Category: Essay

After I write something in my native language – Korean, I usually try to check it with a grammar tool.

The same mistakes often keep popping up, yet I feel very happy when there are no grammar errors.

Although it is my native language, I have a college education, and I read and write, it’s amazing how many grammar and spacing errors I make without really realizing it.

Writing seems to be an excellent way to find weaknesses in my language skills.

There is no such thing as true mastery of a language.

Even with my native language as well as with foreign languages, I keep moving forward little by little.

Facing the chilly air, I stopped by a bookstore in the city center after running some errands.

I could immediately smell the warm heaters and diffused aromas.

Although I can have a basic conversation in Japanese with AI, my sentence structures are not quite well grounded, so I checked the Japanese grammar section.

Japanese grammar books that are well structured and quite comprehensive are all big and heavy enough to kill a bug. I am quite certain that I would have a pretty good grasp of Japanese sentence structure by mastering one of these books.

Still, after flipping through millions of books for a while, I came home empty-handed.

Why? Because I know that I don’t have the time and energy to commit to Japanese grammar for now. I know that I don’t want to ‘choose’ to commit to it now.

I watch Japanese TV shows while doing the dishes and practice speaking a few sentences every day, and that’s about it.

I fought my (typical) impulse to start something that I wouldn’t commit to finish. It was a success.

It’s a matter of self-discipline, thinking and choosing, and growing day by day.

A speaking habit, if not carefully looked at, can easily get out of control.

I try not to let complaints out of my mouth, such as “I don’t want to do this” or “I don’t feel like doing this”.

Thoughts coming to the surface are not stoppable. They just show up.

However, it’s a different matter to dwell on them and let them out of my mouth.

I can’t stop the thoughts, yet at least I can choose how I process them.

When thoughts like “I don’t want to do this”, or “I don’t feel like doing this” appear, I recognize them. Oh hey, you came again. While I fully acknowledge them, I don’t let them go out of my mouth simply by closing my lips tight.

If I let those thoughts just exist, they are somehow gone after a while.

If I’ve got to do the task that I don’t really feel like doing, speaking these thoughts out loud doesn’t help anything in any way. Besides, it drains the energy of others who happen to hear them.

If I don’t actually need to do the task, I can simply stop doing it.

Observe the thoughts, and control the speaking habit.

It’s about living today’s life better than yesterday with more conviction and self-mastery.

I do 20 Judo push-ups every morning before heading out to run.

20 reps is a joke, I know, but since even 10 was really hard at first, it is quite an achievement for me. Anyway, this everyday minimal upper body workout still builds my muscles a bit, making my arms a little bulky. It’s nowhere near MMA fighter-like bulkiness, yet I don’t want it. Nope.

To keep my arms beautiful as well as strong, I’ve been thinking about finding an alternative upper body workout. The problem is that I’ve only been “thinking” rather than actually looking it up. I just keep forgetting.

This idea always occurs to me in the middle of push-ups.

‘Wait, I was gonna stop this and find something else.’

Every time.

But then, since I’ve started already, I just finish it. And I do this every day, because I do it out of habit, unconsiously. I don’t even realize I’ve started anymore.

Same thing happens the next morning, while I’m feeling (minor) pain in my arms.

Inertia is a strange thing, and really, what’s wrong with me?

…to improve your observation skills.

I have been watching stand-up comedy shows while taking a shower (thank you, waterproof phone holder).

Although there are some on Disney+, I mostly use Netflix since they have a much wider selection.

While watching those shows, I am amazed at how those comedians see the world.

They catch really minor aspects of rather boring, ordinary daily incidents and make fun of them in a really effective way.

Maybe it’s because they are always alert to the surrounding world to find new material for comedy?

Without a keen sense of observation and a clever mind, it must be quite a challenge.

It might be a good idea to practice this way of seeing and thinking to improve observation skills and insight.

Why not start today?

AI does everything. It translates and interprets languages in real time. Why bother to learn another language then?

While doing some language-learning routines, I’ve had some thoughts. Should I really go through all this hard work?

Hmm, well?

It’s convenient! You don’t need to use a translation app, and you can understand things you read or hear within a second.

I was told that there are some sort of earphones that provide real-time interpretation, but I haven’t seen or used them yet.

Even in these circumstances, there are certain subtle nuances in words. Even great translations have an inevitable gap in delivering the meaning, and it’s almost impossible to understand puns without knowing the language.

Besides, while learning a language, your brain gets younger, you practice self-discipline, you get to have fun getting to know new things.

You will be able to say whatever you want in your own words, not someone else’s (or some AI’s) translated ones.

Although I’m not sure how the world will change in the future, I believe I will go through this (hardship of) language learning in the next couple of years.

I have had it coming. I always have, and that’s the fun of it.

It’s strange, I know, but it’s fun and it works (at least for me).

I had been enjoying watching ‘Hanzawa Naoki’ on TVING (a Korean OTT) until my one-month free membership expired, and now I have found a new show for learning Japanese – Culinary Class Wars. Wait, it’s a Korean show. I know, just hear me out.

Culinary Class Wars would never have been my choice, since I rarely watch Korean content anymore, yet it’s available in a Japanese dub!

After watching two episodes with my husband last weekend, I found it pretty useful for learning Japanese.

The studio setting makes the voices clear without outside noise, all lines are colloquial, and the subject matter is all about food and cooking – topics I am particularly interested in.

After watching the Japanese dubbed version, ‘listening to it’ in English without the screen on might be a good next step to improve both languages.

Although there is never enough time for language learning, I am still grateful to live in a world that offers an enormous amount of great learning materials.

Really grateful.

… enough to replace reading in Korean.

For a long time, I have been reading books in English, but not as much as I do in Korean.

The reason is that my reading speed in English was three times slower than it was in Korean.

My learning habit which had leaned heavily toward listening rather than reading, tended to slow my text recognition, and the occasional need to look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary didn’t help.

Since I could read three Korean books in the time it took to read one English book, I couldn’t help but choose Korean books and read English books for merely 15 minutes or so a day.

However, something changed around the end of last year. It just hit me. “Wait, I can read English books pretty fast?” It was the first time I’d ever felt that way.

Although my reading speed in Korean was slightly faster than in English, it had clearly changed. It may have been that way for at least a couple of months, but I guess I just didn’t notice it.

It’s delightful that I can read English books for the sake of ‘reading’, not just for learning English.

It’s delightful that there’s been some sort of breakthrough in my rather painfully slow English reading speed.

It’s delightful that I have so many delightful things.

While there are several advantages of reading books in English, the best one of all is that I can primarily do the ‘reading’ activity while improving my English. And another thing is that sometimes I can get them for a ridiculously cheap price.

Recently, I bought the eBooks of ‘Reminiscences of a Stock Operator’ by Edwin Lefevre and ‘How To Trade in Stocks’ by Jesse Livermore for less than $2.

It would have cost almost $14 for the Korean translations.

These kinds of copyright-free books that were published a long time ago are available on the Internet Archive website, but they are usually a bit lousy in terms of editing and formatting. If you look them up on Amazon, though, you might be able to find a better version for free or at a very low price.

$2 for two eBooks is just ridiculous, but these books definitely should help improve my knowledge base and English at the same time.

Of course, there are cons: these tempting prices make me end up hoarding so many eBooks that I will never finish reading them in this lifetime (Is it also a pro? Maybe).

For a while, I listened to Bach’s Well-Temprered Klavier while taking a shower.

After a few months, I got a bit tired of it, so I switched to French pop.

After a few weeks, the same thing happened again (story of my life, basically), so I didn’t listen to anything.

And then again, I got tired of that silence (and the noises in my head), so I started to watch (but mostly listen to) some stand-up comedy using a waterproof phone holder.

Those weird sounds I make when I laugh at comedians’ words while bending my neck to wash my hair are rather ridiculous. Still, it should boost endorphins, so I’m okay with it.

And since comedians keep talking and talking, it should improve my English listening skills.

What’s the downside, really?