Korean Lessons

Hopefully I'll be wearing one of these traditional Korean Hanboks when I'm in S. Korea next month. I'm meeting up with my mom and family to celebrate the Chinese New Year (but mostly to see my family).

So in the meantime, I'm basically doing some Korean-language cramming. I've been practicing some useful phrases with my mom over the phone--but it's really hard!!! The pronunciation has to be exact, or else it sounds like you're saying something else, something horrible.

For instance, I tried to say, "This tastes so delicious!" But my mom said it sounded like I said, "I do not like the way this tastes." And then I tried to say, "I'm really happy!" But my mom said it sounded like I said, "I want to die,". (Like, die meaning, I want to kill myself. Not, I'm dying from laughing too much!)

Also, I've been learning Japanese for a while too. At the Korean lesson tonight, I was conversing with one of the teachers, and everytime I wanted to say "yes", I kept almost spitting out the Japanese word, which is "hai". But I kept stopping myself right at the last second, so it basically sounded like I was a panting dog, "H--, h--, h--" was my response. My mom did tell me that I sounded like a Japanese person trying to speak Korean.

Oy gevalt!

xoxo

p. ahn