KoreanClass101.com Blog

Kinship terms. It's kind of hard to translate the concept literally but these titles are used quite frequently in Korean. Actually, here's a great lesson on just that. English can be quite direct at times. Whether that is a good or bad thing, indirectness is more favored in Korean. In English, we like to use names to be polite whereas Koreans prefer the use of titles like 선생님. Certainly there are times when Korean can express some of the most direct concepts possible, but on the whole, Korean functions in an indirect manner most of the time. One such way to be indirect is the widespread use of kinship terms. Here's a brief breakdown of a few select terms based on gender: These four terms are used widely and are quite... Show more

안녕하세요. 현우예요. I am back in my hometown for 추석 (Chuseok) and as it's expected each year, the trip back home isn't always very easy, with all the people moving all together. But I made it back home safely. The bus ride took the time it usually takes - about 4 hours, and I arrived home at 4:00 am after taking a taxi from the bus terminal to my parents' house. The bus fare from Seoul to Korea was around 22,000 won, and the taxi fare was around 6,000 won. The bus stopped at a service station for 15 minutes so that people can use the bathroom or get something to eat or drink. And here's a video to show you what a 고속도로(express way) 휴게소(service station) looks like at night. :) 재미있게 보세요 ^^

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted here. April 1st, to be exact! These past 5 months have passed by so quickly, it doesn't even feel like it's been 5 months. I've been really busy with Uni this year, even though it's only part time. It's quite odd, but part time study seems to take up almost as much time as full time study does! I've been doing Linguistics this year, and since the weekend I've been putting together my final essay. At the beginning of October I'll have my final exam ... but it doesn't stop there! I'm trying to get together some random studies so that I have a better chance of getting into the university that I want to go to in September 2009 (The School of Oriental and African Studies!). So, at the end of... Show more

Korean text input. Insanely logical. The Korean keyboard. Have you ever sat down and thought about how simplistic the setup is? We're talking about a keyboard that originally housed 26 English letters but now logistically houses 한굴. Not bad at all, really Not to mention that if I were to type in English a bunch of random letters such as "awfeiojawcneliawefiawn" the English keyboard doesn't discern between consonant and vowel - even though in English we actually do have rules about CV order. For example, a"normal" English word cannot have three vowels back-to-back (unless of course it has a French origin or other language whose rules are different). But in Korean, there are only nine possibilities for a syllable block. But keep... Show more

If you've known me for more than 15 minutes, you probably know that I really am a 13 year old fangirl at heart. This was proven last week, when Brian Joo from Fly To The Sky came here to NYC. First, let me just say that I've never seen a real live kpop performance. It just didn't happen in Nashville. So, when I moved to NYC, I was hoping to get to see someone (anyone, really) perform here. Then, my first day in the city, I saw a poster saying that Brian was coming! I immediately went online and found out how to buy a ticket. So, the big weekend finally came. Brian was doing an autograph signing at a cafe on Saturday, and I met another non-korean kpop fan here, so we decided to go together. We got in line at about 4pm and... Show more