Archive for May, 2015
South Korea Highlights Posted by sasha on May 27, 2015
It’s been a lot of fun posting travel articles and videos to the Korean blog over the past few months, but until I make it back to the land of kimchi and soju, I’m afraid I’m fresh out of new content. While many travelers to this side of the world tend to pass over South…
Learn Korean Past Tense Posted by Soo on May 25, 2015
When you talk about something with your friends, lots of topics are already happened before. In the case, you need to use past tense instead of present tense. Most foreigners learn present tense first. So when they adopt to learn past tense after present tense, they have hard time to change it. Let me give…
Korea Embracing Plastic Surgery Norms Through ‘Medical Tourism’ Posted by Tony Kitchen on May 21, 2015
South Korea has been pushing efforts both privately and through government agencies to increase tourism to the ROK in the non-traditional form: medical tourism. In 2014, about 56,000 Chinese alone visited South Korea for plastic surgery, according to China’s Ministry of Health, up from 4,700 in 2009. The social norm in Korea (as well-documented as ever…
Learn Korean “If” and “When” Posted by Soo on May 18, 2015
Some of my students were confused using “If/(으)면” and “when/(을)ㄹ 때” because they can be used in the similar situation. For instance, when you go to the store, please buy me a coke. If you go the store, please buy me a coke. Can you classify what is different between two sentences? We all know…
Busan Cave Bar’s Makgeolli, Dongdongju Is Korea’s Best City Escape Posted by Tony Kitchen on May 16, 2015
Hidden to even Busan natives, “Dragon Dream” (용꿈) is a makgeolli (막걸리) bar with two twists: a former World War II Japanese bomb shelter carved into the mountain during the colonization of Korea, and a unique version of makgeolli called dongdongju (동동주). The cave (동굴) drips with water seeping through the rock, calcium deposits growing…
Learn Korean “Whether (or not)” Posted by Soo on May 11, 2015
“Whether (or not)” is high frequency you need to learn in Korean. The grammar rule is v.s. + (ㄴ/은)지 for present. For instance, I don’t know whether you like it/ 나는 네가 그것을 좋아하는지 모르겠다: 좋아하다 is action verb, so need to add 는지 =좋아하는지. Remember when there is 하다 at the end of verb…
Bourdain’s Survival Drinking in Korea: Customs, Expectations, and Beyond Soju Posted by Tony Kitchen on May 9, 2015
Late last month, Anthony Bourdain made headlines by opening the fifth season of “Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown” with a trip to South Korea, a country whose social habits bind tightly with drinking and eating and eating and more drinking. About Korea’s social life, Bourdain said, “Everything you learned, painfully, in college about drinking–don’t mix, try to…