KoreanClass101.com Blog

If hope you can wait another week or so for an orphan story. Since Thursday was Teacher's Day (스승의날) I thought I'd share a little bit about that, since I am currently teaching in a Korean school. 스승 is kind of a fancy word or "teacher" but it means the same thing as "선생님" with some more nuance of "mentor" or "master." Anyway, that's what they use to name the day. Traditionally, it was a holiday and schools were closed, but sometime in the past few years that changed....oh well! Students typically give carnations and a letter to their teachers. I am sort of a novelty at my school, and for a variety of reasons never know what to expect on a day like 스승의날. Since I am not a homeroom teacher, there is virtually zero obligation for... Show more

여러분 안영하세요! I just wanted to write a quick note to say hello, and also to introduce myself and the new blog that I am excited about sharing with you. My name is Emily (username: holdfast). I am 24, I have been studying Korean for just over one year, and I currently live in Nashville, TN, USA (and just for the record, no, I am not a country music fan^^). It is not a very large city, and at first glance I wasn't able to find much Korean learning help, but now it almost seems to find me! The biggest help recently has been my experience teaching english to a little boy named 승진 (and if you haven't seen the picture I posted in the forum, go check it out, he really is the cutest kid I've ever seen). I unashamedly love kpop... Show more

I was walking in 신촌(Shinchon) the other day and saw this big picture on the wall of a 갈비(kalbi) restaurant. I am usually trying to introduce interesting store names and signs but this week, I wanted to share this picture with you. I hope you'll enjoy this nice picture of a traditional market/festival scene of Korea (until about 100 years ago) hung on a very modern building. In the middle of this photo is the picture. In front of this building there's a 관광 버스(tour bus) waiting for its passengers. Reading from the menu that's written on the windows, this place sell 돼지 갈비, 소갈비, 냉면, and etc. :-) all of which I like very much! And if you look more closely at the picture, you can see what kind of clothes "normal" or... Show more

Our exchange student, Michael, goes home this week. We spent this weekend in Yosemite. For an 11 year-old I was surprised at how impressed he was with the sights. The typical response we have gotten from children and adults alike has been something along the lines of, "that is nice and all but we have rocks and trees in Korea too..." We asked him what he enjoyed or found different about his time in the United States and here are some of his thoughts: He was surprised that younger children needed a babysitter, that they couldn't stay at home alone for extended amounts of time. In Korea this is no big deal. He was also surprised that we don't have any 학원 here to speak of whereas in Korea everyone takes some kind of after school... Show more

I had a really long weekend recently and decided to take a short personal vacation. I headed off to 강원도 a province on the north-eastern edge of Korea. It is famous for the mountains and beaches, but I was just looking to get out of 서울. All of my long-distance travel within Korea has been by train or car, so I decided to take busses this time around. I boght a ticket for 강릉 and settled in what turned out to be a 4hr drive. It should have taken around 2~3 hours, but I guess everyone else had the same idea! I was hoping to speak as little English as possible on this trip, and since I was travelling alone, I stood a pretty good chance to getting to do just that. When I got to 강릉 the first thing I did was find a PC방. When travelling in Korea,... Show more