let's learn Korean!

Happy New Year, everyone :)

On the first Saturday of 2014, I went to a free Korean class in Seoul! I have been learning Korean little by little on my own since last summer, but this class is my first official attempt at gaining some proficiency in Korean.

I found out about this free class on Meetup! It takes place at Bangbae Culture Center in Bangbae-dong on Saturdays, for two hours each time, for ten weeks.

The website said that the basic level was for those who want to start with learning the Korean alphabet, and the 1A level was for those who want to begin learning basic grammar. I had already taught myself the Korean alphabet last summer using a couple of YouTube videos (here and here), so I thought I could skip the basic level and start at 1A. I arrived at the 1A class at 11am on Saturday morning, where I met several American students, a student from Nigeria, and our Korean teacher. Our teacher asked us to introduce ourselves using only Korean, which was my first clue that I would be in over my head if I started at the 1A level. After we did our introductions (mostly in English, haha!), the teacher proceeded to review content from the previous level. I didn't know any of the phrases or grammar structures that he was reviewing, which gave me further reason to believe that I should come back for the basic class that afternoon. The last bit of confirmation for this decision came when we took a "level test" at the end of the class. I knew about three of the vocabulary words on the test (비행기, airplane; 우유, milk; and 바나나, banana) and absolutely failed the rest of it. After class, I and two other students decided that we would move to the basic class because we just didn't know enough to stay on at the 1A level.

This left three hours to spend between the 1A class and the basic class, so I decided to go to my favorite 만두 (dumpling) place in Dongdaemun and walk around a bit. I came across Dongdaemun History and Culture Park, which I hadn't been to before; it was such a beautiful and peaceful place!

I believe this is Haechi, the mascot of Seoul. (Korean friends, correct me if I'm wrong!) This "statue" was made from plastic bottles, cups, and bowls!

  This mural was on a storefront across from Dongdaemun History and Culture Park. Isn't it sweet? ^^

At 4pm I returned to Bangbae Culture Center for the basic level class. The students in this class were from all over the world! There were about seven or eight students from India, three Americans, one man from Rwanda, and one woman from Australia. The teacher was very effective and taught us the alphabet and about 15 vocabulary words in just two hours! I'm really glad I decided to start from the beginning at the basic level.

Here is our textbook, starting from the very beginning.

Class notes from the first day.

Class activity: vocabulary word search and writing practice.

My homework for the week is to copy the alphabet on grid paper and study for a vocabulary test next week. Wish me luck!

For those interested in learning a few Korean phrases:

안녕하세요 an nyoung ha say yo means "hello"
감사합니다 kam sa hap ni da means "thank you"
커피 ko pi means "coffee"
화장실 hwa jang shil means "restroom"

What more do you need to know? ;)