Sorry for the hiatus, but... are you ready!

Hello all! I welcome you once again to this blog that I have for a long time been neglecting. This summer has just been THAT crazily busy. Good news only; I got into university! 

University and A-Levels

So I am leaving my home to go study Tourism Management in a lovely lovely place! As I have said in the past, my geography grade has always been disgusting but luckily this year, the geography module that I completely failed last time, I got an A in that module - which was enough for my happiness. Another module I basically failed last time went up to a B grade. The rest of my grades were not as impressive (I was really disappointed by Spanish but I took that exam as a completely broken student...lol)  but I am now moving on from the A-Level world. I would have started my course by this time next week.

Spanish

So I finished learning Spanish in school. My sixth year finished of learning this beautiful language - and as some of you may already know - it will not stop there! I am definitely doing a Spanish module at university and hopefully can do a term abroad in Spain or even a placement year out there...when I get more knowledge on things I will decide; but that is all in the future! I have a friend who is like a sister that has gone to do a year of volunteer work in Peru so I am jealous her level of Spanish will overtake me really soon haha :) but I do wish her the best experience for this next year. I have another friend that studies Spanish at university and has gone to Spain for the year as part of her course . 

I went to my school to say goodbye to some teachers recently and had a really nice conversation with one of my Spanish teachers about keeping the language alive in my life, If anyone here is reading this and is a learner of a language, please remember to keep practicing the language or you will forget things more and more. Utilize it whenever you can! I have tried to keep Spanish alive by watching films in Spanish like 'nueve reinas' and 'perdon si te llamo amor'. I will soon watch 'diarios de motocicleta' which is about famous figure Che Guevara. I also have been listening to a wider range of Spanish / latin music (not just the Shakira I am used to) like 'bachata' and reading articles on 'BBC Mundo'.

There was one day earlier this summer I was on the bus and could hear several people having Spanish conversations in different accents and it was killing me because I automatically go to translate and listen to their conversations as if it is a listening exercise! 

I will try to improve my grammar but I think I am getting better with automatically responding in Spanish!

Korean

I must say I have made progress with Korean, mainly because I surround myself with many Korean things and ways to learn. Another mission I gave myself was to learn the meanings of those little things I do not know in a sentence instead of skipping them and translating the words I am used to; also, enriching my vocabulary and trying a bit harder with grammar. The next thing I need to try is stop mixing Korean and English in sentences when I have no idea what to say - I do speak in very broken sentences sometimes haha. 

Our class 'successfully' carried out our annual Korean event, though there were many difficulties that I will try to forget about (the stress was unbearable)! We filmed our drama parody video, performed a dance, cooked and served food and had a really good time. Our hard work paid off and so thank you to everyone that helped made it possible, my lovely Korean teachers and those certain few unnies and chingus that worked hard.

 

Like with Spanish, I cannot help overhear Korean conversations to test out translation skills. I did visit Korea Town a few times this holiday and on one occasion I was sat next to a father and his daughter. The father was teaching her Korean etiquette like how to wrap the meat in the lettuce, checking if she knew how to hold her chopsticks properly; as he spoke to her in Korean she would reply in English. I just found that situation really cute and funny - especially when the father told her to eat the hot soup slowly saying '천천히' which reminded me of a key line from a sketch from KBS's 'Gag Concert' called 'Hidden Masters'. I was mid conversation with my friend when I had to stop speaking in case I burst out laughing. Anyways, another reason I listen to others speaking their language is in case if they were to say something bad about me and I could surprise them by understanding. I wouldn't be surprised if that happened to anyone as with my friends we use Korean as almost a code (never for bad reasons) but for secret jokes which I find fun, or to warn someone about something in subtle way. 

Other languages

So at the start of summer I gave myself a challenge to also improve my Portuguese, Chinese and French (I am on absolute beginners for Portuguese and Chinese). I have basically done no French, I have not tried to learn anymore Chinese symbols last time but have worked just a tiny bit with Portuguese lol. I did meet a Chinese girl in a Korean class and she was surprised when I knew the meaning of three very basic symbols '男' '天' '美' when we were reading a Korean article about 3 members of Exo on the cover or a Hong Kong fashion magazine. With Portuguese I just have worked with my pronunciation and try to recognize the words that are similar in Spanish and French. I find that really fun and I just listen to my Portuguese music :)

I resumed reading my book about North Korea 'Nothing To Loose' and my Bible in Spanish. Still many more updates to happen...once I find the time in my busy schedule, but thank you for reading! See you soon!

Chinese tag!

Again, the things that happen with procrastination has a good effect in one way. I needed to post about this immediately!

I posted early this academic year that I went to a Mandarin class at Sixth Form just for a taster. I did not want to take up another language beginner level at this moment in time; but honestly this wasn't the first time I have looked into Chinese. A lot of people say they wish they were fluent in Chinese just because. As I always say, my speaking has always been the weakest aspect whenever I start to learn a language - you should hear how bad I am at English the language I am 'fluent' in haha. The taster session focused mainly focused on pronunciation and intonation which I liked and I can also say I took something useful from that class (I can now pronounce the Chinese version to Exo - Wolf better by looking at the romanization) but I really wanted to learn more symbols; especially since I was looking at the characters a little bit before - mainly because of Korean.

I really like learning the origin of words that is why I was considering Latin or esperanto (modern day Latin as I call it as it is like a mix of many European languages and many European languages are formed because of Latin!) So with Korean learning the meaning behind symbols are useful to find the links int things and to understand why I am saying what I am saying - where did it come from? As Korean or Hangul rather was made, by King Sejong the great, for the people of lower status to understand Chinese it obviously has Chinese influence. That is why is is called 'Poor Man's Chinese'.

"The Korean script was developed by King Sejong for his people. Back then, the Chinese script was used by scholars to write Korean and people of lower status couldn’t read it. That’s why the King made Han-geul reeeeaaaally easy to read, so any idiot could learn it." [1]

Whilst watching Korean shows like 'Running Man' or the drama 'Jang Ok Jeong lives by love' which was set in the Joseon dynasty I would see some Chinese symbols pop up, get curious about it, look it up and remember it the next time I see it. Characters like 大, 天, 人, 王, 月, 無, 中, 金 and some more. And then my dad gave me this one day:

 

 Chineasy!
Learning these symbols are just really aiding my Korean learning I think but I enjoying it too; for example, I always knew 달빛 meant Moonlight (I have a friend and her Korean name is DalBit / 달빛) so when she mentioned how there is an Exo song about her (referring to 월광 (Wol-Gwang) which means moonlight also) it really irked me! Why was there another word to 'Moonlight' which was quite different to the one I knew? I instantly thought that it had to be Chinese. I knew that 월 meant month. The moon has a monthly cycle (like humans and werewolves haha). I knew that in Chinese month and moon share the same symbol '月'. I had a flashback to a Running Man episode when Gwangsoo said his name meant light '光' Gwang. So there is the Moon+Light that made moonlight. Hey, I am not claiming to be a genius but to realise that with my minimum knowledge in Chinese was quite handy (both symbols were in the top 100 basic Chinese symbol list I use).



I use my Spanish knowledge if I am ever reading something in French and it helps if I come across something in Italian or Portuguese. English and my limited French helps if my German friend sends me something in German. We are all tightly woven, more than we think. Languages are really similar. The other day I thought about 'specially' special and the suffix '-ly' is kind of the same in Korean 특별히- 특별 being 'special' and adding the '히' has the same effect as the '-ly' and makes it mean specially. It is a direct by translation and things like this amaze me. What a nerd!Doing things this like this also makes me realise only logical things e.g. 'pomme de terre' in French translates as 'apple of the Earth' which made me think 'wait, do apples not come from the Earth?' Obviously the come from apple trees.


I am still left with a few questions - 일본 in Korean means 'Japan'. If 일 translates to Sun does that mean like in Chinese 日本 (land of the rising Sun / Sun Origin) means Japan too? What does the 본 mean? Is it the 'origin' part? 수 means water. Is that why a WATER-melon is 수박 and there is water involved with 수영?

It is just for fun! Therefore I will only 'enriquecerme' (enrich myself) in learning symbols in Summer and regain my Year 9 level of French whilst striving forward with Spanish and Korean; but am I getting a bit a head of myself with all these languages?

The significance of the days of the week in Chinese - Korean
(Moon, Fire, Water, Wood, Gold, Earth, Sun)

The meanings of the trigrams from the taegukgi and randomness

The elements / blocks from the Taegukgi

Directions Korean-Spanish-French-English-Chinese

Taegukgi decoded
Taiji Yin&Yang symbol
- Red is heat and light
-Blue is coldness and darkness
White background / flag = Peace, purity and cleanliness
The trigrams

The pronunciation guide I received at the Mandarin taster session

The symbols I recognise, please excuse my horrible
penmanship

Remember I am not a pro, just a learner