The Grand Narrative

Last Friday, on the way home I found a copy of the Metro newspaper that someone had left on a wall. As an ex-president of the environmental club back at university, I instinctively felt bad about a perfectly good paper going to waste, so I picked up it up and flicked through it. And of course, once I saw this article with a picture of the lovely Kim Ji-yeong/김지영 in it, then I didn’t need to think twice about taking it home and making a quick 30 minute Korean vocab lesson from it.

Actually, the article is harder than it looks, and I don’t mean because of the distracting picture. The word “미시” at the beginning is so new that it isn’t in any of my dictionaries, and so if my wife hadn’t had been here then I would have assumed that the “미”  was the Chinese root for “beauty,” and the “시” maybe the one for “manifest/show,” or  maybe the one for “look at” instead, so I would have thought is simply meant “beautiful” or something like that. But although my wife knew it didn’t mean that, she wasn’t entirely sure what it did mean exactly (maybe Sam can help me again?)…so, according to the Naver definition, it is short for “미시족,” which gives a Korean definition along the lines of ”a rich woman who has a lot of free time and money to spend as she wishes.” Hmmm…okay…

Kim Ji-yeong Becomes a Radio DJ

The talent Kim Ji-yeong (33), who is rich and has a lot of free time and money to spend as she wishes, has taken a position as a radio DJ, her first job after getting married.

After only a four year and seven month break after giving up her job as the host of the CBS radio show “Let’s meet at 12″ in April 2003, she has been co-hosting the show “Good Good” on SBS Radio with Kim Il-joong since the 5th of this month.

In the show, she has been playing a soft, genial senior woman role that has been getting a good response from listeners.

Okay, if you’re interested in learning Korean, but this is the first time that you have read my blog, then read this post first before you go on. Assuming you have, then the new words I didn’t know in that article were 석, 미시족, 하차하다, 연상녀, 청취자, and 호응. Of those,

• 미시족 doesn’t appear to have any Chinese roots.
• I already know the 하 and 차 in 하차하다.
• I already know the 상 and 녀 in 연상녀, and it turns out the 연 is the same as 년, which I also already know.
• I already know the 자 in 췅취자. I didn’t know that 취 meant “take” or “obtain,” but as I think that that doesn’t really help me remember that 청취자 means “listener”, then I won’t learn it.
• I already know the 응 in 호응.

That leaves 석, and the 청 in 청취자:

• 석 is on page 121 of my Korean bible and means “seat” or “place”. Some words that I already know with that root are: 좌석/seat (you see this word in subway trains), 합석하다/sit together, 참석하다/attend or participate, and 결석하다/ be absent. Knowing 석 now, if I see a word I don’t know with it like 즉석/on the spot or immediate, or출석/attend school, then I’ll be able to guess the meaning. Here’s the character itself if any of you are into that:

• 호 is on page 285 and means “good” or “like”. Some words I already know with that are 호감/good feeling or favorable impression, 호의/goodwill, 호평하다/comment favorably and 선호하다/prefer. And here’s the character for it:

By coincidence, the 호 character directly above is made up of the character for “woman” on the left and that for “son, children, thing” on the right. I say by coincidence, because I don’t think that that’s a bad lesson at all for something I was initially interested in entirely for its exposed cleavage. That picture from the paper’s website doesn’t quite do 이주영 justice, but after viewing these better versions below (which I think you deserve for reading all of the post), then I think you can agree that I must be very dedicated to studying Korean now to be have been able to tear my eyes away and look at the writing for a moment, yes?

Sigh…I love studying Korean. And all of that really would have only taken 30 mins, tops, if I hadn’t blogged it, so no healthy, virile, red-blooded male at least can complain about finding it difficult to find the time and motivation to study Korean…myself included!

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