My Language Garden

My journey to a polyglot

[mylanguagegardenn]

After spending a week in bed since testing positive to COVID-19, I am now slowly getting back on my study routine. Missing a full week has been a bit discouraging but I am thankful that I am not sick anymore! (Apart from having to blow my nose from time to time🤧)

I truly hope you all stay safe!

[mylanguagegardenn]

Sometimes I surprise myself by having to look up so many vocabularies.😇

A veces me sorprende que tengo que buscar tantas palabras.😇

종종 생각보다 내가 단어를 많이 몰라 놀라곤 한다..😇

我不想相信我不知道这么多单词。😇

[mylanguagegardenn]

Sometimes the fact that there are so many characters to memorize could be discouraging.

However, if you just keep up your work and not give up, you will have made progress and your language skills will have improved in the end.

Let us all keep up our hard work! 🔥

[mylanguagegardenn]

Working on my Chinese today. Mandarin is such an interesting and fun language to learn. Some people think that East Asian languages are all similar to each other, but they’re not. Although they-or we-share similarities in many expressions or pronunciations, each language has developed it’s unique way of speaking or expressing feelings, according to the country’s culture(and of course, the characters are all different, too.)

I love noticing how Chinese is different from Korean, and Korean from Japanese. Acknowledging how some Asian language expressions differ from those of Western countries are so exciting as well. Does that qualify me as a language nerd?🤓💗

*an example of similarly pronounced word:

🇺🇸🇬🇧: Library

🇰🇷: 도서관 (Do- seo- gwan)

🇨🇳: 图书馆 (Too- shoo- gwan)

🇯🇵: 図書館 (To- shyo- kan)

[mylanguagegardenn]

Korea’s Namhansanseong Fortress 🇰🇷

Today is a national holiday in Korea. We call it “삼일절(sam-il-jull)” which basically means “3-1 Day”.

March 1st, 1919 is the day when groups of Koreans peacefully marched in the streets holding the national flag, shouting for the independence from Japan. They were unarmed, but the Japanese police sent them to jail and brutally tortured them. One of the well-known Korean who fought for the independence in March 1st is 유관순(Yoo-Gwan-Soon), who was seventeen at the time. She eventually died at the age of nineteen from harsh torture and malnutrition in jail, after leading a peaceful chant for independence inside the jail. The torture that Koreans who fought for their independence experienced are extremely brutal and cruel, beyond imagination, to the point where just by reading them makes me feel nauseated.

It is wrong to hate individuals from certain countries just because of the history. I do not blindly hate Japan or Japanese because what happened in the past; I have Japanese friends, travel to Japan, and enjoy Japanese food very much. However, it is important to face the past as it is without distorting it and not forget what happened; especially, to remember those who fought for the independence of our country with their lives, knowing what they will have to go through once they were caught.

I am proud and thankful to be Korean. 🇰🇷

[mylanguagegardenn]

My online uni courses for Spanish and Chinese started today. It won’t be too easy for me since I am working at the same time, but I shall do my best to manage both. I really hope to improve my Spanish and Chinese this year!

[mylanguagegardenn]

Didn’t realize that the British call eggplants “aubergine” until I went to the UK. I remember asking my British friend what an aubergine, which was under the vegetarian lasagne menu, was. I was quite surprised when she seemed a bit confused when I asked her if it is the same as an eggplant. Love noticing such differences! 🤓

Used my handmade paper fruits to visualize some words in 🇰🇷🇺🇸🇬🇧🇪🇸🇨🇳. Three may seem like a small number, but if you memorize three vocabularies every single day, you will have memorized more than a thousand words in a year!

[mylanguagegardenn]

Trying to memorize full paragraphs- memorizing full sentences or paragraphs helps to understand sentence structures and even to memorize vocabularies. ✨

[mylanguagegardenn]

Trying to make sure I’ve got a robust understanding on basic grammar. After focusing on so many verb tenses, today I thought the first-person singular verb conjugation for “empezar” was empezco… Sí es muy triste..

[mylanguagegardenn]

¡Oye, preposición! ¿Adónde fuiste?

Studying Spanish everyday. I would think I completely got it and then some exceptions and irregular verbs would just pop up like a surprise birthday party without families and friends and gifts.🥳

Spanish prepositions are quite confusing as sometimes they are used exactly the same as English prepositions while sometimes they just seem to disappear. ¿Adònde fuiste?😭

Some sentences with prepositions that I have studied today are:

- Ayer por la mañana vi a mi hermana en la parada del autobús.

- Mañana una amiga mía va a dar un concierto de piano.

Este año, he estudiado español todos los días. Algunos son fáciles y otros son difíciles, pero me gusta mucho aprender español. Hoy estudié preposiciones y no son fáciles porque a veces son similares al inglés y a veces, no. Muchas veces quiero preguntar, ¿adónde fueron?🧐

[pika-studies]

Tips to stop Procrastinating

1. start small

Break projects into smaller tasks. This will help make the task more manageable and less overwhelming

2. set goals

Break down the task and set specific goals. Having goals to work toward will help give a clearer path to completing a project.

3. dont overthink it

Before you start, get out all of your concerns about the task. Then, come up with a strategy to overcome each concern.

4. remove distractions

Create a space that is free from distractions like clutter, television, cell phones, and other family members or activities so you can focus on your assignments.

5. stick to a schedule

Create a schedule that includes the due dates of any upcoming assignments. Schedule a time to work on projects and set deadlines to work toward.

6. take breaks

Avoid checking in on social media or text messages. Instead, use a 5-10 minute study break to stretch or go outside for a walk before getting back to work.

7. keep the list short

Complete a task before starting a new one. This will help avoid feeling overwhelmed by working on too many tasks at once. A study schedule will help here as well, outlining exactly what you should be working on and when.

8. adjust expectations

It’s ok not to be perfect—the goal of any project is to do your best and learn from any mistakes you make so you can get a little better each time.

i hope these are useful!! :) -love pika☁️

[mylanguagegardenn]

Sentences in Spanish/Korean/English/Japanese:

⚽️

(A él) le gusta mucho el fútbol.

그는 축구를 많이 좋아합니다.

He likes soccer very much.

彼はサッカーが大好きです。

🌮

(A nosotros) nos gustan los tacos.

저희는 타코를 좋아합니다.

We like tacos.

私たちはタコスが好きです。

🍅

¿Por qué no te gustan los tomates?

왜 토마토를 좋아하지 않으세요?

Why do you not like tomatoes?

どうしてトマトが好きじゃないですか。

[mylanguagegardenn]

Finalmente, ¡el fin de semana!

One of my journals from last week.

If you take a good look at the photo, you will notice that I have written “I don’t want to work” in four different languages. 🤭

Wish I could take a month off from work and spend some time in a nice and cozy cabin. I would like to have a large mug of hot, hot chocolate in front of a fireplace!

Some of the things I would love to do:

- Read books (a lot!)

- Study Spanish

- Write essays

- Watch Netflix (there are some documentaries that I’ve been wanting to watch!)

- Listen to music

And a lot more… Now that I am looking at the list, I notice how everything on the list is something I can do right now, at home. I guess what I really want is the “going to a nice and cozy cabin” part. 🤣 I am waiting for a safer time period to travel around. Will the time come soon?

¡Quiero viajar! Hay muchas cosas que quiero hacer en una cabaña acogedora. ¿Cuándo será seguro viajar?✈️ ¿Qué te gustaría hacer en una cabaña acogedora?

[mylanguagegardenn]

El diccionario

I bought my first dictionary, Korean-to-Korean, when I was in elementary school. I learned how to look up words. As a little bookworm, I loved flipping through the thick dictionary, but was not sure why my teacher asked to bring a Korean-Korean dictionary, because clearly, I was Korean and I would not need to look up a word for definition. However, once I started looking up definitions of words that I was already familiar with to finish my homework, I could not stop but to look up other words to see how they were defined. I was fascinated by the concise, yet full definitions. To this day, I enjoy looking up words on book-dictionaries rather than on electronic/internet dictionaries. The online dictionaries save much more time and they can even translate full sentences quite accurately, but I enjoy the time spent murmuring alphabets under my breath as I flip through pages as if I am busy doing some valuable work. So of course, I got myself a Spanish-English dictionary to study Spanish. Is it bad if I already feel like my Spanish has improved? 🤭

¡El libro más grueso que yo tengo en español! ¿Este diccionario me ayudará a mejorar en español? 🤓📖

[soft-lovely]

the bookshops that define Hay-on-Wye, Wales

[mylanguagegardenn]

💗💗

[soft-lovely]

manifesting finding a hand written note in the next book you read 📚

[mylanguagegardenn]

I miss traveling around.. ✈️

¡Quiero visitar muchos países! ¡Y comer muchos tacos(craving tacos at midnight)! 🤣🌮