Category: 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

Caveat: Tea Poem On Cloth

Buddhism & Zen / Language & Linguistics / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

As I mentioned, I went shopping last Sunday, where we stopped at the Buddhist bookshop next to the Jogye temple near Insadong. I mentioned that I had bought a Korean-English dictionary of Buddhist terms. Another thing I bought were some of what might termed “aphorisms-painted-on-cloth” – I guess I like these though I’m not sure what I do with them. I’ve gifted them to friends sometimes.

But first, I study them – I try to find out what they’re about. Here is one of them.

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Here is a trascription. I could not find this poem or prayer (not sure which to call it) online with English translation, so the translation is entirely mine – please forgive defects (I welcome feedback to improve the translation)

차향기
Tea fragrance

차(茶)향기는
가까이 할수록 좋고,
The closer you are to the scent of tea, the better,

인간(人間)의 향기는
느낄수록 좋고,
The more you experience the scent of humanity, the better,

도(道)의 향기는
깨달을수록 좋은데,
The more you attain the scent of the right path, the better, too

여기에
당신의 향기를
그리워하는 이들을 위하여
Here, caring for those yearning for your scent

작은 흔적을 기록하여
남기고 저 합니다
Recording small traces, prepare to leave [it] behind.

부디
모두가
깨우치게 하소서.
Please let everyone find enlightenment.

I was so stumped by the second line of the penultimate stanza that for a time I had utterly given up. Googletranslate says “To leave me” which is just dictionary madness – look up some syllables and assign meaning then chain them together. But “저” as “me” is never a suffix. Googletranslate is useless.

Then I decided to break down and use the frustrating but exhaustive Samuel E. Martin book. I suspected -고저 is some kind of archaic verbal ending because then 남기 can be the stem of the verb 남기다 “to leave behind.” Sure enough, there it was: -koce “be willing to, intend to, get ready to, prepare to” with obvious examples using 하다 as the main auxiliary.

The very last verb+ending, 하소서, really stumped me too. It took a lot of dinking around the internet before I realized I could see if Martin had it, too – and it was there, alphabetized (in his crazy way) under the romanization -usose. Sure, that’s obvious. It’s a kind of super-high deferential imperative (“Let… “), common in e.g. Bible translations. And in Buddhist tea-prayers, too, I guess.

My lesson for the day: don’t avoid Martin just because his romanization is tedious and difficult.

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Caveat: 김서방네 지붕위에 콩깍지가…

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

I’ve decided to do a series of Korean tongue-twisters, in the same way I have been doing aphorisms and proverbs.
김서방네 지붕위에 콩깍지가 깐콩깍지냐 안깐콩깍지이냐 ?
김서방네            지붕위에        콩깍지가
kim·seo·bang·ne   ji·bung·wi·e   kong·kkak·ji·ga
kim-mister-“chez” roof-ontop-LOC bean-pod-SUBJ
깐콩깍지냐                  안깐콩깍지이냐
kkan·kong·kkak·ji·nya     an·kkan·kong·kkak·ji·i·nya
husk-PASTPART-bean-pod-OR not-husk-PASTPART-bean-pod-OR
Is the bean pod on Mr Kim’s roof a husked bean pod or an unhusked bean pod?
There some things we must ask, in life. This may not be one of them.

Caveat: 저기 가는 상장사가 헌 상장사냐 새 상장사냐

Banalities & Journaling / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

I’ve decided to do a series of Korean tongue-twisters, in the same way I have been doing aphorisms and proverbs.

저기 가는 상장사가 헌 상장사냐 새 상장사냐?

저기    가는         상장사가

jeo·gi ga·neun     sang·jang·sa·ga

There  go-PRESPART table-merchant-SUBJ

헌    상장사냐           새   상장사냐

heon sang·jang·sa·nya  sae sang·jang·sa·nya

old  table-merchant-OR new table-merchant-OR

Is that table-merchant there an old table-merchant or a new table-merchant?

Actually, I have zero percent confidence about the choice of “table” as the meaning for 상. My tutor and I figured the merchant was selling something, and 상 has a lot of possible meanings – assuming it’s a merchant.

pictureThe fact that it stumped a native speaker means I don’t feel bad about this. Table merchant makes some sense – maybe not nowadays, but I can easily imagine in olden times a man with some of Korea’s little wooden tables strapped to his back, going from town to town selling them at the 5-day markets.

Here’s my little table at right, that I bought from a streetside table merchant (or was it a more generalized housewares vendor?) in Suwon in 2010. I have no idea if he was an old table merchant or a new one.

I feel a sort of apprehension: tomorrow I return to get the results of my biopsy and probably get a CT scan. I received a text message this morning on my phone from the hospital:

WAY JARED 님의 정확한 조직 검사진단을 위하여 검사가 추가 시행될 예정입니다.
검사결과는 다음 외래 내원시 수납 후 확인하실 수 있습니다. – 국립암센터-
본 검사는 6월 19일 접수한 조직으로 검사가 진행되오니 내원하실 필요는 없습니다.

Basically, it’s telling me that they want to do additional “diagnostic tests” (검사진단)  and that it can be done when I come in for my next appointment (which is tomorrow morning). I don’t think this is really very encouraging, though I suppose I could conclude that it means “they don’t really know” which is better than “they’re certain.”

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Caveat: 고려고 교복은 고급교복이고…

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

I’ve decided to do a series of Korean tongue-twisters, in the same way I have been doing aphorisms and proverbs.

고려고 교복은 고급교복이고 고려고 교복은 고급원단을 사용했다.

고려고       교복은         고급교복이고
go·ryeo·go  gyo·bok·eun   go·geup·gyo·bok·i·go
Goryeo-High uniform-TOPIC high-quality-uniform-be-CONJ
고려고       교복은         고급원단을
go·ryeo·go  gyo·bok·eun   go·geup·won·dan·eul
Goryeo-High uniform-TOPIC high-quality-fabric-OBJ
사용했다
sa·yong·haett·da
use-PAST

The Koryo High School uniform is of high quality and the Koryo High School uniform is made of high quality fabric.

The only word that gave me a problem here was 원단. I’d already heard from a Korean tutor that the word means fabric, but my efforts to confirm that with a Korean-English dictionary failed – none that I consulted online include “fabric” as a meaning for 원단. But the meaning is right there in the Korean-Korean dictionary: 원단 (原緞) -옷 따위를 만드는 데 원료가 되는 천 (which translates roughly as a good definition for fabric). The hanja are different for this 원단 than the ones found in the Korean-English dictionary, too. Sometimes I think that mostly what I’m learning with all my efforts at study is not the Korean Language, but instead the shortcomings of Korean-English dictionaries.
I decided not to research what the actual Goryeo High School uniform looks like. I only found one Goryeo High School in Korea, which is located in the city of Gwangju. I may have even walked past it at some point during my perambulations in that city when living down in Yeonggwang in 2010~11, since Gwangju was the closest major city. I was surprised that there is only one high school with the name Goryeo, since there is a very famous university called Goryeo, and since the name “Goryeo” itself is one of the many names for the country called “Korea” or “Corea” in western languages, arguably one of the oldest names, and undoubtedly the name from which the western name for the country derives.
Anyway, I hope they have nice uniforms at that high school, made with high quality fabric.

Caveat: 앞뜰에 있는 말뚝이 말맬말뚝이냐 말안맬말뚝이냐

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

I’ve decided to do a series of Korean tongue-twisters, in the same way I have been doing aphorisms and proverbs.
앞뜰에          있는         말뚝이
ap·tteul·e     itt·neun    mal·ttuk·i
front-yard-LOC be-PRESPART hitchingpost-SUBJ
말맬                  말뚝이냐
mal·mael             mal·ttuk·i·nya
horse-tether-FUTPART hitchingpost-be-OPT
말안맬                    말뚝이냐 ?
mal·an·mael·             mal·ttuk·i·nya
horse-not-tether-FUTPART hitchingpost-be-OPT

주몽Is it [the horse?] tethered to the front yard hitching post or not?

I could see this conversation taking place in one of those popular Korean historical television dramas. Scene: the one guy runs into the palace, and the other guy asks, “Did you come on a horse?” and the other guy says “Yes my lord,” and then the first guy asks, “Is the horse tethered to the front yard hitching post or not?” – maybe because they need to plan an escape.

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Caveat: 칠월칠일은 평창친구…

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

I’ve decided to do a series of Korean tongue-twisters, in the same way I have been doing aphorisms and proverbs.

칠월칠일은            평창친구 

chil·wol·chil·il·eun pyeong·chang·chin·gu      

7-month-7-day-TOPIC  Pyeongchang[a city]-friend
친정       칠순           잔칫날
chin·jeong chil·sun      jan·chit·nal
mom’s-home 70th-birthday banquet-day
July 7th [is my] friend from Pyeongchang’s mom’s 70th birthday party.

pictureI’m not sure if ~친구 친정 here ends up meaning “friend’s mom’s” or “friend’s (at her mom’s house).” Or maybe it could even mean something like “friend’s mother-in-law”? The phrase is too sparse on those optional grammatical particles I like to lean on.

Pyeongchang is where the 2018 Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place.

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Caveat: 내가 그린 기린 그림은…

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

I’ve decided to do a series of Korean tongue-twisters, in the same way I have been doing aphorisms and proverbs. This first one is one I mentioned before – in 2007.
내가    그린    기린     그림은       
Naega  geurin  girin   geurimeun    
I-SUBJ draw-PP giraffe drawing-TOPIC
잘    그린    기린     그림이고,
chal geurin  girin   geurim-igo,
well draw-PP giraffe drawing-be-CONJ
니가      그린    기린     그림은       
niga     geurin  girin   geurimeun    
you-SUBJ draw-PP giraffe drawing-TOPIC
잘   못그린         기린     그림이다.
chal motgeurin     girin   geurim-ida.
well can’t-draw-PP giraffe drawing-be
The giraffe drawing that I drew is a well-drawn giraffe drawing, but the giraffe drawing that you drew is a not-well-drawn giraffe drawing.
I remember that 그린 [geurin] caused me some confusion, way back when, because the stupid online Korean-English dictionary says it can mean “green” (i.e. that it’s a Konglish term), but that’s not really what’s going on. It is, instead, a past participle (or relativized form, “~ that ~ V-ed”) of the verb 그리다 [geurida = draw].
It’s frustrating to think that I have been studying Korean for 5 years since then, and I’m still so very bad at it, that I can’t say this tongue-twister much better now than I could then. Sigh.

Caveat: 귀신 듣는데 떡소리 한다

Background Noise / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

귀신   듣는데       떡소리           한다
ghost hear-CIRCUM rice-cake-sound do-PRES
[It] makes a rice-cake sound that ghosts hear.
Apparently Korean ghosts like rice-cake, so if you make rice-cake
noise near ghosts, they are happy. Hence, “Music to one’s ears.”
I’m not really sure what “rice-cake noise” might sound like, though – Korean rice-cakes are kind of doughy and keep quiet for the most part.

What I’m listening to right now.



Client (feat. D. McCarthy), “Suicide Sister.”

Caveat: 기둥을 치면 들보가 울린다

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

기둥을    치면      들보가          울린다
post-OBJ hit-WHEN crossbeam-SUBJ ring-PRES
When you hit the post, the crossbeam rings.

This refers to the post and crossbeam of an old-style house (한옥 = traditional “Korean house”). I visualize that by hitting the post you could get a sort of tone from the crossbeam, in a well-constructed house. It seems to mean that you can achieve a better result by going at something indirectly. Don’t tackle problems head-on.
I would do well to take this advice.

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Caveat: 한달이 크면 한달이 작다

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

한달이 크면 한달이 작다
one-month-SUBJ be-big-IF one-month-SUBJ be-small
If one month is long then another is small.

pictureLife has its ups and downs.

Here (at right) is a meme-picture I found in onlineland.

I imagine a door labelled “happiness” where this is true – that it isn’t locked. But I also imagine they keep changing the (very ostentatious) locks that are on it, such that you repeatedly leap to the conclusion that the door might be locked, even though it’s not. It ends up all being just a sort of epistemological security theater. You have to keep reaching out and trying the door, and sometimes you tire of playing the weird game involved.

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Caveat: 놓친 고기가 더 크다

Banalities & Journaling / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

놓친                 고기가     더   크다
be-escaped-PASTPART fish-SUBJ more be-big
The fish that got away is bigger.

pictureThis is equivalent to “The grass is always greener on the other side.” I believe people also say something exactly like this in English, when someone wistfully says, “The one that got away…”
The word 고기 here seems to mean “fish,” but normally the word 고기 is more generic than that – it means any animal flesh-as-food: 소고기 “beef” 닭고기 “chicken meat” 물고기 “fish” (literally “water meat”).
But whereas for most living animals the term 고기 isn’t applied (in the same way that in English a term like “beef” or “pork” is rarely applied to living animals), with fish it’s generally the only possible word – the generic word for “fish,” even a pet fish in a fishbowl, is 물고기 “water meat.”  Hence it seems to arise that 고기 can be shorthand for “fish.”
Another, alternate way of reading this is that 고기 means “game” – as in “that which is hunted.” Read as such, an alternate translation of the above is the more generic: “The game that got away is bigger.”

I spent my weekend, such as it was, being antisocial. Yesterday, I turned off my phone and only came online for about 2 hours. I have been doing more writing on actual paper – being low-tech, trying to keep away distractions and keep things simple.
I’m not sure I’m succeeding. I turn off my phone because otherwise I find myself compulsively looking at it, like my students, and then I pull the ethernet wire out of my computer to keep myself from surfing the web, although I keep my computer on because it’s also my music player and general self-organizer.
Maybe I need to just throw it all away and live like a monk?

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Caveat: 무는 말 있는데 차는 말 있다

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

무는           말    있는데      차는          말    있다
bite-PRESPART horse have-CONN kick-PRESPART horse have
[Where] there’s a biting horse there is a kicking horse.

picture“Birds of a feather flock  together.” It means that bad person associates with other bad people.
Once again, the googletranslate version (as of today) is hilarious:

Biting the end of the car, which is the end.

I want to write a novel with this as the title.

The picture at right isn’t meant to encapsulate this proverb – it’s merely a strange horse-person image I found in an online image search.

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Caveat: 아는것이 병

Language & Linguistics / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

아는것이                  병
know-PRESPART-fact-SUBJ sickness
Knowing [is] sickness.
“Knowing is sickness.” It sounds like it could be the title of a Kierkegaard book.
There’s another proverb in Korean that is exactly opposite:
아는것이                  힘
know-PRESPART-fact-SUBJ strength
Knowing [is] strength.
“Knowing is strength.” This sounds more like the title of something by Lenin.
It’s interesting to reflect on how these two opposite possibilites start quickly to take on ideological resonances in my mind.
The nominalizing ending -는것 is extraordinarily common. Not only is it used to construct a sort of periphrastic present tense with the copula (-이다), but it also seems to serve as a kind of periphrastic gerund (where the actual gerund is -기 and the more nominalizing -ㅁ). Both proverbs are missing an explicit copula after the second noun phrase, but I think it’s implied by the subject marker on the first. This strikes me as similar to the Russian present tense copula, which is normally absent in actual Russian, and merely implied by the case endings of the nouns.

Caveat: 모기 보고 칼 뺀다

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

모기 보고 칼 뺀다
mosquito see-AND sword draw-PRES
See a mosquito and draw a sword.
This means to get angry at nothing important

I like googletranslate’s version, though: “Subtract mosquito looking knife.”

In the comic frame below, the phrase at left is a slightly more grammaticalized version of the same proverb (remember, grammatical particles in Korean are often optional), while at the right the character is saying 아까운 내 피를… 넌 죽었다! [my precious blood… you’re dead!].

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Caveat: 니체

Banalities & Journaling / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

오늘의 나를 죽여야 내일의 내가 태어날 수 있다.

오늘의 나를 완전히 죽여야 내일의 내가 태어나는 것이다. 새로운 나로 변신하려면 기존의 나를 완전히 버려야 한다. 너는 네 자신의 불길로 너 스스로를 태워버릴 각오를 해야 하리라. 먼저 재가 되지 않고서 어떻게 거듭나길 바랄 수 있겠는가? – 니체   

This past week, my boss has been even more gnomically obscure and dyspeptically cryptic than usual. One night a few days ago, during a break between classes, he was taping up some of his characteristic aphorisms in a prominent place by the door out of the staffroom, printed in large print on bright goldenrod paper. In Korean, of course.

I said, as is my wont, “What’s that?” I sit close to the staffroom door, so I was just making conversation while he taped his papers up.

At first he was dismissive. “These are not important,” he said. By which he normally means they’re not important to me – being in Korean, I suppose.

But then he reconsidered. “Do you want to understand these?”

I nodded, dubiously.

“Then read them. They could change your life.”

“Gee thanks,” I remarked, though my sarcasm is often lost on the Koreans around me. “Can you send me an electronic copy? That makes it easier for me to research them.”


pictureHe did. So I spent some time the last few days puzzling through some boss-sourced aphorisms.

Lo and behold, I found myself attempting to read Nietzsche, in Korean (see above, at the top of this blog post).

You might think, with all the Nietzsche I’ve read, that I’d be able to figure out the source of the quote – the quote only said “니체” [ni-che = Nietzsche] and didn’t specify a book or volume.  But after a lot of effort at translation, I’m clueless.

The text is definitely Nietzschean in character, and the snippet my boss shared is quite popular on Korean blog sites, but it’s never properly attributed, that I’ve been able to find. I decided to not try to find the source any more, and just give as workmanlike a translation as I can manage.

오늘의 나를 죽여야
today me-OBJ die-CAUSE
내일의 내가 태어날 수 있다.
tomorrow I-SUBJ born-POSSIBLE
“I must die today in order to be born tomorrow.”

오늘의 나를 완전히 죽여야
today-GEN me-OBJ completely die-CAUSE
내일의 내가 태어나는 것이다.
tomorrow-GEN I-SUBJ born-PERIPRES
“I must die completely today in order that I am [re-]born tomorrow.”

새로운 나로 변신하려면
new-PPART me-ABL transform-CAUSE
기존의 나를 완전히 버려야 한다.
existing me-OBJ completely discard-INTENT-PRES
“To transform into the new me I am ready to discard the [currently] existing me completely.”

너는 네 자신의 불길로
you-TOPIC your self-GEN flame-ABL
너 스스로를 태워버릴 각오를 해야 하리라.
you REFLX-OBJ burn-off-FUTPART resolution-OBJ do-INTENT-TRY
“You must resolve to burn off yourself in your own flames.”

먼저 재가 되지 않고서
firstly I-SUBJ become-SUSP not-AND-THEN
어떻게 거듭나길 바랄 수 있겠는가?
how be-reborn-GER-OBJ hope-FUTPART possible have-FUT-SPEC
“[If] I don’t first finish how could I be reborn?”

As long as we’re on a Nietzsche kick, here’s another quote I rather like.

What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest
loneliness, and say, ‘This life which you live must be lived by you once
again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought
and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal
hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the
dust!’ Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that
demon? Or would you answer, ‘Never have I heard anything more divine’?

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Caveat: 한 가랑이에 두 다리를 넣는다

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)


한  가랑이에       두  다리를    넣는다
one pant-leg-LOC two leg-OBJ put-PRES
[Someone] is putting two legs in one pant-leg.

This might be the slapstick of proverbs. Or the comic relief. I guess the idea is that a person gets nervous and tries to put on pants and fails, putting two legs into one pant-leg. It’s a bit like Laurel and Hardy… or the picture at right.
The word 가랑이 means “crotch” or “inseam” in the dictionary, but I could see it being extended to the idea of the pant-leg. I could never understand why in English, a pant-leg couldn’t simply be called a “pant.”

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Caveat: 열정적인 강의- 책상에 걸터앉은 수업 지양토록

Banalities & Journaling / Quotable / The Wonders of Work / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

Sitting in our staff meeting yesterday, I saw this phrase on my agenda. I thought it was something profound – some aphorism or exhortation or effort at being philosophical or metaphorical or deep.
But it’s not. It’s just telling us not to sit on the desks while teaching.

열정적인              강의-
impassioned-be-PART discourse
책상에    걸터앉은        수업   지양토록
desk-LOC straddle-PART class try-not-to-do-discussion
“Be an energetic teacher- try not to sit on the desks during class.”

Sure. Fine. I don’t normally sit on desks during class.

This is perhaps an exhortation to other teachers. Big brother is watching (literally – the classrooms have CCTV, you know).
I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to understand it, though – because I thought it was something important, set apart as it was under “Special remarks by the director.”I didn’t know what 지양 meant, and as a result, I thought it would end up meaning more than it did. I had to ask someone about the meaning of that vocabulary item – the Korean-English dictionary has “sublation” but… wtf?


“Sublation” is not a “normal” English word – I have an English vocabulary probably in excess of 100,000 words but I never saw that word before in my life. The wiktionary has “removal, taking away” and implies it’s mostly a term for a process in chemistsry. But if one dictionary has a mistake, they all do, because they all pirate from one another and so there is really only one Korean-English dictionary in the universe, regardless of brand, which is a kind of copyright-defying, crowdsourced mess.


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  • other words from meeting agenda

  • 원료 = materials

  • 연구 = inquiry (“plausibility study”? planning?)

  • 평균 = average, arithmetical mean

  • 성적관리 = grade admin

  • 이상 = …and up (greater than)

  • 특이사항 = special subject matter

  • 보충 = replacement, supplement

  • 결석생 = absent / nonattending student

  • 중등부 = middle school division (i.e. of the business)

  • 간담회 = “bull session” according to the dictionary, which I’ve been interpreting to mean “brainstorming meeting” but someone told me it means “open house” (i.e. for parents). huh.

  • 일정 = agenda, plan

  • 조절 = control, regulation

  • overheard in meeting

  • 준비하다 = prepare, arrange

  • 복사 = copy (how can I forget this word so often?)

  • 타임 = borrowing of the word “time” but in the hagwon business it’s developed a meaning different from English “time”: it’s become a counter meaning “a single class session, of whatever length” so the proper translation is “session” not “time”

  • 과목 = subject, lesson

  • 이만 = this much, so far, to this extent

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Caveat: 말이 씨가 된다

My Photos / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

말이       씨가       된다
word-SUBJ seed-PRED become-PRES
Words become seeds.
“You reap what you sow.” But also, speak kindly, for the words you express to others will come back to you.
Here is a picture I took at Kagoshima, Japan, three years ago in the Spring of 2010. It looks very exotic but I like it. I’ve been trying to organize my photo files better and that means I’ve been revisiting and re-finding a lot of old photos.

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Caveat: 하늘이 돈잎만 하다

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

하늘이       돈잎만     하다
heaven-SUBJ coin-ONLY do
Heaven is only a coin.
This is about the gloomy person who can’t see how wide or beautiful the world is. I am that person, sometimes. I suppose a slight variant of this in English would the description of someone having “tunnel vision.” The sky narrows down to just a circle – a coin.
I had trouble with the word 돈잎 [don-ip] – it doesn’t appear in any dictionary, although I could guess the meaning (from 돈 meaning money and 잎 meaning leaf, hence “leaf of money” i.e. “coin”).
I messed around with the online dictionary for a while, and finally found a variant spelling 돈닢 [don-nip] (which is a logical alternate spelling if you know the weird spelling rules developed for syllables starting with vowels as a result of historical changes in the pronunciation of words). But even then, 돈닢 only appears in the Korean-Korean dictionary, not in the Korean-English dictionary. I think the quality of Korean-English dictionaries is very poor, online or off.

Caveat: Can Linguistic Anxiety Lead to Health Problems?

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

Interestingly, yes.

I can now state tentatively that my linguistic anxiety has led, indirectly, to my rather unpleasant health problem.

I’ve been sick for a while. Flu-like stuff, mostly, but also, for more than a month, a persistent ear infection type thing that causes a lot of pain and discomfort, especially while eating. Probably, the ear infection thing is a lot older than a month: I had some pain in my ear last fall and early winter, but I ignored it and it seemed to go away. Then it recurred in February for a few weeks. But I avoided the doctor in both those instances.

And so I still hadn’t gone to a doctor when it returned again last month. Partly, I hate going to see a doctor, anyway. I’ve always had issues around seeing doctors. It’s not really a “fear” of doctors, but a sort of social or even philosophical dislike of them. Perhaps I don’t feel comfortable with the idea that someone else knows more about what’s going on with me than what I know about myself. I distrust doctors. I have had some negative experiences with poor diagnoses in the past, too – not least, the time I nearly died in Mexico due to a misdiagnosis and mis-treatment of typhoid.

But in Korea, that discomfort around doctors has only grown much, much worse. Aside from a single mostly positive experience with the doctor I saw for my food poisoning incident down in Yeonggwang in 2010 (which was a case where I already knew the doctor socially and thus had a high comfort level with him – I was very lucky), every other experience with a doctor, dentist, or medical professional in Korea has been deeply unpleasant, not to say downright depressingly insulting to my intelligence and human dignity. The Korean health care system is efficient and I’m very thankful for the national health insurance, which it makes it stunningly inexpensive by American standards, but Korean health professionals are, as a class, difficult people to interact with.

Korean doctors are mostly arrogant and intensely uncommunicative. More than once, I’ve had doctors make snide or unkind remarks about my appearance and language ability, too. This latter is what I’m talking about in the title to this blog post.

I’ve been feeling so much embarrassment and shame, lately, about my lack of progress in learning Korean, and this anxiety and frustration has bled over into other aspects of my life – including, it seems, the fact that I have been avoiding going to the doctor for much too long for my seeming ear infection. And so gradually it has become worse and worse. Each time I imagined going to the doctor, I would merely remember previous visits, when a doctor said things like “How can you be in Korea for so long and still be so bad at speaking Korean?” (yes, a doctor really said this to me, at the same moment he was prodding me in some ungentle manner).

Remembering this, I would say to myself, “aughg… maybe I will go some other time… maybe this pain in my throat and ear will go away on its own, like it has before… maybe my Korean will magically improve so I don’t feel ashamed to go to the doctor because I can finally talk about my ailment in decent Korean…”

I finally went to doctor today. As usual, he said almost nothing communicative, but at least he didn’t insult my effort at Korean. He even understood a few things I said, although I understood nothing he said. I can’t even be sure what language he was muttering in. He said “hmm” and “uhnn” and wrote out a prescription for some medications which I’m now researching. Maybe some antibiotics – if that’s what’s called for.

I guess I can’t really say that linguistic anxiety led to my health problem. But it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that my language-centered social phobia has worsened my health problem.

Sigh. *Popping pills*

I reproduce my prescription below, immortalized for posterity on This Here Blog Thingy™.

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Caveat: 성어사자 (四字成語)

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

사 자 성 어
sa.ja.seong.eo
four-character-constitute-word

This idiom is an example of itself. This is what I’d been looking for – I was hoping there was a name for these four-syllable Chinese-origin aphorisms and proverbs that I sometimes run across and have made efforts to understand.

I found it. Here’s the definition in the online Korean-Korean dictionary: “네 개의 한자로 이루어져 관용적으로 쓰이는 글귀.” The googletranslate actually does a pretty good job with this (for a radical change from the norm): “Composed of four Chinese characters used in idiomatic saying.”

It works the same way as the English “TLA” – which means “Three Letter Acronym” but is also an example of a three-letter acronym. In other words, “성어사자” is a four-character idiom.

Here is another picture from last weekend – a view inside the main throne-room at Gyeongbok Palace.
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Caveat: 고슴도치도 제 새끼는 함함하다고 한다

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

고슴도치도     제   새끼는     함함하다고  한다

hedgehog-TOO self pup-SUBJ sleek-QUOT do-PRES

A hedgehog says its own pups are sleek.

“Everyone thinks their own children are beautiful.” I found this cool 속담 (aphorism) “smart comic textbook” (똑똑한 만화 교과서) which gives a slight variant: 고슴도치도 제 새끼는 예쁘다고 한다 (the word “pretty” substituted for “sleek” – the latter is a reference to the hedgehog’s fur I suppose).

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The comic gives as equivalent the English proverb “The crow thinks her own bird fairest” which I’ve never heard in my life, but I can get the sense of it.

This is one of the dedicated teacher’s chief dilemmas: dealing with parents who think their children are something other than what they are. As a foreign teacher with very bad ability to communicate in Korean, I am somewhat sheltered or shielded from this issue in my day-to-day work. I don’t envy my fellow teachers who must deal with parents every day, and I have mostly unpleasant recollections of my dealings with parents when teaching in the US many years ago.

I have speculated that I simply couldn’t do this job if I had to deal more directly with the parents – that the positives would no longer outweigh the negatives.

In that light, I should feel grateful I can’t speak Korean well, because if I did, I would hate my job.

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Caveat: 석가에게 설법하기

Banalities & Journaling / Buddhism & Zen / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

석가에게    설법하기

Buddha-TO preach-GER

Preaching to Buddha.

English equivalents might be “Preaching to the choir” or “Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs.” I hate the latter proverb – it’s both incomprehensible to modern speakers and kind of gross to think about. But I guess there was a time when people’s grandmothers were expert egg-suckers, and so teaching your grandmother to suck eggs was an unnecessary effort.

I had a very long day, although I only had three classes. There’s a lot of tension in the office and staffroom lately. I’m feeling a lot of uncertainty and big changes brewing.

Here is a picture from the temple wall at 미타사 from last weekend.

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Caveat: 안뒤면 조상의 탓

My Photos / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

안뒤면         조상의        탓

not-become-IF ancestor-GEN blame

If it doesn’t work out, [it’s] the fault of an ancestor.

So we blame others if things don’t work out. Who isn’t guilty of that? This wasn’t too difficult to figure out.

pictureWhile out yesterday, I got a new book, so I now have a functionally infinite supply of proverbs to attempt to comprehend. This is much easier than trying to find things on the interwebs that I could try to figure out – most online compilations of proverbs that I’ve found are fairly limited, although I admit my ability to search for such compilations in Korean is limited.

The book is a 2012 reprint of a 1970 re-issue of a 1958 publication, so it’s definitely “old school.” The title is Maxims and Proverbs of Old Korea, by Tae Hung Ha.

Here is another picture from yesterday – I like taking pictures of the paintings to be found on the outsides of temples.

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Caveat: 카르마 플러스 어학원 홍보는 어떻게 하고 있습니까?

Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

This is the last (sixth) question (section heading) from the handout entitled “초등부 강사로서의 나의 역량 자가 진단” (roughly, “self-diagnostic of my abilities as an elementary teacher”) which we discussed in a meeting a few weeks back – I discussed the first, second, third, fourth and fifth questions prior.

카르마 플러스어학원           홍보는

karma plus language-hagwon promotion-TOPIC

어떻게      하고 있습니까?

be-how-ADV do-PROG-FORMAL-QUESTION

How are you promoting KarmaPlus Language Hagwon?

This question annoys me.

This question is not about me as a teacher, but rather about me as an employee of a for-profit business. Although not unimportant, I sometimes get frustrated with the failure to explicitly recognize that there is a division here. Of course it’s important (see my recent post about the business environment of hagwon, for example: “marketing is king” and all that). But if I’m bad at marketing your hagwon, that doesn’t make me a bad teacher. It just makes me a bad marketer.

In point of fact, I think that I’m a pretty atrocious front-line salesperson. I’m too frank (honest) and I have very little patience for “customers” in the broad sense. But, having said that, I’m a very strong believer in the importance of marketing. I’m very sympathetic to the impulse and business need behind asking this question. Further, I think I expressed some talent in the field of marketing analytics, when I worked in the database world – which is to say, “I coulda hadda career in marketing.” I just happen to think that asking this question in this way, in a document that’s supposed to be about evaluating us as teachers, is inappropriate.

One thing it might be advisable for hagwon to do is to recognize that there may be different types of marketing talent, and therefore not to attempt a one-size-fits-all marketing plan that requires all teachers to also be salespeople. In dwelling on this, I’m beating an already dead horse, I realize. And I’ll be beating that poor dead horse some more when I finish the next part of my IIRTHW series. For that, I can only offer apologies to my loyal reader.

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Caveat: 감동을 주는 학생 관리의 전문가가 되십시오

Banalities & Journaling / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

This is the fifth question (section heading) from the handout entitled “초등부 강사로서의 나의 역량 자가 진단” (roughly, “self-diagnostic of my abilities as an elementary teacher”) which we discussed in a meeting a few weeks back – I discussed the first, second, third and fourth questions prior.

감동을          주는           학생     관리의

impression-OBJ give-PASTPART student management-GEN

전문가가            되십시오

professional-SUBJ become-DEF-FORMAL-IMPER

Become an impressive student management professional.

Actually, it’s not a question, like the others. It’s an imperative. Do it!

This really seems to be a reference to the 상담 (“counseling”) role that I happen to have discussed at length in my exact previous post. In that sense, it doesn’t really apply to me, since my interaction with parents is quite minimal, mostly due to linguistic causes (i.e. my poor Korean) rather than a desire on my part to avoid it.

Nevertheless, I would also take it to mean issues of what we might call “classroom management.” In that sense, it’s important. Classroom management is hard. I have been having a lot of incidences of my lesson plan coming up “short” recently – I finish what I intended to do and still have 5 or 10 minutes of class left. When that happens, I will often just “chat” with the students for a while, or tell a story or play a game, but it does feel like a classroom management failure at some level, and it’s been happening enough that students are starting to expect it, and I’m not sure that’s a good idea. This is what you might call the time-management aspect of classroom management.

In the area of handling disruptive students, I’m more confident. I feel like over all I handle these situations well, and without too often invoking “higher authorities” (i.e. the dreaded “If you do that again I’m going to take you out for a visit with the 실장님” [front desk lady] and then having to live up to that threat).

In the area of record keeping, I think in fact I exceed my fellow teachers, yet I’m actually not very happy with how I do. I would love to have it all in a database, but the raw fact is that I’m too lazy to build such a database, and certainly management is too lazy to provide such a database except in the most rudimentary sort.

Overall, in the area of “Impressive student management professional” I would give myself a B-.

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Caveat: 짱!!

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

When I was in middle school (or as I knew it in those dark days, “Junior High”) I was most definitely not popular. I was nerdy and shy and even more antisocial than I am now (which is saying a lot).

So I suppose there is some redemption in being sufficiently popular among a clique of 8th graders at my hagwon to find this written on the whiteboard when I walked into the classroom this evening.

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It says, inside the blue border, “제라드 샘 짱!!” 제라드 [je-ra-deu] is a misspelling of my name, perpetuated not by my students but by my fellow teachers. It’s forgivable. 샘 [saem] means “teacher” (cf Japanese sensei), and 짱 [jjang] is a student slang term that means “the best”.
So you get, “Jared teacher [is] the best!!” That’s gratifying.

Under that it says “Chicken fight.” This is an inside joke with this group of students. I might explain it in a later post – I have some additional materials that require translating first.

Under that it says “판타스틱한데?” [pan-ta-seu-tik-han-de] “Are you fantastic?” Then it says 오잉 [o-ing] with some additional circles thrown in. I think it’s a sort of “ya.” Finally in the lower right it says 이힣힣… [i-hih-hih…] which is just a sound effect of some kind – perhaps laughter.

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Caveat: 수업분위기는 어떻게 유도하십니까?

Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

This is the fourth question (section heading) from the handout entitled “초등부 강사로서의 나의 역량 자가 진단” (roughly, “self-diagnostic of my abilities as an elementary teacher”) which we discussed in a meeting a few weeks back – I discussed the first, second and third questions prior.

수업분위기는             어떻게    유도하십니까?

class-atmosphere-TOPIC how-ADV induce-DEF-FORMAL-QUESTION

What kind of atmosphere do you create for your classes?

I know that I’m a fun teacher. I recently saw the results of a survey to elementary students wherein my highest rating (and my only non-disappointing rating, frankly) was for having a fun and interesting atmosphere in my class. I’ll post more about that survey later.

I think I would have already guessed that this is not a weak area for me. I think I conduct a class with a good atmosphere, most of the time.

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Caveat: 수업준비는 완벽하게 하고 계십니까?

Teaching & Methodology / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

This is the third question (section heading) from the handout entitled “초등부 강사로서의 나의 역량 자가 진단” (roughly, “self-diagnostic of my abilities as an elementary teacher”) which we discussed in a meeting a few weeks back – I discussed the first and second question prior.

수업준비는            완벽하게          하고    계십니까?

class-prepare-TOPIC be-thorough-ADV do-PROG have-DEF-FORMAL-QUESTION

Are you thoroughly prepared for class?

This is pretty easy to understand – maybe with less ambiguity or semantic complication than the first two questions. There’s not much here, from a linguistic standpoint,  to comment on. But it’s depressing, because my answer is quite simply: “없어요” [no I’m not].

I would say, though, that class prep is one of my weakest areas, as a teacher. I procrastinate too much and then I am inadequately prepared and forced too often to “wing it.” I find class prep to be stultifying and stressful, although I’ve always felt that was at least in part due to the Korean way of packing all the teachers into a too-small, too-cramped, too-noisy staffroom and not giving the breathing room needed to adequately prepare for classes. I seem to recall being better at prepping when teaching in the US, where I could sit in a silent classroom (my own classroom) during a free period and get things done without interruptions or distractions. Even then, procrastination was bane.

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Caveat: 학생에 대한 열정과 진정한 사랑을 갖고 있습니까?

Teaching & Methodology / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

This is the second question (section heading) from the handout entitled “초등부 강사로서의 나의 역량 자가 진단” (roughly, “self-diagnostic of my abilities as an elementary teacher”) which we discussed in a meeting a few weeks back – I discussed the first question before.

학생에      대한    열정과

student-AT toward passion-AND

진정한             사랑을   갖고       있습니까?

sincere-PASTPART love-OBJ hold-PROG have-FORMAL-QUESTION

Do you have passion and sincere love toward your students?

The verb form 갖- is a contraction of 가지다. Other than that, this was pretty easy to figure out, although I had to recall that idiom -에 대한 “toward”. The most interesting aspect of this sentence is the semantics.

The Korean word 사랑 (“love”) doesn’t really have the same semantic valences as the word “love” in English. In reference to things, it cannot apply – you can’t “love” pizza in Korean, as you can in English. You can’t even love teaching, or literature. On the other hand, in the realm of human interactions, Korean “love” is much more widely applied. We would hesitate to tell anyone but closest family or a romantic interest that we “love” them in English. But as I’ve mentioned in this blog before, Koreans will say “I love you” (사랑해) to people in their day-to-day lives at the drop of a dime. I have students who say it to me, both in Korean and translated into English (without the awareness of the different valences in English), and I’ve heard teachers say it to students. I’ve even heard store clerks say it to regular customers (generally younger customers i.e. children). Just yesterday, an 8th grade boy taller and heavier than I am said “I love you, teacher,” without any compunction or awkwardness. I have a Westerner’s reticence to return the compliment, but I’m trying to get past it.

So asking me if I, as a teacher, feel passion and sincere love for my students doesn’t have any of the sniggering awkwardness that arises in contemplating the English translation, where we can easily understand what is meant, but where we would hesitate, in a professional setting, to phrase it that way.
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Caveat: 강사로서의 자부심을 느끼고 있습니까?

Banalities & Journaling / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

This isn’t an aphorism or proverb, but rather a section heading of a handout from a staff-meeting a week or two ago, which was entitled “초등부 강사로서의 나의 역량 자가 진단” (roughly, “self-diagnostic of my abilities as an elementary teacher”).

I bring these Korean language handouts home and over time I study them, if I get the motivation. It’s rough going, but occasionally they offer insights into how my boss is thinking, or at least, how he feels he should be thinking.

The first section heading of this “self-diagnostic” is “강사로서의 자부심을 느끼고 있습니까?” (“do I feel pride / self-confidence as a teacher?”). The problem is that “pride” and “self-confidence” are both offered as translations of 자부심, but I’m not sure they are the same thing.

Does the term mean both? Do these concepts of “pride” or “self-confidence,” in particular, work differently in Western psychology? I would feel comfortable saying I have pride in my teaching, but I couldn’t never fully agree that I have self-confidence in my teaching. Excessive self-confidence in teaching leads to close-mindedness, which is the bane of effective teaching in my opinion. For me, feigned self-confidence is crucial in the classroom, but true self-confidence elusive – and I don’t view this dichotomy as a bad thing.

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Caveat: 백문이 불여일견

Language & Linguistics / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

백문이              불여일견
百聞이              不如一見
hundred-hear-SUBJ not-same-one-see
Hearing it a hundred times is not the same as seeing it.
“Seeing is believing” or “A picture is worth a thousand words” or “The proof is in the pudding.”
I chose this proverb because I thought it would be easy, not realizing it was another one of those Chinese-masquerading-as-Korean linguistic fossils. Still, I’ve gotten a little bit competent using the online dictionary, flashing back and forth between the 영어 / 국어 / 한자 [English / Korean / Chinese] tabs, so I figured it out in record time. It was trivial to find the proverbial meaning, since that meaning is the only one conveyed in the Korean-English dictionary. What takes time is sorting out the individual syllables – and you don’t get to lean on Korean syntax in sorting it out, because it’s not really Korean, it’s Chinese, with its rather gnomic and aggressively un-analytical rules.
I wonder sometimes if the South Koreans’ current obsession with English (both as a language of “globalization” to be learned wholesale in schools and academies, as well as a never-ending source for neologisms for their own language) isn’t just a continuation of their two-millenia-long, one-sided love affair with Chinese. They just changed the object of their attention. Regardless, the language seems remarkably open to a certain style of lexical borrowing.
In this light, note, especially, that little Korean particle (이 =- subject marker) inserted into the above proverb. If Chinese is good, then Chinese with some handy disambiguating particles must be better.
 

Caveat: 도둑이 제발 저린다

Language & Linguistics / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

도둑이      제발             저린다
thief-SUBJ most-definitely fall-asleep-PRES
The thief most defnitely falls asleep.
“A guilty conscience needs no accuser.” This is to say, the thief gives himself away, maybe. I’m not sure what that means about the thief falling asleep – there is a sort of karmic conception where in people who do bad things suffer health problems – is that what’s going on here?
Grammatically (or rather, lexically), I wonder about 제발. All three Korean-English dictionaries I consulted gave “Please” or a more strong “For god’s sake” as the only possible translation of this term, but my intuition was that it didn’t mean that, here. So I looked in the online Korean-Korean dictionary (the same dictionary, by the way, that I most frequently use the Korean-English part at: daum.net), and found the following additional meaning for 제발: “[반어적인 구문에 쓰여] 어떤 일이 있더라도 반드시.” Roughly, this seems to mean: “[used ironically] surely most definitely.” This kind of ironical “most definitely” seems to be exactly the meaning called for here.
Why are Korean-English dictionaries so bad? I understand that they’re all bad in basically the same way, since they all copy each other. But why was the original one that everyone is copying so bad, and why is there no stepwise incentive to improve the copies?
Incidentally, speaking of bad translation, sometimes after puzzling through the meanings of these proverbs, I will plug them into the googletranslate out of curiosity. The result of putting this one in was exceptionally amusing. Googletranslate gave “Please find my overcoat thief.”

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