I've been feeling very "damned if you do, damned if you don't" when it comes to studying Korean these days. When I don't have time to study a language, I feel bad because I truly love it and want to do it regularly. That is not what's happening now; for the past couple months, I've actually [...]
Category: General
Thoughts on literary writing in another language
Last month, I told my Korean teacher about staying up really late to finish an assignment for an online YA fantasy writing course I was taking, and she semi-jokingly suggested that I should try writing a novel in Korean. Now, I don't think this is something I'll ever do or even be interested in doing -- [...]
2018 language goals
In all honesty, I never liked setting personal goals because why bother when there's good chance that I'll just fail and make myself feel bad? There are a few different things wrong with that attitude, yes, but one major reason for it is that my goals were always either 1) grossly unrealistic or 2) not [...]
Translating Korean relative clauses
Ahhh, Korean prose. It's so amazingly different from its English counterpart.
First ever Korean class
So after many months of not really studying Korean (despite what it looks like on my blog, I rarely pick up a textbook and study. Almost everything I write about comes from random one-off things I read in Korean.) I decided what I really needed was external motivation to take my skill to the next level. SO! I [...]
What I learned from taking TOPIK II without studying
I almost didn't even show up for the exam. Aside from a couple hours of reviewing grammar back in January, I didn't prepare for TOPIK at all. I didn't even spend time looking over old tests. But, as painful as I knew it was going to be, I knew there was still value in just taking [...]
Language Tag
Well, this is fun! Riccardo of Kaito Monogatari tagged me in this language learning questionnaire. Of all the people I know studying Japanese, Riccardo is the most prolific reader of Japanese literature that I know of. I hope I can be just as good some day. Anyway, thanks for tagging me, Riccardo! I'm always happy to talk about myself [...]
Blogging resolutions for 2016
I'm not a fan of New Year's resolutions, mainly because I think people can and should resolve to improve themselves throughout the year. (Besides, most people end up giving up on their resolutions mere weeks into the year, so why set yourself up for failure?) Dividing up time into years and such is a human construct [...]
The problem with self-studying
It's not a problem per se. More like a challenge, and one that can be frustrating and amusing in equal measures. When you've moved past the beginner stuff and are now immersing yourself in the books, TV shows, music, etc. of a certain language, you're probably going to develop a very specific - and sometimes irrelevant - vocabulary. [...]
World Connections
Yes, yes, I know - and you do too if you been following me on Twitter or Instagram - I got back from Japan a whole week ago so where be all the Japan posts?!? All in good time, friends. I'm not even done writing about Korea from a whole year ago. Spoiler alert: I only [...]
