The language

When I was in Japan, I did not understand a word. It was spoken so fast and very alien to my ears. I really felt the effects of being in a foreign land when I was there. When I came back to Korea, it felt comforting and oddly home-like. It was then that I realised I knew a lot more Korean than I gave myself credit for.

My Korean’s definitely improved. Although my hope of having regular lessons was smashed when I arrived in lil ole Naemyeon (I realised this was not even a possibility), I've picked up phrases from watching online lessons, SNSD vids, listening to conversations, and getting colloquialisms from Korean friends and my students. Now I can read everything relatively quickly, can interpret about 2% of a conversation, can understand easy questions and answer in Korean, and I have figured out the basics of sentence construction.

Highlights of my language usage have been:
-Ordering and asking for foods with success
-Having English/Korean/body language convos with Mrs Hong
-Strangers ask me where I'm from (in Korean) and I reply in Korean.
-When I was buying bread and a candy bar, the convenience store lady asked me if I hadn’t eaten lunch and I said yes I haven’t eaten. WOW! I understood her!

No I rarely use Korean in the classroom. That would defeat the purpose of my job. And people that are like 'How do you teach if you can't/don't speak Korean?'. The answer is 'With great difficulty' though its not impossible. Students have an English level enough to be able to understand basic instructions, and can hold a basic convo at the least (though this is not true for elementary, which is one of the reasons why they are my least fave age).

Anywhooooos, my goal is to be able to get to an intermediate level by the end of the year. I will need to work really hard to get there. I like the way the language feels rolling off my tongue. Jinja? eeeeooooo eoteokkae?! CHA joyonghi haragooo!