Amanda Takes Off...

Tonight's class was awesome.

Tall New Never There Guy showed up to class. To participate. For the first time in three months or so. He didn't even bow in, just tried to sneak into the closet to change. Master made fun of him. Well, I'd teased him on his Cyworld page that he needed to come to class so we could freespar. (Of course, it would be translated as, "Where are you? You are coming to class. We are freesparring together." I really need to learn some other tenses.)

While we were waiting our turn to do some drills across the floor, I asked if he wanted to freespar and we started feinting. Later, during the break, I asked Master if we were going to freespar tonight. He said maybe. TNG was grinning, Master asked what was going on, and TNG told him.

We got to spar. I would have lost, of course, but he was fun to spar with because while the other guys spar well, he's much much taller than me and is willing to get in closer, so we actually push each other around. The boys will do that to each other but not to me.

At the end of class, I told everyone I'd see them tomorrow. TNG said it back. I said in Korean, "You? Here? No." Master and the boys all laughed, TNG did this mock, "I'm hurt" face and said, "Tomorrow, I'm coming! I'll see you tomorrow!"

Also! That weird kicking jumping moving across the floor thing I've been having problems with? Tonight Master pointed to his head, "You understand." He pointed to his feet, "Tonight, you understand." I yelled, "만세!"

Crybaby/Gold Medal Girl looked directly at me and then kicked a soccer ball straight into my face from three feet away. I yelled at her and chased her around the studio, much to everyone's delight.

However, the best part of the night was during the hour or so before class. I had told Master last night that I wouldn't be in class tonight because I'd be at a friend's house and we'd be studying. Well Michael got sick and canceled. His message said "몽이 아파." While I was on the subway to class, I texted Master, "내 친구 몽이 아파요. [My friend's body is sick.] Well, I'm coming to the studio and I'm practicing taekwondo tonight." I used the marker he taught me a few days ago. I was so proud of my perfect—or near perfect—Korean.

He wrote back, "Your friend is sick? Are you coming together?" (All of these texts were in Korean.)

I wrote back, "We're not coming together. My friend, 'Amanda, I'm sick. I am not studying tonight.' Do you understand? Will you be at the studio tonight?" Then I looked at Michael's text again, found a new word that I hadn't known (and guessed from context when he originally emailed me) and wrote one more message, "OK! My friend can't meet tonight and I'm coming to Tongil. Do you understand?"

After I sent the third message, Master called. I answered in Korean and we had a 38 second conversation in Korean. All seats in my car were full and many people were standing up. One guy sitting nearly across from me swerved his head to see around the person standing in front of me and stared at me, mouth open, while I said, "Yes... I'm coming... He's sick... No, not my friend... Yes." He just gaped at me.

I loved it.

(Side note: Koreans don't say goodbye or anything closing on the phone. They just sort of end the conversation with one of them hanging up on the other. Sometimes you get a "yes," "yes" before it happens. When Master first called me over running shoes we ended the conversation with several "bye"s. Now we just say "yes" and hang up on each other.)

When I got to the studio, I was so excited to tell Master about being gaped at on the subway. I practically burst into his office. Grin was there. I said, "OK, OK, 나는, 나는—"I thought maybe the problem he couldn't understand me was because I didn't use pronouns (often left out in Korean) or because I combined two sentences with two different subjects using the 서 marker, and maybe that wasn't allowed?

Before I could finish, he said in English, "Friend monkey is sick?" Grin grinned at me.

I said, "What?"

"Amanda, 몽?"

Ah! Michael used 몽 and so did I. 몸 is body. 몽 is slang for monkey. The ㅁ and ㅇare the same number on handphones, so much like my 아령 error, I'm sure he just hit the button too many times. I didn't realize the spelling error, probably because I get confused due to the ㅇin 몸통... So Master was wondering why my friend had a monkey. And why his monkey was sick.

(I can't recall the word for monkey, but I know it doesn't have 몽 in it, so I asked how that became slang for "monkey." Master said it comes from English. Hence, the opening bit of MC 몽's CD, with the foreigner being interviewed for a news bit: "What is he, some kind of money that raps or something?" Of course, much like many English-speakers read Romanization as if it's English, many Koreans read English as if it's Romanized Korean. Hence, the "k" in "monkey" becomes a "g," and the "o" becomes long.)

While he was explaining this to me, his too-cute-for-words oldest child (2 or 3 Western age?) was saying, "AMANDA! Annyeong hasayo! AMANDA!! Annyeong hasayo!" over and over. I kept saying, "annyeong" to her, but she wasn't placated. Finally, I paid direct attention to her.

She was standing on a small table. She looked at me, put her hands over her stomach (making it a more polite bow; in the studio we keeps our hands by our sides), bowed to me and said, "Amanda, annyeong hasayo?" I nodded back at her, looked at Master, and said, "She's nice!" (I don't know how to say "good manners" or "polite," so I figure that worked.) She smiled and pushed back her hair. That kid is so funny. She used to be so shy with me. Now she runs up and takes me handphone and plays with it when Master's busy showing me something. She stands in front of the mirror, babbling Korean and my name.

During the break I asked Master if I was messing up by combining different subjects with 서. He said no, it was fine, but that I didn't need to tell him I was coming to the studio. I come every day, he knows that. I switched from all Korean to a blend of languages, "Yesterday I say today I'm not coming."

"Yesterday?"

"Yes, yesterday. 'Master, tomorrow I'm not here. I'm going to a friend's house and we're studying.'" (Imagine that all in the present tense.)

He started nodding, "Oh! Oh! I forget!"

For some reason, the whole situation struck me as terribly funny. I could imagine what he had been thinking. Amanda has a friend with a monkey? A sick monkey? And she's coming to class? Why is she telling me this? She always comes to class... WHY does her friend have a monkey? Is the monkey coming, too?

While we were talking, I suddenly realized why he had corrected "안와요" to "못와요" yesterday. Both are negations, but "안" means something more like "don't" or "won't" and "못" means "can't." "I can't come" is different than "I won't come," of course. In my text messages, I had realized that instead of saying "areggaesumnida" (you understand) and inflecting my voice as if it were a question, I needed to be writing and saying, "areggaesumnikka"; and I'd written it correctly (I doubled checked with him while we were chatting).

Today, I had fairly quickly figured out words in both Michael and Master's messages that I hadn't known. I used the 서 marker correctly and recognized Michael when he used it (we haven't learned that yet). On the way home, I went over some vocabulary flashcards I've been frustrated with and magically knew more than half of the words both ways (Kor-Eng and Eng-Kor).

I was reading (and by that I mean looking at) the hanja on the subway signs on the way home. 철산 and 가산 both have 산 in their Hangul and the part of the hanja in both stations was 山. Now, Scott once said that there are only 98 words in Korean, each means at least 26 things. He is mostly right. "Mountain" is only one meaning of 산 but looking at the hanja and considering how mountainous Korea is, I thought 山, 산, mountain! I looked it up in my dictionary (since Master just taught me how to use it) and I was right! My first hanja! (At least, my first self-taught hanja... I don't remember most of the ones Master shows me.)

Combining all of the events of the night, I'm feeling very positive about learning Korean. I love it when things suddenly click and make sense and I can fit it all together in my head. Also, I find the monkey/body mistake hilarious.

I do not believe that a language can be "picked up" by pure immersion the way people think it can be, at least not as an adult. However, I love it when my immersion, directed study and undirected study all combine; it makes me feel like I suddenly know a lot more than I did when I woke up this morning.