Korean Writing

옛날에 미나란 친구가 있었는데 어느 날에 그 친구는 다른 사람의 아기를 돌봐주면서 나와 얘기하고 있었다.  이런 저런 얘기하다가 그녀가 아기를 보면서 “우리 아기도 이렇게 예쁠 거다”하고 말했다.  그말을 들은 나는 우리=we 하는 생각으로 걱정하게 되었다.  나랑 그 친구랑 좀 친하기는 했지만 결혼할 나이가 되려면 한 참 멀었고 그 만큼 친한 사이 아니지만 이 여자가 갑자기 나와 결혼도하고 아기까지 낳는다는 생각하고 있다고 힌트를 주었기 때문었다.  이 상황에서 무슨 말을 해야 하나 한 동안 고민하다가 겨우 어색한 웃음 소리에, “음, 그럴까?” 하고 넘어갔다.

나중에 알고 보니 한국 사람들은 my 대신 “우리”란 말을 일반적으로 사용한다.  이 친구는 “당신과 나의 아기”를 말하는 것이 아니고 자기의 아기를 말하는 것이었다. 나의 반응? “휴우우우우우우우우우우우우” ^^

이젠 “우리”라고 해야 한다고 알면서도 “나의”라고 하는 실수를 많이 범하고 있다.  연습 얼마나 해야 그 말이 자연스럽게 입에서 나올까?

목요일에  캠프파이어 만들어서 삼겹살 요리했어요. 그때 날씨가 너무 추워서 손이 아주 시렸왔어요 그래서 젓가락 떨어뜨렸을뻔 했어요.

시골에서 묘지 많이 있어요. Canada 에서 묘지가 다 교회 아니면 government sanctioned funeral homes 있어요. 한국 에서 묘지 어디든지 괜찮은 것 같아요.

update
I updated the gallery templates so that comments will appear under the photos instead of in a pop-up. I also changed all photo titles to English because of a bug in IE which caused blank pages if titles were in Korean. Captions are in Korean where I know what to say and how to say it.

It really was a frustrating trial for me, finding something besides a baby book or a text book that would be interesting to read. I’m a reader, it’s how I learn most of what I come to learn, but in studying another language one hits a barrier where there’s not much for one to read that is within a level that’s readable and which is still of interest.

I don’t know how long this book will hold my interest, of course. “순정 만화” could either mean “simple comic” or “boy-meets-girl comic”, according to what I’ve found in the old online dictionary, and I am thinking the title is a pun on both: the contents look pretty simple in terms of the dialogue, and in terms of the pictures it’s also pretty simple… and it looks from the cover like it is a very long boy-meets-girl story. But what the hell, I am so glad to just find something not meant for little babies, which is also within my grasp in terms of vocabulary and grammar. And actually, I don’t much mind boy-meets-girl stories, to be honest. They’re not what I write, but given all the neologisms in my own SF writing, I can’t blame Korean comic book writers for using them in their work. Though, actually, it’s funny: the words in the SF comic that I ran across weren’t neologisms per se, but more a kind of “foreignized” rendering of Korean, either using olden-days language, or strange forms of conjugation, I wasn’t sure which. Between that and the made-up country names and weird adaptations of English, I was tearing out my hair trying to understand. Maybe in a few years I’ll come back to it and it’ll make more sense? Hey, I’m trying to be optimistic here.

I didn’t know how to say that I tentatively recommend it. It turned out my girlfriend had actually looked up the webpage for this cartoonist, and bookmarked it for me, when I was complaining of the inappropriateness of those comics I’d bought, though, so it’s probably a good bet it’s somewhat appropriate to me, anyway. I’ll report back once I’ve read a few chapters and let you know what I think. Even if a lot of the language is familiar and I’m not learning much new, though, I think it’ll just feel good to be actually reading something in Korean.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so much of a stickler about such fine grammar, but I am. When a work can indicate both a contrasting conjunction like “but” and a straight forward conjunction like “and”, I feel alarm bells going off. And one of the finer points was when I asked about one thing I hear friends do a lot in conversation. It was especially apparent in conversations between Myoung Jae and Seong Hwan, two members of the band I used to play with. Seong Hwan would be in the middle of a long explanation about someone he’d met or some conversation he’d had, and Myoung Jae would interject with a question ending in “은데/는데”. While I inherently grasped that this was a kind of question, I couldn’t be sure what kind of weight was placed on it… was it a “yeah, but?” critical sort of question, which cast doubt on someone’s comment? Was it a question meant to clarify something? What was the special meaning of it? When I asked Myoung, he couldn’t really explain, but the answer I got last night was that it was meant to show continuity with the speech of the person being asked the question, perhaps like how we might interrupted a narrative with, “And what did he say then?” I assume all those other tonal resonances—questioning the reported speech, casting doubt on someone’s claims, and so on— can also be done in such a question, probably using tone as well as specific words, but anyway, -은데/는데 doesn’t function in this way as, perhaps, “but” would do in the following sentence: “But where exactly does she live?”

I have a suspicion that “-은데/는데” has even more potential uses which remain beyond my understanding at present, but at least I can confidently use it at the end of a question, and in a statement contrasting two declaratives. I still don’t feel comfortable using it as “and”, though.

As for 태극기... I think I’ll say more on my own blog, when I get around to it. But as for the special word, I’ll tell you whether you’re right when you guess. It should be dreadfully easy given the context of the question, especially considering the mountain I mentioned.

좋은 소식이 있어서 이 이메일로 소식을 전하고 싶어요.
어제 다른 한국 블로그에서 주관한 콘테스트의 발표가 있었는데요.
제가 삼성MP3를 상으로 탔어요
그리고, 오늘 아침에는 KNTO로 부터 이메일을 받았는데요.
전에 참여한 설문조사 덕분에, 무료(*=공짜,colloquial)한국노래 CD도 받게
됐어요.
지금 정말 행복한 기분이에요.
그럼, 이만 쓸게요

What I wrote originally :

좋은 소식을 드려서 이 이메일을 써요.
I’m writing this email to share a piece of good news.
어제 다른 한국 블로그의 contest가 발표를 나왔는데요.
The contest results for another Korean Blog was announced yesterday.
저는 삼성의 MP3 player를 탔어요.
I won a Samsung MP3 player.
그리고 오늘 아침에는 KNTO의 이메일을 받았어요.
And this morning I received an email from KNTO.
전에 설문를 참여했느까 무료 한국 노래의 CD를 도 탔어요.
Because I joined in their survey earlier, I won a free CD of Songs of
Korean.
이제 행복게 느껴요. I’m feeling really lucky now.
이만 써요.

Yeah, that’s my weak jab at sarcasm. I thought the least I could do was mention why I’d been absent so long. But this post may not make up for the long absence.

I had a lot more to say, including the fact that I’ve started (laggardly and all) on a short-term intensive study period for Korean. My beleaguered-yet-undaunted girlfriend is trying to help me with it, so I’m gonna try spend as much time as I can this month getting my head around it.

No more pain with the tooth, the stitches were removed today and all is healing well. I’ll still be a little less active here than I’d like, as I am trying to finish up a novel draft, getting swimming going again—I ended up not exercising for a while because of the repeated infections, but I’m eager to get at it again—and other things are going on as well… but I should be a little more actively posting here soon.

Oh, and by the way, I am sure a great deal of what I wrote above may be quite screwed up. I admit freely to using a dictionary in ways I normally scold my students for doing. But I swore to myself to get something posted here, today, and had an idea about what I wanted to say, so this dog’s breakfast is… well, it’s all I could pull off for today. I shall not inflict anything so bad as this later on. But now I’ve been at this for a few hours, and my head hurts. Off to something else. The big lesson for me, today, is a relearned one: the challenge level should only be one pip above the currently possible, not ten pips like this post was (and still is). Oh, and if you’re using a dictionary that much while writing, you’re doing it wrong. So I think, anyway. (Reading is entirely different, of course.)

In any case, it’s good to be back…