Jaeyoun and I both have the next 3 days off. I actually don't have to work till Monday, but her crazy Math Hakwon has class on Saturday. We decided to start the holiday off right, so we stayed out till 7:30am last night. My coworker, Mikael and I started off at a Galbi(갈비) restaurant and met up the Justin from Pavox. We then headed over to the Now bar for awhile and finally ended up at Pavox where Jaeyoun and Jang Sam met us. It was good to see a lot of people that I know. (Thanks for the link Shannon) We moved over to a Gamjatong (감자탕) restaurant at around 6am. Somehow, I spent more money than I needed to, but it was a blast.
Normally, we would have made the trek to Jeju for the holiday, but with us just getting back from America and the fact that she has to work on Saturday; we decided to just stay on the mainland.
We are about to leave for Seoul and will be spending the next couple of days there with Jaeyoun's oldest sister for the holiday. We have been told that it will be nothing fancy and that we don't have to worry about doing anything special for the holiday. We will go and hang out tonight and tomorrow. It will be an interesting time for listening and trying to follow the Korean. Usually when I understand what they are talking about and have taken the time to formulate a sentence, they have moved on to a new topic by the time the words leave my mouth. Oh Well! At least my listening skills are improving!
Check out this breezy topic from the Big Ho!
It really made me laugh this morning.
I hope everyone has a great New Year.
Stephen King's Everything's Eventual
12 hours ago
3 comments:
Thanks for the shout-out.
re: Seollal/Seol-nal
Here you hit upon an interesting question: the difference between transcription and transliteration. If one were simply transliterating the Korean 설날, then the Roman spelling would be "Seol-nal," following, as closely as possible, the Korean letters.
If, however, one is transcribing (i.e., writing down what one hears), then the Roman rendering would be "Seollal," because that is, in fact, how Koreans pronounce the word. The general rule is that, when a final "n" meets an initial "L" (or vice versa-- final "L" and initial "n"), the resultant pronunciation is a double "L," as in:
신라 = Shilla (the dynasty), not "shin-ra"
관리 = gwal-li (management), not "gwan-li"
한라 = Halla (the mountain), not "han-la"
전라 = Cheolla/Jeolla (provinces)
설날 = Seollal (lunar new year)
(etc.)
One major exception here in Seoul is 선릉역, a subway station whose named is pronounced with a double "N": "seon-neung." Strangely enough, the official Korean govt. romanization is "Seollung," as if the word actually followed the normal pronunciation rule. Weird, eh?
This pronunciation rule is something I point out to students who are having trouble saying "online," "all night," and "will not." Once they become aware of the rule that's tripping them up, they find it easier to avoid the problem.
(NB: The same applies in reverse to foreigners learning Korean: become aware of the quirks that come with being an English speaker, learn how those quirks interfere with one's Korean pronunciation, and master those problems!)
Kevin
Kevin,
Cool information and thanks for the Korean tips! I have been trying to study Korean intensively the past month. One of the biggest problems I have been having is the difference in spelling and pronunciation. I know that there are exceptions to every rule just like in English, but it has been giving me fits lately. Probably one of the hardest things for me to do is to hear a word and try to write it down to study later. I usually come up with something that doesn't make any sense to any native Korean speaker.(You should be able to get an idea of my Korean level) Nowadays, I have been getting a Korean speaker to record all of my vocabulary words on to my MP3 player and this has been background noise for my walk to work.
I have a couple of books that I am using and the worst are the ones that use Roman spelling. When I first got to Korea a couple of years ago I actually thought there were two cities Busan and Pusan.
I feel your pain. Korean spelling is a bugbear of mine as well. You're doing the right thing by listening to audio recordings. Make sure to associate them with hangeul spellings and just avoid romanizations, which are often misleading.
행복한일만 가득!
(Literally, "Be filled only with happy things!")
Kevin
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