한국어 공책

4월22일:
개인의 취향 (#8): 1시
내 애인을 부탁해? (#2): 45분

4월23일:
세상 밖으로 나오다: 20분

4월24일:
내 애인을 부탁해? (#2): 45분
세상 밖으로 나오다: 10분

4월25일:
내 애인을 부탁해? (#3): 45분
세상 밖으로 나오다: 20분

4월26일:
내 애인을 부탁해? (#4): 45분
세상 밖으로 나오다: 20분

올해 총 합계: 124시05분

4월16일:
TOPIK: 3시

4월17일:
개인의 취향 (#2): 1시

4월18일:
개인의 취향 (#3): 1시

4월19일:
개인의 취향 (#4): 1시
어머니게서 전화했다: 15분

4월20일:
개인의 취향 (#5): 1시
세상 밖으로 나오다: 15분

4월21일:
개인의 취향 (#6-7): 2시
내 애인을 부탁해?: 45분

올해 총 합계: 118시55분

(Cross-posted.)

I sat for the TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean) test yesterday. The TOPIK test is offered four times a year in Korea and twice a year internationally. There are three tests and six levels. Generally speaking, if you want to study at a Korean university as an undergraduate, you need a four. As a graduate student, you need a five. I have no interest in doing either, but the test is only $15 in this area, so why not take it?

I signed up for the beginner (1/2) test. I'll take the intermediate (3/4) test next year if I'm interested. (I'll be taking two graduate classes and will possibly have a student teacher in the fall, so no way am I even considering taking it in September.)

I've been practicing for the test since the beginning of the year, which means I've focused more on grammar than I normally do, I've taken some practice tests, and I emailed Sister essays for her to correct. Although I knew almost all of the vocabulary, my grammar definitely needed some brushing up on. One of the problems with reading so much is that I can figure out a lot from context, but if I miss nuance, it doesn't often matter in my understanding and enjoyment of the story. The focus on grammar was a good idea.

You have to sign up for the test two months in advance. Well, Thursday one of my students puked in class and went home with a high fever. Friday, another student puked and went home with a fever. Wednesday is when I felt a cold coming on. Friday night I need "Ny-Kill" to fall asleep, so I was not looking forward to dragging myself 30 minutes away to take a Korean exam. I was worried I'd puke and be sent home with a fever, just like my kids.

Enough about that—the test itself was held at a large Korean church about 30 minutes way. I knew about this place, because they offer Korean classes (to kids) on Saturdays. I doped myself up on Day-Kill and made it there at about 9:05. Although there was a sign about the test, there were no signs telling me where to go, so I had to ask someone for help.

We were told the doors would be open between 9 and 9:20 and that the test would start at 9:30. I had wondered why it took so long to get my registration ticket back in the mail, and I soon figured out why. The registration numbers were not assigned in order of registration, but of age. So the youngest test takers (who appeared to be about third grade) were at the very front, and all of us old folks were in the last row.

Three ajummas were running the test, and they gave the directions in Korean. Basically, a sign pen (felt-tipped marker) was used to mark our answers. We could bring our own pencil or pen to do the fill-in-the blank written section and the essay. We could mark on the test booklet, too. If we made a mistake on the answer sheet, they'd fix it with whiteout. Cool, we started.

And then people trickled into the room. So much for the 9:30 solid start time.

While they gave directions, I looked around. Of approximately 60 testers, exactly five of us appeared to be over the age of 20. The same five were the only people in the room who did not appear to be Asian. In fact, I'll hazard a guess and specify we were the only five people in the room without Korean greatgandparents. We were sitting in the very back row and the teenagers kept turning around and looking at us.

Was I back in Korea?

We started the first half of the test, which is grammar/vocabulary and writing. After doing ten questions or so I glanced at the prompt and was relieved to find it was something I could think of ideas for. (Who's your best friend, how did you meet, and what do you do together? Write about your best friend.) I jotted down a few phrases and went back to finish the grammar section.

After I finished the grammar/vocab, I wrote a quick draft about Master before doing the rest of the writing section. That gave me about 30 minutes of the 90 minute period to redraft the paper and write it in my best handwriting. One minute before the testing period was up, I realized I'd inserted an extra space after a period, but I decided I didn't have enough time to erase 16 characters to recopy them. Oh well. The essay was supposed to be 150-300 characters and mine was 288. Not bad.

While we were taking the test, mothers were hovering near the windows, peering in at their kids. One of the teenagers sitting in front of us (we were in pairs) didn't even bother to write a single character for her essay. Looking around the room, most of the older kids didn't want to be there. Most of the younger kids looked worried. And then there was foreigner row.

I wondered why so many kids were there. I figured the older ones might be testing to be exempt from foreign language requirements, but the youngest ones? Were they just there so their mothers could brag about their scores?

During the break, I found out three of the other foreigners knew each other and had all studied Japanese together. The fourth guy was Hungarian and this was only his third day in the country. He didn't really have an answer for why he was studying Korean, so I decided he was a spy and didn't push.

During our half hour break, two of the youngest girls were talking in the bathroom. "Do we have to go back?"

"Yeah, there's another part."

"What? What is it?"

"I don't know," the second girl shrugged.

"There's a listening section, and a reading section," I said.

The first girl's jaw dropped, "Reading? They didn't tell me that!"

"Yeah, and the listening section is really slow," I said, "보...기..."

And the listening section was really slow. In fact, it was so slow that the teenagers were all giggling about it. At least until they got to the section where one dialogue counts for two questions. Apparently they weren't expecting it and didn't understand the directions. Panic was seen on faces.

During the listening section I looked around and recounted. We were down ten test takers, including the girl who didn't even write a single sentence for her essay. Foreigner Row was still intact, though.

We weren't supposed to leave the room during testing, but at this point the Day-Kill started to wear off and I really needed to blow my nose. One of the ajummas had to follow me out and watch me (to make sure I wasn't cheating, I guess). "Oh," she said in Korean, "it must be hard to take the test when you're sick!"

Awww, it really was like being back in Korea, with the ajummas taking care of the weird foreigner.

The second half of the test ended, and the waygookins stood around debating the last two passages. They were about salt and health, and how happy feet make a body happy. I'm sure the young test takers found those exciting, let me tell you.

As I was leaving, I ran into the young girl again, this time with her mother. "Did you do OK?" she asked me.

"I think I did alright, what about you?"

"You were right, the listening was really slow!"

Before stepping out in the pouring rain, I stopped to put on my sunglasses. In Korean, my ajumma asked me how I did on the test. "It was OK," I said, "but I don't like having this cold."

"This is very hard," she agreed, "Why do you study Korean?"

"Because my mother-in-law doesn't speak English."

"Does she live here?"

"No," I said, "She lives in Korea. I lived in Korea and met my husband there."

The ajumma patted me, "Ah! I am sure your mother is proud of her foreign daughter-in-law!"

4월10일
성균관 스캔들 (#16-17): 2시
Basic TOPIK: 20분
세상 밖으로 나오다: 15분

4월11일
성균관 스캔들 (#18): 1시
WordChamp: 10분

4월12일
성균관 스캔들 (#19): 1시
WordChamp: 10분
세상 밖으로 나오다: 15분

4월13일
성균관 스캔들 (#20): 1시
WordChamp: 10분
세상 밖으로 나오다: 20분

4월14일
Complete Guide to the TOPIK Basic Test 1: 3시

문법 80
쓰기 (문장 없다) 56
듣기 87
읽이 85

WordChamp: 5분

4월15일:
개인의 취향 (#1): 1시
WordChamp: 5분
Complete Guide to the TOPIK Basic (writing practice): 10분

올해 총 합계: 108시40분

3월6일
세상 밖으로 나오다: 20분
WordChamp: 10분

3월7일
WordChamp: 20분

3월9일
WordChamp: 15분

올해 총 합계: 75시50분

2월27일:
TOPIK 13회 A형 연습했다: 1시15분

문법 90
쓰기 (문장 없다) 53

2월28일:
세상 밖으로 나오다: 30분
WordChamp: 5분

3월2일:
WordChamp: 10분

3월3일:
TOPIK 13회 A형 연습했다: 1시15분

듣기 90
일기 85

3월4일
내조의 여왕 (#18): 1시

3월5일
세상 밖으로 나오다: 10분
내조의 여왕 (#19): 1시

올해 총 합계: 74시45분

(Korean Blog)

I wonder, from time to time, why I bother with Korean. I know enough Korean to deal with my in-laws. I can hold my own in Korea. Anything complicated, Good Man or his family would handle (or Master, if need be). I don't intend to study in Korea. I don't want to become famous there. So why do I bother to continue my Korean studies? Why not plateau out where I am right now?

And then I pick up one more book written in Korean...

One of the joys of reading in Korean is that it forces me to slow down and enjoy a book.

One of the pains of reading in Korean is that it forces me to slow down and understand a book.

Months ago, I ended up finding an article about a North Korean who was born into Camp 14. His North Korean name was Shin In-kun, but in South Korea he goes by Shin Dong-hyuk. He lived in the camp his entire life until he escaped.

(Some people don't believe his story and say it's impossible that he escaped from the entirely controlled zone of Camp 14. I know memoirs tell the author's truth. I also know that terrible things are happening in North Korea, and nobody wanted to believe the atrocities that Nazi Germany was carrying out were true when they came to light.)

He wrote a book about his experiences in Camp 14, but it's only available in Korean (세상 밖으로 나오다). I asked Sister to buy it for me and she did, reading it herself before she sent it to me. Sister wrote on the note she sent:

그리고 2시간만에 다 읽었어요... 읽는 내내 답답하고 화나고.. 그랬어요. 휴~

And I read the entire book in only two hours. The whole time I was sorrowful and angry. Well... sigh...

I put the book aside for a few months. I was working on my million characters goal, and that was all about extensive reading. I was reading for pleasure, not worrying about what I couldn't understand.

I feared I wouldn't be able to understand the language, and I worried that it would be too hard. I picked up the book about two weeks ago, and I gathered my mini flashcards on a ring (also sent by Sister in the same package), prepared to make a lot of flashcards. I was ready to do a slow, intensive reading so that I wouldn't miss anything. I wanted to give Shin the respect I suspected his work would deserve.

The chapters in the book are very short, and it's illustrated in Shin's own hand. The great thing about short chapters is that I'm not overwhelmed by a huge block of text, and I can pick up the book, read it for just a few minutes, and end at a good stopping place.

The book is just about perfect for my reading level. The words I don't understand are almost always either North Korean (with South Korean equivalents given parenthetically) or political words specific to North Korea that even Good Man doesn't know. I can mostly figure those out by context. I'm sure I don't get all of the details, but I get far more than I was expecting.

So I haven't made a single flashcard. I haven't needed to. Even so, I've only been reading this book for twenty or thirty minutes a day. It's intensive reading, but not in the way I expected.

When I read in English, images flash into my head quickly. The pace of my reading makes it necessary to shake the image away quickly. By the time the image has been created, I'm already halfway through the next sentence.

But when I read this in Korean, the image builds itself piece by piece. Slowly.

When the image fills in, I exhale deliberately, close my eyes, and hold the picture in my mind. I've read about these things in English. I know these things happen.

But reading the words in Korean, by a Korean, held as a prisoner in North Korea? It's much more powerful. The image lingers. I can't shake it away. I can't ignore it.

농촌지원을 나가면 쥐를 많이 잡을 수 있어서 일주일 내내 쥐를 잡아먹은 적도 있다. 쥐가 보이지 않으면 한 달에 한 번도 못 먹은 적도 있다.

쥐를 잡으면 그 자리에서 바로 먹지 않고 학교로 가져와서 "화구"에 구워먹는다. 작업이 끝난 후 친구들끼리 모여 잡아온 쥐를 꺼내 놓고 함께 먹는다. 친한 친구들끼리 모여서 먹는데, 쥐 잡아먹는다고 나무라지는 않는다. 여름에는 나뭇가지를 모아서 굽기도 하고, 작업반 내 불 피워놓은 곳에서 구워먹기도 한다.

화장실에도 쥐가 많은데, 화장실에 있는 쥐를 잡아먹기도 한다. 쥐가 관리소에서 많이 걸리는 병인 "비라그라"(펠라그라)에 좋다고 한다. 오히려 뱀보다 쥐가 영양가가 많다.

If you went into the fields, there were many rats, so sometimes we were able to eat a rat every day of the week. Sometimes, we didn't see many rats and we went a whole month without eating one.

When we caught rats we didn't sit down and eat them right away. We went to the school and roasted them over a fire. When labor ended we shared the rat with our friends. Good friends gathered together and didn't get punished just for eating rats. In the summer we made a fire of twigs and the labor group met in that location to roast the rat.

There were many rats at the bathroom, so sometimes you could grab rats there. At the political camp, rats were a good way to treat pellagra. Rats had more nutritional value than snakes.

2월23:
세상 밖으로 나오다: 30분
WordChamp: 5분

2월24:
세상 밖으로 나오다: 30분

2월25:
세상 밖으로 나오다: 30분
WordChamp: 5분

2월26:
내조의 여왕 (#17): 1시
시스터와 Skype: 10분

올해 총 합계: 69시20분

2월18:
세상 밖으로 나오다: 30분

2월20:
내조의 여왕 (#16): 1시
세상 밖으로 나오다: 30분

2월22:
세상 밖으로 나오다: 30분

올해 총 합계: 66시30분

2월13일:
TOPIK 21회 B형 연습했다: 2시30분
시스터한테 이메일을 보냈다: 5분
시스터한테 이메일을 보냈다: 5분

문법 77
쓰기 (문장 없다) 54
듣기 81
읽이 79

2월14일:
아느 날 내가 죽었습니다: 20분
내조의 여왕 (#13): 1시

2월15일:
Intermediate Korean (Grammar): 10분

2월16:
내조의 여왕 (#14): 1시
아느 날 내가 죽었습니다: 20분
Intermediate Korean (Grammar): 10분
세상 밖으로 나오다: 30분

2월17:
내조의 여왕 (#15): 1시
세상 밖으로 나오다: 30분

올해 총 합계: 64시

시스터전에

다음을 읽고 150-300 자로 글을 쓰십시오. (30 점)
여러분은 올해 무엇을 하고 싶습니까? 왜 그것을 하고 싶습니까? 2011년에 하고 싶은 대해 쓰십시오.

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2011년에 한국어를 공부하고 싶다. 2011년 동안 오백 시간이 공부를 하겠다. 하루에 한국어 티비를 보고 한국어 책을 읽는다. 그리고 일요일에 내 시누이한테 이메일을 보낼 것이다.

8월에 한국에서 여행한다. 시댁 집에서 있는데. 시어머니 영어를 잘 모르니까 우리는 서로 한국어를 말해 야한다. 또 제주도으로 경구하고 싶다.

2006 년부터 2008까지 광명시에서 살았었다. 태권도를 연습하고 관장님과 친구가 됬다. 관장님을 다시 만난다. 관장님은 소주를 많이 마시는 것을 좋아해서 우리는 같이 마실 것이다. 나도 소주를 많이 마시면 택시를 탈 것이다.

2011년에 내 마음이 기쁘다!
::

시스터후에

다음을 읽고 150-300 자로 글을 쓰십시오. (30 점)
여러분은 올해 무엇을 하고 싶습니까? 왜 그것을 하고 싶습니까? 2011년에 하고 싶은 대해 쓰십시오.

::
한국어를 공부하고 싶다. 2011년 동안 오백 시간을 공부하겠다. 하루에 한국어 티비를 보고 한국어 책을 읽겠다. 그리고 일요일에 내 시누이한테 이메일을 보낼 것이다.

8월에 한국에서 여행한다. 시댁 집에서 있는데, 시어머니는 영어를 잘 모르니까 우리는 서로 한국어를 말 해야 한다. 또 제주도를 구경하고 싶다.

2006 년부터 2008까지 광명시에서 살았었다. 태권도를 연습하고 관장님과 친구가 됬다. 관장님을 다시 만난다. 관장님은 소주를 많이 마시는 것을 좋아해서 우리는 같이 마실 것이다. 나도 소주를 많이 마시면 택시를 탈 것이다.

2011년에 내 마음이 기쁘다!
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