ESL Adventures

Teaching in South Korea

Archive for the 'Korean Vocabulary' Category

02
Oct

Happy Chuseok!

Hello everyone!  Today is 추석 (Chuseok).  It’s basically the Korean Thanksgiving.  It’s a festival celebrating the harvest.  People usually travel to the cities and towns where older relatives live.  Many of my students go to their grandparents’ house.

One traditional dish served on Chuseok is 송편 (Songpyeon).  Songpyeon is a chewy rice cake (떡) filled with a sweet filling.  My favorite kind had chesnuts and brown sugar in it.  You can also get them with other fillings such as sweetened red beans.

For Chuseok, people wear 한복 (Hanbok).  Hanbok is the traditional Korean clothings worn for special occassions.  Wikipedia has a nice overview of the history of hanbok.  By the way, that’s a long O and an A like in father.  So it sounds more like hanboke.  I said it incorrectly for a long time because of the weird Romanization of the word.

posted by Kathryn in Celebrations,Food and Drink,Korean Vocabulary,Off time and have No Comments
07
Jun

Dalk-yachae-bokum-bap

Better known as cheesy rice. I get mine in a dalk-galbi restaurant in Shinae. It’s cheesy and meaty and spicy and just plain yummy. This time, I got beef instead of chicken. I’ve had similar dishes with seafood as well. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant off the top of my head, but it’s right above Loteria. It’s on the same road in Shinae as New Core Outlet is on. The Megabox movie theater is on that road as well.

You start off with some kimchi and the usual cabbage salad. The put the burner on under the big pan in the middle of the table. Once you order they bring out the food, which is cooked at your table. They start with some basic veggies. Once those are moving along well, they add the meat, spices and rice. That gets all nice and mixed together. To finish it up, they add the cheese, mozzarella in the case of this restaurant. Pair with a bottle of Coke, and you have a meal fit for a queen (or king as the case may be).

posted by Kathryn in Food and Drink,Fun things,Home Life,Korea,Korean Vocabulary,Off time,Pictures and have No Comments
01
Jan

The 12 Days of Christmas — Korean Style

On Christmas Eve, I took my turn in the cycle of teaching Ivy.  Not wanting to do a boring discussion class (oh how I hate trying to get teenagers to talk), I decided to turn them loose on The 12 Days of Christmas lyrics.  We listened to the song a couple of times and I told them they could work in pairs or small groups to come up with their own lyrics.  The catch was the things they used as gifts had to be tied to Korea in some way.  Here’s what we came up with in the end.

  • On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a big pot of spicy kimchi.
  • On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me, two shots of soju.
  • On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me, three orange restaurants.
  • On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, four Taekwondo belts.
  • On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, five hand phones.
  • On the six day of Christmas my true love gave to me, six lovely hanboks.
  • On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me, seven rolls of kimbap.
  • On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, eight bags of ramyan.
  • On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, nine taxi drivers.
  • On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, ten chewy rice cakes.
  • On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me, eleven English hagwons.
  • On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, twelve bowls of rice.

I think it’s really cute.  True, some of the things aren’t unique to Korea, but they are popular here.  Try to find anyone over the age of 7 without a hand phone (aka “cell phone” to you westerners).  I’ve seen quite a few elderly men and women with them.  And the taxi drivers?  Well, that was my contribution.  Every time I get into a taxi I say a quick prayer to get out in one piece.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Holidays,Korea,Korean Vocabulary,Language,Little Campus,Lyrics,Music,Students,Teaching,Teaching Resources,Writing and have No Comments
05
Oct

Chicken Bumps?

Goose Bumps

In D3, we’re reading a little story book called “The Fairground Ghost“. In there, they talk about goose bumps.  So I asked my kids if there was a similar term in Korean.  Turns out there is.  In Korean, the term is Duk Sial (hope I have the spelling right), which literally means chicken bumps.  According to Wikipedia, the use of $BIRD skin/bumps is quite common.  In fact, the term in Dutch also uses chicken.

OK, OK…  I realize this is a pretty poor entry.  It’s been a rough few weeks for me, hence the lack of blogging.  I’m trying to get back on track.

posted by Kathryn in Fun things,Korean Vocabulary,Language,Little Campus,Reading,Students,Teaching,Uncategorized and have No Comments
07
Sep

Rock Scissor Paper!

dog
see more puppies

It’s amazing how popular “Rock Scissor Paper” is here in Korea.  Here, it’s known as kai-bai-bo.  It’s used for everything from picking teams, to settling disputes, to just having fun with the teacher (me).

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Games,Korea,Korean Vocabulary,Students,Teaching and have Comments (3)
29
Aug

Close enough

I’ve been in Korea for over two years now.  I’ve tried numerous times to learn to read Korean with the the help of the internet.  I’ve failed each time.  At least for languages, I’m one of those people who need to be shown.  I need a teacher.

So where does one find a Korean teacher?  At her own school of course.  I have a zillion kids running around who are expert Korean speakers.  Kate, Shirley and Becky from D3 are my primary teachers.  I’ve shown some of my November kids and my A5 kids what I’ve learned and they’ve helped by writing their Korean names and letting me sound them out.

For fun, I asked my November Speaking and Writing kids how I would write my name in Korean.  This is as close as I’ll get because there is no “th” or “r” sound in Korean.  It would sound like “ka-sa-lin”  Of course, I don’t have Korean support installed on this computer (and I probably won’t) so I wrote it using the mouse and KolourPaint (this little KDE paint program kicks the butt of MS’s Paint).

ka-sa-lin

ka-sa-lin

posted by Kathryn in Korea,Korean Vocabulary,Little Campus,Off time,Students and have Comments (2)
07
Feb

Happy Seollal!

Seollal is the Korean Lunar New Year. I love Korean New Year. We get New Years Day plus the day before and the day after off. And the way it works out, with New Years being on a Thursday, means we have a five day holiday.

But now some information about Seollal. It’s the celebration of the lunar new year. Unlike in China, Seollal is pretty low key. People travel home to be with their families. Most of my students, when asked what they were doing for the holiday, said they were going to their grandparents’ house. They also mentioned that grandma would be cooking good food. That I can believe.

YutMany Korean families play Yut (pronounced yoot) during New Years. I’ve never seen a set, but I’d like to find one.

posted by Kathryn in Fun things,Korea,Korean Vocabulary and have No Comments
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