The Grand Narrative

True, I may have said somewhere recently that I was getting a little tired of translating ‘articles’ like this one below, and the few people that read it instead of just looking at the pictures would probably be forced to admit that, no matter how great the subject, the translation work could get a bit tedious and samey after a while. But then I do need to study Korean at least 3-4 hours a day if I’m going to pass level 5 of the TOPIK test in 40 days or so; and from what I remember, the last time I studied Korean for such lengths of time had me going so crazy that no matter how serious my intentions, by hour three or so I’d be going so nuts that instead of what I had originally planned to study at that hour…halfway through I’d be writing lengthy treastises on the pros and cons of various sexual positions instead, sometimes with some helpful diagrams when I felt that my Korean was lacking.

Doing a split shift with 7am starts and 9pm finishes at an adult hagwon does that to you: sometimes I’d be so tired that I’d absently-mindedly ask my Korean teacher to quickly check my self-study for mistakes afterwards, not realising what I’d just showed her until I was on the subway later. But she barely raised an eyebrow while actually looking at it…you do not find many Korean teachers like that, so if you’re in Busan and want to learn Korean, I heartily recommend her!

But if a great deal of my Korean study is going to end up on here rather than just be seen by a cool teacher, then it’s probably best I unwind study-wise with translations like this instead. So they are going to be continuing feature of the blog, but don’t let their entertainment value detract from their genuine value for Korean study, especially of vocabularly: let me show you what I mean. First, the article and my translation.

 ‘어린신부‘ 장신영 살짝 감춘 비키니 몸매 눈길‘Child Bride’ Jang Sin-Yeong gives us a sneak glance at her hidden bikini body

(She’s known as this because she got married at 22. More info on her (in Korean) here, and photos of her when she was younger here)

출산 후 13Kg 이상을 감량한 배우 장신영이 미끈한 비키니 몸매를 자랑했다.

The actor Jang Sin-Yeong, who has lost more than 13 kilograms in weight since giving birth, shows off her bikini body.

지난 7월초 태국의 방콕과 파타야 그리고 인근 산호섬에서 촬영된 장신영 스타화보는 일상탈출 여행, 미국의 인기드라마 ‘로스트’ 그리고 007 본드걸 컨셉으로 진행됐다.

At the beginning of July, Jang Sin-Yeong produced a ‘daily life escape’ star pictorial book in Bangkok, Pattaya, and the neighbouring Sanho Island, continuing the popular American drama ‘Lost’ and 007 Bondgirl concept.

특히 장신영은 결혼 전보다 훨씬 성숙해진 바디 라인을 자랑하며 비키니 수영복을 소화해내 관계자들을 감탄하게 했다는 후문이다.

In particular, she has been showing off her bodyline, much better developed than before she was married, and the fact that she looked so good in her bikinis and swimsuits became a hot issue for interested observers.

이번 스타화보를 촬영한 박영원 작가는 “장신영은 놀랄 만큼 아름다운 곡선미를 가지고 있다”고 찬사를 보냈다.

The producer of this star pictorial book, Park Yeong-Won, complemented his subject and said that “To my suprise, Jang Sin-Yeong has beautiful curves.”

God…what utter crap…

Now, for those of you that are actually interested in learning Korean…

First, the words in bold below are ones that either I didn’t know or still don’t know well enough to use them without thinking (I’ve underlined them in the text to make them easier to find). And, while of course I still use my electronic dictionary all the time, as an ESL teacher that was once interested in my profession and so bought and read many books on the subject, I have been aware for a long time that students of any language must eventually move up to using a target-language only dictionary. Of course, you could build a build a cathedral with all the non-native speaker-targeted English dictionaries, but Korean? Hahahaa…but then this came out, and while many common words are strangely absent most are there, and I actually understand a great deal of the entries (especially if I’ve looked them up in my electronic dictionary on previous occasions!), so I no longer have any excuse not to use it. So next to the words are similar words I know better and/or explanations and/or English when absolutely necessary. 

1. 살짝 - 살며시, 손쉽게, 가볍게
2. 감추다 - 숨기다
3. 눈길 - 눈으로 보는 방향, 시선
4. 감량* - 감소*, 줄이다, 낮추다
5. 미끈하다 - sleek, 날씬하다
6. 인근 - 이웃한 가까운 곳
7. 촬용* - 카메라로 사진이나 영화를 찍는것
8. 일상탈출 = 일상+탈출* - 매일 벌어지는 비슷한일 + 어떤 제한된 장소나 상황에서 몰래 빠져 나오다
9. 성숙* - 잘육의, 발육의, 발전된
10. 소화* - 사람이나 동물이 먹은 것을 뱃속에서 처리하여 영양분으로 흡수하는 것.
11. 감탄* - admire, wonder
12. 후문 - 뒷이야기, 후+소문
13. 곡선미 =  곡선+미 -  curvy + beauty
14. 찬사 - 칭찬

Sorry if some of you don’t know any of those words, but this post definately isn’t like my beginner guides to some Korean songs earlier. I’m serious about using posts like these for vocab study, so I intend to come back to them on this site and test myself with them.

Second, if you know of but are not using this book to learn Korean vocab…then it has to be said, you’re simply crazy. It will shave a year or two off attaining fluency. For those of you that don’t know it, it’s a simplified dictionary of Chinese characters, giving them in alphabetical order of their Korean sound, then a very brief line about it’s meaning, and then a list of Korean words which have it in them. As 70% of Korean words have these Chinese characters, or roots, this book is essential for non-Asians, with no language cognates with their native language and Korean, to help them can get a handle on Korean in the same way that Koreans can of English and other European languages through learning Greek and Latin roots.

Reguarly extolling the book’s virtues on sites like http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/index.php, other posters not unreasonably asked how you actually use the damn thing, as it is just a glorified dictionary after all. So here we go:

1. DO NOT TRY TO LEARN HOW TO WRITE THE CHINESE CHARACTERS, EVEN IF YOU PLAN TO LEARN CHINESE LATER. You won’t get practice by seeing the characters in your daily life, they are in fact rarely used in Korea, so wait for that until you’re in China and can see and reinforce the fruits of your labor everytime you leave the house. But while in Korea, just learn the Korean sound for the character, just like its presented in the book.
2. Bear in mind that if you use this book, you will find yourself automatically trying to guess the general meanings of any new words you come across by splitting it into its roots, you won’t have anything else to go on after all. But even at beginnng levels, you can easily get a 25-50% success rate with this.
3. But that was a long time ago. As a beginner, there’s so much on grammar to be learned that the vocab can be but on the backburner. But once you hit intermediate, all the new vocab will be the bane of your life, for it multiplies like fucking rabbits: whereas one word would do for the task as a beginner, next time you look 6 months later you have 3 or more in it’s place (see the list above again!), all sounding pretty damn similar in the universally crappy not designed for native speakers of English Korean-English dictionaries, but actually subtly different, and only one can go with this noun, and the other with this noun and so on. Needless to say, your success rate goes down…anybody who can’t speak Korean to save their lives tells you English has more words than Korean and so is much harder, you know what to say.

4. But like I said, when trying to guess the meaning of a new word, using the Chinese characters you already know is still all you have to go on. So there’s no alternative to memorising as many as possible, by whatever means works for you. Personally, I have said this over 30 times since I bought the book, but never on a blog so now it’s official: I will learn 5 new ones a day from now on, using the words in the words I didn’t know. You can check me. In selecting what 5 to learn, I will not choose one that has less than 5 Korean words in the book that have it in them, as my memorisation time would be better spent on a better-used character. I won’t write down the meanings of them here, because I want to go back to this post and guess; I’ll just write the pages numbers, and 5 examples of words that I already know with the character in them (to help me guess), and go back to the book itself if I still can’t remember. Soooo, todays 5 (the * means 하다):

• (4) 감, 8 - 감소*, 감퇴*, 감하다, 감속*, 감점*
• (8) 탈, 258 - 탈당*, 탈퇴*, 이탈*, 탈모, 탈수*, 탈색*
• (9) 숙, 136  - 노숙하다, 조숙하다, 능숙하다, 친숙하다, 익숙하다
• (12) 문, 83 - 금시초문, 신문, 소문, 헛수문, 수소문*
• (14) 찬, 238 - 칭찬*, 과찬*, 찬양*, 자화자찬*, 찬송가

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I know I said I’d restrain myself and edit things in the morning before I posted them, but after starting at 11pm, finishing at 3am, about 3 hours longer than I thought it would be…then I think I’m damn well justified in posting this post unedited! Night!

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