I wrote this entry on February 9th, but I was traveling at the time, and so I didn't post it until now.

I finished up my Korean trip yesterday. I flew from Korea to Japan. It was a weird combination of feelings. I had been in Korea for 2 weeks at that point. There were times where I had a great times that I’d felt lonely and times I felt sad.

I don’t know how to explain it. I didn’t like that so much of my time was taken up by traveling. I don’t like to spend a lot of time getting from one place to another.

One of the purposes for my Korean trip was to practice Korean more and to kind of test out my current skills. If I’m being completely honest, I did way worse than I thought I would do. There’s such a big difference between speaking and listening with a tutor and speaking and listening to a random person in Korea. I felt so stupid so many times when I was trying to speak and understand. I would ask something in Korean, they would reply with a question and since I’m not fluent I have to translate what they said into English basically. By the time I translated it and start speaking, they kind of just finish my sentence for me before I can. Imagine if you’re answering a question “what’s 5x7” and so you think and say “thirty-“ but before you can finish they say “thirty-five yep.”

I don’t know how to explain it.

It was surprising to me how many people spoke a good enough English to handle their job. Like cashiers could speak enough English to help you. Waiters and waitresses could speak enough to help you order and even chat for a little.

There were so many times I couldn’t understand what people were asking and so many times that I felt embarrassed while trying to speak. Like I’ve been doing this for a while so I should be able to speak it better by now haha. But I still struggle with even the most basic of situations. To be fair, I don’t often practice those situations, but it’s still a bit disheartening to not do well when you want to do well. I try to change my perspective to be that I care about doing well, that’s why I’m upset when I don’t speak well or when I can’t understand someone. Anxiety is a good thing if you understand anxiety generally helps you perform better at something you’re doing.

I met up with a few friends and also a group during my trip. I joined a small little group that did language exchange for Korean and English. It was great because I met with them, spent a couple hours talking, then went to lunch and a café with them. That was early on in my trip. I don’t even remember the last time I’ve done something like that. Maybe never haha. Just meeting with random people and hanging out afterwards.

I met with another one of my language exchange friends for dinner that same night. I’ve been talking over kakao talk for a while with her so it was good to meet her in person. We went to a charcoal grill place and had some great meat. We also hung out another couple of nights for dinner and drinks. It was a really fun time. She gave me some treats from her company as a parting gift. I tried to speak Korean a bit. Maybe 10% of what I said was in Korean but when you’re under the influence, speaking a different language is quite difficult. So I was impressed with how well she did.

Another couple of days later I met with a younger guy who was in military service at the time but had a break. He told me a bit about the experience and showed me around the Lotte tower area. I got a National Geographic coat with him. He was super chill and very down to earth. We also went to the aquarium and he joked that we’re not gay because apparently it’s common for couples to do it together there. During the time, I tried speaking Korean, but didn’t do much.

Another day that week I met with another guy about my age. We met at a Starbucks café on the hangang river and spent most of that day walking around there, the gwangjang market and Jongno area. He helped me buy some nice alcohol as a gift for my dad. He was currently looking for a job in semiconductors. I think he will do really well with that, especially these days. I spoke a tiny amount of Korean with him. It is always so difficult to translate what I’m trying to say into Korean.

There were a few things I learned about learning Korean and languages in general.

Exposure to what you want to learn and exposure to common words are the most important. I can’t count the number of times I went into the stores and tried to speak Korean to only not understand half of what they were saying. Luckily, since it happened often, I got a little better at it over time. Keeping up with exposure to the high frequency words will mean you can speak and understand in more situations that you encounter. Which is a win in my book.

You will never feel like you know enough. The Korean people I met with said they were bad at English. But I could understand what they were saying (or trying to say) the vast majority of the time. I know for a fact that I’m bad at Korean right now. I can barely function. And honestly it will probably feel like that for another long, long time, if not forever.

There’s something about the native language where it doesn’t feel like you’re learning it. It doesn’t feel like you have more to learn, even though you do, and there is no conscious effort. But when you are focusing on a language, you also focus on the mistakes that you make.

Say what you can, not what you want to say. This was a huge change for me. I would say I generally have an extensive vocabulary in English and given enough thought, I can express what I’m trying to say in a way that matches how I feel inside. But when I speak Korean, no matter how much I think of that English version and how to translate it into Korean, I just don’t have those words. It is impossible for me. Instead, I need to adjust the way that I speak to get the maximum minimum of what I’m trying to get across. A good example of this is I wanted to tell someone “I want to buy a gift for my Mom.” I tried to take these words, and translate into Korean but it ended up as a jumbled mess of, my mom - gift - what - buy. I eventually spoke in English and the worker helped me. I asked my friend after how to say it and he said just say “우리 엄마 선물을 사고 싶어요.” I could have said that. I have the vocabulary to. But I was just trying too hard to convert my English directly into Korean.

Speak when you can. Don’t be too worried about them not being able to understand. If they don’t, then expand to gestures or single words. This was honestly pretty difficult for me. Especially when they would start speak into English with me directly when they saw me. I have a hard time personally with looking or feeling stupid, so I had to push myself a bit to do this sometimes.

The why is important. There were several times where I thought to myself: I’ve been doing Korean for like 1.5-2 years at this point. I can barely function. Why am I even doing this? And the strange thing for me is I don’t really have a reason other than I want to learn a language. But then why not learn an easier language like Spanish? I think part of it is that deep down I like doing difficult things. And Korean is one of the most difficult languages for English speakers. Another reason is that I picked Korean. As simple as it sounds. I decided to learn Korean. And not a simple decision. After doing it for so long, this is something that I do. Because. Kind of just for the sake of it. Which perplexes me. Why am I even doing this? And yet I will continue to do it.