KoreanClass101.com Blog

안녕하세요. 현우예요. How was your week? I hope you had another exciting week!! ^^

Today I’d like to share a video that I took in the Summer when I was in Jejudo - Jeju Island/Province (제주도), the biggest island and the southern most province in Korea - a beautiful place! 정말 예쁜 곳이에요. It’s a very short video, but I hope it will help you feel refreshed a bit ^^!!

It might be better if you clicked on the video and watched it in high quality.

감사합니다.

I sat my linguistics exam yesterday. THANK GOD THAT IT’S OVER. I don’t know a single person on that course who enjoyed it in the end, no matter how enthuisastic they started out. I just hope that I’ve passed, fingers crossed! Now I have 2 weeks worth of Romanticism history to catch up on … *dies* I just have to keep on reminding myself that all of this is so that I can go study Korean in my dream university.

Today, instead of talking about the music that I like, I wanted to ask, what music do you like? How did you start listening to Korean music? What are some of your favourite artists, or favourite songs? Do you listen to Korean music more than the music of your own country or another country? I’m always very interested to see what people like, and how they came to hear it. Some people’s stories are very similiar to my own, others are vastly different. So, even if you don’t listen to Korean music, I’d love to hear about that too!

Swimming Safety.

Koreans have had a long affair with swimming. Korea is a peninsular country surrounded by water so naturally, Koreans have been swimming for recreation for some time. However, danger lurks in those calming waters…but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s set the stage.

In America, typically we teach our children to do three things as soon as possible: feed themselves, ride a bike, and swim. Don’t get me wrong - we don’t throw kids in the pool and hope they resurface eventually. Traditionally though, whenever a family goes swimming the toddler goes in the pool while the adult teaches the child how to swim. Little by little, once the child gains confidence, we typically encourage him or her to swim relatively unassisted until the child can swim all by themselves. Same process with tying shoes, learning how to dress themselves, ride a bike, etc.

All in all, Americans view swimming much like driving a car - everyone knows how to do it so it’s not a big deal. None of us can swim like Michael Phelps but we can float safely and certainly feel quite confident in a pool whether we are using proper form or not.

Well, I’m not sure what exactly where the breakdown happens in Korea, but I notice the vast majority of people terrified of swimming. Like unnecessarily terrified. 8-year-olds practically screaming because of the “lazy river” water current, 11-year-olds complaining about the (not even) 3.5 foot depth, and children of all ages clutching to the closest older relative so as to not drown in the kiddie pool. Not to mention that all the while they are covered from head to toe in safety apparel like innertubes, wingies, lifevests, and bathing caps.

Oh and bathing caps are not optional. Moving on.

The wavepool is where I get emotional. We all know the wave pool, right? It’s a simulated beach with a large motor that forces water to rise and fall producing waves. Most waterparks have them to varying size and strength. I visited the lovely 대명리조트 in 부안 this summer and was greeted with a brand new facility, top-class service, and an attached waterpark that was nothing short of stunning. The wave pool here was decent enough and I couldn’t wait to tackle the cool waters only to find out that I had to wear a lifevest to go swimming.

Have we not gone over this before? I can swim. Everyone I know can swim. It’s not a talent - it’s a learned skill. Alas, if I wanted to cool down appropriately, I had to don a seemingly 25-pound lifevest. Mind you, it is quite difficult to swim in a lifevest. I’m pretty sure they are designed for floating as I felt very encumbered. I got tired after five minutes of flailing my arms and had to take a rest. Fear not! Mandatory rests on the hour every hour are commonplace and as soon as the lifeguards’ whistles blew, the entire pool emptied in less than a minute.

Speaking of the lifeguards, they take their responsibilities quite seriously. Two of them serviced a pool area about the size of a kindergarten classroom and were not only pacing back and forth, they were giving out suggestions (rather commands) to the swimmers so they could stay safe. It’s commendable, if not a little out of place.

The point being is that artificial pools are littered with ill-equipped swimmers who are over-protected and over-dressed with safety.

What really surprises me is the ocean and how people treated the water there. The waves were dangerously violent as I was knocked down several times and the salinity of the water was eye-burningly-high. What was missing? All forms of safety. No bathing caps, no lifevests, no floaties - just a bunch of people having fun when really - it was quite dangerous if you ask me. I left that beach with a headache, sores, and a killer bruise on my leg.

Perhaps it’s like 정은 said in Advanced Audio Blog #17 about how Koreans have misconceptions about swimming. In her case, she was convinced that women that swim would develop broader shoulders. Is this one of many reasons why Koreans don’t bother to learn it? Maybe I have it wrong - maybe Koreans don’t have a long history with swimming.

I know that I don’t have particularly pleasant memories about learning to swim (as myself and my brothers love to bring up to my parents the story of the borderline abusive swim teacher and how no one believed us that she was pure evil) But even with my tragic initial experience with swimming, I can say that I am an accomplished swimmer. But who cares? Apparently Koreans do.

Oh well.

Thoughts?

Hi. 현우예요. How was your week, everyone? 일주일 동안 잘 지냈어요? I want to talk a little bit about the word ‘마음’ in this blog post today.

If you like listening to Korean pop songs, 마음 is like one of the top ten frequently appearing words in the lyrics - which is more than natural because most of the songs are basically talking about 마음.

마음 is a very interesting word - it can not only be translated in many ways into English, but it also has a lot of meanings even in Korean. So for all the phrasal verb lovers out there, I’ll go through some of the most common expressions that contain the word “마음” in them that cannot easily be translated into English word by word.

마음 can be mind, heart, feeling, emotion, or even interest. If you eat your 마음 (마음을 먹다), you ‘make up your mind’. And after you’ve made up your mind (마음을 먹은 후에) if your 마음 is changed(마음이 바뀌다), you have a second thought. And while you’re still debating what to choose among many options, if something ‘enters your 마음’ (마음에 들다), you like it. But if you misplace and lose what you found likeable (마음에 든 것을 잃어버리면), your ‘마음 is not good’ (마음이 안 좋다), and that means you’re feeling sad and depressed, and your ‘마음 isn’t comfortable’ (마음이 안 편하다) - you’re worried and not relieved. But when you find the thing again, your ‘마음 is put down’ (마음이 놓이다) and that means you’re relieved from the worry.

Of course everybody has 마음, but if ‘you have your 마음 in a particular person’ (마음이 있다), you are interested and like that person as a possible date, but sometimes when you are really nervous, you say things that ‘are not in your 마음’ (마음에 없는 말을 하다) - and that means you end up saying things that you didn’t really mean. Your friends tell you to let bygones be bygones, but you still ‘can’t grab your 마음’ (마음을 못 잡다) and that means you’re still very anxious about it and can’t pull yourself together.

Like this, 마음 has a lot of meanings and phrasal verbs related to it (like in English the word ‘heart’ does) and I’m sure there are more. I’ve recently started listening to more K-pop songs and I’ve realized once again how often I hear the word 마음 all in different contexts. So I hope this short blog post will be of some help and ‘enter your 마음’ ^^

And a bonus: when someone bugs you about your decision, the way you’re dressed, or whatever, and you want to say “I make my choices. It’s none of your business”, you can say “내 마음이야!”  : )

여러분, 안녕하세요!

I was a happy little fangirl yesterday, because Epik High’s latest release, a mini album called LOVESCREAM, came out! I love it, it’s great! It’s got a couple of songs in their usual, upbeat hiphop style but it’s also got some instrumental tracks on there, really pretty little pieces that are melodic and somehow a little bit dark, similiar to some of the instrumental pieces on their Remapping the Human Soul and Pieces, Part One albums.

If you’ve got a Naver account, you’ll be able to listen to previews of the album over on Naver. You need to use IE though, the music player isn’t so friendly when you try using Firefox. And if you click the little orange TV icon next to 1분 1초, you’ll be able to watch the music video (or you can watch it on YouTube over here). I don’t actually like 1분 1초 too much, but the MV is so weird and backwards XD

KoME interviewed Moonshine recently, and like I always do when we interview an artist I know nothing about, I checked out some of their music. Moonshine used to be known as Deathrasher, and were one of Korea’s first death metal bands, formed back in 1993. I was a bit surprised to see that in such a long life, they only released a handful of demos and three albums, but then again the band has gone through many line-up changes. Interestingly enough, from what I’ve heard, the majority of their songs are actually in English, though they included some Korean tracks on their latest album Eternal, because apparently even some Korean fans didn’t realise that Moonshine are actually Koreans!

Funnily enough, this little hip hop and boyband lover used to be a huge metal fan about 10 years ago XD My musical tastes have expanded a lot since then, hahaha XD Moonshine, from what little I’ve heard, have some elements of the type of metal I used to like most, but also some of the elements that I hate most too, so it gets a bit of a mixed reception from me. If you’re into metal though, then you should definitely give Moonshine a try! Their official myspace has 6 tracks from Eternal that you can listen to. I really like the music for Moonshine Madness though the vocals don’t do too much for me, but I quite like Wake Up The Moon.