into u’s hollow insides. ok, just realised this might look a bit wrong. :/
2. when to use ㅗ or ㅜ in the complex vowels
ᅪ: wa sound. uses ㅏ (a sound). the short strokes point UP and RIGHT. upright. :/
ᅯ: weo sound. use ㅓ(eo sound). opposite from upright, aka downleft :/
3. learning alphabets together with words helps me memorise better.
그: geu sound. meaning ‘that’. from G-Dragon’s song title 그 XX (That XX) and also Hyun Bin’s song title 그 남자 (That Man) from Secret Garden.
해: hae sound. no idea what it means. (edit: prolly related to the ‘to do’ verb, 하다, in conjugated informal present form.) picked it up from G-Dragon’s song lyrics in Heartbreaker, 지긋 지긋 지긋해 삐끗 삐끗 삐끗해 (don’t know how to translate, but u can look up the lyrics translation on your own). anyway, although ㅐ looks like H, it doesn’t have the h sound, but ᇂ has instead.
I don’t think my lame tricks would work on most of you, but these are just my examples. You should form your own to remember better. :D
Romanisation included at the end so that your eyes won’t cheat and read the easier-to-read English before your brain attempts to process the unfamiliar Hangul. ^^ I experienced that so much.
그 남자: geu namja
지긋 지긋 지긋해 삐끗 삐끗 삐끗해: jigeut jigeut jigeutae ppigeut ppigeut ppigeutae (read tae cos the h sound gets eaten by the previous word’s last consonant ㅅ’s t sound)
I remember being afraid to learn Korean at first, thinking that it is similar to Chinese (blocky looking and all) where the writing doesn’t relate to the pronunciation, and I had trouble memorising how to write Chinese words. Of course, now I know it’s pretty similar to English instead, each ‘letter’ having a sound and how it was specifically designed to be easy to learn. Well, at least the simple ones are easy to pick up, but the w- sounds complex vowels still took me a while to memorise and I can’t really tell when to use ㅂㅃㅍ or ㅐㅔ. Guess that really comes with more exposure?
One mobile app that really helped me out with learning the alphabets is TenguGo Hangul. They have well thought out lesson plans, coming in bite sizes, with quizzes in between to test your understanding. I used the Android version, but there’s an iPhone version as well. Both are free! They have similar apps for learning other languages as well, though I’ve not tried them. A note about the Android version, sometimes when I open it, it’ll only show a white screen and not load, but it’ll be fine after closing it (going to home screen) and reopening it.
Lame tricks I used to memorise the alphabets
1. ㅗ and ㅜ are similar looking, and I sometimes mix them up, so I came up with this…
ㅗ: o sound. like a pin (ㅗ) waiting to burst a ball/balloon (o) 오 *pop*
ㅜ: u sound. ㅜ fits snuggly into u’s hollow insides. ok, just realised this might look a bit wrong. :/
2. when to use ㅗ or ㅜ in the complex vowels
ᅪ: wa sound. uses ㅏ (a sound). the short strokes point UP and RIGHT. upright. :/
ᅯ: weo sound. use ㅓ(eo sound). opposite from upright, aka downleft :/
3. learning alphabets together with words helps me memorise better.
그: geu sound. meaning ‘that’. from G-Dragon’s song title 그 XX (That XX) and also Hyun Bin’s song title 그 남자 (That Man) from Secret Garden.
해: hae sound. no idea what it means. (edit: prolly related to the ‘to do’ verb, 하다, in conjugated informal present form.) picked it up from G-Dragon’s song lyrics in Heartbreaker, 지긋 지긋 지긋해 삐끗 삐끗 삐끗해 (don’t know how to translate, but u can look up the lyrics translation on your own). anyway, although ㅐ looks like H, it doesn’t have the h sound, but ᇂ has instead.
I don’t think my lame tricks would work on most of you, but these are just my examples. You should form your own to remember better. :D
Romanisation included at the end so that your eyes won’t cheat and read the easier-to-read English before your brain attempts to process the unfamiliar Hangul. ^^ I experienced that so much.
그 남자: geu namja
지긋 지긋 지긋해 삐끗 삐끗 삐끗해: jigeut jigeut jigeutae ppigeut ppigeut ppigeutae (read tae cos the h sound gets eaten by the previous word’s last consonant ㅅ’s t sound)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)