Or, the fastest way to waste the equivalent of $950 you’ll ever see. We’ll know in about eight weeks.
Today, I took my placement test for the Korean Language Program at Lingua Express, the language institute at Sookmyung Women’s University. On Monday, I start daily three-hour Korean classes, Monday through Friday, continuing until mid-March.
I can sum up today’s results by saying that if they’d just paid attention to the line on the application where I said I thought I should be in Beginner 1, it would have saved everyone a lot of time. Even though I took two months of free weekly classes at the Korea Foundation Cultural Center, and have been studying on my own using both the Rosetta Stone Online (Level 1 Korean), and Declan’s Korean Hakgyo software, this test kicked my butt.
It turns out that despite being able to count to 100 in both pure Korean and Sino-Korean numbers, order a bazillion things in a restaurant, shop at Dongdaemun, tell the vendors their price is too high, count change, give taxi driver’s directions to home and office, ask for directions to get somewhere, ask someone what they’re eating, where they’re going, and if it’s OK, Korean two-year-olds still have it all over me when it comes to communicating.
On the rare occasion I understood what the proctor was asking me, I completely lacked the vocabulary to respond. (They don’t really like it when you switch to English, but when asked what I was doing in Korea, I didn’t know the Korean for, “Husband got transferred here and I didn’t want a divorce.”) As for the written part, I could read the questions OK. I just had no idea what 90 percent of the words meant. (”This question asks something about the Korean language and something about attendance, everything else, not sure …The next question wants me to fill in words in a sequqence, but this isn’t days of week, months of the year, or numbers…I’m lost.”)
So, there I’ll be next week, back learning the Korean alphabet and how to introduce myself. Which, as I said before, is where I thought I should be. We’ll see if I’m any better by the spring.
{ 7 comments }
annamatic 01.11.07 at 7:32 pm
Wow, you learned up to 100 in pure Korean! Impressive! I figured I’d just learn enough to get up to my age. So far I haven’t been called upon to ask for 30 or more of anything… Hang in there…
JiMong 01.12.07 at 4:32 am
So could I post in Korean by March? ;-)
Cheers!
dust bunny 01.13.07 at 11:32 am
good for you, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it
MigukNamja 01.13.07 at 1:07 pm
It will be tough, but I’m sure you’ll do well. You’ve always been a good student :-)
maryeats 01.14.07 at 11:41 am
Oh no! Was it embarrassing? I’ve also signed up for a Korean class, but thankfully it is only every Saturday for two hours. I’m not going to disclose that I lived in Korea for four years, that way the little bit of Korean I know (taxi directions, asking for kimbap without ham, and shopping) will look good. Sorry you had to pay so much for that.
Cat 01.14.07 at 11:53 am
Mary - Yeah, it was pretty much an exercise in humiliation. Mostly weird that I could read and mostly understand the written questions, but fumbled when formulating a response. (The test was timed.)
I hope the money will be well spent. If going three hours a day doesn’t help, then nothing will. Good luck with your classes!
stef 01.26.07 at 12:17 pm
I took the evening courses at Sookmyung and they went really fast, so make sure you stay ahead on the vocab so that when they start throwing grammar at you, you can keep up.
Good luck and I’m impressed you know the Korean numbers up to 100!
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