Month: November 2016

Posted in Personal, taekwondo, Uncategorized

Who would’ve thought

Posted on by 카밀라

Lately I have been very aware of all the things in my life that are precious to me. That usually happens this time of the year, however this year it seems that the majority of these precious things are related to my language learning journey, in one way or another.
Through my Korean studies I have met a whole bunch of amazing people that I would now hate to be without. I have met people through language exchange, through italki teachers, through this blog as well as through fellow students. I went on a trip to London and made a ton of great memories. I took chances I never thought I would even consider taking and I have learned about a new culture and a new way of thinking.
And now, I’m starting yet another adventure! Because I’m joining a Taekwondo class! Wait wait wait.. Just how did I end up here?
Well. When I was young(er) I used to love any movie that involved martial arts and there was even a Taekwondo class starting up near my house, but my mom didn’t allow me to take part in it. Since then I have thought about joining different classes like kickboxing or self-defense classes, and when I jokingly told my Korean friend that I would start learning karate, he responded with ‘I won’t allow that! At the very least you have to stay loyal to Korea and choose Taekwondo instead!’ While this too was just a joke, I ended up actually giving it some consideration. Around a week later I actually discovered a club pretty close to me by accident and started to think about it more seriously. I ended up contacting the club and even though I can’t start yet (Transportation is really an issue when you live in the countryside like I do, so I have to wait until I’m finished getting my drivers licence) and there’s no official start-ups around the time where I can start, they allowed me to sign up anyway and then join them as soon as I can. So there you have it. I’m joining a Taekwondo class around the new year!
A Korean friend reminded me of my interest in martial arts and my interest in Korea led me towards Taekwondo. I probably wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for my Korean language learning journey.
Who would have known that my life would look this way, today? Let’s all go on more adventures!

Posted in Selfstudy, Uncategorized

CONTEXT PLEASE!

Posted on by 카밀라

 

I always try to remind myself to learn through context and this is what I do most of the time, but to be honest sometimes it’s just really tempting to find random words to study with. Especially if you don’t really want to study a specific topic but rather wants to expand your general vocabulary. I too have done this many times. It’s not that it’s a bad thing at all, but just try to keep in mind that having a context can make everything a whole lot easier.
Also, when looking up words in your native language to find the Korean equivalent, I always recommend looking at the suggested sample sentences. Often there are tons of words being suggested basted on the word you searched for, but the context can be the thing that determines which of those suggestions to use, and you will only find a context by looking at sample sentences.
I recommend doing the same thing when looking up the Korean word, to find the (in my case at least) English meaning. If you use Naver dictionary like I do, then you will know that it suggests words in a dropdown menu while you are writing the word(just like when you are googling something), and it shows the meaning as well. This mean that you often can find the meaning of the word you are searching for, even before having finished spelling it in the search bar. While this can be a great time saver (that I often take advantage of) it can also create some issues. The words shown in that preview menu is the most common used ones, but if the context isn’t correct then you might find yourself feeling super confused.
Let me give you an example!
I’m currently reading a long article and in the beginning of that article I came across the word 투기, and when searching for the meaning I ended up with this result:

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That didn’t quite make sense to me, however, I was still in the very beginning of the article and there was a handful of other words that I didn’t know, which made it a little difficult to determine whether the word was wrong or if it was just me who didn’t quite understand the meaning of the full sentence. In cases like this I always make a small note in my notebook and then continue reading to give myself a better context.
I continued reading and after a little while I came across the word again. Now, with a better understanding of the context, I knew for sure that ‘speculate’ didn’t make any sense in this context, whatsoever. So I checked with Naver once again. This time I ignored the result from the quick menu and searched for other meanings and sample sentences.

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Now look at the last result.
The article I am reading is about Taekwondo, and with that context as well as the last result in mind, the word 투기 suddenly makes perfect sense. The context literally made the entire difference.
Next time you feel discouraged by not understanding the overall meaning despite looking up all the words, just remember that you might have found the wrong words for your specific context.

Another example could be when I recently read the word 밤(evening, night). 밤 is a word that I have known pretty much since I started studying two years ago, but it simply didn’t fit into the context that I found it in. While I felt really silly to look up the meaning of a word that I thought I knew for sure, I decided to do it anyway and I then discovered that 밤 also means chestnut. Quite a difference, huh? Always remember the context.

Here’s some of the most common words with different meanings that I have come across:
맞다 –To be correct or To be hit/slapped?
사과 – Apology or Apple?
눈 – Eye or Snow?
배 – Pear or Boat?
차 – Car or Tea?
말 – Words/speech or Horse?

You see what I mean, right? Context can make everything a whole lot easier!

Posted in Personal, Uncategorized

Taking chances

Posted on by 카밀라

Lately life has been forcing me to deal with a number of unforeseen situations and decisions which have caused me to see myself in another light. As some of you lovely people already know, I do suffer from anxiety as well as anxiety attacks and as a result of that there are certain things and situations that I try to avoid, however these days I simply haven’t had the option to. While I believe that I’m generally OK despite my (currently) high anxiety levels, I of course can’t deny that it does affect me and my studying in some ways. However, while feeling a bit discouraged I had a small talk with my sister. My sister is probably the person who knows me the best in this world, and she immediately got my mind back on track. She reminded me of all the chances I have been taking lately (though I didn’t quite have a choice) and I realized that I have handled these situations so much better than I would have in the past, and that made me see how much I have developed during the last year or so.
I then started to think about how I could develop my Korean skills and started thinking  about all of those chances that I never took. I don’t like to say something if I’m not sure it’s correct, I need to mentally prepare myself before calling or skyping with a new person and I have had several chances to improve my skills that I didn’t take because it seemed too scary and overwhelming. I’m just that type of person.
While thinking about this I was reminded of a recent experience. Back in September one of my close Korean friends sent me a message and asked me to meet up with his Sister and Dad
They were traveling in Denmark for a few days and traveled through Aarhus, a city relatively close to me.Now the funny thing is, despite having known my friend for 1,5 year now and having sent each others letters and packages several times, I have actually never talked to him in real life. And while I knew that he had a sister, I knew nothing about her whatsoever until the day before they were in town. Not even her name. It could have been a dangerous situation and I definitely had to think carefully about it. It was scary as hell but my friend thought it would be a great chance for me to practice my Korean as well as a chance for his family to get some insider knowledge about Denmark, and he couldn’t have been more right. In the end I agreed and on my 2 hour bus ride(the trains aren’t currently running in my area, so it takes forever to go to even relatively close cities) my anxiety went completely out of control. I constantly thought about getting of the bus but I didn’t. I ended up having a great afternoon, my anxiety vanished as soon as I met them and I got to practice my Korean, face to face with somebody, for the first time. It also made me aware of my flaws and showed me what I need to work harder on. We took a picture together that day, and whenever I look at that picture, I’m filled with excitement and a sense of pride and accomplishments.
I took a crazy and scary chance, and it turned out perfectly. I wanted more of that. Despite my anxiety, I want to take advantage of my personal development and take more of those chances.
So I did!
I ended up accepting a call through HelloTalk from a complete stranger, who was feeling bored and wanted to make friends. I got to practice my Korean with her for 45 minutes while doing the dishes. Pretty great!
I have a new coffee date coming up!
I also ended up filming a video, teaching another friend of mine how to make the classic Christmas stars and hearts that you can see all over Denmark next month. In Korean naturally!
Oh and let’s not forget that I somehow ended up in a promise involving rapping in Korean.. Yeah.. Don’t even ask..

I guess my point is that you truly need to challenge yourself in order to become better at anything. I’ll  make sure to work harder on this! 🙂

Well.. I guess I should go and practice my non-existing rapping skills. Yo!

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, Uncategorized

The odd ways of motivation

Posted on by 카밀라

Lately a lot of things have been happening and as a result, my motivation for studying has been on quite a ride. It really made me realize that one’s motivation can be affected by so many factors, which is awesome and frightening at the same time.
As I have mentioned before, I have been working on a lot of projects and some of them are working out, some are not. Some of them depends on me and some of them depends on other people as well.
One of the projects that I have been working a lot on sadly did not work out and even though I don’t really mind, for some reason it seems to have affected my motivation. I felt like my many hours of studying was wasted. How on earth did that thought appear in my mind? Studying is never wasted and thanks to this project, my writing and speaking skills have improved immensely, so why on earth did this feeling get to stick to my soul and drag my mood down? Honestly, I’m still looking for the answer.
Things like this will happen once in a while. It happens to everyone. I guess people deal with it in different ways. So what do I do? I’m usually very motivated. Probably 85% of the time. But what about the last 15%? It’s actually really simple. I just suck it up and keep going. Motivation is an amazing thing but we can’t deny the fact that it’s a emotion that can’t really be forced, and if you rely on that alone, you might not go anywhere near your goals. I don’t recommend ‘sucking it up’ to everyone, though. It’s so easy to burn yourself out and if you do that, then you wont go anywhere at all. I guess it’s a balance thing. My motivation is generally really strong, so I don’t have to worry about burning out, but I know a lot of people are really struggling with their personal balance.
Isn’t motivation fascinating? None of us really knows what it is, how to describe the feeling or how to trigger it. And yet, we can all relate to the feelings it brings and none of us wants to be without it. It is indeed amazing!
Anyhow! I have been ‘sucking it up’ for a short time period and while the results obviously are different from normal, I have still been improving slightly and I’m satisfied with the fact that I stuck through the dry spell. A few days ago, my motivation returned for full power. I now feel super impatient and restless when I’m at work, because my mind needs to go home and study. To avoid too much frustration over this, I now spend more time during my breaks to enjoy the Korean language and urge to learn. I’m making new friends, finding new blogs and integrating Korean into my hobbies like dancing and cooking. I’m having fun in my own little Korean-bubble (yeah.. that’s totally a thing) again!
So what happened? Well I guess that a lot of things have caused my motivation to return this strongly, but there’s mainly 2 things. The first reason is my Italki teachers. Yes, teachers. I started sessions with another teacher last week, because the time difference and busy schedules, sometimes makes it difficult for me to find a good time to schedule sessions with 효진쌤. So, I decided to find another teacher who could fill out the gaps when necessary. However after having my first session with 혜선쌤, I found out that out learning styles and personalities also seems to match really well, so now I’ll just have weekly sessions with both of them. You can’t practice too much, right? Anyway, they are both really great and that alone is motivating, however their praise have really been motivating me. It’s not that praise in unusual to me, but in this case I can just tell that they actually have an interest in me and my improving skills, and that makes me want to study harder and show them my efforts. It kinda feels like when you want to make your friends or family proud. I like this feeling. ^^
The second reason is myself. I had no confidence  at all when I started this journey, but I keep growing and learning more about myself. I didn’t think I could self-study, I didn’t think I could read, I didn’t think I could speak. I’m proud of myself. And I need to work hard so that I can continue being proud of myself.