littlewonderlog

I was on my way to the south area to attend a funeral.

I knew that I was not supposed to do it, but I chose a book to read from the eBook service app, Millie Library, on my phone while sitting in the passenger seat. It was a light business book called “God of PR” written by former “Chungju Man,” Kim Sun-tae. I was right and it was quite a quick and easy read. Despite stopping by a highway service station, I finished the book within two hours.

I wasn’t very happy about putting aside my daily routine and schedule for the sudden funeral, yet I found satisfaction in utilizing the little time slots available.

Immersing myself in the book was rather easy and it was a fun reading experience overall.

I felt a bit guilty toward my driver. (Not that guilty, since he pissed me off a little and made me not feel like talking).

…and what I have learned from them.

They are called legends. I had never seen or heard of either of them before, yet they are said to be legends.

Chefs Park Hyo-nam and Hou De-zhu have lived their lives solely committed to cooking and have earned success and recognition in the industry.

Though they are called legends, from every word they say and their attitude toward others, I see humility, open-mindedness, a willingness to take on challenges, and a sense of calmness.

Although I am watching the Japanese-dubbed Culinary Class Wars Season 2 to learn Japanese, I realize again that I am not only learning Japanese while learning Japanese.

As I watch this show while doing the dishes, I remind myself to live my life with that kind of mindset and attitude.

While learning languages, I train my attitude toward life.

I train the attitude of dreaming, I train the attitude of committing, and I train the attitude of enjoying.

I am better trained today than yesterday, and I will be better trained tomorrow than today.

All thanks to learning languages.

Before my nephew entered primary school, I used to read him English books upon his visits. I would read the English texts, tell him the meanings in Korean, and joke about nostrils of the car in the picture. It was more about giggling than reading a book.

A couple of years later, now a primary school kid, he picked up that book from the shelf and started reading it aloud.

By himself, slowly yet clearly.

Probably because that book has quite a lot of rather long sentences, there were some unfamiliar or difficult-to-pronounce words for him. Still, he kept reading, one word at a time. I didn’t even ask him to do it. He might have just wanted to do it out of the blue.

“Oh, you can read it on your own now?”

“Yeah.”

It was cute and fascinating.

It’s always a pleasure to see someone enjoying the experience of a new language. Always.

The joy in learning a language comes from really tiny moments. There are those moments so subtle that they are sometimes almost unrecognizable. These moments have come before, and will likely come again tomorrow.

One of those moments is when pronouncing a certain word becomes possible after struggling for quite a while. Is it my tongue? Or is it the word? (It’s my tongue, yes, always). It had always been hard to pronounce that word, and then one day, it’s done. Clean and easy. Of course, sometimes, it goes back to the struggling stage. And then, it’s doable again. Back and forth. Those moments are precious. They may be considered minor events, yet they can feel huge. I mean, huge.

Another moment is when there’s an instant understanding of certain words learned a few months ago. They had been totally forgotten. Even the fact that I had learned that word was forgotten and the possibility of me speaking that word during conversations was close to zero. Yet, here they are. Catching that word while listening to an audiobook immediately brings back the understanding of its meaning. It also brings back the memory of the moment when I was learning that word. It probably went like this: Who would use this word? I’ve never heard this word before.

In language learning, there are these small and minor moments of joy.

Today, and someday in the future.

As long as I keep learning languages, those moments will be with me for the rest of my life.

They say there’s no easy task in life. In a way, that’s right. There’s no such thing. Something may seem easy, or someone may seem to do something easily, yet it all comes from an accumulated time of agony and struggle. It’s always been that way.

Still, even with difficult tasks, if there’s a sense of purpose, if the desire for results is so strong that it makes us forget how hard the task actually is, or if we may enjoy the process with the methods we can actually enjoy doing, it may not feel like such a hard task.

If the task must be done, if it is necessary, and if its difficulty cannot be an excuse for quitting, why not somehow enjoy it in our own ways without realizing how difficult it is?

Even if it must be done, maybe we can enjoy it a bit more.

It’s not such an easy task, yet somehow we can do it as if it’s a piece of cake.

Back when I couldn’t speak English well, I dreamed of having conversations in English with foreigners.

I thought to myself, “How great would it be if I could speak English well?”

How great would it be? How great was it?

Well, looking back, there wasn’t that much excitement. I wasn’t at the top of the mountain, but on the steps, one by one. It was all part of a continuous journey forward.

The joy was in the process itself, in each small step of building words and phrases one by one.

It’s in those tiny steps that are almost invisible.

The beginning is trivial.

“Ah, I just want to speak a couple of words.”

But once that happens, “Ah, I wish I could have basic conversations.”
But once that happens, “Ah, I wish I could have longer conversations.”
But once that happens, “Ah, I wish I could work in this language.”
But once that happens, “Ah, I wish I could read books in this language.”
But once that happens, “Ah, I wish I could speak fluently like a native.”

It never ends.

What do you want me to do?
How far do you want to go? You a**hole.

It’s been a while since I baked bread.

Today, as usual, I baked 30% whole wheat basil bread using Korean “Golden” wheat.

There’s a sensory joy in baking.

There are the subtle smells of dried basil and oregano, and the aroma of flour during fermentation, the elastic texture of dough that I can feel at my fingertips, the cute bubbles in the dough, and the soft yet fluffy inside of well-baked bread.

The joy of baking, that I can feel with my eyes, nose, and fingertips.

Although I am still not eating wheat products and therefore don’t have the privilege of enjoying the joy of eating bread, I still enjoy baking.

Profoundly, at my fingertips.

When there are words that I don’t know while reading English books, I look them up in a dictionary. At times, I skip those words that I can guess the meaning of from the context for the sake of uninterrupted reading rhythm. Other times, I look them up in the dictionary, which is not much of a hassle since it only takes a long press on the word to see the meaning in an eBook.

Sometimes, I reread some important parts of the book. It can be only the highlighted parts or the parts that left a good impression on me or made me a bit confused about the contents.

The interesting thing is that even while rereading those parts, the words that I didn’t know the meaning of the first time usually remain unknown to me (again!) It’s almost always the case. How amazing.

As a person with a strange memory, ‘How could you forget the word so soon?’ is a cliche of my English reading life. Yet, since I understand that this is a process of building vocabulary, I don’t get as surprised or frustrated as I used to.

This is how I build vocabulary.
One by one, I stack up the words I understand.

Of course, it can be annoying sometimes. I mean, how could you forget it so soon?