KoreanClass101.com Blog

Just a little while ago, I wrote about two pre-school boys who were going to graduate to the elementary house. I said that these kids were pretty tough. What became clear last night was that they are absolutely on the bottom rung. Now, they might not take it from the 2nd graders, everyone else will be dishing it out in a big way. This is 한규 who cries pretty easily. He usually cries for an extended period of time in order to get what he wants. His little brother pulls this trick ALL time and it works for him. That kid is spoiled beyond belief..but that's a different story! 한규 just cries and cries.. you know what I mean, when the crying is just for effect, and not because he is still hurt. Anyway, last night just about... Show more

March seems very long compared to the short month of February right before it but a lot of things happen in this month of the year to make it a very short one actually. Schools start again in March in Korea, and the weather gets much warmer in March, it almost stops snowing, the flowers start blooming, and so on. But, somehow, when I think of the word "March", there isn't as much that comes to my mind as when I think of the other months. I am not sure, but I guess it might have something to do with all the celebrations of the new year that go on before March... What do you think of when you think about the month of March?

Winters in Korea are cold. When I lived in Korea the one thing that kept the winters bearable was the warm floors. Korea uses, I think universally, radiant heat as its primary heat source. The comfort of having warmfloors heating the house without the noise and discomfort of having forced air is really nice. The one thing that I did not like about radiant heat in Korea was having to rotate the 연탄 (coal briquettes). I don't think 얀탄 are very popular in Korea right now though. I think it used to be that every year there were news reports of people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning from 얀탄. Nowadays the floors are heated primarily from a gas boiler. We finished building our house last year and we decided that our primary source of heat... Show more

I usually write about my experiences with Korean orphans, but I've just spent a week in Taipei, so I decided to switch things up a little bit... Of course, the language of Taiwan in Chinese, but a lot of Koreans travel there, and my Korean came in handy at least once. I was entirely unprepared for the Chinese... I should have spent some time with SurvivalPhrases.com before the trip. Alas, I was hopelessly lost, except for the precious few Hanja I understand and recognize. In Taipei, there is a section of town called Snake Alley. It must have been much more exciting in it's hey day, but now is just another street market. The name comes from store fronts where the guy will pull out a large (2m) long snake and bash it's head to stun... Show more

Here's a 새로운(new) 카테고리(category) for everyone. :-) Whenever you learn a new foreign language, it always takes a lot of time remembering (and forgetting) new words, but at the same time it's very interesting how some basic differences in the way of thinking or looking at things can result in the differences in individual words. But then there are some 'powerful' words that come in handy in a variety of situations, which kind of have to do with the understanding of the culture, and at the same time help you build stronger vocabulary in the cultural context. I'd like to introduce those words in the Blog, once or twice a month just like Hyunwoo's Mind Map. And today we have the Korean verb "풀다" here, and how it can be translated into... Show more