Category: Korean Language (Page 11 of 12)

Learning Korean and discussions about language

Interphone

2012/08/29 / Nic / 19 Comments

Says the guy still learning English, who uses Konglish and makes mistakes all the time…

Konglish is funny. Some words make a lot of sense, others are weird or completely different to the real English word. While I do enjoy some Konglish the biggest problem with Konglish is that Koreans often think it is real English. Some Koreans come to an English speaking country thinking “I’ll be fine, I know lots of English words.” Big difference between English and Konglish. While some like interphone/intercom really don’t matter there are plenty that sound like gibberish to native English speakers.

Some we can guess but you are probably going to be confused if a Korean says to you: “Fighting! I need to buy some fancy and then let’s go back to my apart for some skinship and eat some cream sand.”

10 points to whoever can translate that.

The other night while out with Korean friends I was asked if I wanted to play some ‘pocketball’? What? I was pretty confused for a while. Apparently that is pool/billiards.

Selective Hearing

2012/08/18 / Nic / 15 Comments

Though I do try to listen to a lot of Korean conversation, there are times I have to tune out because it’s too taxing on my brain to try and decipher everything.

But my brain always alerts me when things interest me in the conversation.

If you aren’t into Kpop and don’t know what YG is, it’s a major record company. Big Bang belongs to it. My husband’s friend was giving him a hard drive that has a YG Family concert on it. A huge concert featuring all the artists from YG.

and HAPPY BIRTHDAY G-DRAGON!!!!

Listening to Korean

2012/08/15 / Nic / 13 Comments

I’ve been learning Korean for about a year and a half but I’m not doing classes at the moment. I learn the most being forced to study in a class and through homework. Now I’m on my own until I start classes again either later this year or next year. I aim to be somewhat fluent eventually but at the moment still at a beginner level as taking it slowly.

If my husband speaks slowly to me I can often understand but when he is chatting away I really only understand a few words. Of course he is speaking at a native speaker pace and it’s much harder to understand that and dialect. I listen a lot though and can recognise some words.

If we are with a group of people and everyone is speaking Korean he will translate things but often I don’t need him to because I understand enough words, look at expression and body language and fill in the blanks myself. There is always the risk of completely misunderstanding though.

Having a Korean Surname

2012/08/05 / Nic / 36 Comments

I changed my family name to my husband’s family name. Actually, traditionally in Korea the wife doesn’t take her husband’s name (but the children do), so while I was not following Korean culture exactly, I still wanted to acknowledge my husband’s culture. So I decided to take on his family name. Gwon (권) can also be written in English as ‘Kwon’. If you are a Big Bang fan you’ll know this is how G-Dragon spells it.

I’ve only recently started using the name. Though we’ve technically been married for a little while, we had three weddings so I had to wait for all of them to be over. Then we were traveling for a bit and I couldn’t change it on my passport yet. Now I’m actually making it official and changing everything over to my new name. But I’ve realised I’m probably going to have to spell it out all the time! The times I’ve made appointments for things I have to very clearly spell it out. I don’t blame people for not knowing it, it is unusual for Australia. Also, my parents gave me a name with the less usual spelling so I have to spell that out quite often. Guess I’ll be spelling out my full name a lot!

Do you have a more unusual name for your country? Do you have to spell it out for people?

BTW, I was so tired last night (I make comics the night before) and didn’t try very hard with this one. Which is why I didn’t colour within the lines well haha. Sorry!

Ninja Turtles

2012/07/25 / Nic / 12 Comments

If you are not a native English speaker and are unsure of why I said that- in that context it means “obviously” but it’s a rude way of saying it. I’m not always that rude I promise!

However, if you use the saying “no shit” with your voice going up like a question it means like “you don’t say!” or “really?” which is showing genuine surprise at something.

I used it in a flat sarcastic tone, in order to be humorous and to show that what he said was quite obvious. ‘Shit’ is a swear word. A minor one but still a rude word. I wouldn’t say this to my parents but to my husband is fine.

Side note: My siblings and I weren’t allowed to watch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoons when we were younger… not sure why. Possibly our mum thought it was too violent.

One of my favourite TV shows when younger was probably Rugrats What was yours?

ALSO: Tomorrow the winners of the Big Bang giveaway will be announced. Last chance to enter!

Dog Baby

2012/07/22 / Nic / 26 Comments

This is a REALLY BAD swear word by the way, so I won’t write it on here. I understand that the word used for ‘baby’ is not the normal nice word they use for a baby, that it is an insulting way of saying baby but I still don’t really understand how this insult came about. If someone could explain exactly why these words are used in this way and why it’s so offensive I’d really appreciate it.

I’ve never used this insult before but if I’ve repeated it from a drama or read it aloud my husband will cringe and yell at me to not say it because he never wants these words to come out of my mouth. So yeah, it’s not good.