I feel this a lot when I have to translate or explain a Korean word, phrase, or concept to someone who isn't Korean and then realize I don't really know the best way to explain it. To them, it probably appears like I don't know what I'm talking about, but to me, it means I acquired that knowledge, it's more intuitive, and I understand it completely as a Korean concept versus having learned an English or American "version" of it. In these cases I usually have a "huh" moment where I realize I never even attempted to translate that word in English and that it exists solely as a Korean concept to me; those moments feel like success since it's evidence of acquisition!
Exactly!!! For the things I HAVE studied pre-or-post-acquisition, it's like... "How do I explain this? Okay, so in Middle Korean about 500 years ago..." Tons of those moments though. Glad I'm not the only one having this experience!
I think one thing that I found very interesting when in Korea is that 화장실 does not actually mean toilet, it is more similar to the way we use the word restroom, but to Koreans, when they hear the English word rest room, they think of a place to rest, and they think of bathroom as a place to bathe while most Americans refer to a bathroom as a place to go pee or defecate which may or may not have a shower or tub inside of it depending on where you are. Because of confusion from the words rest and bath, Koreans often translate 화장실 as toilet because that is what is used in there. The plumbing systems are not very good in some parts of South Korea and on the doors of many stalls, there are signs that tell you not to flush things down the toilet. Sometimes it will say tissue, but other times, it basically says anything besides tissue. I bring this up because I remember being in the subway doing my business and deciding to translate the sign on the stall. 변기 is the actual word for the toilet itself. I kind of embarrassed myself a little bit because I realized that if you translate the sign directly into English, it does not exactly say that the toilet will get clogged, what it actually translates to is "The toilet will not be able to eat it." While this makes sense, I still could not help but to start laughing out loud at the thought of an anthropomorphic toilet refusing to eat tissue. I got some weird looks when I came out of the stall because laughing in the bathroom is weird and couldn't exactly explain what I was laughing at to people although I did attempt to explain it to one of my Korean friends who eventually understood why I thought it was funny, but it took a lot more effort that I would have expected. What I did learn from this though is that often things don't translate over smoothly and it is up to the translator to decide what is meant when translating passages. This made me feel a little more comfortable when speaking in Korean because even if I don't get it right, if I take a good guess and I am close enough, someone will likely understand what I meant and correct me. I had a hard time remembering the two different words for mentally and physically tired and would often use the wrong one in context when I felt tired and was with Korean friends. They were usually able to tell me the other word when I got it wrong though. I think it is very important to realize that you will make mistakes, but it is not the end of the world and those mistakes will usually help you learn more because the emotions behind the experience help the words to stick in place later on.
Thanks for sharing this story. I agree with you, translation is not really just a mechanical skill, it's more of an art - a creative process. Bad translation is so prevalent and pervasive. An alternative theory to the "toilet" thing - in Japanese, the word for Bathroom is "toiletto", just a Japanese phonetic reading of "Toilet" which they likely picked up from British English. I'd venture a guess that Korean signage having "toilet" on it has its roots in Japanese, albeit subconsciously. Just my hypothesis, though.
@@KoreanPatch Translation is definitely a bit more difficult than just learning another language for reason such as this. It is possible that they may have got the English "toilet" in that manner. I just remember being in Seoul and if someone asked where the bathroom or restroom was in English, many English-speaking Koreans that probably have not visited America would get confused thinking the person needed to bathe or rest. Another funny one is meeting. 미팅 in Korean is a date, but meeting in English in a business context is something completely different. I cannot begin to tell you how many confused Koreans I worked with that thought everyone at work was going on a lot of dates. I also was surprised how many Korean words are almost the same as English words when it comes to modern items and technology. The pronunciation is slightly different because the letters don't translate as cleanly over and some of the words have extra vowels because of how Korean syllable blocks work, but it made a lot of words easier to remember and in a few instances, I made wild guesses on items that I thought might be this form of Konglish and then felt confused when I had actually guessed correctly which then confused the Korean speaker I was talking to because they were not aware I had made a random guess. Things like elevator, escalator, smart phone, ice cream, sandwich...
@@kraziecatclady "I also was surprised how many Korean words are almost the same as English words when it comes to modern items and technology." Exactly how Korean developed or accepted Sino-Korean words from China in the past! Haha. Actually, there're some layers of "refinement" that had been through the history of the Korean language: Native Korean words as the base level, and then Sino-Korean words as more refined level, and then English-loanwords as the highest level. A good pair of examples: 저자 vs. 시장 vs. 마켓. 저자 WAS a native Korean word for "market" that is already extinct, and we now use 시장 (市場). However, 시장 also started to feel "old" or "rural" that modern markets today prefer to use the word 마켓 that is actually from the English word "market".
Anxiety free is a definite must when it comes to learning. I learned this the hard way. I had stopped learning Korean from RUclips to focus on college Korean. Worst experience. The teacher made it her goal to undermine my intelligence after I told her I had studied Korean on my own for quite some time. She had taken my classroom partner from me twice, ridicule me for stammering while reading and made sly remarks like, "Just because you know everything about basketball doesn't mean you can play". And her class is the only class that I'm coming close to failing. Im not failing due to my lack of knowledge but for my lack of attendance and for several missing assignments The very assignments that she would not accept through email or in person because they were late and also because I did not know how to upload it on the College blackboard website. This had nearly soured my experience with learning the Korean language but I had to talk myself out of it and say I can't allow for others to determine my success. So here I am I'm back on RUclips to learn Korean. I'm starting from where I left off five months ago. And before I fail that class I am attempting to withdraw from it. I was better off learning on my own. This type of learning experience brought me from being ecstatic and preparing to take the topik exam to being discouraged, guarded and bias. Now, I have to cleanse my chakras and sh*#.
The fact that you're sticking with it through all of that is the attitude you need for this to work. I'm so sorry to hear your instructor isn't interested in nurturing your interest. That's really disappointing. Hope you find everything you're looking for and stick with it!!
Sounds like that teacher has a lot more to learn about her craft than you do about Korean! Such a terrible attitude for a teacher! Nobody with that attitude should ever be a teacher.
Had same experience with UNC-Chapel Hill Korean instructor. Her grading rubric was so detailed and subjective that it was quite evident what she was doing. If she liked you, you got an A; if not; ............ There are some really great native teachers on RUclips (Miss Vicky, Dr. Yoon, Dream...) but for a simple, down and dirty understanding I would prefer an English speaking teacher like Billy Go.
@@kennethgarris I'm glad you're learning on your own too and sorry you had to experience that. Everybody can't be a good teacher. I love Professor Yoon and I also, Like to watch Billy from time to time. He does an amazing job.
I'm a scientist, so I'm well trained in over-using passive verbs in scientific reports to avoid referring to the person who is doing the verb (an absurd custom in scientific writing). I've also worked as a policy writer in government. There, we also frequently used passive verbs to avoid identifying the subject (because the do-er in Government is public servants, who are supposed to be faceless obedient worker drones, not purposive actors, so it's often awkward to identify the person who will do the work (verbs) of government. "The government will review your licence application," sounds like your application will be read out in Parliament, so we often avoid using active verbs like that. Instead, governments write stuff like "Your licence application will be reviewed," which is more difficult to understand and sounds pompous to boot. I've been an enthusiastic advocate for the Plain English movement AND I've been a manager of writing teams in government, so I have some experience explaining the active vs passive verbs in communication. Because of my history with passive language, therefore, I also clearly remember my first time being exposed to 보다 vs 보이다. A teacher in the language hagwon that I attended in Busan pointed thru a window to indicate a building that would be a useful landmark for me to use on my way to the post office. She said (in Korean) that the building "could be seen there. I noticed that the word she used wasn't 봐요, but rather was something else with 보 in it. I asked her about it; the word was 보여요. At that time my Korean level was much too early to be learning passive verbs but my personal history with English passive verbs made me latch onto her explanation a little too much. English uses TONS of passive verbs and I hate the way they dodge around who is actually doing the verbs, so I was quite disappointed to find that Korean also has them..but not surprised because it is so consistent in a language that also frequently drops the subject altogether (or rather, relies on context to identify the subject).
I work in doctrine. I feel your pain when it comes to constantly needing to explain active and passive voice. Most of the materials I work with are educational or related to educational material. Sometimes instructors will provide materials for me to use as part of lesson plans. Most of those materials, when written by instructors, tend to be written as if they are spoken word. I end up having to revise the material so that it is more professional and meets the educational guidelines set forth via regulations. I cannot tell you how many times I have removed things like "We," "I'll," "You," and "Next let's (insert random task)." Another fun thing that ends up getting explained a lot is our approved verb list because people do not know that only certain verbs are allowed to be used in the titles and standard statements of educational materials for accreditation purposes. Not only that, but different verbs are used for different educational levels and concepts. When I first started learning Korean, I remember someone telling me that they don't really use pronouns that often. Most people get confused about not using "I," "You," "He," "She," "They," etc. People will often ask, "Well then, what do you do/say?" Not me, my brain was like "Cool, I don't need these things at all," and went on to confuse quite a few Korean friends because I didn't even bother to use them when I did actually need to use them. It got especially confusing when texting Korean friends because without physically being there, some context is missing. I had assumed they would know I was talking about me because I was the one sending the text... Nope.
True. I had fun watching someone explain a concept of my native language to foreign learners. It was like 🤯 for me, because in natural language acquisition you don’t really think about the reason you use one word and not the other, you just do.
I think we acquire words, phrases, concepts etc by hearing and seeing them used in context. I work with Korean people. Hearing them say things in response to something else happening made phrases stick with me and usually they speak only Korean to each other and I won’t understand most of the time. My coworker spoke to me in Korean and said 가격 붙으세요. I knew 가격 and just guessed what 붙으세요 meant as he was holding a price gun. I still looked it up later and 붙다 means to stick. Every time I have a moment like this I take note of it now.
I am teaching Korean at a university. This video is quite interesting and helpful for me to understand how anglophone Korean learners feel when they learn 피동 expressions of Korean.
I'm so happy you're getting something useful from these videos as a Korean teacher!! I hope we can figure out tons of ways to help people with diverse linguistic backgrounds learn Korean more effectively. Feel free to reach out at (ian@koreanpatch.co) if you've got any subjects you'd like to discuss as a teacher!! 감사합니다!! 😊
I had an experience in another language where I had heard a word often enough that it sounded familiar but I hadn't actually thought about what it meant specifically. Then one day I was watching a variety show with three celebrity judges. The guest was making a dish for each judge, one at a time. The first dish went to the judge in the middle. The judge on her left kept sneaking bites, so she turned her back to him to try to eat her dish in peace, at which point the third judge snuck a bite, and she was like "sheesh, I'm not safe anywhere!". It was the last thing that was necessary, and suddenly I knew the word "safe". The really funny thing to me is that all the other times I had heard the word, it was in the context of actual dangerous situations. It was only when I finally heard it used jokingly in a different kind of context that the meaning clicked into place. The experience also reinforced my belief that direct repetition (hearing the same word in the same sentence over and over) isn't as useful as varied repetition.
There are indeed many situations where a word that would be the object in an English sentence is used as the subject in Korean. The most mind-boggling example, which I actually realised not too long ago, is that generally in the expression 보고 싶다(missing someone), the person being missed is the grammatical subject. 니가(subject) 보고 싶어, but I miss you (object). But funnily enough, 너를 (object) 보고 싶어 is equally correct. Makes your head spin sometimes.
@@KoreanPatch The human species is an irrational beast, the ability to rationalize things is almost based on one's own maturity, nature and ability to look at oneself as well others around them. It's no surprise language is just as irrational as humans are since we're the producers of it.
As someone who has almost finished a degree in TESOL and Korean, I can say that after having read Krashen's work, the University style of teaching Korean isn't for me. I have had a few moments during the lessons when I could recognise grammar and say "i've heard that before" but I never hit that point of "Ah! I understand". So I am hoping to continue with self-study and youtube study of Korean after University and eventually put myself in a place where I can travel and teach in Korea, hoping to experience ways of study that reduce the anxiety of test taking and grading my work.
Completely agree. University environments CAN be extremely enriching experiences for students, but it's completely up to the teacher, and all of the students will need to have the same drive to learn the language in order to create an environment that doesn't get criticized by people looking for metrics and not general progress. It's possible, but difficult. I had a French class with a native speaker teacher that was absolutely phenomenal back in high school - he just spoke French with us, and explained grammar and vocab we had questions about in detail, but only when we asked. One of my favorite classes ever. I hope you reach a level you're happy with and get over here soon!
That story with the kids was soooo cute!! I love that! I immediately sent this to a friend who not live and teaches English in Korea, haha. Unfortunately, she's not allowed to speak Korean with them, but still... Did you ever find that understanding the children was ever difficult or were you mostly always able to understand their enunciation of Korean words? Anyway, great video!!
I just studied the passive voice in Korean with TTMIK. This is the perfect afternote. What you now say is what I really need to pay attention to. TTMIK said it too, but now it really sinks in…
I remember someone complaining that they couldn't remember the difference between 부끄럽다, 부드럽다, and 부럽다 and I was very surprised because those words feel completely different to me. That's when I realized that I had never actually looked them up or made flashcards for them, I had only picked them up from context. The contexts in which I'd hear one or the other are so wildly different that it never even occurred to me that the words were similar.
One moment that stood out to me was when I tried to say "가수 좋아요?" to my co-teacher when I was asking him if he was a good singer, and he told me that you can't say it like that in Korean (what I said was more like "do you like the singer?"). He told me it's correct to say "노래 잘 해요" or "I am good at singing". Korean doesn't really have a grammar structure to literally say "I am a good..." On the flip side, I rarely hear Korean people say "are you a good..." or "I am a good...", and instead they'll use "are you good at..." or "I am good at..." since it's more similar to the way they speak in their native tongue. I think this was when I started to really understand that you can't translate things literally from one language to the other because languages often have different approaches to expressing the same ideas.
Yeah, it really is like that. I know one of the issues I run into to this day is that I seem to prefer saying "주시겠어요?" to simply using "주세요" because commands feel too... strong to me as a native English speaker. Weird.
hey thank you for sharing your story! it’s very lively and remarkable! and it’s strengthen my understanding towards korean, looking forward to your next sharing!
As I've learned Japanese and Korean are structurally the same in many aspects, besides kanjis Japanese and Korean both use grammatical particles and similar word order as well many words that sounds almost the same. As of right now I'm learning Japanese and not Korean, later on when I've acquired a lot of Japanese I'm considering learning Korean next. I noticed this similar difference within Japanese as well, instead of saying 'I can't see' they'll say it in pretty much the same way a Korean would put it together.
The child teaching the Teacher, WOW! 1 Out of the mouths of Babes :) Such a Precious Story, " Not seen to me ! Wow Just Wow! Arabic is Like this in many ways! Mawum Same and like SA'Tori You either feel it or You don't
I feel this a lot when I have to translate or explain a Korean word, phrase, or concept to someone who isn't Korean and then realize I don't really know the best way to explain it. To them, it probably appears like I don't know what I'm talking about, but to me, it means I acquired that knowledge, it's more intuitive, and I understand it completely as a Korean concept versus having learned an English or American "version" of it. In these cases I usually have a "huh" moment where I realize I never even attempted to translate that word in English and that it exists solely as a Korean concept to me; those moments feel like success since it's evidence of acquisition!
Exactly!!! For the things I HAVE studied pre-or-post-acquisition, it's like... "How do I explain this? Okay, so in Middle Korean about 500 years ago..."
Tons of those moments though. Glad I'm not the only one having this experience!
I think one thing that I found very interesting when in Korea is that 화장실 does not actually mean toilet, it is more similar to the way we use the word restroom, but to Koreans, when they hear the English word rest room, they think of a place to rest, and they think of bathroom as a place to bathe while most Americans refer to a bathroom as a place to go pee or defecate which may or may not have a shower or tub inside of it depending on where you are. Because of confusion from the words rest and bath, Koreans often translate 화장실 as toilet because that is what is used in there. The plumbing systems are not very good in some parts of South Korea and on the doors of many stalls, there are signs that tell you not to flush things down the toilet. Sometimes it will say tissue, but other times, it basically says anything besides tissue.
I bring this up because I remember being in the subway doing my business and deciding to translate the sign on the stall. 변기 is the actual word for the toilet itself. I kind of embarrassed myself a little bit because I realized that if you translate the sign directly into English, it does not exactly say that the toilet will get clogged, what it actually translates to is "The toilet will not be able to eat it." While this makes sense, I still could not help but to start laughing out loud at the thought of an anthropomorphic toilet refusing to eat tissue. I got some weird looks when I came out of the stall because laughing in the bathroom is weird and couldn't exactly explain what I was laughing at to people although I did attempt to explain it to one of my Korean friends who eventually understood why I thought it was funny, but it took a lot more effort that I would have expected.
What I did learn from this though is that often things don't translate over smoothly and it is up to the translator to decide what is meant when translating passages. This made me feel a little more comfortable when speaking in Korean because even if I don't get it right, if I take a good guess and I am close enough, someone will likely understand what I meant and correct me. I had a hard time remembering the two different words for mentally and physically tired and would often use the wrong one in context when I felt tired and was with Korean friends. They were usually able to tell me the other word when I got it wrong though. I think it is very important to realize that you will make mistakes, but it is not the end of the world and those mistakes will usually help you learn more because the emotions behind the experience help the words to stick in place later on.
Thanks for sharing this story. I agree with you, translation is not really just a mechanical skill, it's more of an art - a creative process. Bad translation is so prevalent and pervasive.
An alternative theory to the "toilet" thing - in Japanese, the word for Bathroom is "toiletto", just a Japanese phonetic reading of "Toilet" which they likely picked up from British English. I'd venture a guess that Korean signage having "toilet" on it has its roots in Japanese, albeit subconsciously. Just my hypothesis, though.
@@KoreanPatch Translation is definitely a bit more difficult than just learning another language for reason such as this. It is possible that they may have got the English "toilet" in that manner. I just remember being in Seoul and if someone asked where the bathroom or restroom was in English, many English-speaking Koreans that probably have not visited America would get confused thinking the person needed to bathe or rest.
Another funny one is meeting. 미팅 in Korean is a date, but meeting in English in a business context is something completely different. I cannot begin to tell you how many confused Koreans I worked with that thought everyone at work was going on a lot of dates.
I also was surprised how many Korean words are almost the same as English words when it comes to modern items and technology. The pronunciation is slightly different because the letters don't translate as cleanly over and some of the words have extra vowels because of how Korean syllable blocks work, but it made a lot of words easier to remember and in a few instances, I made wild guesses on items that I thought might be this form of Konglish and then felt confused when I had actually guessed correctly which then confused the Korean speaker I was talking to because they were not aware I had made a random guess. Things like elevator, escalator, smart phone, ice cream, sandwich...
@@kraziecatclady "I also was surprised how many Korean words are almost the same as English words when it comes to modern items and technology." Exactly how Korean developed or accepted Sino-Korean words from China in the past! Haha. Actually, there're some layers of "refinement" that had been through the history of the Korean language: Native Korean words as the base level, and then Sino-Korean words as more refined level, and then English-loanwords as the highest level.
A good pair of examples: 저자 vs. 시장 vs. 마켓. 저자 WAS a native Korean word for "market" that is already extinct, and we now use 시장 (市場). However, 시장 also started to feel "old" or "rural" that modern markets today prefer to use the word 마켓 that is actually from the English word "market".
the best video!!!
Anxiety free is a definite must when it comes to learning. I learned this the hard way.
I had stopped learning Korean from RUclips to focus on college Korean.
Worst experience.
The teacher made it her goal to undermine my intelligence after I told her I had studied Korean on my own for quite some time.
She had taken my classroom partner from me twice, ridicule me for stammering while reading and made sly remarks like,
"Just because you know everything about basketball doesn't mean you can play".
And her class is the only class that I'm coming close to failing. Im not failing due to my lack of knowledge but for my lack of attendance and for several missing assignments
The very assignments that she would not accept through email or in person because they were late and also because I did not know how to upload it on the College blackboard website.
This had nearly soured my experience with learning the Korean language but I had to talk myself out of it and say I can't allow for others to determine my success.
So here I am I'm back on RUclips to learn Korean. I'm starting from where I left off five months ago.
And before I fail that class I am attempting to withdraw from it.
I was better off learning on my own.
This type of learning experience brought me from being ecstatic and preparing to take the topik exam to being discouraged, guarded and bias.
Now, I have to cleanse my chakras and sh*#.
The fact that you're sticking with it through all of that is the attitude you need for this to work. I'm so sorry to hear your instructor isn't interested in nurturing your interest. That's really disappointing. Hope you find everything you're looking for and stick with it!!
Sounds like that teacher has a lot more to learn about her craft than you do about Korean! Such a terrible attitude for a teacher! Nobody with that attitude should ever be a teacher.
You'll learn much better by yourself!
Had same experience with UNC-Chapel Hill Korean instructor. Her grading rubric was so detailed and subjective that it was quite evident what she was doing. If she liked you, you got an A; if not; ............
There are some really great native teachers on RUclips (Miss Vicky, Dr. Yoon, Dream...) but for a simple, down and dirty understanding I would prefer an English speaking teacher like Billy Go.
@@kennethgarris I'm glad you're learning on your own too and sorry you had to experience that. Everybody can't be a good teacher. I love Professor Yoon and I also, Like to watch Billy from time to time. He does an amazing job.
I'm a scientist, so I'm well trained in over-using passive verbs in scientific reports to avoid referring to the person who is doing the verb (an absurd custom in scientific writing). I've also worked as a policy writer in government. There, we also frequently used passive verbs to avoid identifying the subject (because the do-er in Government is public servants, who are supposed to be faceless obedient worker drones, not purposive actors, so it's often awkward to identify the person who will do the work (verbs) of government. "The government will review your licence application," sounds like your application will be read out in Parliament, so we often avoid using active verbs like that. Instead, governments write stuff like "Your licence application will be reviewed," which is more difficult to understand and sounds pompous to boot.
I've been an enthusiastic advocate for the Plain English movement AND I've been a manager of writing teams in government, so I have some experience explaining the active vs passive verbs in communication. Because of my history with passive language, therefore, I also clearly remember my first time being exposed to 보다 vs 보이다. A teacher in the language hagwon that I attended in Busan pointed thru a window to indicate a building that would be a useful landmark for me to use on my way to the post office. She said (in Korean) that the building "could be seen there. I noticed that the word she used wasn't 봐요, but rather was something else with 보 in it. I asked her about it; the word was 보여요. At that time my Korean level was much too early to be learning passive verbs but my personal history with English passive verbs made me latch onto her explanation a little too much. English uses TONS of passive verbs and I hate the way they dodge around who is actually doing the verbs, so I was quite disappointed to find that Korean also has them..but not surprised because it is so consistent in a language that also frequently drops the subject altogether (or rather, relies on context to identify the subject).
Wow! That sounds like a very similar experience of interacting with the word. Love to hear it!!
I work in doctrine. I feel your pain when it comes to constantly needing to explain active and passive voice. Most of the materials I work with are educational or related to educational material. Sometimes instructors will provide materials for me to use as part of lesson plans. Most of those materials, when written by instructors, tend to be written as if they are spoken word. I end up having to revise the material so that it is more professional and meets the educational guidelines set forth via regulations. I cannot tell you how many times I have removed things like "We," "I'll," "You," and "Next let's (insert random task)."
Another fun thing that ends up getting explained a lot is our approved verb list because people do not know that only certain verbs are allowed to be used in the titles and standard statements of educational materials for accreditation purposes. Not only that, but different verbs are used for different educational levels and concepts.
When I first started learning Korean, I remember someone telling me that they don't really use pronouns that often. Most people get confused about not using "I," "You," "He," "She," "They," etc. People will often ask, "Well then, what do you do/say?" Not me, my brain was like "Cool, I don't need these things at all," and went on to confuse quite a few Korean friends because I didn't even bother to use them when I did actually need to use them. It got especially confusing when texting Korean friends because without physically being there, some context is missing. I had assumed they would know I was talking about me because I was the one sending the text... Nope.
True. I had fun watching someone explain a concept of my native language to foreign learners. It was like 🤯 for me, because in natural language acquisition you don’t really think about the reason you use one word and not the other, you just do.
I think we acquire words, phrases, concepts etc by hearing and seeing them used in context. I work with Korean people. Hearing them say things in response to something else happening made phrases stick with me and usually they speak only Korean to each other and I won’t understand most of the time. My coworker spoke to me in Korean and said 가격 붙으세요. I knew 가격 and just guessed what 붙으세요 meant as he was holding a price gun. I still looked it up later and 붙다 means to stick. Every time I have a moment like this I take note of it now.
Yep! Sounds like it lines up with Dr. Krashen's hypotheses!
how is your channel not more popular? your videos are so insightful
I am teaching Korean at a university. This video is quite interesting and helpful for me to understand how anglophone Korean learners feel when they learn 피동 expressions of Korean.
I'm so happy you're getting something useful from these videos as a Korean teacher!! I hope we can figure out tons of ways to help people with diverse linguistic backgrounds learn Korean more effectively. Feel free to reach out at (ian@koreanpatch.co) if you've got any subjects you'd like to discuss as a teacher!! 감사합니다!! 😊
I wouldn't be happier if we could share some good ideas about teaching and learning languages. :)
I had an experience in another language where I had heard a word often enough that it sounded familiar but I hadn't actually thought about what it meant specifically. Then one day I was watching a variety show with three celebrity judges. The guest was making a dish for each judge, one at a time. The first dish went to the judge in the middle. The judge on her left kept sneaking bites, so she turned her back to him to try to eat her dish in peace, at which point the third judge snuck a bite, and she was like "sheesh, I'm not safe anywhere!". It was the last thing that was necessary, and suddenly I knew the word "safe".
The really funny thing to me is that all the other times I had heard the word, it was in the context of actual dangerous situations. It was only when I finally heard it used jokingly in a different kind of context that the meaning clicked into place.
The experience also reinforced my belief that direct repetition (hearing the same word in the same sentence over and over) isn't as useful as varied repetition.
i really improve my english that way and unconsciously, just watching a tons of youtube video in english 😂.
There are indeed many situations where a word that would be the object in an English sentence is used as the subject in Korean. The most mind-boggling example, which I actually realised not too long ago, is that generally in the expression 보고 싶다(missing someone), the person being missed is the grammatical subject. 니가(subject) 보고 싶어, but I miss you (object). But funnily enough, 너를 (object) 보고 싶어 is equally correct. Makes your head spin sometimes.
It's so wild. Language is such chaos haha
@@KoreanPatch i want your second sentence there on a tshirt
@@KoreanPatch The human species is an irrational beast, the ability to rationalize things is almost based on one's own maturity, nature and ability to look at oneself as well others around them. It's no surprise language is just as irrational as humans are since we're the producers of it.
As someone who has almost finished a degree in TESOL and Korean, I can say that after having read Krashen's work, the University style of teaching Korean isn't for me. I have had a few moments during the lessons when I could recognise grammar and say "i've heard that before" but I never hit that point of "Ah! I understand". So I am hoping to continue with self-study and youtube study of Korean after University and eventually put myself in a place where I can travel and teach in Korea, hoping to experience ways of study that reduce the anxiety of test taking and grading my work.
Completely agree. University environments CAN be extremely enriching experiences for students, but it's completely up to the teacher, and all of the students will need to have the same drive to learn the language in order to create an environment that doesn't get criticized by people looking for metrics and not general progress. It's possible, but difficult. I had a French class with a native speaker teacher that was absolutely phenomenal back in high school - he just spoke French with us, and explained grammar and vocab we had questions about in detail, but only when we asked. One of my favorite classes ever.
I hope you reach a level you're happy with and get over here soon!
That story with the kids was soooo cute!! I love that! I immediately sent this to a friend who not live and teaches English in Korea, haha. Unfortunately, she's not allowed to speak Korean with them, but still... Did you ever find that understanding the children was ever difficult or were you mostly always able to understand their enunciation of Korean words? Anyway, great video!!
I just studied the passive voice in Korean with TTMIK. This is the perfect afternote. What you now say is what I really need to pay attention to. TTMIK said it too, but now it really sinks in…
I remember someone complaining that they couldn't remember the difference between 부끄럽다, 부드럽다, and 부럽다 and I was very surprised because those words feel completely different to me. That's when I realized that I had never actually looked them up or made flashcards for them, I had only picked them up from context. The contexts in which I'd hear one or the other are so wildly different that it never even occurred to me that the words were similar.
One moment that stood out to me was when I tried to say "가수 좋아요?" to my co-teacher when I was asking him if he was a good singer, and he told me that you can't say it like that in Korean (what I said was more like "do you like the singer?"). He told me it's correct to say "노래 잘 해요" or "I am good at singing". Korean doesn't really have a grammar structure to literally say "I am a good..."
On the flip side, I rarely hear Korean people say "are you a good..." or "I am a good...", and instead they'll use "are you good at..." or "I am good at..." since it's more similar to the way they speak in their native tongue.
I think this was when I started to really understand that you can't translate things literally from one language to the other because languages often have different approaches to expressing the same ideas.
Yeah, it really is like that. I know one of the issues I run into to this day is that I seem to prefer saying "주시겠어요?" to simply using "주세요" because commands feel too... strong to me as a native English speaker. Weird.
oh my all the time I thought it was '닫습니다' 😂😂
hey thank you for sharing your story! it’s very lively and remarkable! and it’s strengthen my understanding towards korean, looking forward to your next sharing!
Thank you so much!! Glad to hear this was helpful for you.
As I've learned Japanese and Korean are structurally the same in many aspects, besides kanjis Japanese and Korean both use grammatical particles and similar word order as well many words that sounds almost the same.
As of right now I'm learning Japanese and not Korean, later on when I've acquired a lot of Japanese I'm considering learning Korean next.
I noticed this similar difference within Japanese as well, instead of saying 'I can't see' they'll say it in pretty much the same way a Korean would put it together.
The child teaching the Teacher, WOW! 1 Out of the mouths of Babes :) Such a Precious Story, " Not seen to me ! Wow Just Wow! Arabic is Like this in many ways! Mawum Same and like SA'Tori You either feel it or You don't
such a cute story!! I love storytime XD looking forward to the next ones. :D I wish I remembered distinct moments like this more...
There's nothing like being corrected by a little kid. It sticks.
Nice video idea! 👍🏻
Glad you think so! I'll make some more.
Awesome content bro. Keep up the good work
Thanks! Will do!
I can understand korean a litle after 35 years in japanese