01/05/2008: "You have to be bad to get good"

Not really a whole lot to say, just that I'm back to work.. much happier to be out and have something to do during the day. I also got all my textbooks for this semester in, and some other stuff ordered on Amazon. It's really ironic that in the same package I get high-level explanations of Japanese on linguistical levels and of casual slang (things not taught in the class) and a book on beginner's, very basic Korean.

I don't imagine I'm going to become terribly good at Korean in the two months I have before I go, but I'd at least like to be able to read the native writing (Hangul) so I can at least say what I'm looking at, or identify trains stations and such.. nevermind if I can understand it. That shouldn't take too long. Now, learning vocab and pronunciation.. that'll be the interesting part.

I've worked so hard to be conversational and halfway decent at Japanese. It's hard to go back and be terrible at this (which is what you have to do in order to start any language). But, ultimately, it'll be good. Or so I hope. Who knows.. I may really enjoy the language. Let's see how it goes, huh?

I'm gonna go to bed, but just felt like rambling about learning a new language..


Jason