In my Phonics class (lowest level, 1st or 2nd graders) I have a second-grader named Yedam. Yedam is pretty smart, but she doesn’t deal well with stress – so when we have a spelling test, she loses her cool, and never does very well. And then, almost inevitably, after the quiz is over, and she sees her low score, she cries. I try to just help her to understand it’s not such a big deal – when it’s not a test, she often does just fine.
Yesterday, she didn’t cry at the end of the test. Instead, she wrote, boldly, across the top of her quiz paper, “너무 분하다.” My coworkers all told me it means she’s angry, and seemed alarmed: “Why is she angry?” But the dictionary conveys a more subtle meaning, that I think is closer to what she intended: 분하다 can mean “chagrined” or “vexed.” So what she meant, I think, is “I am very chagrined.”
I took a picture of her test paper.
Ultimately, despite her score of “2,” I viewed it as a sign of huge progress that instead of crying, she expressed her feelings verbally. Note that the word “alligator” is always the last word on a “Jared quiz.” – so everyone knows it despite its multisyllabicity.
