Wow, this is the last day of my seventh week since touching down in Seoul. What’s even more wow is that I still haven’t cracked the Korean alphabet.
Last night, I met with the pastor of the church I’ve been attending. He and I talked about Korean life, why I came, why he originally came in the early ’80s, and finally language. He said when he first moved to Korea, he lived with a Korean family, so he picked up Korean quicker than most.
That’s the hardest part: forcing myself to learn and use what I learn, since the people I usually interact with are willing to speak English.
The Koreans have a phonetic alphabet, though, so I owe them that much. In America, I cut foreigners some slack for like a year. After that, I’m like, Okay, you should have picked up the language by now.
Thing is, unless you put yourself in the right situations, you don’t just pick up any language, especially Korean as a native English speaker.
So today, as I went for my Saturday stroll, my exploration, I grabbed my flash cards on the way out. Too bad I hadn’t finished writing down the alphabet. I nailed the letters I had.
That’s a good thing. It’s time for me to get back into it, to get serious. Even though it’s only been seven weeks, while I was talking to the pastor, I got that feeling: Okay, you should have picked up the language by now.
