Still too cold for my taste. Even got a nice dusting of snow this evening. Good night to stay home a practice my Korean. Yep, I am finally resolved to learn to speak the language of the natives. More or less. There is no excuse for being here over two years and having a vocabulary of 50 words. Pathetic really. Anyway, I am back to taking classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays on post. Real basic at this point, just relearning the alphabet and writing in Hangul. The instructor won’t allow using the left hand since it apparently is disrespectful. Seeing as how I write the characters equally bad with either hand (does that make me ambidexterous?) it is no problem for me. Apparently I will actually be able to read after 4 weeks, although I won’t know what the hell I’m reading.
I’ve also got access to the Rosetta Stone program through Army Learning Online. I did the first lesson on there tonight. I actually did pretty well at recognition, but my pronunciation is an embarassment. Ah well, got lots of time on my hands, and it feels good to do something relatively productive with it.
Spent last night recovering from my Monday night over indulgence and I’m thinking I will reserve my Tuesday and Wednesday nights for hanging out at the villa. Monday, Thursday, and Sunday I have darts. And Friday and Saturday are Friday and Saturday…although I hope to spend at least one of those out of Itaewon.
Best laid plans and all that.
Hmmmm….I do not really know what to say about the left handed thing. I have heard that in the past many people were forced to convert to the right hand…they key here is “in the past”
I have had quite a few students over the past bunch of years writing and eating with their left.
Perhaps I will dig a little deeper into some of my sources to get a little more information on this.
Yeah Craig, my instructor was adament about that. He saw the pen in my left hand and made a big deal about it. Like I say, it was no problem for me to switch, but I find it quite interesting that you have students writing Hangul left handed. Hell, I even try to use chopsticks with my right hand and have the stains on my shirts to prove it!
oh, yeah I throw darts with my right hand too. But play pool left handed. Go figure.
My wife (among others I talked with today as well) seems to think that it is not an issue for writing or eating these days…I think the instructor is in a bit of a quandary regarding theory and reality. Such as it goes though…
Hey John,
nice to hear that somebody else is suffering from trying to learn Korean… Well, maybe we might support each other.
I’m back in Seoul and still quite successfully trying to study more than last semester (maybe that’s why I didn’t show up in Dolce so far)
Annyonghikeshipshio