We Want Interwebz!!!!

So, The Mouse recently promised she would update soon and is now without internet in her apartment -.- Please bear with her; she will have a proper update once that's fixed. In the meantime, she has been taking pictures and trying to keep Facebook relatively updated so she can remember what she wanted to talk about here.

Necessary Vocabulary

Things The Mouse has learned by necessity:

(Thanks to Sung, JK, and Jennifer for most of these.)

police station - 경찰서 gyeongchalseo
trash bag - 쓰레기 봉투 sseuregi bongtu
plastic bag - 비닐 봉투 binil (vinyl) bongtu
recycling bag 재활용 봉투 jaehwal-yong bongtu
give me... 주 세유 juseyo (as in, sseuregi bongtu juseyo - give me a trash bag. Also, no, this is not rude, regardless of its lack of "please.")
Buldang Middle School 불당중학교 buldang junhak-gyo

One - 하나 hana
Two - 둘 dul
Three - 셋 set
Four - 넷 net
Five - 다섯 daseot
Six - 여섯 yeoseot
Seven - 일곱 ilgop
Eight 여덟 yeodeol
Nine - 아홉 ahop
Ten - 열 yeol
The end consonant for 1-4 and 20 (seumul) drops when next to a consonant. For example, when you order in a restaurant, you might say "2 (things)" which becomes "du gae" or if you're ordering samgyeopsal for three people, for example, it's "se  samgyeopsal." I've also heard "sa" used more for "four" than "net." "Sa" is the Sino-Korean "four," which is usually only used for ordinal numbers, rather than cardinals, though the distinction is not that clear-cut, since they're also used for some forms of measurement, among other things. I think it is often used in place of the Native Korean for 4 however, because number 4 is bad luck.)

Random things my students have taught me (or that I have learned BECAUSE of my students):

Autumn 가을 ga-eul
Winter 겨울 gyeo-ul
Spring 봄 bom
Fall 여름 yeoreum
I don't know 몰라요 mollayo
Opposite 반대 bandae
Barley 보리 bori

Getting Back on Schedule

The Mouse has been SUCH the bad blogger this month. As of yesterday, she has been in Cheonan for exactly one month, yet only updated in the first few days of being here. Fear not, if you're trying to follow everything! The Mouse HAS been keeping track of things she's wanted to talk about, but with settling in and the fact that she's now been sick twice while here, motivation has not been that strong. She doesn't even get online everyday, which is definitely NOT something she could have said back in Baltimore. Please be patient. The Mouse WILL update soon.

Day 4 in Korea

The Mouse is finally starting to learn her way around and get accustomed to living in Korea. Her first few days went great, but were a bit hectic. 

Monday, The Mouse went shopping at E-Mart with Sung, to pick up some necessities for her apartment, and she met Jennifer, who went with her after work to eat dinner (more Korean BBQ!) and showed her to The Mess Table, which is a bar in Buldang (The Mouse's neighborhood) which sort of caters to all the expats (foreigners) here.

Yesterday, she got lost and, to make matters worse, it was raining and she slipped and fell, injuring her hand. JK was right, though, when he told The Mouse that Koreans are very kind and helpful. She asked someone on the street for directions to the academy but they did not know it, so he let her use his phone to call JK, and Cho (a co-worker) came and found The Mouse, and Jennifer took The Mouse to the pharmacy so we could get something to clean up her hand.

On the bright side, that is the worse thing that has happened to The Mouse since arriving in Korea. Everything else has gone very smoothly and she did not get lost on the way to the academy today, so she's finally learning direction here in Korea. It's easy to get mixed up because The Mouse doesn't understand very much Korean yet, so it is easy for her to get some landmarks confused, although JK taught her the word for "Police Station" (경찰서, gyeongchalseo) last night, because the academy is right around the corner from the police station in Ssangyong, so if she gets lost, people are more likely to know where that is, than the academy itself. 

The Mouse Fiance arrived in Korea last night, so that made her bad day much, MUCH better! JK borrowed Sung's car (since he was still teaching) and drove The Mouse to Cheonan Bus Terminal, so we could meet The Mouse Fiance there. The Mouse thinks that, in one day, The Mouse Fiance knows his way around Buldang (The Mouse neighborhood) and Ssangyong (The academy's neighborhood) better than The Mouse does, after four days.

The Mouse has taken a lot of photos and a few videos, and will post some of these on this blog whenever she uploads them to Photobucket and Youtube.

The Mouse is in Korea!

Where does The Mouse even begin!? She has had an exciting few days!

On Friday, 2 November at 6am, The Mouse left BWI airport in Baltimore, and had a 2-hour flight to Chicago, followed by a 5 hour layover, a 14-hour flight to Incheon, and a 2 1/2 hour bus ride to Cheonan, where her boss and co-worker met her.

The flight was spectacular. The Mouse got lots of sleep and ate bibimbap and pasta. She was very nervous, until she stepped off the plane at Incheon. Korea is a beautiful, friendly, very welcoming place, and The Mouse is happy to be here.

JK and Sung, The Mouse's boss and co-worker, were the best welcoming committee ever. They put The Mouse's mind at ease about teaching in Korea, and The Mouse had a lot of fun talking to them over Korean Barbeque and Makgeolli (Korean rice wine). JK let The Mouse use his phone to call The Mouse Mom, but it was understandably early in the morning in Baltimore, and no one answered, so The Mouse left The Mouse Family a message. The Mouse Dad's voice is on the answering machine, and it was sort of sad but sweet hearing his voice after talking about missing family.

There is another American teacher at Easy English Academy. Her name is Jennifer and The Mouse will get to meet her on Monday, but she did get to speak with her on the phone last night, and The Mouse feels like she definitely already has friends in Korea! The Mouse Fiance is also coming to Korea, and will be here on Tuesday night! The Mouse misses him already and will be so happy when he is here.

Obligatory Hurricane Sandy Post

The Mouse has a ticket to Korea, leaving at 6am on Friday morning. FINALLY!!! It has been slightly over a year, since The Mouse has been avidly working on getting herself to Korea. The Mouse Fiancé is leaving on Monday, and we will be packing and shipping out belongings in the next couple days. That said, The Mouse Family lives in Baltimore, Maryland, on the east coast of the United States - which is currently being pummeled by Hurricane Sandy. The Mouse's thoughts go out to everyone who has been, currently is, and will be hit by this massive storm, and she hopes that everyone else is safe as well. 

On a more selfish note, she hopes this does not delay her flight or her plans any further.

The Mouse is back. She apologizes for her excessively long silence, but she should be back up and running now. Things were a bit hectic for her and she is finally in that part of the process where she is leaving for Korea soon. She got all of her documentation together, sent it off to her agency, and has been recruited by Easy English Academy in Cheonan, only a short distance away from Seoul by subway. She is leaving for Korea in about two weeks, as soon as her passport is stamped with her visa and her agency, ESL Park, provides her plane ticket.

The Mouse has been fortunate enough to speak with the current English teacher at Easy English, and both the school and living arrangements seem very good, from what she has heard. She hopes she will transition smoothly, especially since the Mouse Fiancé WILL be going with her ^.^

The Mouse hopes that people she knows here in Baltimore will keep in touch, follow her blog, follow her on Facebook (and perhaps on Youtube - she has not made a channel yet and is not entirely sure she will be uploading much as far as videos go, but if she does she will drop you all a link here.) She will also continue the language and culture lessons here. She may ask the Mouse Fiancé add a post of his own concerning Korean cuisine, since he has been studying much more of that than she has, as she has been concerned more with the language itself, among other things. That said, she knows her language posts sometimes get a bit technical, so if you're curious, feel free to ask what something means or generally, what on Earth she's talking about in the first place!

Palatal Affricates Become [t̚ ] in Syllable-Final Position?

So, in The Mouse's original post on Korean pronunciation, she added a few simple rules that explain how certain sounds should be pronounced in certain positions.

They are as follows:

[ʨ˭, ʨʼ, ʨʰ, h] --> [ʥ˭, ʥʼ, ʥʰ, ɦ] // +V_+V

[l] --> [ɾ] // V_V, or _#, especially in borrowings

[l] --> [n]// _#. especially _[i, j]

[l] sometimes --> 0// _#

[s] --> [ɕ]// V_V or _[i, j]

There is one more that The Mouse had not come across in her initial readings on Korean, but has noticed more and more as she listens to the language and tries to take in as much as possible, and so, also:

/s, ʨ˭, ʨʰ/ --> [t̚ ] // syllable_

The Mouse is not entirely certain if this rule applies across the board, but for example, she learned that "three" in Korean, is written 셋, or "ses," but is pronounced "set," and the same applies with "four," 넷, "net," "five," 다섯, "daseot," and "six," 여섯, "yeoseot." Note that all Korean forms have "ᄉ," typically pronounced "s," in syllable-final position. This also occurs in words where ᄌ "j" and ᄎ"ch" are in syllable-final position. The Mouse is curious as to why this is, but for now just adds it to her list of phonological rules for Korea.

EDIT: /s, s' ʨ˭, ʨʰ, ʨ'/ --> [t̚ ] // syllable_C (or syllable_sentence)
Example: 나는 그것이있다 (Lit. "I it have" - "I have it.")
Expected pronunciation [na.nœn. k˭œ.k˭ɔ.ɕi.is.t˭a]
Actual pronunciation [na.nœn. k˭œ.k˭ɔ.ɕi.it̚.t˭a]
This seems to happen universally when a palatal fricative or affricate occurs before a consonant or in sentence-final position.