Bret's Hangul Mal
I am so proud as of late of my ability to speak Korean. I mean I can't go and have a 2 hour conversation but I am suprised at how much I can understand. Even more flattering is that other people are surprised as well. I'll be sitting in the teacher's lounge listening to the Korean women chirping away and then I'll laugh at one of them and then I'll join in the conversation and their faces get all wide and then they nod their head like a proud mom. I can really attribute this acquisition of a new language to refusing to mix with Westerners. I stopped going out with the wide-eyes a long time ago and made it a point to just hang with Korean friends, besides Keith sometimes. I can definately hear more than I can say but I guess that's the way it is with all languages. Su Yeon won't speak any English to me unless she's drinking and wants to yell at me about how I'm going home and stuff. But, that has really helped. I also studied the alphabet so that I could read street signs and menus and this has also helped. These are just my suggestions if you ever want to learn Chinese, Russian or any language with a different alphabet. Learn the pronunciation of the letters, then submerse yourself in culture, then force yourself to use it by going out alone to eat or something. Anyway, wait til I get home and we go dine Korean(maybe just drink Korean, the food ain't all that), it's gonna be fun to see me and the Ajumahs cutting it up as she serves us the Kimchi!
