I still can't find my way around for shit. All the landmarks and neighborhoods look the same. It's like being stuck in a cheaply-animated cartoon.
I made my first original grammatical sentence in Korean yesterday. I was walking around a market with a ginger friend. To pay for a small purchase, she accidentally pulled out some yen instead of won: "Oh, I'm sorry. We are Japanese." The shopkeeper laughed, which I take to mean that I was understood. Or maybe she laughed because I was only almost understood. At any rate, I can successfully make a sentence in the following pattern: subject, object, verb. The problem, though, is that I only know about 5 verbs right now.
The main verbs come at the end of sentences, which makes communication akin to chess right now. Also, main verbs end in a stem "-yo," which indicates politeness. This "-yo" can only be dropped when you're talking to a very close friend, supposedly only in private. So, once I have some communicative competence - still months away - I'll end most of my sentences in "yo," which is something I already do in English most of the time. I love when my idiosyncrasies are validated in Asian culture.
I made my first original grammatical sentence in Korean yesterday. I was walking around a market with a ginger friend. To pay for a small purchase, she accidentally pulled out some yen instead of won: "Oh, I'm sorry. We are Japanese." The shopkeeper laughed, which I take to mean that I was understood. Or maybe she laughed because I was only almost understood. At any rate, I can successfully make a sentence in the following pattern: subject, object, verb. The problem, though, is that I only know about 5 verbs right now.
The main verbs come at the end of sentences, which makes communication akin to chess right now. Also, main verbs end in a stem "-yo," which indicates politeness. This "-yo" can only be dropped when you're talking to a very close friend, supposedly only in private. So, once I have some communicative competence - still months away - I'll end most of my sentences in "yo," which is something I already do in English most of the time. I love when my idiosyncrasies are validated in Asian culture.
posted by Mark Hernandef at 10:43 AM
4 Comments:
Things looking up are, yo!
I enjoyed a few things about your post. 1. Your used your first original sentence in Korean to joke. Nice.
2. Your English is starting to sound like English translated from Asian. Nice. When you get back to the states, I fully expect to hear you say things like "Good humor make for positive happiness, teacher woman." Can't wait!
Everyone in U.S. and A. is counting on you to educate children to the new world order!
Without you, who can I count on teach Korean kids how to say, "Enough is enough!: I'm tired of these mutha*#&%#g snakes on this mutha*#&%#g plane!"
Are you using any of these words as vocabulary words yet? (If so, which ones?)
If you haven't already guessed this, I think you should teach in English in the style of Samuel L. Jackson--now there's a Af. Am. for ya!
Sadly, just "snakes" and "plane" have been vocabulary words in class. Only half the battle, if the Hollywood wants to start outsourcing Samuel L. Jackson scripts to the Orient.
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