까마귀 날자 배 떨어 진다 crow fly-WHEN pear shake-down-INF-PASS-PRES When the crow flies off the pear falls down.
This is actually about false correlation – mistaking coincidence for causality. This is highly interesting to me, and I like crows and I like pears and I like the zen-koan sound of this proverb. I've made it my new status message on Kakaotalk. Kakaotalk is Korea's ubiquitous instant messenger service that I use on my phone now, mostly to answer the singular question: "teacher, whats the homework?"
I've meditated on false correlation a great deal. There's a name for it, in philosophy: [broken link! FIXME]apophenism.
강 건너 불 구경이다 river across fire watching-IS It's […like] watching a fire across the river.
I guess this means "someone else's business," or one site had "sit on one's hands," which I don't see as being the same as "someone else's business" but I can see the relation.
간에 기별도 안간다 liver-IN news-NOTEVEN not-go-PRES Not even news to the liver.
This isn't that hard to translate, but I had no idea what it meant, nor, once I found what it meant with an online search, why it meant that. Allegedly, it means something like "Not enough to feed a fly." Apparently, the idea is that if you eat too small of an amount, the liver, which participates in digestion according to traditional Eastern medicine, wouldn't get the news. Extended metaphorically, it means just something too small to matter, i.e. "Just ripples in the ocean."
가지 많은 나무 바람 잘 날 없다 branch have-many-PASTPART tree wind calm-FUTPART day doesn’t-exist A tree with many branches can’t have a calm day [if there is] wind. “Too many pots on the stove,” maybe. “Too many irons in the fire,” is another possibility. Or there’s some Chinese proverb about mothers with large broods never having a peaceful time.
가시방석 thorn-cushion Seat of thorns “The hot seat.” The cushion (방석) is the traditional sitting cushion (see picture). But the metaphorical meaning is a seat of unpleasantness.
꿈이 있다면 절대 포기하지마라 dream-SUBJ have-TRANSF-IF absolute surrender-NEG-COMMAND If [you] have a dream don’t ever surrender. “Don’t ever give up your dreams.”
Grammatically, I don’t really get the -다- particle in the first clause’s verb 있다면. My grammar bible insinuates that there’s something called a “transferative” marker, hence my labelling it as TRANSF above, but I don’t see how it contributes any nuance of meaning to the proverb – I think 있으면 would mean exactly the same thing, with the IF (“conditional” marker) attached directly to the verb. Indeed, google translate offers no change of meaning in the two versions – not that that meansanything at all.
Yea, well, I mentioned this proverb in my rant-of-despair the other day, so I decided to look at it properly. Context: giving up a dream.
I tried making my own 야채죽 [ya-chae-juk = vegetable rice porridge] today, from scratch. I’ve never made it before. I’ve never watched it being made. I was put off by the various recipes I found for it – most required lots of soaking and cooking and blendering, etc. I figured it should be simpler than that.
I chopped up some veggies: mushroom, carrot, squash, onion. I added some pine-nuts. I stir fried these in some sesame oil with some seasoned laver (김 [gim = seaweed]) which provided enough saltiness, along with a dash of soy sauce and a dash of ginseng vinegar (I don’t know why I added the last – because it was there?). I took out the veggies from the fry pan, added water to the pan, making a broth, and then added some already-cooked white rice.
I stirred the rice and broth and mashed up the grains vigorously in the pan with the boiling water on a medium heat for about 5 minutes, and it got creamy, like rice porridge (juk) should. Then I added the vegetables back in, stirred, put in a bowl, topped with garnish of some additional gim, and voila. Prep time was only about 20 minutes.
I won’t say it was as good as the juk you can get at the joint downstairs. But given the fact that I made it, as an experiment, with no recipe and having never done it before, it was pretty darn good. And vegan and nutritious, too.
Speaking of vegetables…
What I’m listening to right now.
내 속엔 내가 너무도 많아
당신의 쉴곳 없네
내 속엔 헛된 바램들로
당신의 편할곳 없네
내 속엔 내가 어쩔수 없는 어둠
당신의 쉴 자리를 뺏고
내 속엔 내가 이길수 없는 슬픔
무성한 가시나무 숲같네
바람만 불면 그 메마른 가지
서로 부대끼며 울어대고
쉴곳을 찾아 지쳐 날아온
어린 새들도 가시에 찔려 날아가고
바람만 불면 외롭고 또 외로워
슬픈 노래를 부르던 날이 많았는데
내 속엔 내가 너무도 많아서
당신의 쉴곳 없네
바람만 불면 그 매마른 가지
서로 부대끼며 울어대고
쉴곳을 찾아 지쳐날아온
어린 새들도 가시에 찔려 날아가고
바람만 불면 외롭고
또 괴로워
슬픈 노래를 부르던
날이 많았는데
내 속엔 내가 너무도 많아서
당신의 쉴곳 없네
가만 있으면 중간은 간다 wait there-is-IF middle-TOPIC go-PRES If [you] wait [you] get halfway. “Waiting will get you halfway there.” This was actually very hard to translate or figure out. I still can’t really think of an English proverb that matches what I think it means, exactly. How about “waiting is half the battle”? Or even “patience is a virtue”? Then again, there’s the possibility that I haven’t quite got the meaning right. I only figured it out because I found a guy writing – in English – about the opposite proverb, “If you wait you never get even halfway” and he presented this Korean one as a contrast. Either way, it brings to mind one of my favorite old tropes, Zeno’s Paradox. Do we get there by going halfway? Or do we get halfway if we have to go halfway to halfway first? Philosophers ponder, while Zeno’s girlfriend is stuck waiting.
개같이 벌어서 정승같이 쓰다 dog-like earn-CONJ minister-like spend Earn like a dog, spend like a king. The minister meant here is the king’s head-of-household type minister, from olden times, so I felt the looser translation could just use “king” as that conveys the social level adequately. “All’s fair in business”? I think there’s an aspect of this meaning, though it could also simply mean, “Hard work has its rewards.” One online translation found was “Work like a dog, live like a king.” Speaking of working like a dog, and ambivalence toward money:
…near the end of a conversation with Curt, my boss / friend.
Me: “You think I’m weird, don’t you?” Curt: “Yes. How can you not like money? Do you really not like money.” Me: “Really. I believe it’s useful, but I really don’t like money.” Curt: shakes his head and turns away.
똥 묻은 개가 겨 묻은 개 나무란다 poop bury-PASTPART dog-SUBJ chaff bury-PASTPART dog rebuke-PRES The dog that buries chaff rebukes the dog that buries poop. This is one of those “pot calling the kettle black” proverbs. Basically, it means “don’t be a hypocrite.” It’s notable perhaps because of the appearance of that all-purpose word 똥 [ttong], a favorite of fifth-grade boys, which can translate as everything from manure to poop to shit to dung. It’s not really a bad word in Korean, though obviously it’s not high discourse. But it creates problems when kids look in the dictionaries and find “shit” and use it freely in translation, because that’s not as acceptable as using 똥 in Korean.
눈 감으면 코 베어먹을 세상 eye shut-IF nose chop-eat-FUTPART world [It’s] a world where if you shut your eyes your nose gets chopped off and eaten. This is another proverb on the theme of the “Dog-eat-dog world.” Ah well. While I agree with the sentiments in such proverbs at some level, I also suffer from a weird optimism about human nature that means I tend to think other things are more important – such as kindness, “presumption of innocence,” etc.
개미 구멍으로 둑도 무너진다 ant hole-BY dike-TOO collapse-PRES Even a dike can be brought down by an ant-hole. This is often what we call the “snowball effect,” I think. Small things have large outcomes. Also, lately, the “butterfly effect” metaphor, although that seems to be on a larger scale than ants and dikes.
In class today some student was acting like an idiot. This happens. They're kids. I muttered something under my breath. It was just a spur of the moment thing, but I guess I'm learning Korean, a little bit. Another student said, "Wow, teacher. That's really good Korean."
What had I muttered under my breath? "장해인 같아…" [Jang-ae-in gat-a]. It's definitely not politically correct. In essence, it's the sort of things teenagers and pre-teens say to each other all the time. Roughly, "He's, like, retarded…"
I felt embarrassed to say such a rude thing to a student, but weirdly proud to have said in flawless Korean (as reported by the other students. I supposed it goes toward a certain "street cred" with the other kids.
It's a sign of my environment that some of the things I know best in Korean are ways to insult kids in Korean.
먼 친척보다 가까운 이웃이 낫다 is-distant-PART relative-THAN is-near-PART neighbor-SUBJ is-better A nearby neighbor is better than a faraway relative. I’m not able to think of an equivalent English proverb off the top of my head, but this one is pretty straightforward. I guess all my relatives are pretty faraway.
말하기는 쉬워도 행동하기는 어렵다 speak-GER-TOPIC is-easy-TOO act-GER-TOPIC is-hard Speaking is easy but acting is hard. “Easier said than done.” I found some translations of this proverb offering something in the vein of “A word is worth a thousand dollars,” and the spreadsheet-o-proverbs that I made and have been working from for all the proverbs, which is cut-n-pasted from various bilingual compilations found online, offers this elaboration: “If you are nice to the person you borrowed money from, maybe they`ll forget about the debt.” Frankly, this doesn’t make any sense at all. I think the proverb just means actions are harder than words, which is almost what it says literally. I’m not sure where the other comes from – perhaps it’s some cut-n-paste error. On the other hand, I’m not sure I agree with the proverb. If the words are in Korean, and the person speaking them is me, then I think the words are harder than the action. And if the words are in English, and the person speaking them is one of my students, I think the same. Words are only easy if you know the language. Otherwise, actions are easier. Heh.
뚝배기보다 장 맛이 좋다 clay-pot-THAN sauce taste-SUBJ good The sauce tastes better than the clay pot [that it’s in]. Everywhere I looked, on the internet, the equivalent proverb given for this one is “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But I’m not sure I see how this works. If I had to guess the meaning, rather than trust the internet, I’d be more inclined to read it as something like, “there are rewards to looking more deeply into something.” That’s obviously related to the “Don’t judge a book by its cover” aphorism, but it’s not exactly the same. “Don’t judge a book by its cover” really seems to be about not jumping to conclusions, while this is more about knowing there is something better inside. Perhaps the distinction I’m trying for is too subtle? Maybe I don’t really understand the English aphorism, either?
콩 심은 데 콩 나지 팥이 날까 black-bean sow-CIRCUM black-bean sprout-REV red-bean-SUBJ sprout-INFER If black beans are sown and sprouted, [I] wonder if red beans will sprout? “You reap what you sow.” This is very important for teachers to remember. Each day we are sowing ideas and behaviors among the students – and they will learn as much by what we do and how we do it as they will by the sometimes empty content of our words – doubly empty when it’s a language they don’t well understand.
두 손뼉이맞아야 소리가 난다 two palm-SUBJ meet-IN-ORDER-THAT sound-SUBJ is-produced-PRES Two palms must meet in order for sound to be produced. “It takes two to tango.” This proverb is kind of an inversion of the famous Zen koan about the sound of one hand clapping. It answers, and says: c’mon, get real.
Yesterday I received a text message from my boss. It wasn’t just to me – it was a “broadcast” update on the topic of whether or not we would be getting the Monday (Dec. 31) between Sunday (Dec. 30) and New Year’s Day (Jan. 1) off as a holiday. I already knew that we wouldn’t be – that kind of bonus “intercalary” holiday is more rare in Korea than a chicken with teeth. We didn’t get the Monday before Christmas off either.
But that’s not what I’m complaining about. I’m complaining about the text message itself. It was in Korean, of course. And after studying it for more than hour, I have no idea what it says. I could figure out that the topic was about the holiday, but, except for the fact that I already knew the decision was that we would have had to work on Monday, I never could have guessed that meaning from the text. I can’t identify the keywords that would allow me to glom onto even the core meaning.
I am fond of trying to read and understand “found Korean” – as opposed to Korean from Korean Language textbooks, I guess. “Found Korean” means things in the real world that I might conceivably actually want to understand, such as text messages from my boss. But this type of “real” Korean presents huge challenges. The language has a lot of abbreviation – just as text-message-English does – elided words or syllables or strange spellings. Furthermore, Koreans seem to view punctuation of any kind as utterly devoid of meaning – it’s just a convention, like how Westerners view paragraph divisions, perhaps. So note the message’s utter lack of punctuation. The first thing I had to do, to even begin to understand it, was figure out where the sentences started and stopped.
Here is the text.
전 직원 공지사항 31일 휴원여부에 대해 많은 고민을 했지만 수업을 함이 옳다라고 결론내립니다 계속된행사여파로 피로가 누적되었을거 잘 압니다 저부터도 너무힘드니까요 연속3일을 못쉰다는 아쉬움이 아니라 하루만 일하면 다시 다음날 쉴 수 있구나라는 긍정의생각으로 임해주실것을 당부드립니다 수없이 많은 번민후의 결정인만큼 충분히이해해 주시고 기꺼운마음으로 받아주시기를 다시한번 부탁드립니다 애써 고생해 뿌린씨 막바지 조금만 더 힘 쓰면 풍성한 수확을 거둘수 있을겁니다 조금만 더 힘내주십시오 거의 다 와갑니다 그리고 새해에는 우리 모두 풍요로운 해가 될수 있을거라 믿습니다 언제나 자발적으로 일해주시는 여러분이 계셔 덜힘듭니다 올 한해 많은고생 함께 하신 전직원께 다시한번 깊이감사드리며 새해 더욱 건강하고 좋는일만 넘쳐나길 간절히 간절히 기원합니다 카르마플러스어학원장 올림
Eventually, I gave up trying to understand it. I simply can’t – it’s too far beyond my current level of competence in the language. And that, in turn, left me feeling extraordinarily depressed and gloomy. What? Five years in the country and I still can’t decipher a text message about a familiar topic? What a freakin’ loser I am…
돌다리도 두들겨 보고 건너라 stone-bridge-TOO knock try-AND cross-IMP Try knocking on a stone bridge, too, [before you] cross. The googletranslate has this as “Look before you leap.” But my list-o-proverbs has this as “Being a scaredy-cat.” I’m not sure these are the same at all, but I incline to the latter. This was hard to figure out, I had to cheat and look stuff up. There’s an old tradition that you knock (or kick, or stamp on) a wooden bridge before walking across it – presumably, to make sure it’s sturdy. So some people, to be extra careful, might knock on even a stone bridge before crossing, even though it’s probably more sturdy. So that’s either “looking before leaping” or being overly cautious, i.e. a scaredy-cat. Who’s leaping? Here’s a picture of a stone bridge at 금산사 [geumsansa = geumsan temple] that I took in 2010. I didn’t knock on it.
도토리 키 재기 acorn height measure-GER […like] measuring the height of an acorn. “It’s apples and oranges.” Trying to compare two things that aren’t really comparable.
달도 차면 기운다 moon-TOO full-WHEN wane-PRES Even the moon wanes after it’s full. “Every flow has its ebb.” Things go up and come down again. Bleah – no kidding.
나무만 보고 숲을 보지 않는다 tree-ONLY see-CONJ forest-OBJ see-PRENEG do-not-PRES [You/She/He/They/Someone] don’t see the forest and only see the tree. “Not seeing the forest for the trees.” What, there’s a forest? This was quite easy to figure out, both grammatically and proverbially speaking. Yay.
I'm always on the lookout for places online with insightful Korean Language learning tools and information. They're pretty hard to come by. Some time back, I found a website by a guy named Ken Eckert, that includes a section he calls "sloppy Korean." I don't know enough to judge how sloppy the Korean is, but the romanization is so random and poor that I have to work hard, squinting my eyes, so I don't see it.
How hard is it to master the single page of rules published by the National Institute of the Korean Language? Or… if you really hate the South Korean government's official "Revised Romanization" (and I know some people do, including many linguists – but I'm not one of them), there's the perfectly acceptable McCune-Reischauer system, still in use by the North (as far as I know). Regardless, in what linguistic universe is romanizing 어떻게 [eo-tteoh-ge] as "auto-keh" a good idea? I suppose it's motivated by a hope that people will be able to more easily, accurately pronounce the Korean. But if someone is far enough along to be trying to learn phrases at the level presented, I think they'll be OK with hangeul at that point.
I suppose this is one reason why learning Korean is such a struggle for me. With my own background in linguistics, and a strong underlying perfectionism, I have a need for people who are experts in Korean yet who also have some good linguistic training or background. But, in fact, most experts-in-Korean are extraordinarily lousy linguists, and I get frustrated and annoyed very quickly with all their bald-faced linguistic misconceptions and inaccuracies.
Oops. I ranted.
Having said all that, I don't really mean to complain. Or rant. I genuinely appreciate the effort put into it, and the phrase-level translations of colloquial Korean are well-organized and extraordinarily useful. The above makes me sound like the worst kind of ungrateful internet peever-troll imaginable. So I should apologize, forthwith, and not post this. But, um, I'm posting it.
Still, I highly recommend the site to anyone interested in working on Korean. Thanks, and sorry for the rant.
길고 짧은 것은 대어 보아야 안다 be-long-AND be-short-PP thing-TOPIC measure- try-YA know-PRES [You will] know [when you] try to measure a long and short thing. “You never know until you try.” True. What should I try?
For my Korean movie of the week, I watched a movie entitled 인디안 썸머 [in-di-an sseom-meo = “Indian Summer”in transliteration – just sounded out and spelled in Korean letters]. A very slow-moving, slightly morbid romance between a lawyer and his death-penalty-eligible court-assigned client. I’m not sure I liked the movie that much. The courtroom drama was a little bit interesting, but the romance seemed implausible both because they talk so little but also because of their situations. But anyway. It doesn’t really have a very happy ending – the point of an “Indian Summer” is that it ends in winter quite quickly.
I tried to pay attention to the dialogue, and managed to understand some Korean. I guess that’s progress.
Good night.
It was a schadenfreude moment when I ran across this blog post about how the marketers at Rosetta Stone language-learning software are bad at translating, the other day – because I’d decided I didn’t like Rosetta way back shortly after I’d acquired it. I’d decided I’d wasted my $300 and had forgotten it, basically.
Apparently, the marketers were putting German or Dutch or Swedish noun forms in place of the English verb form for “snow” in a multilingual play-on-words based on the song line “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.” Which, of course, indicates a rather poor apprehension of the grammatical issues at play. But then there was a comment on the blog post that made me reconsider, and decide that the criticism of the Rosetta marketers was irrelevant: the commenter (who went by Breffni) wrote:
I don’t get the idea that mixing English with German, Swedish and Dutch is an acceptable conceit, but using nouns for verbs is an incongruity too far. ‘Let it Schnee’ is wrong, all wrong – but ‘Let it schneien’, that would be fine? It’s bilingual word-play, from start to finish.
And so, my schadenfreude moment quickly faded. Because… here’s the thing: I totally agree with this point – if you’re going to play with mixing languages, what does it matter whether you’re getting the grammar right – it’s like complaining that the pieces don’t go together when playing with Legos and Lincoln Logs at the same time (which I did as a child, and I’m sure there are more contemporary equivalents). The point is, you’re mixing things up, so just go with it. That’s what makes it “playing with language,” and not, say, Chomsky’s “government and binding” theory or abstract grammar. In fact, it’s the over-emphasis on grammar vis-a-vis communicative efficacy that I dislike about Rosetta, and thus internet grammar peevers are criticizing from the wrong end, as far as I’m concerned.
So regardless, that doesn’t change the fact that I deeply resent having wasted $300 on Rosetta. But I’m not blaming the marketers. I’m blaming the designers’ poor grasp of foreign-language pedagogy and methodology. The only thing the marketers did wrong was successfully convince me to shell out $300.
My boss earlier was talking about me to another teacher, in Korean. I understood only fragments of what he was saying, but, as will happen when someone is talking about you, I was trying hard to understand. Eventually I interrupted, saying, "what?" and interjecting myself into the conversation, because I was feeling self-conscious.
One phrase he was using was using was "어리버리한" [eoribeorihan] which would be a derived participle of a verb form ending in -하다. He was at a loss to explain what this word meant in English, and at the time the best I could puzzle out was that it meant vague or hazy. He was using it to describe the way that I was when he first met me. Recall that my current boss has been my boss before – he was in 2008 at LinguaForum. So he's seen my evolution in my latest career as EFL teacher in Korea for most of its length.
I decided to try to puzzle out the meaning of this word he was using to describe me, but it's not a dictionary word as best I can figure out. One slang entry I found says it means "sucker." The google agreees. Another slang entry I found says "someone who is easily taken advantage of." This would make it like the English word "rube," maybe.
I think what Curt was meaning was that I was insecure in my teaching, and not showing a lot of confidence. Since the word was being applied to me, I might charitably prefer to translate it as something like "newbie" or "newb."
서울에 가야 과거를 급제하지 Seoul-TO go-GOAL civil-service-exam-OBJ pass-TAG […like] passing the civil service exam in order to go to Seoul. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” This proverb is easy to understand in the conext of the meritocratic system that existed in the pre-modern period, when one of the few avenues of social mobility open to “regular” people was to ace the civil service exam. It was viewed as a way to get ahead. And so, if you want to go to Seoul (i.e. become successful), you have to try to take the exam. You have to try to get somewhere. The image at right, found online without authorial attribution, is described to have been taken at a “Joseon civil service exam reenactment” – wow, talk about too much excitement.
상상과 실지와는 딴판이었다 imagine-AND reality-AND-TOPIC great-difference-is-PAST Imagined [thing] and reality were a great difference.
“Reality differs greatly from what’s imagined.” This proverb has a different provenance from those previous ones I’ve posted. I’m not sure it can even be properly called a proverb – it’s just a sentence I found in my dictionary on my new phone, as an example of usage for the word 실지 (reality, practicality). But I like a lot of the example sentences I’ve run across there, so when I run across one I’ll use it. My spreadsheet full of aphorisms and proverbs isn’t used up, by any means, but I’ll vary the source I guess. I’m sleepless at 430 am. Not sure what’s going on – I woke up wide awake in the middle of the night. Sometimes, that just happens. I can’t identify a pattern to it, really, but many years ago, I decided that the best strategy was to get up and do something rather than lie there and be insomniac. So I’m surfing the interwebs, listening to music, and contemplating the differences between reality and my imagination. The little illustration’s quote: “Everything you can imagine is real.”
I’m feeling pretty frustrated and even angry, the last few days. I guess hoesik (business dinner) brings it out, slightly. But it’s not like you would think. What’s got me frustrated and angry? My inability to understand what the heck is going on around me. That’s the language issue.
It’s not even a cultural problem – less and less am I of the opinion that the alleged Korean “communication taboo” that I’ve ranted about before is a real thing – it really boils down to certain naive conceptions of how language works, especially in communities of mixed-ability adults with multiple native languages (by this I mean e.g. there are native Korean speakers with lousy English. native Korean speakers with good English, native English speakers with lousy Korean, and native English speakers with good Korean, in an ideal mixed-ability community). In a work environment, an immense amount of communication takes place that is not explicit: people know what’s going on not because they are directly told, but because they “overhear” what’s going on. It enters their background consciousness. But with my limited and lousy Korean, I miss out on that channel. And then it feels like I’m being singled out for “noncommunication” because I don’t know what’s going on. It’s an artefact of my situation.
The solution is to get better at Korean. Argh. No comment. I’m trying. Really. But obviously, not with a great deal of success. I think my coworkers are deceived that I am better than I am, because I sometimes pick up on things quite easily. But other times, I have literally zero idea. It’s a limitation of adequate vocabulary, more than anything else.
So there. I get frustrated in social situations, which make them stressful for me.
I get frustrated at work, because I have no idea what’s going on, and no one will tell me when I ask – they are too busy, or they don’t know themselves.
I’m frustrated when I try to study, because I feel stupid and inadequate. I guess on the bright side, I have a lot of sympathy for my most boneheaded students – I’m one of them.
But I’m so depressed with this whole situation, lately, that I’m on the verge of tears.
</rant>
OK.
I came home in the cold and made a big bowl of “Spanish rice” with my leftover rice. It’s not really Spanish. It’s just rice with a vaguely Italian-style vegetable and tomato-based sauce added to it.
My boss frequently likes to hand out these massive photocopied booklets of vaguely pedagogical value.
I say vaguely, because I really can’t judge, seeing as they’re in Korean. To me, their value is vague. But I do see them as an opportunity for a Korean lesson, sometimes. So I stuff them in my backpack and bring them home, and on lazy weekends, such as the one just ending, I pull one of them out and spend some time attempting to make sense of it.
Curt likes pithy aphorisms and inspirational snippets. They appeal to me too – partly because they’re less overwhelming to try to read than whole dense paragraphs. Hence my neverending series of efforts to translate various Korean proverbs and aphorisms.
Anyway, he has a page in one of his recent booklets that lists the (alleged) qualities of a good teacher. Here’s that list, with my effort at translation following.
학생들이 좋아하는 교사의 특성 1. 교수법이 능숙하다 2. 열심히 가르친다 3. 온순하다 4. 운동을 좋아한다 5. 명랑, 쾌활해라 6. 공평무사 7. 머리가 좋다 8. 지식이 풍부하다 9. 유익한 이야기를 한다 10. 판서를 잘한다 11. 잘 돌봐 준다 12. 최미가 다양하다 13. 실력이 있다 14. 연구심이 있다 15. 친절 16. 정돈되어 있다 17. 유머 18. 건강하다 19. 언어가 명확하다 20. 나이가 젊다 The Characteristics of Teachers That Students Like 1. Proficient in teaching 2. Works hard at teaching 3. Is humble 4. Likes to exercise (or practice – this is ambiguous) 5. Cheerful and lighthearted 6. Fair 7. Good head (or good hair! – given Korean cultural obsession with “good hair” this might be the meaning) 8. Has a wealth of knowledge 9. Informative conversation 10. Good at writing 11. Takes good care 12. Variety of hobbies 13. Has skill 14. Has a spirt of inquiry 15. Kind 16. Organized 17. Humor 18. Healthy 19. Uses clear language 20. A youthful age (as in “young for his/her age”)
Most of these I can agree with and understand. I’m a little worried about the “good hair” one, though. It might mean the ruin of my teaching career.
