EPTSome initial musings...
I've been in Korea for 2 months now. Holy fuck that went fast
. Sometimes I feel like there's a giant clock in the background ticking away. For any of you following this blog, you'll know that 6 months ago, I got my employer to defer my starting date to Feb 2010. At the time, I felt 2010 was maybe a little too late - it was pretty unheard of to get a 18months deferral, most, if at all, ask for 6. Now though, I feel the complete opposite. Korea, so far, has been pretty fucking amazing. 'Feb 2010' is the dark cloud looming in the horizon coming.. slowly and inevitably to end the dream here and take me back to the real world. I wish I had 2-3 years to spend here instead of 12-15 months. 2 months out of 15!.. I'm 14% done here already... :[Enough of that bollocks please...
Okay! My Korean skills - how are they now? The answer.. well depends. Relative to probably 80% of foreigners (gyopo excluded ofc), it's fucking amazing. Relative to native speakers, really fucking horrible. I can hold a basic conversation in Korean if they speak clearly and a little slower. My biggest problem though is that my listening sucks. I thinkk I know the vocab to talk about some slightly more complex things but my listening is so bad that my speaking is actually better.........(Completely opposite to every single other foreigner learning Korean that I've met)
So, some of you may have followed my blogs when I learned Korean for 7 months before I came to Korea. Take it from me that it was definitely worth doing. I studied pretty hard.. maybe averaging almost 2 hours a day but it meant that I got all the fundamentals down by the time I got to Korea. Being the vain bastard I am, I'll happily tell you how impressed Koreans are if you can speak a little bit and say it's your first day/week/month/year in Korea. Back in London, I learnt a handful of Korean slang words from my language swap buddies.. it's always nice to see the combination of shock/hilarity on a Korean girl's face when you rip out some oh-so-trendy-slang midconversation. ^^
Taking a university language course
Two weeks after arriving here, I joined a language course at Ewha University. I wanted to choose Sogang University as they have the best reputation for teaching practical Korean but their classes were over-subscribed
. A quick note for any of you choosing such courses in the future. Don't confuse the university's reputation with the reputation of the language school. Take Yonsei for example, it's easily one of the best universities in the whole of Korea but I have heard many first-hand complaints about the language school. (It isn't terrible of course, but others are better).As I work during normal hours, I had to choose the evening course which runs Mon,Wed, Fri, 2 hours each day for 10 weeks. I will never forget the first time I went to class. In order to enjoy this small anecdote, it is probably worth mentioning that the full name of the uni is Ewha Women's University... + Show Spoiler +
But by the Great Hairy Mother of Moses, I swear to you when I applied for the course, I didn't give a damn about this fact.... In hindsight of course.. it wasnt too unfortunate a choice 
Ewha has 7 levels of proficiency, Level 0-6 , and after a pretty crap placement test + interview, I was put straight into Level 3. This pretty much made my day as I was finally able to justify why I spent so long talking to myself in Korean back in London... I hasten to add that Level 3 out of 7 does not mean I am 43% fluent... (hah!). Even Level 6 in Ewha is far below full fluency.. I am probably about 10% fluent (and that's me being cocky).
The course is pretty cool. There are only 7 of us in the group which means we get some good quallllity time with the teacher. We're a diverse bunch too and it's nice to get to know people well from all over the place.
![[image loading]](http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/4425/dsc00895em3.jpg)
This is the main building. It's new and funky. (Sorry for bad pic, only one I could find on the phone)
![[image loading]](http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/6642/dsc01049gs1.jpg)
This is a desperate attempt to force pictures into my blog. :D Top left is textbook, topright is homework. On top of that is my useless electronic dictionary. 'Useless' because my phone (which I bought subsequently and for a third of the price) has a dictionary in it already. Bottom left is the vocab book.. handy for those subway journeys when I get bored looking at the drunk Korean businessmen and the supermodel-look a likes.
Anecdotes
I think I've mentioned this before.. but because I'm Asian, Koreans automatically speak Korean at me and without exception, they all presume I am fluent. I'm still not sure whether this is because I look a little Korean or whether most recognise I'm a foreigner but decided to play it safe anyway. Anyhow, it has led to some pretty interesting situations. Please don't take the below as bitching. I actually really like it when people use Korean at me. At the very least I feel little bit more included, and I get to practice my listening ^^
E.g.1 when I go to the coffee/bakery shop with my foreign (white) friends. My friends get served first and the waitress looks pretty uncomfortable and embarassed whilst trying to speak English. Her co-workers joke behind her. I'm next and when she sees me (a fellow yellow), a visible wave of relief passes across her face as she returns to normality with a blitz of Korean words. But.. sorry... I'm a fucking foreigner too!!!!!!!!! Your English ordeal isn't over yet! Her expression drops once again and there are giggles from the other staff...
E.g.2 when I'm standing on the subway platform and a middle-aged/elderly lady asks me for directions. She gives me an incredulous look as I explain I'm a foreigner and I have next to no clue what the fuck you just said. In fact, I feel a little sorry for her. Out of the 593 other people on the platform around us, she had to choose the one person who couldn't speak Korean. That's pretty unlucky.
E.g.3 when I'm in the supermarket trying to find washing powder for my clothes. I'm in the aisle with a billion washing products slowly trying to decipher which one won't corrode my clothes away mid-wash. A shop assistant with a golden smile comes and starts suggesting a few products. Despite blatantly not even knowing the word for washing powder and telling her I don't understand five times, the woman doesn't stop talking! After a 5 minute lecture on the incredible array of products they have in front of me, she finally realises what it's like to be talking to a brick wall.
Oh yeah.. this works the other way round too. Foreigners being foreigners think I'm Korean too. So I've heard many a American casually bitch about something thinking they are immune from eavesdropping. One time in Sinchon, an American was loudly complaining to his friend about the lack of signs directing them to the subway station. I turned around and told him not to worry too much, it was just coming up on his left. He looked pretty damn shocked.
K.. I really got to go ... These blogs take f-ing ageeeeeeeeesssss
Comments <3'ed as always.
