In my latest iteration of my efforts to study Korean: I’m doing some tutoring sessions on Saturday, a sort of language exchange.
I learned this proverb / saying:
실패는 성공의 어머니다 failure-TOPIC success-GEN mother-COP Failure is the mother of success.
I think this makes sense. But failure is also the mother of more failure. And success can be the mother of more success. Not to be too gloomy. Call it the gene-mixing rule as applied to failure and success.
My notes from class (easy to take notes with a camera in your phone, right? – I learned that trick from my students):
My fifth-grade student who goes by Clara wrote about political economy in her essay book yesterday. I haven't corrected her errors – she's a fairly low level of ability but her meaning is clear. As usual, I type this exactly as written, not correcting grammar or spelling mistakes.
Hello my name is clara. Today I talk about rich pay much more taxes than usuall people today. The first reason is "who have much more money." Think, everyone. Usuall people have much more money? "No." Yes, no is right. Why? Rich dad gives money to his son. Then, Rich dad's son, son's son, that son's son… sons are rich. Usuall people same to rich? No! that is rich pay taxes. thank you.
I have been forcing my most advanced class to read poetry. They're not really that into it, and I know it's hard. I make them read it out loud – not like memorized, but with practiced semi-dramatic readings and presentations.
I believe it's a good way to teach them to think about and internalize the cadences and intonations of English – and intonation and cadence are major issues with these kids – more so than vocabulary or grammar or even word-for-word pronunciation. So that's the plan. Who knows if it really works. And Hamlet's soliloquy is pretty ambitious, I realize. We spent a full class discussing obsolete vocabulary and context. They were interested in that. Then each of them read it for me.
The sound quality is poor – for which I have to apologize. Their voice quality is better than the video might suggest. The camera's mic is good, but the hagwon is noisy and the walls are thin. It's hard to get the sound only from the talking student. I need to invest in a stand mic maybe.
The text:
To be, or not to be–that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep– No more–and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep– To sleep–perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprise of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action. — Soft you now, The fair Ophelia! — Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered.
