KoreanClass101.com Blog

Last week Stephanie experienced some interesting cultural differences. She has been staying at a house with twin girls about her same age. One day, after breakfast, she was helping to clear and wipe the table and the twins stared at her like she was doing something wrong. It turns out that the twins don't do any sort of housework or chores. They were amazed that she would help (like it wasn't her place).  She has noticed that the school children don't get home until late and then stay up even longer doing homework. But they don't do housework. We have noticed with the children that have stayed in our house too, especially boys, that they don't do chores. Now it may be that chores have disappeared from American society too and I am... Show more

This will be a short entry because I am late for work. ^^ This last week I received my first phone call from Korea! I was on my lunch break at work, and my friend called me. It took me all of about two minutes to realize that she was completely drunk! I asked her what time it was and she said it was 3 a.m. I had forgotten about the time difference for a minute and thought it was hilarious that she was calling me drunk on my lunch break. It was even more funny when I went back in to work and told the other teachers "..Uh... I think I just got a drunk phone call.. From Korea..." I talked to the same friend a few days later (sober this time) and she told me that she was upset about her wedding that is coming up next summer... Show more

Time. Koreans can be terrible about it. I have been stood up more times than I'm happy to admit, but not by dates, but by Koreans. Oh sure, times are changing... but historically, Koreans haven't faired well with keeping appointments on time. It's not their fault. Maybe it's my fault for being punctual. Maybe I make too big a deal of this. I mean, all other Americans think similarly (only we aren't as homogeneous as Koreans and thus, many Americans are remorselessly late too). Maybe I never really questioned it until now? Those of you familiar with Mexican culture will know that MexicoTime is about +1 hour past the time agreed upon. By comparison, KoreaTime is usually +15 minutes past the time stated. Not bad. But there must... Show more

I'm sure you are all aware that 띄어쓰기(spacing) in Korean is just as important as in any other language (with the exception of Japanese and Chinese where spacing isn't necessary). I'd like to introduce some of the most commonly mentioned examples of the confusion that spacing errors can bring about. ^_^ The first one. Let's say you want to write, "My father is going into the room." - father = 아버지 - room = 방 - to go into = 들어가시다 (honorific) So this becomes 아버지가 방에 들어가십니다. But if you change the spacing a little bit and write, it becomes "아버지 가방에 들어가십니다." (My father is going into the bag.) Haha. And here's another interesting example :) Let's say you want to say "I bought a tree... Show more

I am going to try to get Stephanie to post about her trip experiences. Here are some of her thoughts about teaching English in Korea:  So, after I got out of the hospital (the surgery went great, actually, the IV hurt more than the surgery itself) I went back to teaching little kids at the elementary school. They all stared at me like I belonged in a zoo and when I spoke korean they looked at me as if I was like a talking zoo exhibit. They all find it rather amazing that I understand anything at all. It's really different how they all go "우와" when i say something in Korean. When our exchange students speak English, no one here (in America) is really that amazed at their "wonderous ability" to say hi and where's the bathroom and I'm... Show more