Korean is hard to learn.

TRANSFER CALLS!!  we’re all staying.   haha but we saw president yesterday at the church and he told sis Lee to get ready to train because they have 18 new missionaries coming in november then 18 more the week before christmas. So me and sis lee will probably both train next transfer...and they’ll probably be americans.... maybe i’ll FINALLY learn some Korean.

Mom asked about the language. Growing up i was always under the impression that missionaries got to their country and they just spoke the language.....they just did it. But it really doesn’t work that way. i’m certainly learning faster than i ever could on my own, but sometimes i feel like i’m not making any progress at all. I’m to the point where in listening, i can usually follow a conversation pretty well. i could tell you whats going on. ......but a lot of it depends on the topic....anything out of the ordinary range of daily conversation i probably couldn’t tell you specifics. Like i could figure out that someone is talking about farming....or their college campus or their new iphone, but i couldn’t tell you WHAT exactly they’re saying about it. It really comes down to just not knowing enough vocabulary. If someone is having a gospel conversation....i’m good to go....but anything else....

And speaking. well, anyone can tell you thats a completely different struggle.   Its strange...i’ve figured out that  READING  a language is the easiest....then listening/understanding.....then speaking.....then writing is the hardest.   I can read my korean PMG and figure out whats going on in a paragraph...but when Sis Lee reads that same paragraph, its alot harder to understand and follow. Then if you wanted me to explain in Korean what the paragraph says....well, i’m practically useless.

When i read i can pause and go slowly....SEE the actual words and guess the meaning of words i don’t know. When someone speaks you don’t control speed or content, but you have so much coming at you so quickly that you can take parts and words you DO understand and form an idea of whats happening. Its like------------------you don’t have to catch all of it....just enough to understand. And speaking...its most difficult because you have to take an idea and form sentences only out of the things you know..        ...I feel like LISTENING emphasizes what you DO know, because you can pick up on those few key words and phrases and make sense of a whole conversation.....but trying to SPEAK  emphasizes what you DON”T know....because you’re completely limited to those few words and phrases you do know...  

so i’m working on the speaking part. its mostly difficult because the way we say things in english just don’t translate right in korean. so if i want to communicate an idea, i can’t just translate each of the english words into korea, organize them in the right way and have it make sense....NO....you have to find out the korean way to express that idea, and its usually completely different.  

A simple example:

In English we would say  “Oh, how was your Thanksgiving?”  

You could definitely say that in Korean, but its better to ask   “추석 잘 보냈어요?” — “Did you spend Thanksgiving well?”

So it becomes a matter of learning one idea at a time how to use the same phrases and ideas as a native korean would. For example....i’m going to have Sister Lee just write down a prayer in Korean. A prayer she’d say at the beginning of comp study or at the end of the day. And then instead of trying to translate our weird american prayer phrases to fit korean....i’ll be able to identify and use the korean phrases that mean what i want to say in english.

I can’t believe i wrote so much on this. Sorry. Korean is hard. Done.


Good Week!! we had 3 investigators come to our ward activity on saturday! that was really good progress!

Thats them in the first picture.... a mother and her two daughters. the older one is jax’ age, the younger is 12.  They are probably moving to the US...to Portland before the end of the year!!!  I’ll go visit them when i get home since you all went to the coast without me.  

 


PIC  2 is me with Maru....the dog that hangs out with the grandmas everynight....



#3    My new camera takes cool pictures.  Me and sister lee spent like 2 hrs hunting down a less actives’ address....that apt doesn’t exist anymore, but we found these cool brick townhouses. ...



#4....me and sister lee maybe eat alot of icecream since its all on sale right now at the end of summer hahah.....and no, sister lee doesn’t always look drunk.