Today I got a call from my former ceramics teacher. He said my plates and cups were fired, ready to be weighed, paid, and picked up. I said I would be over there at six. When I arrived at the ceramics school, I was pleasantly surprised. “These could actually be used!” Some of the cups and dishes even made a nice set. I had no intention of making sets , but hey, -works for me! Who wants some Korean dishes?
A beautiful day for riding to the coast. This ride begins in Buan valley of rice farms, then within 15km, crosses small coastal mountains, finally coming out along the coast for a rolling hill bike ride. It’s the best road ride in Buan county.
One kilometer outside the town of Buan. Rice farms are on the left and right and foreground. In the background are the coastal mountains. In the foreground on the left side are the dog farms. While many Koreans I speak with, won’t or don’t eat dog, some do. The dogs looked to be treated like any other livestock. I saw a few hundred caged barking dogs.
Man helping nature grow fruit. Just before entering the mountains are these small orchards of wrapped fruit. I’m not sure what is being wrapped here. I believe they are peaches. From what I could see every single one was contained in a little yellow pouch. The first thing I thought was, “that’s impossible”. But, clearly it IS possible.
Crossing Buan Lake. About half way through the ride is the beautiful lake of Buan.
Tobacco farms. I only discovered that these were tobacco plants because of the smell. For about 1km it smell likes like a nice cigar. There’s not much left of these harvested plants. Most of the leaves were drying in greenhouses.
Canned coffee and a small island.
I’ve found that learning how to type in Korean is a little frustrating. It’s an annoying skill to learn, especially since I’ve been able to type using an Qwerty keyboard layout for several years. To start all over again for something that seems so familiar is humbling.
Here are a few programs to make the learning process a little less painful. Tajamaster is online based so there is no need to install special software. Kid Taja is also another online option. It’s for kids, or in my case, a big kid. Ignore the images on the home page unless you want to register. Click on the tabs at the top instead, then a sub-tab, and you will find that there are many ways to practice. Another option is Hansoft’s typing program. This is the program that the students use at the elementary schools. Unfortunately the program was not designed to run on Windows Vista. Older versions of Windows won’t have problems.
I found two online Korean conjugators today. Enter the infinitive verb form and the conjugator outputs more forms of the verb than you ever knew existed. They’re both quite impressive and both output the pronunciations. Hangeul Assistant can be installed and run locally too.
I love you - To prepare you for that time when you want express your feelings to that special friend or family member. Often the subject of a sentence is omitted in Korean. This is the case here. In addition, the object is also omitted. Thus, you have a very efficient sentence. It sort of creates a mystical and obscure way to express love. It seems you could imply multiple meanings at once like, “You love me”, “I love you”, and just simply “love”.
Korean: [사랑해요]
Transliteration: [sa|rang|hey|yo]
Literal translation: [love]
I walked to the bus station but first I stopped at Joe’s Pizza. I had planned to buy a couple slices but instead I bought a whole pizza. The cashier said it would be 5 minutes then she said something else that I didn’t understand. I repeated back the word to her for a confirmation. She confirmed, but it was a word I was not familiar with. Then she gestured to go in the restaurant. I said, “that’s okay”, and asked her to say the word one more time. As I punched the characters into the cellphone I thought, “Wow, another ‘come and go’ verb”.
This is the third time this month that I’ve discovered a verb with “come” or “go” in it. I just had to do a Come and Go post.
Absolute Essential base verbs:
오다 - to come
가다 - to go
Essential combinations:
들어오다 - to come in, enter (the word the cashier used)
들어가다 - to go in, enter
가져오다 - to bring (over here)
가져가다 - to take (over there)
나오다 - to come out
나가다 - to go out
Make a 6 page narrative. You simply need a sheet of A4 paper, a pair of scissors, and some creativity to fill the pages. Students can make the book in less 3 than minutes. For the younger students, I’ve found it helpful to use the PDF template with page numbers, handwriting guidelines, and cut markings.
