Korean 101: 저는 엉어 선생님 임니다

As you can probably guess from the title, I'm starting to learn Korean! The translation basically says "I'm an English teacher" and it's one of very few things I've learned so far. In order to assimilate more into Korean culture we decided to join a language class for beginners, along with co-workers Lee and Nicki, offered by our church. The class is on Saturday mornings from 10:30 - 12:00. Every day of the week is a sleep-in day since we start work at 2pm, but Saturdays were our "no pressure" days - with no job to get ready for we were free to take our time getting around. We were really excited and motivated the first couple of weeks, but now some of the attraction has worn off and it's not as easy to get out of bed for. However, I know in the end it will be a decision I won't regret.

We started out by learning how to introduce ourselves and give our job title and phone number. That was followed by the basic vowels, consonants and structure of Hangeul - the Korean system of writing. Words are written in syllables, with characters grouped together to form the different sounds, rather than one letter after the other as in English. Our teacher, Cindy, is very patient but it is hard for our mouths to learn to form some of the more unfamilar sounds. I don't seem to retain much from week to week but hopefully things will begin to sink in more as we go along. In an attempt to supplement my learning efforts I downloaded a cool application for my ipod that lets me practice the Hangeul alphabet flashcard style.

Last week we had a cooking lesson - how to make a traditional Korean dish, bibimbap (비빔밥). It has a base of rice followed by layers of different vegetables and topped off with hot chili paste. We learned the names of the ingredients and how to say phrases like "please give me some...", "put it in", and "please mix". The final test was getting up in front of the class to assemble our dish using only the Korean words. It was pretty intense, but I now know the words for cucumber, carrots and lettuce! As a reward, we got to eat our bibimbap...it was good, but not my idea of a perfect breakfast food!