Onions and Tomatoes
My friend in the army told me, “Just smile and say, ‘Onions and Tomatoes.’” I was 25 years old and my first word was “annyeonghaseyo” which vaguely sounds like “Onions and Tomatoes”. This would be enough Korean if I was staying for a week, but I planned to stay at least a year. The phrasebook I got as a gift would not be enough to get me through.
The first thing I did was memorize the alphabet. At that time there wasn’t much information online but I bought a CD-ROM program to practice the phonetics of the alphabet. I practiced the sounds and then created words I knew or words I heard and thought about how they would be spelled using the Korean alphabet. Finally, I wrote the Korean alphabet saying the sounds. I did this for two or three days until I thought I perfected the sounds. If I started today I would start with an online game like this one .
Grasp Vocab
The second thing I did was talk with Korean people. Korea has a lot of store signs. One friend gave me a quiz when we were in the car asking me to read all sign and she counted how many signs I could read and checked to see if I read them correctly. Another friend taught me words I couldn’t learn in any school. He asked me,
“Do you know what 멋쟁이 means?”
I had no idea what “MeotJaengEe” means. He said,
“That’s my name. Just call me ‘MeotJaengEe’”.
Another friend said,
“Don’t call him ‘MeotJaengEe’ (멋쟁이). Call him ‘moht-saeng-gee’” (멋생기).
So many word parts sounded the same to me but to Koreans they had a complete opposite meaning. ‘MeotJaengEe’ means handsome boy and ‘moht-saeng-gee’ means ugly. They both pretty much sounded the same to me. I listened carefully and wrote down what I heard and checked it with my Korean friends. For the first two months I wrote down everything I could catch and checked it with friends and with the dictionary.
Own the grammar
Next, I got a grammar book and wrote down basic grammar patterns in my notebook. I made my own sentences with my own words using the example sentences from the book. This is still the only way to get Korean grammar structures. If you translate sentences in google translate or other translators the correct structures will not be translated. One of the best place to look for sentences to play with is https://www.topikguide.com/category/topik-grammar
I kept a notebook each day with ten sentences following the basic structure of one grammar point.
This took me about a year and I was still sounding like a robot. The only way to jump from textbook Korean to real life Korea is active listening and guts to speak. Active listening is not just watching a Korean drama and think I got it. Active listening is hiding the screen and listening. Then listen again and write down everything you can catch and then listen again and watch and correct your sentences. Finally to check with the script. This kind of listening brings your level closer to a native level. Many can get this far but still have trouble speaking because they don’t speak. They are shy and let their Korean friends do all the Korean speaking. The only way to learn a foreign language is to use it in every possible situation. This take guts and room for a lot of misunderstanding.
Find the heart and the guts to use it
Sometimes the sentences I used didn’t get the expected response. I discussed this with friends and found out slight pronunciation differences could mean totally different things. If I had just planned to stay in Korea a year or two and go home I wouldn’t bother with this but something happened that made me go from hearing,
“Wow your Korean is good.”
To nowadays...
진짜... 한국에 얼마나 계셨어요?
What makes the biggest difference in learning a language is desire. A lot of languages sound cool and would be nice to learn but for me it comes down to practical use. When I lived in Chicago I learned Spanish because I could talk to friends and neighbors in Spanish. When I moved to Korea speaking Korean was more than a necessity for me. It was the way into understanding the heart of the people I met there. It was the way to understand what my mother-in-law and father-in-law were saying. And it was the way into understanding what my wife was really meaning to say.
I’m glad I got to this level that I can understand others and speak what is on my heart. That’s what learning a language has been to me...
...the ticket to a new world.
The pictures were taken by my wife at her friends pansori recital