KoreanClass101.com Blog

This past week has been a busy one on more than a few levels. Last sunday was Easter and we spent the day at my brother’s house. He lives in the central valley of California on farm land. We got home late and the blog didn’t happen. It is happening right now, however.

Easter (부활절) is not really celebrated in Korea. Unless things have changed dramatically since I lived in Korea, Easter is only celebrated by a special Sunday service in christian denominations. There is no Easter bunny or egg hunt or any of the other commercial entrapments that exist here in America.

When we get together as a family for Easter we usually have an Easter egg hunt. My brother’s house is ideally suited for an egg hunt because he has a large, grassy yard around his house. We bring about a dozen eggs per child but this year we had quite a few more than that. We usually don’t do any egg dying but stick to plastic eggs and candy instead. (Hard boiled eggs get old fast… the eating and the sitting in the sun̷ This year we decided to dye some eggs.

We decided to not do the grocery store dying kits that are so popular. We did some natural dyes using berries and onion skins. Everyone had a great time wrapping the eggs with various flowers and onion skins to make some cool patterns.

Here is an onion skin dyed egg waiting to be found:

We did a pot-luck style dinner in that each individual family brought a side dish and my brother provided the main dish. The concept of a “pot-luck” isn’t really practiced in Korea either as far a s I know, maybe only in a church setting. Our house guest was introduced to a few uniquely American traditions as well as some that may only be unique to my family. For example, we like to make homemade ice cream. My brother does a great job on that. He is also into photography but in an antiquated way. Instead of embracing the wonders of the digital revolution in photography, my brother has gone retro; his latest thing is large format. Yes, everyone and their brother (not mine) is a budding digital photojournalist. Here is my brother, all covered up:

I think Easter was an interesting cultural experience for our guest. He had a great time hunting eggs with all the other children. But that may be just because he loves American candy…

After weeks of development, we’re happy to announce the launch of the much anticipated My Feed. This fully customizable RSS feed let’s Premium members decide exactly what lesson content they want on their Premium feed. You can master Korean on your terms.

Setting up My Feed is a simple 3 step process.

1. Choose the lesson types you want (e.g. Beginner, Newbie, Audio Blog, etc.)
2. Choose the type of content you want (e.g. Main Audio, Dialog Clip, Review Clip, PDF, Video Vocab, etc.)
3. Add My Feed to iTunes or other iTunes compatible feed readers like Juice, and just watch the content you want come rolling in.

Click here to learn more about My Feed or if you’re a Premium member,
click here to get started now.

Thank you all for your continued support and feedback! Without it we simply could not do what we do. We hope you like this new feature and as always, if you encounter any issues with this new functionality or wish to see it enhanced in some way, please post a comment here or shoot us an email.

To get everyone started on this, we’re offering a 15% discount for all Premium Subscriptions.

Coupon code: MYFEED

I arrived shortly before dinnertime, which is pretty normal when I go during the week. The boys were playing around, and some were even studying! But I couldn’t find any of the regular adult staff. It seemed like the boys were fending for themselves again. At dinnertime, someone (presumably an 엄마 from a different section made some announcement about dinner: “얘둘아..밥 먹으러 가!” (Kids, go and eat!) Most of the kids headed out for dinner, but a few were being stubborn. They claimed they weren’t hungry and they didn’t want to go to dinner. That really doesn’t matter, they are still supposed to eat at every meal, and they really should. Sometimes I think they try to skip dinner so they can whine later. Then they might get to pig out on some snacks….anyway I tried to round up the stragglers and send them off. Most of the conversations went something like this:

(Coincidentally, two days later, the lesson at KClass was about something I said. I also used another phrase from a few months ago. Both are linked in the dialog.)

Austin: 식당으로 가…밥 먹어라!
Go down to the cafeteria and eat dinner!
Bratty kid: 싫어 배 불러!
I don’t want to, I’m full!
Austin: 상관 없어. 엄마가 밥 먹으러 가래
I don’t care. The 엄마 said to go get dinner.
Bratty kid: 아니 안 그랬잖아 엄아 없어!
No she didn’t, there isn’t an 엄마.
Austin: 있잖아.. 빨리 가야 돼!
Yes there is! You need to go now!

–At this point they might run away…. to another room, so I chase after them, capture them, and carry them to the door while they scream–

Bratty kid: 아 찐자…먹기 싫다고!
Ah, really! I said I don’t want to eat!
Austin: 너 빨리 안가? 오늘 왜 그래? 니가 청개구리 같아! 신발 신어!
Get moving! What’s with you today? You’re being a real brat! Put your shoes on!
Bratty kid: 신발 없거든!
I don’t have any shoes!
Austin: 거짓말! 오늘 학교 안 갔어? 학교 갈때는 신발 안 신았어?
That’s a lie. Didn’t you go to school today? Weren’t you wearing shoes then?
Bratty kid: 신았는데 지금 어딘지 몰라!
I wore them, but I don’t know where they are now!

–Of course all the shoes are right by the door. Lousy excuse–

Austin: 너 빨리 신발 신고 식당으로 가. 내 말 안 들려?!
Put your shoes on and go to the cafeteria. Do you hear me?!
Bratty kid: 알았어…..
Alright, fine.

You get the message. Some kids took longer to convince than others. All the while laughing at their disobedience and my increasing frustration! And even so, some of my efforts may have been in vain as kids came back too quickly to have really eaten. But I considered it a small victory that they finally obeyed and at least WENT to the 식당.

Part 2, which chronicles the second half of the evening will be posted next week!

Last week all of the kids and staff went out for dinner. Hence “외식.” 외 literally means “outside” like in 의국인 “foreigner” or literally “outside-country-person.” 식 means food, or a meal. You may remember a culture class from a few months ago where the KClass crew showed us what a typical “희식” looked like. 희 in that case means company, so 희식 is a meal with your co-workers.

The orphanage does this at least once a year, and by good fortune I happened to be there this year again. It’s really just a fun time with the kids, and I get to seem them in a different setting. I think it’s a pretty good day for them, and one they really enjoy. It is one of the rare occasions when they really get to do something special with themselves that doesn’t come from some outside organization.

I made this video so you can see some of the kids. This isn’t everyone. They split all the various sections up among several different restaurants since more than 100 people would completely overwhelm any restaurant! The meal was 삼겹살. And it was more than I really should have eaten…but the mean kept coming! And since kids have small bellies… well, I got to eat an awful lot!

또 하나의 ‘여러 얼굴을 가진 단어’로서(As another ‘word with many faces) 오늘은 ‘쓰다’라는 동사를 소개하겠습니다(I’d like to introduce the verb ‘쓰다’).

If you already knew this word, what meaning was new to you?

Wow, I just uploaded this post and it disappeared! Gone! So here it goes again in a shortened version.

I posted about the Korean Children’s Orchedstra coming to town a while back but I didn’t get much feedback on it. I said I would post some instrument pictures to the forum but I am still in that going to mode…

Here are some pictures from the performance rehearsal.

The show opened with drums:

Here is Stephanie practicing the 해금:

The 태평소 soloist:

Here is an interesting variation on the traditional 가야금. It has 25 strings instead of 12. The North Korean version has 24 strings.

I will get these into the forum too. Soon.

Remember how the boys were being punished last week? Well, they were in trouble because some of them apparently went in to the room where their dog was giving birth! That night, just after dinner, the dog went into labor, and the boys were told not to go in. I thought they were staying out, but I guess the excitement got to them. I happened to have my camera, so I could record a quick movie about the incident. There is actually a lot of footage from that night, some of it is apparently inappropriate, and other things are just downright hilarious. Today, watch one of the real versions, and later, I’ll share the sillier ones as well.

I didn’t subtitle it because the conversation is simple enough that I think you’ll be able to follow. But I’ll give you a rough sketch of what happened: “Dooley” is the dog’s name. I was trying to get them to explain who she is and everything, but you’ll see as he’s talking that he clearly expects you all to know who Dooley is. In this video, the boy uses the word 새끼 to refer to the puppies. Be careful with that word, because it is also a very strong insult…unless you are referring to baby animals! I bet you can imagine how strong the insult is though!

Important words:

강아지 - dog (yes, 개 is “dog” but people refer to their pets as 강아지)
새끼 - baby animal
낳다 - to give birth
설명하다 - to explain (in this case, I say “설명 해 줘” (설명 해 주세요)
아직 - not yet
(이름을) 정하다 - to decide on (a name)

For a listening exercise, see if you can figure out how many puppies were born. Remember the counter for animals is “마리.” As an example “모기 10(열) 마리” is 10 mosquitoes.

Or, if you are really adventurous, go ahead and try to make a transcript! (English or Korean!) Go over the forums so that we can take advantage of the spoiler tags, and so that everyone can participate!

Here goes one more category to our already-full list of interesting categories in our KoreanClass101 Blog. But I believe this will be a very good opportunity for everyone to enjoy (and understand) pictures of some ‘written Korean’ found in Korea.

As a lot of you might already know, I’ve been posting these pictures in the KClass forum under the name of “translation practice” - in the hope of giving everybody a chance to take a guess at what they think certain signboards or written announcements mean and check their knowledge of the Korean language, and I’m so thankful to everyone who’s been participating. But then I don’t really have a proper chance to provide ‘answers’ or at least … the way I would express it into English to the best of my ability, so from now, I’ll be taking one picture from the forum and post it here, and tell you what the words mean Who knows? If we have a *favored* photo by everybody, we might even do a lesson with that photo.

The photo that I want to talk about today is this one:

Forum Link = http://www.koreanclass101.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=138

This is quite easy, actually.

꿀 is honey and 포도 is grapes. So 꿀 포도 means “grapes that are as sweet as honey.”

I’m not sure if the word “honey” is used as often in English as it is in Korean to symbolize “sweetness” but this word can work with a lot of fruit names.

꿀 사과 = very sweet apples

꿀 복숭아 = very sweet peaches

꿀 배 = very sweet pears

It doesn’t work with every fruit name, but you can always describe something with this word “꿀” to mean it tastes very sweet.

But 꿀밤 (밤=chestnut) doesn’t mean “sweet chestnut” - it means a punch on the head with a fist as a gesture of scolding. That’s why as I kid I would always play practical jokes with my friends, saying things like “밤 줄까?” - “응.” - (punch!) - “여기 꿀밤이다!”

I know it’s not funny at all. Haha. But it WAS. For some reason, it was ALWAYS a lot of fun, until I was over 10 years old, that is.

Thanks for reading!

I’m back with another word that has many faces! Hope you’ll enjoy this one as well!

잡다(japda) basically means to “catch” or to “grab”, but it can mean a variety of things, and it’s a very useful verb, so please give it a look!

Thanks for reading, and keep enjoying learning Korean with KoreanClass101 !!

We recently had a discussion about house size with our homestay guest. He indicated that he lives in a 32 평 apartment but his best friend lives in a 100 평 주택 (house). One 평 equals about 3.3 square meters or 35.5 square feet. Therefore, his apartment is about 1,100 square feet and his friends house is 3,550 square feet! He says his friend’s house is three stories and that his friends family is rich. I would think that having a house of that size in Korea would qualify as being rich.

A 32 평 apartment in Korea is above average in size, even though by American standards it is small. We just moved out of a 1400 sq. ft.  house and it felt very small. Perhaps that is because there were six of us living there (we have four children). While Korean families typically don’t have that many children, usually several generations live under one roof.

The conversation about house size came up because our house guest’s family is considering moving out of their apartment and into a regular house (주택). He said that he likes our house but that it is scary because it is bigger than what he is used to. He also was a little worried about moving away from the community atmosphere of the apartment complex. In Korea there is not much privacy in life in a typical apartment but moving into a house can be very expensive and one would have to give up many of the convenieces of group/pubilc life in a the apartment. Many apartments are gated communities, they have people who maitain the grounds as well as the apartment itself, they also have common area facilities not unlike apartment complexes everywhere. Despite the appeal of apartment living, however, the desire for ones own land exists in Korea too.  

We live in the country and that has been a concern of several children that have stayed here. There seems to be this idea that bandits live out in the country and since we do too then we are liable to get attacked by these bandits. Even here in the United States there are concerns and preconceived ideas about what life in the country is like. The Korean children that stay with us are certainly getting a unique and hopefully good impression of life in America. It is definitely different than life in an apartment complex.