안녕하세요. 현우예요. Hi. I'm Hyunwoo. Are you all following the Olympic matches(경기)? What is your favorite(가장 좋아하는) sport? I love watching all kinds of sport matches, but my favorite is gymnastics(체조)!! So if you have a favorite sport match that you never want to miss on TV during the Olympic Games period, here's the list of the 28 major match names in English and Korean. ___________________________________________ Modern Pentathlon = 근대5종 (geundae o jong) Basketball = 농구 (nong gu) Wrestling = 레슬링 (re seul ling) Volleyball = 배구 (bae gu) Badminton = 배드민턴 (bae deu min teon) Boxing = 복싱 (bok sing) Shooting = 사격 (sa gyeok) Cycling = 사이클 (sa i keul) Softball = 소프트볼 (so peu teu bol) Swimming = 수영 (su yeong) Equestrian =... Show more

안녕하세요! 현우예요. We're all here to learn Korean, and we already know the language, but here's some more tip on the words themselves that we use to refer to 'the Korean language' ^^ As you know, the Korean language is called '한국어(han gu geo)' or '한국말(han guk mal)'. Both the words '한국어' and '한국말' are composed of two meaning blocks : Korean + language. 어, which can be written in the Chinese character 語, means "language", and 말, which is a native Korean word, also means "language". So basically 한국어 and 한국말 are the same meaning, but I'd say 한국어 is a little more formal word while 한국말 is a more colloquial word. '어' can be found in many other language names, but '말' is not so commonly used other than in the word '한국말' or '우리말(uri mal -... Show more

All of my students know that I am leaving during summer vacation, and that next semester there will be a new English teacher.  And although theorhetically, they have all been told I'm not leaving until the end of August, NOT all of them really grasped that part. This week I am in the middle of a 10-day English day camp for 4th and 5th graders.  There are all sorts of programs going on at school, so kids are in and out all day long.  If you are a Korean student, there really is no such thing as summer vacation.  One of my students told me that he wasn't looking forward to it because even though he wouldn't have to go to school, his mother would make him attend 학원 all day long now. Anyway, one little girl in 1st grade saw me at school... Show more

This past Saturday at my Korean Church we had a special event - a baby's first birthday party. In Korea, the baby's first birthday party is very important, and one of the events at the birthday party is said to even foretell the baby's future. This is called 돌잡이 (doljabi). Generally, many different things are spread out on a table, and the baby is encouraged to pick one of the things. The object that the baby picks is said to influence the baby's future. Usually on the table is money (means the baby will be rich), rice (means he won't go hungry), a pencil (means he will be scholarly), among other objects that all have a significance for his future. At this particular 돌잡이 there was a debit card instead of cash (nobody had any!... Show more

Mistranslation. Okay, so a little linguistics never hurt anyone. A transference error is when something gets lost in the translation (think old Jackie Chan movies). This superbly hilarious phenomenon is not exclusive to Korean-English, English-Korean but it still is pretty funny nonetheless. One of my favorites is the whole "our mom" situation. 우리 어머니 is a way of saying "that mother in this context", "our mother" or "the mother that we both know". But when you look at it, even a newbie can be thrown off by the context. "What? Our mother? Dude, that's MY mother!" Good stuff. Why do you know my mom, man? :) How exactly is she your mom, too? Why don't we have "our" everything? This is one of those things that just doesn't translate... Show more