I realized recently that I started neglecting my long-standing habit of posting occasional Korean-language aphorisms and proverbs. Part of what happened is that my little “stockpile” became empty, and I got too lazy to replenish it, which led me to a situation where posting an aphorism was always more work than I wanted to deal with, at the last moment when deciding what to put on my blog.
Lately, too, I have been very depressed about my Korean ability. You might observe that I am always depressed about my Korean ability, so what’s really different? Well, obviously, if I’m so depressed about it that I’m actively avoiding my little self-study sessions, such as trying to understand various proverbs, well, then, that’s more depressed than before.
I’ll have to get over that, right? I have about 7 months remaining to become fluent – since I jokingly said, about 9 years ago, that I thought it would take me 10 years to become fluent. At the time, I thought I was giving myself more than enough time. Now, I’ve passed my 9th anniversary in Korea, and frankly, it looks like I’d been overly optimistic.
I may be a linguist, but that doesn’t seem to mean I’m necessarily very good at learning languages.
Here is an aphorism from my Korean book of aphorisms.
목수가 많으면 집을 무너뜨린다
mok.su.ga manh.eu.myeon jib.eul mu.neo.tteu.rin.da
carpenter-SUBJ be-many-IF house-OBJ destroy-PRES
“If there are many carpenters, the house is destroyed.”
This is clearly the same aphorism as the English, “Too many cooks in the kitchen (spoil the broth).” That’s fairly self-explanatory, and therefore a good proverb for me to try to resume my occasional Korean proverbs.
It’s a cloudy Sunday, but the snow turned to rain. I made a broth to gowith my pasta, but it wasn’t spoiled because I was the only cook.
[daily log: walking, 1km]