노래방~!

[Keith]

if you want to practice reading, 노래방 is definitely the place to be! My friends who studied Korean, always read along when they're there, even if they have no idea what the words mean. And I do the same I can't do a rap though... but then again, I can't do a rap too well in English either...

[holdfast]

haha.. well, i guess by shady i meant.. umm... well, it was on the edge of a very not-quite-so-nice part of town, to put it nicely. i used to live not far from there and i would hear gunshots quite often from my apartment(i don't live there anymore, don't worry). and the funniest part about the whole thing is that many non-korean people from that part of town would go there on a regular basis (there were some english songs too). i was told that weekends the whole place would be completely full! and there were big grates over the front windows and door so people wouldn't break in.. that whole part of town is like that.

but it was sure fun!

and yes, it is good practice for reading. another good reading practice is watching korean t.v. with korean subtitles (yes, you have to turn the english ones off). i always always watch t.v. with korean subtitles (but sometimes i have to pause to read because it goes too fast).

[rooraa]

korean subtitles??! Do you watch it online? Or does your tv have some program in it? Fascinating! I wish my tv had that!

[holdfast]

i watch entirely too much korean tv online. i am currently watching 만원 행복 and typing this at the same time! and most korean tv shows have the subtitles at the bottom - and if not all of the subtitles, there are a lot of captions that are helpful to understand what is going on. but i can't always read as fast as it goes, so i will pause to read (:

[rooraa]

만원 행복....?

OH!! The show where you only like 500 won to live on for a week, right? If my thinking is right, and I would to think so (I actually read 한글 [I just found out like 2 minutes that all this time i have been spelling 한글 wrong! I was spelling it 한굴 -.-] and understood it, kinda)

Funny Stuff ^^

I have to watch with english subtitles but I still hear a few words here and there where I understand it but the one word I always get from the captions is 승리! ㅎㅎ

[Bouks]

I just found Attic Cat online...with Spanish subtitles! It's kind of helpful that way, though, because I forgot just enough Spanish to only partially understand (maybe 2/3 understood), so it's like having a hint of what's going on, without the whole thing in cheater English.

[holdfast]

yeah, you get 10,000 원 to live on for a week and there are two competitors - you have to use less money than the other person. if you get caught eating it costs you money, but you can get people to "sell" you food really cheap. the show i was just watching was with 김회철 and 백지영 and the p.d. let him eat two 만두 for 200 원 for doing a comedy performance. and there are also missions - on this particular episode they have to wear a step counter and walk 10,000 steps every day so they are getting other people to do it for them. it's funny.

but even more helpful lately for listening - recently super junior has a new subgroup in china, so i've been watching a lot of chinese tv (i am studying that as well) and i hardly understand anything. but since most of the members hardly speak chinese, they speak some korean and sometimes there is a korean translator that you can hear (or one of the members is translating back and forth). and sometimes, for the korean tv stations there are korean subtitles when they are speaking chinese. it's been very interesting!

[rooraa]

김회철 from SuJu?! I didn't know that! I must look that up, 회철 is so funny

and you're studying Chinese as well? Language overload for me! ^^
Have you listened to Super Junior-M's song? They even have korean remakes of some of their chinese songs, and it's very interesting to hear their Chinese remakes of their korean songs too.
Is it Zhou Mi the member who translate back and forth?

I read somewhere that in Chinese, one symbol = one word, that's a lot of symbols! Is the sentence structure similiar to Korean (subj-obj-verb) or is it like English (subj-verb-obj)?

[holdfast]

yes i have heard sjm - i like the original chinese songs, but i don't like any of the korean remakes.. perhaps because i am so used to them one way, but they've used the exact same tracks for the background - you can hear members that are not in sjm singing in some parts... and yes, zhoumi and hangeng are the two that translate back and forth. it's funny to see hangeng now speaking fluently while the others have a hard time, as opposed to when he first came to korea and the other boys had to translate for him and even made fun of the way he spoke. have you ever heard heechul's impersonation of hankyungs korean? it's hilarious!

chinese sentence structure is similar to english, and you really don't have to conjugate anything.. it seems much easier than korean so far, but i don't know much about it yet. i am sure it is very difficult to sound natural and to express the right feeling.. if that makes sense.

and yes, someone just subbed heechul's happy shares company - look for it on youtube!

[rooraa]

하하 Hangeng is one of my favorite members! I bet he's glad to be back in his home country, they're on his turf now!
I only wish Henry Lau got more singing parts, he only gets maybe a line in a song. It seems like he's just a dancer in the group...I hope he gets more violion solos at least.

Heechul's impersonations are LOL! Heechul and Hangeng make a great pair in my opinion

[sierras3]

I can't find a Korean 노래방 where I live... but I'm moving to Singapore soon. Maybe they have them there.

We have our usual karaoke places though... and we have an endless supply of Chinese & English songs... usually the Chinese songs are more up to date since there is a larger demand for them here in Malaysia and Singapore.

The only Korean song I found at my local karaoke that I could relate to was Tim's 사랑합니다. The others seemed like ancient songs... ^_^ Maybe all Trot songs... hehehe! I long for some of the new, fun songs... 로꾸거 anyone?