Recently I've found myself really interested in the history of the Liancourt Rocks. The Liancourt Rocks are a small group of islands more or less halfway between South Korea and Japan. The Liancourt Rocks are named after a French ship named Le Liancourt, but is known to Koreans as Dokdo 독도 （獨島）, literally meaning "solitary island" whereas it is known to the Japanese as Takeshima 竹島, literally meaning "bamboo island." The issue of who the islands belong to is still under dispute, but they are currently administered by South Korea.
I am neither Korean nor Japanese, and my interest towards this topic is purely intellectual. I am not an expert on history, and I'm far from even being an amateur historian. I've been looking on the web for information on the history of the Liancourt Rocks, so that I can decide for myself which country these islands belong to. However most of the information are written by either Koreans or Japanese, who on the most part are equally biased towards the other party. I still haven't found much information from third party sources.
I have read this blog from an American (I think he's American), and basically the problem is complicated by the fact that historical records of both Korea and Japan don't have a clear naming system for the islands between them. For example from what I've gathered, Korea and Japan refer to a place called 竹島, pronounced jukdo 죽도 in Korean and takeshima たけしま in Japanese. So in this instance it's unclear whether the takeshima the Japanese are referring to today is the same place as the Korean Dokdo, or to a completely different island called jukdo. This is of course is my simplified interpretation of what I've read.
Another complicating factor is that historical records of Korean or Japanese contact with the islands, as well as description of the islands itself and it's relation to other nearby islands, is that it is written in Classical Chinese. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Classical Chinese is far from being a standardized script. The way you read it is pretty much completely up to the person reading it. Not surprisingly, the Koreans and the Japanese interpret these records for their own benefit.
This issue is complicated, and so I don't think I'll be reaching a conclusion anytime soon.
The only conclusion I've reached today, is that I want to learn Classical Chinese... but that I have to stop myself! That's not for at least another 10 years. Good thing I bought A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese when I was in Japan.
When I left Japan over a few months ago. I thought I reached my peak of language study. I felt really burnt out. Even before I went to Korea for a short trip, I couldn't be bothered brushing up my Korean skills. That was really weird because before a trip to a foreign country with a national language other than English, I usually go on cram mode to learn that country's language. I even did that for German back in '08 before going to Austria and Germany (and I can't stand German, sorry I really don't mean to offend any German speaking people.) I went to Hong Kong a few weeks ago and I wasn't in the mood to speak Cantonese or Mandarin, unimagible considering Chinese is my favorite language. I wonder what happened...
Well that's a thing of the past now because I'm back on track. I've been updating my language blog, which is simply a smorgasbord of random information. (Let's see how long I can keep this up before I get lazy.) Now, I'm facing the opposite problem: deciding which language to study. Right now, I'm dying to get my Korean level to functional, but right now it really seems like a waste of time... only because I feel that I should really concentrate on getting my Japanese and Mandarin to a level where I can use it for work.
Perhaps I'm not feeling the drive to learn Mandarin now because I still haven't found a job in Shanghai. I'm trying to think back when I applied for jobs in Japan and how long it took for them to arrange an interview with me. I think it took about a month at least. Well, I still have my fingers crossed, and I'm hoping I won't face the same kind of discrimination a friend faced when searching for a job before.
I promised YouTuber Felix (username loki2504) a video on some of the resources I use to study Korean, but I decided to make a blog entry first. In this entry I will talk about some of the websites that I find useful. I also use textbooks to study, but I will talk about those in another entry.
Useful Websites for Studying Korean
There are many websites that are very useful for beginner-level students of Korean. The websites in this blog post are those that I tend to use often whenever I have time to study Korean.
This is the website that I used to familiarize myself with the Korean language. There are lessons on this website to learn basic Korean vocabulary, grammar and Hanja (Chinese Characters).
This website has a vocabulary list consisting of 6000 commonly used Korean words. The words are categorized into beginner, intermediate and advanced, and are further subdivided into nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs. Once in a while a make vocabulary lists which I arrange according to what part of speech they belong to as I find the words are easier to remember when arranged in that way. Furthermore most of the words have example sentences so you can see how to words are used.
This website was introduced to me by another YouTube user named Cody. It is like an online textbook, which contains exercises for reading, listening and writing. There are lessons for beginner and intermediate learners of Korean. I believe there are also other universities with similar online programs but I have not yet checked them out.
This was the very first podcast for Korean learners. Podcasts such as these are good way to get used to the natural rhythm of Korean native speakers. While the speakers in the podcasts speak much more slowly than they do in real life, their rhythm and intonation is much more natural, unlike those found in other online lessons or textbooks. I especially like the Audio Blog feature.
This is a relatively new podcast that boasts a lot of free material such as video lessons on YouTube and workbooks in PDF format. I like their interactive video stories on YouTube.
This dictionary is useful for finding the definition and pronunciation of Hanja. This is especially useful for me because I like learning Hanja-based vocabulary, which are usually loanwords from Japanese.
This is an online community where learners of Korean can communicate with each other. I sometimes post the odd video or Korean blog post here for practice. If you are going to Korea and if you want to meet up with some other Korean learners, this website is very useful for contacting them.
I’m sure there are other useful Korean language-learning websites. I’ll post them here on my blog when I find them. Good luck with your Korean studies!
Posted by
Nick
Thursday, 4 February 2010
at
10:04 pm
I did it!
After almost 10 years of studying Japanese...
I finally passed Level 1 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
However, this really is only just the beginning.
I don't really know where this will take me. Back in high school I wanted to teach Japanese (and Chinese) in high school, but after my experiences here in Japan, I'm not so keen on taking that road. It could be different, after all I won't be and ALT, I will be a teacher, and compulsory foreign language education is only for the 1st years, meaning I don't really have to teach students who don't want to learn Japanese or Chinese.
Then again I could probably take a course in translation or interpretation, but I'm not sure there are many jobs available in that field.
The ultimate dream job would be a teaching job at a university, but a PhD takes too long to get...
On the bright side, I have achieved a goal that back then seemed so out of reach. Hopefully this goal will open up new opportunities.
Posted by
Nick
Sunday, 31 January 2010
at
10:16 pm
여러분, 안녕하세요. 앞으로 한국어 블로그를 더 많이 쓸거에요.
최근에 한국요리를 많이 만들고 있어요. 지금 살고 있는 곳이 일본 시골이라 전문 한국 식당이 적어서 맛있는 한국요리를 먹을 수 없어요. 몇 개월 전에는 유춤(Youtube)의 "망치"라는 채널에서 한국요리에 관한 프로그램을 많이 봤어요. 내용이 너무나도 이해하기쉬웠기 때문에, 순두부 찌개나 오이소박, 떡볶이 등 한국음식을 흉내내 만들 수 있게 되었어요! 오늘은 배추 김치를 만들었어요. 아직 발효가되지 않았기 때문에, 몇 일 기다린 후 먹을 거에요. 낙으로 삼고 있이요.
Ingredients (for 2 people): 1 block of firm tofu (medium firmness) 200 g pork or beef mince 1/2 medium onion, sliced 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 large carrot, sliced into strips korean chili powder salt and pepper
Sauce: 2 tbsp kochujang (korean chili paste) 2 tbsp soy sauce 1/4 cup cooking rice wine (Mix all of these together)
Method: 1) Heat some oil in a pan and stir-fry the onion and garlic. 2) Stir-fry the meat until slightly crispy. 3) Add the carrots and cook until the carrot is slightly tender. 4) Add the sauce and simmer for 2 minutes. 5）Add the tofu and simmer for a further 2 minutes. 6) Season with salt and pepper and add some Korean chili powder if you want.
I found this link through http://learnkorean.ning.com/ in a post by Hyunwoo. It's a website where people can practice writing in a foreign language and have it corrected for free by native speakers. Check it out yourself. The website is http://lang-8.com/. ずっと前からはこういうウェブサイトが探したかったので本当に嬉しいの。でももっと早く知っていればいいけどね。
Posted by
Nick
Thursday, 31 December 2009
at
8:36 pm
Hmm... I don't think 2009 was that eventful, except for that one special week that I spent with that special someone late August. I also got the swine flu during the 1st week of December, which was totally not a big deal.
So instead of dwelling in the past, I'm going to write about some of the things I want for next year.
That piece of paper saying that I have attained Level 1 of the JLPT.
A job in Shanghai, China sometime in July or August...
Posted by
Nick
Saturday, 28 November 2009
at
10:03 pm
I was at a wine-festival here in Yamanashi a few weeks ago, and I realized I took a picture of some deep fried bees. Now, they did not look particularly appetizing but I had to try them anyway. They tasted a lot like shrimp. Actually, I always imagined that insects would probably taste like crustaceans, and tasting the deep fried bees confirmed my little theory. I don't think I can actually snack on bees or any other insects though. The thought just creeps me out!
Posted by
Nick
Saturday, 17 October 2009
at
4:41 pm
I don't usually cook Italian food, but I was invited to a party where we all had to bring something Italian or at least Italian-inspired. Originally I was thinking of bringing a sort of stew that I saw in an Italian cookbook back home in Australia, but something creamy was in demand. So I decided to try my luck at making a cream based pasta sauce.
Ingredients: 1/4 kilo sliced chicken (breast or thigh meat) 1/2 cup parmesan cheese 1 cup cream 1 bunch spinach (boiled until mashy) 1/4 kilo bacon (diced) 1 whole onion (diced) 1/2 clove garlic 2 tbsp flour 1 cup mushrooms (button mushrooms are best, but couldn't find any here in Japan) Procedure: 1) Saute the garlic, then add the onion and stir-fry until caramelized. Set aside.
2) Saute the bacon until slightly crispy. Saute the mushrooms until cooked. Set aside.
3) Saute the chicken until slightly brown. Make sure that the chicken is fully cooked before setting aside. 4) In a separate pan, heat the milk until just before boiling point. Turn the heat off. 5) When the milk has cooled off, add the parmesan cheese, butter and cream. Whisk until all are combined. 6) Add the flour and whisk again.
7) Add the spinach. The reason why the spinach has to be mashy is because I want the sauce to be smooth.
8) Mix in the chicken, bacon, garlic and onions and bring to a slow boil to make sure that the flour is cooked. 9) Pour over your favorite pasta. You can also eat this with rice or bread.
On December 6th I'll be facing one of the toughest challenges in my history of learning Japanese... taking Level 1 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). This is the highest level of the test, and passing it means that I am theoretically fluent in Japanese, and that my proficiency is high enough that I can be employed to do a job where high Japanese language skills are required. Of course, I personally don't think that passing the test proves that I am a fluent speaker, so even if I pass the test this is far from the end of my Japanese studies.
There is one problem; I haven't been studying well. After a long day of teaching I'd like to just go home and do things I wasn't really able to do when I was a uni student, such as watch TV for hours, read about a whole bunch of random things and just plain bum around. Of course, now and then I would study something directly related to the JLPT, but I could never concentrate for too long.
Well I have two months to go before the test, hopefully I cram enough to pass.
Posted by
Nick
Sunday, 27 September 2009
at
2:22 pm
Last Friday we my Junior High School finally had it's school festival. It was actually postponed from 2 weeks ago because a few students caught the swine flu and the school decided to cancel all 2nd year classes for a week. I'm too lazy to upload everything right now... except for this video of students dancing to Candy Shop by 50 cent. So when they music started playing I was thinking cool its candy shop, then I realized, hey this is a Junior High School and a bunch of 14 year old's are dancing along to this! However since no one, not even the English teachers, knew what the song was about, it didnt' really matter.
If you are reading this on facebook, please click here to go to my blog to watch the video.
I love cooking, especially Chinese and Southeast Asian food... I'm pretty easy-going and generally appreciate the simple things in life. learning foreign languages is my passion, aside from my native languages English and Tagalog, I can speak Mandarin and Japanese pretty fluently, and I can get along with Cantonese and Korean to some extent...
日本と日本語がとても好きで２年間ぐらい日本に住んだことがあります。外国語に本当に興味があるので毎日勉強することで一生懸命取り組んでいます。料理も大好きです。
我是一個長大在澳洲和菲律賓的人。我對中國和中國文化特別感興趣。我將來想去中國的很多地方旅遊。我也想學到很多中國菜的做法。
한국에 간 적이 있지만, 살은 것이 없어요. 2개월이라도 살아 보고 싶어요.
This online dictionary very useful because you can search the Korean equivalents of words in English, Chinese, Japanese and vice-versa.
