Learning Korean And What To See And Ski In Korea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_South_Korea

Problem
The Korean project starts with a piece of overall description. The language goes from left the right. Like the American Mr Webster, who simplified British spelling, the Korean king wanted the language to be easy to learn. It is said that a wise man can learn it in half a day' a fol can learn it in a day.

You start the Korean project and learn letters.

Then you are presented with a word and asked the meaning. The trick is to hover your mouse over the Korean word and the English pop up.

A circle at the bottom of a block is read -ng, so you can distinguish Pyongyang (평양) from Seoul (서울). Further, the Korean words for many common products — coffee, juice, computer — are often the same as the English words, but will be written in hangul. If you can read hangul, you'll find surviving in Korea surprisingly easy.

A must see visit for a student of Language is the Hanyeau Museum. It has all of exhibits relating to the creation and evolution of the language, and another are devoted to the King who made it happen, so that all his illiterate subjects would ave an easy to learn language.

Useful web links
www.duolingo.com/skill/ko/alphabet
http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/Hangeul_step_1
www.90dayKorean.com
Writeit!Koreanfree
www.Koreanfromzero.com
howtostudykorean.com/unit0
http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/ATR/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=631659 (The Language Museum)

word fireworks/learn Korean
Tree Week Deep Roots drama is a play about the creation of the alphabet.
Youtube has three videos on pronunciation.

Travel
I accompanied a family member who was working in Korea for a short visit. We stayed in a grand hotel in the capital, Seoul. The temperature was very cold in winter.

I did not speak the language and could not read it so I was afraid to go out on my own. The first day I stayed in the hotel and read magazines and watched TV and had free coffee in the hotel's club lounge.

I then asked reception to book me on two trips. The first tour took me past the city's landmarks, stopped at a park with a monument to a Korean hero. When I was there, I was told that the Koreans and Japanese have a love-hate relationship because Korea was occupied by the Japanese in the past.

I enjoyed seeing the statue in the centre of the city which honours the Admiral, Yi Sunsin, an admirable man, quite a character. He built the Korean fleet, of tough ships which looked like turtles. I enjoyed reading his life story.

I was puzzled by the white half masks covering the noses and mouths of police directing traffic, as well as many pedestrians, and people on the trains. The masks are worn when you have a cold so that you don't sneeze and spread infection to others. Since the trains are constantly crowded, this seems very sensible.

Simpler to understand were the shopping mall, and a ginseng factory with leaflet to exaplain.

I booked a second tour which took the same route, except that it went to an amethyst factory. I was hoping to buy amethyst jewellery. I saw no bargains. Why? This is real amethyst. I came to the conclusion that the cheaper jewellery on sale in London is mainly paler coloured and synthetic stones.

The guide the first day was excellent. One or both of the tours went to the American cemetery, left from the time of the Korean War. As a schoolgirl, I did not understand what the Korean war was all about. Now, everything is much clearer.

Simpler to understand were the shopping mall, and a ginseng factory with leaflet to explain. The asians were all already familiar with ginseng. I wished I had read extensively about it before my trip. You'll make more sense of it if you check up on ginseng before your trip to Korea, rather than after you've ben there and got interested.

Recommended Temples
At the weekend we took a trip to a ski resort,Yongpyong meaning nine dragons, because of the surrounding, undulating mountain peaks.  We are to go to the south with a driver, who spoke no English, and an English speaking guide. The agency told us we needed a guide and the guide could explain things to us on the journey. Our aim was to see two temples which were en route, and the guide could explain them to us.

On the way down we were told that it was better to see the temples on the way back so we could be sure of reaching the hotel in time for supper. We agreed.

Snow
The temperature at the ski resort was minus five, no, it was minus fifteen. I didn't think it was possible. But the signs showing the temperature, with warnings, were up at the entrance to the ski slope. You could not go out, even at ground level, more than five feet from the doorway opening and shutting, letting out heat, without covering your nose and face with a scarf. Even though I was not skiing, I had to buy more ski weather accessories, warmer gloves, a thicker scarf, a tight fitting hat.

Food
 As a non-skier, I had not much to do, after I had been around the shops twice. We had a meal at the hotel. As far as I was concerned, it was not a success. I am allergic to shellfish and asked the guide to check with the waitress that the soup had no shellfish. I was assured there were no shellfish.

As soon as I took the first youthful, it tasted sour. I asked again. Again I was assured there was not shellfish.

I ran my spoon and fork around and lifted what was at the bottom of the bowl. Up came shellfish! I spat into my napkin and ran off to the ladies where I spat again, cleaned my teeth, and made myself sick to bring up anything I had inadvertently swallowed.

Driving back to Seoul, on the road back we seemed to by-pass the first of the three possible temples. Eventually we got half way home and insisted that the guide tell the driver to stop, because we must have gone past it. An heated discussion ensued. The driver wanted to go home early. We could do a tour of the city when we got back instead. We were very annoyed. I had already done the city tour twice and we were due to fly out the next day. As I was a non-skier, the whole purpose of my trip out to the countryside had been to see the temples en route.

The driver and guide were silent. We then stopped at two temples which were stunning most interesting mythology and history and great photos. They were striking, beautiful, exotic and quite different to Chinese temples and Indian temples.

Korean Food
We had once last chance to see and sample authentic Korean cuisine. The food is predominantly Kimchee, pickled vegetables and meat. The vegetables are a bit like pickled gherkins but different colours. If you don't like your food in vinegar, it may not be to your taste and you might soon give up trying and revert to ordering any Western choice.

Koreans In London
Back in London, we went with friends to a Korean restaurant in Golders Green. The food was tiny portions, prettily displayed, but still mostly pickled.

In the UK I met Korean people who were extremely civilized. They were the top of the crop, people who spoke English and were well organized and ambitious and efficient and conscious of timekeeping. I was very impressed by the fact that I told the father on the Friday evening that his son should have an English dictionary, a lever arch file, a pen and a ruler.

The next morning the family arrived arrived fully equipped, with a brand new folder, not old pencils like most pupils, but fresh new pencils, ready sharpened, having driven to the shopping mall to wait outside and be first in when the shop opened, then race back for the first lesson.

If you are as keen on learning Korean as the Koreans were about learning English, you can learn Korean at a Korean university. They have many courses for foreigners, anything from a day to much longer. The language was designed, like American English, to be simpler to learn.

https://wikitravel.org/en/South_Korea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yongpyong_Resort
The King Sejong Story+The King Sejong Memorial Hall
http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/ATR/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=631659 (The king and his created language)
https://www.koreanair.com/global/en.html

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.