Category Archives: Korean

Walk the Walk

Recently, I found a funny blog post on Twitter (thanks to Khatz from AJATT) about the two ways to learn a foreign language, using Lord of the Rings as the example. For those not familiar, if you look on the … Continue reading

Posted in Japanese, JLPT, Korean, Language | Tagged | 2 Comments

My First Korean Drama: 넌 내게 반했어

So thanks to my wife’s friend in Japan, who also gave us a nice tour of Shin-Okubo a few months ago, we got a copy of the famous Korean Drama neon naege banhaesseo which gets translated as “Heartstrings” or “You’ve … Continue reading

Posted in Korean, Language | Tagged | 9 Comments

Funny Spellings in Old Language

About the yeare of our Lord, 1554, a wenche who came from Glocester named Elizabeth Croft, about the age of eighteene yeares, stoode uppon a scaffolde at Poule’s Crosse all the sermon tyme, where shee confessed that she, being moved … Continue reading

Posted in Japanese, Korean, Language, Latin | Leave a comment

Language Exposure is Worth It

I have story to tell. When we first moved back to the US three years ago from Ireland, my daughter was still about 3 years old. We had purchased some Japanese-language Disney CDs and would play them in the car … Continue reading

Posted in Family, Japanese, Korean, Language | Tagged | 7 Comments

Learning a Language, Taking a Chance

(Multitasking: at work, “studying” Korean) So as readers know, I’ve been studying Japanese for long while. I am not “fluent”, but I can get by OK. Not great, but I can carry a (sometimes awkward) conversation, or get my way … Continue reading

Posted in Japanese, JLPT, Korean, KPop, Language | 11 Comments

Chinese Characters in Korean usage

Chinese culture has had a strong influence on Asian culture over the many centuries, and this is reflected in the writing systems. For example, when Korean society moved to use the Hangeul alphabet, Chinese characters or hanja (한자) were still … Continue reading

Posted in Japanese, Korean, Language | Tagged | 2 Comments

Happy Easter and Buddha’s Birthday

April 8th this year is unusual because it marks two holidays at once: Easter according to the Western calendar (the resurrection of Jesus Christ) and the birth of Shakyamuni Buddha according to the Japanese Buddhist calendar.1 The photo above is … Continue reading

Posted in Buddhism, Christianity, Korean, Language, Religion | 6 Comments

Part 2: My new hobby – Korean language 한극어

Shifting gears a bit after the last heavy post, I wanted to revisit an old subject. About six months ago, I wrote about my new hobby at the time, which was studying Korean alongside studying Japanese. It started out as … Continue reading

Posted in Japanese, Korean, Language, Seattle | 17 Comments

Timeboxing for Fun and For Profit

As I mentioned in my last post, I am great a devising projects, and terrible at follow through. This includes blogging, language studies (Japanese and Korean), Buddhist practice (e.g. nembutsu, meditation, etc), among many other things. The problem is always … Continue reading

Posted in General, Japanese, JLPT, Korean, Language | 10 Comments

You Reap What You Sow

I wasn’t planning on posting this at first, but I really liked this one KPop video by a lesser-known artist by Red Roc. It’s dark and intense, features the awesome T.O.P. from Big Bang, and has a surprise ending: If … Continue reading

Posted in Buddhism, Japanese, Korean, KPop, Language, Music, Religion | Leave a comment