Monday, September 17, 2012

Simsimi - The robot app SHINee Jonghyun plays with! Also a language learning tool?



I've been meaning to blog about this app i've come across recently. The screenshot above was tweeted by Jonghyun from Shinee last night. Looks like he's having fun with the app too =) [Flirting with a robot lol]

Anyways you can download the app on to your smartphone, otherwise you can play with it online here

Simsimi is basically a little chicken(?) robot that learns different languages, through us users who teaches it how to responds. 
(It's a robot because it's not a person at the other end responding to you in live time) 

Monday, September 10, 2012

Surpassing 10 000 views on this blog

joi sia
감사합니다
THANK YOU
viewers!

Monday, August 20, 2012

옥수역

I was looking for a picture of this:
A subway station in Korea

....but i ended up reading a Ghost story/comic about the station
http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=30&weekday=tue&fb_source=message

Follow the link. The comic is in English. The only concern is that the setting is based on a real subway station. A quite pretty looking subway station...


Saturday, August 11, 2012

It's possible to get married at a subway station in Korea?

Again, i'm studying from the Yonsei textbook and I come across something that catches my attention which leaves me a little bewildered.
People gets married at the subway station in Korea?!!
All i can think of is Sydney's train station in reference to imagine how it would appear. 
Quickly enough, i type in 녹사평역 for an image search in google and see how that would really look. 
Immediately, i see that their station looks rather spacious in comparison, which actually seems more feasible than the Sydney referenced imagination of a station that appeared in my head.  

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Clothes horse - WHAT?

Since when is a clothes rack (the thing we air our clothes to dry on after doing laundry) also called a clothes horse? I thought i was lost in translation when i looked up 빨래 건조대 and was presented with "clothes horse" on Naver's dictionary. I thought it was a Korean expression that had some sort of whacky cultural/language/symbolic significance, until i did a google search just out of curiosity.

Turns out such term exist in the English dictionary, and is in fact an English word. It's probably more commonly known as a clothes rack as to a clothes horse nowadays. I could be wrong. However, a quick survey of people around me seems to suggest they're in the same boat as me and don't have the faintest idea what it could be. Okay, i lied. One person had a rough idea of what it is but didn't pinpoint it down to exactly what part of laundry it is related to.

I hope Koreans learning English don't get too confused. Naver gives decent translation if you break the expression down 빨래= laundry 건조대 = drying rack.

Anyhow, it looks like i'm learning English while i'm trying to learn Korean.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Learn Korean slang from dramas 껄떡거리다 Big ep 10


So here's a screen capture of Gil Da Ran getting told by Kyung Joon (in Yoon Jae's body) to not be 껄떡거리다 all over him in Big ep10.

껄떡거리지 마 is his more exact words

The scene is followed by Gil Da Ran thinking through the word and this next screen actually appears in the drama.


Yay! Definition of a Korean slang from a drama.  If that wasn't clear enough on how it's used, toss it into the online naver dictionary and tadaaa! more examples on how to use the word =)

Saturday, April 7, 2012

풍물시장 folk flea market

I never heard of a folk flea market before. I came across it from studying Korean from the Yonsei textbook. It looks like Seoul has a folk flea market and this website seems to explain what it is quite well. I don't think there's any in Australia? I could be very wrong. I'm not really into shopping. 

http://archiartistlee.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/sketches-at-seoul-folk-flea-market.html
The sketch is of Seoul's Flea Market by Lee Yong Hwan. He sketches places in Korea. Pretty cool. 
For more of the Seoul's Flea Market sketches: click here

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Bare minimum technique for staying interested in language learning

















Looks like i've fallen into the trap of not "keeping language study a priority when life gets busy". I quote,  because this post sums up my struggles.
I've been busy and instead of really studying, i've been trying to keep myself 'interested' in studying - which is probably the bare minimum a language learner can do. 

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Korean movie - 도가니 Silenced / The Crucible


Must watch this movie. It's disturbing, but i like how this movie raised awareness in the Korean society. It's based on a real story (Inwha 2005 case) and it's great that Korean movies also have that ability to make a difference. I say 'also' because Korean films are great at entertaining. The Korean entertainment industry is so good at what they do, that their audience base is fascinating in itself. With this movie, it did more than just make another film. It served a better purpose, yet at the same time, it didn't lose its touch in keeping people watching. I think it's brilliant. 

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Koreans at UNSW - gotta love what they get up to :)


KSA@UNSW LIPDUB "Simple Plan - Jet Lag" from UNSW.KSA on Vimeo.

I thought this was a pretty neat video that the Korean Student Association has made to promote Korean culture at UNSW and abroad (abroad as in: living in Australia as to Korea).
Loving all the fun and effort they put into making this video.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Naver's Korean Dictionary - Pronunciation of Korean words

You know how online dictionaries often have a button to the right side of the word for listening to pronunciation of the word you'd just  looked up? Eg just search up any definition of a word on dictionary.com Well, Naver's Korean dictionary 국어사전 (NOT Naver's Korean-English dictionary 영어사전 that i've previously mentioned on my blog) seems to be introducing that in their Korean online dictionary.

 'Listening to pronunciation' 바름 듣기 seems to be new to Korean online dictionaries? Correct me, if i'm wrong. I can only seem to find pronunciation function on Naver's online dictionary, and even so, it's not available for all the words that you might want to look up. At least, at present.

Anyways, either way this feature might be useful to us language learners who aren't sure of how to pronounce random words.

Click HERE for the link to Naver's Korean online dictionary.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

My latest learning Korean method - Utilising online dictionary

Hello everyone, or no one...? it's been a while.
Either way, i'm going to blog about my latest learning method. I'm going to keep this blog documenting my  learning experience as much as i can (..will myself out of my own laziness). Hopefully, one day i look back and have a recollection of how i learnt, to get to where i am.
One thing about self learning is having the complete freedom to adjust, or adapt our methods of learning to our learning needs. If we're clever, we manage to customise our learning to it's best fit.
No one uses one mode of studying all the way to the end these days. Especially, with language learning. That really would be mindless studying


So moving on from the bookworm language exchange partner also calls for a different mode of studying.
Lately, instead of just translating words so i get a definition of what i don't understand, I've incorporated writing out sample sentences that is provided from online dictionary.
[Physical copy of dictionary from Korea, that are made for Koreans learning English also have heaps of sample sentences!]

Advantages of using online dictionaries:

  • Get an idea on how a Korean word is used in a sentence
    • This deals with untranslatable word problem in language learning - the sample sentences reduces the focus on how it make sense in our own language and forces us to infer how it is used in Korean.
    • Allow us to see how the words are commonly used - i assume the sentences given are one that are somewhat commonly used... who puts uncommon sentences in their native language dictionary for examples? 
    • Make sure that the word is even in use in the way i intend to use it - no matter how we try we will always think of words in our native language when learning and so forming our sentences can be a little messed up~ this is a nice reassurance that i've got it right