December 16, 2006
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When I lived in LA, I spoke Korean regularly with my family and certain friends. Now that I’m living in New York, the only time I use Korean is when my parents call. I used to speak better than my brother, but he lived in Korea for a year and married a Korean girl, so now his Korean is waaaaaaay better than mine. I’m afraid that I’m going to slowly forget it! I think I need to go to Korean school…
How good is your Korean/native language?
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I used to take Korean classes at the Korean Cultural Center in LA. It meets once a week for 10 weeks, and they offer 6 different levels. The class is only $40 and they feed you dduk and kimbap every week! I wish there were something like that here in NY because I really liked the class. The KCC also offers other classes like Korean classical music so check it out.
Comments (34)
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haha I am horrible at korean. Maybe I should find a korean wife too?
Mine is pretty good, although I don’t get to practice much either. Watching Korean drama and talking to my mom on a daily basis definitely helps!
i’m a fob.
I’ve been thinking of going to Korean school. If/when you find one, can you post?
I’m OK in my Chinese dialect. Wish it was better, but I don’t speak to anyone else except my parents, and only occassionally since we speak English too.
*shiver* badddddd
my korean is ight!
i can’t read nor write korean tho..
when i was younger those korean classes didn’t really help
but i shurely did watch ALOT of korean drama’s & shit..
that’s how i learned my korean! >:D
yeah.
there aren’t really any korean communities in nyc.
gotta go to nj or all the way out to flushing.
we need to preserve our culture.
i’m pretty okay in korean. i can speak/read/write but my vocab is pretty limited to everyday use between fob friends and parents. i can’t really understand the news nor fully know everysingle word when i watch korean dramas/movies. and it has gotten worse over the years since i don’t really hang out with fobs anymore.
youtube has some Let’s Learn Korean videos from their series that help with the basics~
the korea society has language classes. i think they’re expensive though.
was john song the teacher?
i really want to improve my korean, i bought a textbook and im actually working through it, but its def not the same thing as listening to someone speak it all the time and speaking it as well. let me know if you find one in the city, im definitely down.
Mine is okay. I can speak without an accent, but my vocabulary has a really big gap in it. I’ve got basic household terms and then a small smattering of academic and archaic terms, but I lack a large chunk of the common, “day-to-day” vocabulary that helps one function in a modern society. From what I gather, a lot of other second-gen kids are like that since their Korean was primarily used at home or in very formal contexts such as church. They can speak really basic and really formal but don’t know how to speak in the sort of professional-peer level.
Wish I was there to take these courses.
welcome back! i missed reading your korean foodie yummies!!! it would be nice if you did a list of good korean bay area places too! =D
i used to be such a fob. i was more fluent than true fobs from korea but now i don’t get to speak with anyone korean in korean. at the job that i recently quit i used to send e-mails in korean but now that i quit i think i’m gonna forget korean altogether. i need to find korean people to hang out with. ironic how i don’t know any koreans here even though i live in jersey’s k-town, fort lee….
i would love to take korean language classes! although my korean is poor, i tend to do well in classes like that. i was always considered “advanced” but i think it was just because everybody else was worse! ha ha.
i don’t get to practice enough korean in ny or in ca. watching korean videos do help because i find myself saying things i didn’t know i knew after watching an episode or two!
i used to go to KCC in LA as well!! & I thought it was sooooooo awesome~ The class, the ppl, not to mention the food!
But I’ve since forgotten all the korean I’ve learnt, having had zero practice since leaving LA..=(
What year(s) were you there? Who knows, we could have met each other but never knew!
BTW, love all your blogs~!!! <3
I used to be REALLY good at Korean too. I find myself slurring my words now because I can no longer remember what the word actually was! It’s so sad. I mean, I can still pronounce it really well so that people think I speak it fluently (some people even ask me when I moved to the States). My vocabulary is really limited…and my spelling is terrible! I can read it, but not necessarily understand everything I read.
I also just spent a semester in France, and speak French a LOT (since most of my classes are in French), so my Korean’s just kind of taken a back burner, which sucks. It’s gotten to a point where I think my French is actually WAY better than my Korean. In fact, that’s probably true. I regularly write essays and present topics for discussion in French with no real trouble…whereas, with Korean, it’s kind of a struggle to write essays longer than a page.
Damn, I haven’t really thought about this in a while, and it’s sad to come to this realization. I’ll never tell my parents this, but I’m really glad that they sent me to Korean school when I was younger though. If they hadn’t, I’d be way worse than I am now!
Oh, btw, hello! I love your blog
You know what? Reading my above post, I’ve just realized that my English has kind of suffered too.
me fail engrish? that’s unpossible.
Ha! My Korean’s not bad but it’s only good for everyday language. What’s funny is that its difficult for me to pronounce words sometimes but I understand nearly 97% of what I hear. So when I went to Korea last summer, all I could was a nervous smile, nervous laughter, and me speaking the broken Korean in a not-so-audible voice.
My Korean’s sooo bad. Pretty much the same boat as incuboo…I think my French has gotten to the point where it’s way better than my Korean. I can understand a good chunk, but when it comes to speak, everything’s broken. It sucks, cause I’d probably speak it more often if more people spoke it with me, but all the fobs at school are so clique-y and patronize anyone who has even an accent. Even Korean when I visit home is ridiculously limited because my brother doesn’t use it at all. sigh.
my husband has been in the US for 26 years and only speaks to his parents. There were a few years he didn’t speak to his parents and now he only knows a few food related words. I keep telling him that both him and I should go take a class.
my korean used to be really bad. but now that i’ve been living in korea for almost a year now it got a lot better. also i was living at a school where no one spoke english so i learned really fast there -_-. don’t worry if you’re as good as you say you are just visit korea for a couple months and don’t hang out with english speaking friends and you’ll probably be better than you were in LA
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Yeah I’ve done some research about korean language courses in NY and its pretty expensive… I actually tracked down my korean school teacher from when I was in elementary school and he said he used to teach adult courses at their church for half the price of private classes. If I can get enough people who might be interested he said he might be willing to start it up again. If Bayside is accessible for you maybe we can get a english class started. Anybody else interested just let me kno. =)
i used to hate going to korean school on saturdays when i was a kid.
I so want to improve my korean. I have no problems understanding but I can’t converse anymore. College and working in non-korean environment for 5 years now and I stammer now when I’m in Korean only environment. Some useful finds when you google “korean language lessons new york city”…
i wish my korean was business level, but i have sooooo far to go. i’m good enough to talk with family, watch TV… i think my jondaemahl is better than my bahnmahl. i’m not down with the slang.
there’s a GREAT korean instructor at Princeton (Professor Suh) who’s finishing her PhD in language acquisition at Columbia. I took one semester of Korean under her and got a lot better (which isn’t saying much, unfortunately). Definitely the best Korean instructor I’ve ever had. Maybe if you (or anyone else that’s interested) get in contact with her you guys could set up something similar to what’s going on in LA.
I’m pretty decent at Korean even though I was born and raised in the U.S.. I can read, write, speak, and understand it. I’ve also been to Korea 10 times, which probably helped.
This past summer I did the 5-week Summer Special Program at Yonsei University and learned a lot. I speak Korean with my parents often, which helps me retain what I’ve learned. It’s like the saying, “If you don’t use it, you lose it.” I took about 6 years of Latin and a semester of Chinese, but I don’t remember nearly as much as I did when I was learning it, if at all.
i’ve only been to NYC several times, but i wasn’t very impressed with the korean anything… not to put anyone down, b/c i’ll sound snobbish as heck, but yeah…. there’s a korea town in Queens, with decent food… but dunno about any classes… i’ll ask someone i know there…
my mom says i still speak and write like a 4 year old. sad.
Relocate to Korea for a little while. That’s what I did. I’m lovin it here.
I heart your blog!
My Korean is getting better… after living a year in Seoul!
I’m half-Korean though – born and raised in the US, so I have a little bit of an excuse regarding language skills.