Caveat: Oh, how’s your alligator??

I found the following message in my email box this morning.   I miss my students already.

HELLO! teacher.

Remember me??

I'm christina. My summer vacation was over.

So i'm so sad some time when i thought about

summer vacation.

How's you? I miss you…

i miss your alligator and your funny story.

i want you to come to Korea and teach students in

L-bridge school.

While i'm so happy to go Eldorado1.

But my friends are sad because i go to second

time in L-bridge school.(thesday and thursday time)

And i'm so sad because i can't study with Emily…

I visted your sight and i'm so happy to see your

alligators.

Oh, how's your alligator??

You gave all your alligator to our L-bridge teachers???

Any way, i want to hurry to teach L-bridge students.

SEE YOU WHENEVER…

SEE YOU SOON..     GOODNIGHT!

 

Caveat: Languages

Yesterday I went to the Meiji Shrine, among other places.  It's kind of a big almost wilderness-y park just a few km south of Shinjuku.  Quite stunning and beautiful inside.  I took some video… maybe I'll try to process and post it, later.

Anyway, when I first got there (after walking the wrong way around to the "back" entrance, as per my obtuse, instinctive, anti-touristic custom), I found myself having a short exchange with the guard at the entrance, since there didn't appear to be any signs with English making clear I was at the right place.  Nothing fancy, mind you:  Is this the Meiji Shrine?  Yes.   Thank you.

But I realized that I was managing the exchange in not-too-bad low-level Japanese.  The guard definitely seemed impressed.  That's a tribute to my 20-years-ago Japanese teachers at the University of Minnesota, I suppose.   Still, I immediately felt very frustrated and almost angry:  the "trying-to-learn-Korean-for-over-2-years Jared" suddenly was very jealous and resentful and pissed off at the "haven't-even-looked-at-Japanese-in-20-years Jared," because that was an exchange that would have still given me anxiety in Korean (although I think I might have managed it). 

I can meditate on various reasons and excuses why I find Korean so difficult.   There's the mind-bogglingly weird sound system (I mean, not in absolute terms, but to us English speakers).  There's all those Chinese-origin homonyms (what happens when you borrow 4 words that are identical in pronunciation, except for tone markings, into a non-tone language?).   But the reason that's probably most likely, but that's hardest for me to accept, is that apparently there's a big difference between my 20-something brain and my 40-something brain.  I've commented on this before.   Oh well.  Maybe I should just study Japanese, since it seems to come so much more easily to me?

But… I like Korean.  Do I like it because it's so hard for me?   Am I a linguistic masochist?  Hmmm.

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