After school I got lunch with some classmates. Actually, one is a classmate, and the other two are both in level 1 at Sogang. They are all Japanese and only one of them knew English. But we all spoke in Korean so we could communicate. The fellow classmate is very good at Korean and has been studying it for about 5 years. The other two are still beginners and didn’t understand some of what I would say to them. When that would happen, I’d use very basic Korean so they could understand. I also had a few chances to teach them some new words for them to use. It’s always fun communicating with other foreigners in Korean even though we’re all not perfect at it. But being able to communicate using something other than English is very intriguing to me. I also tend to have a huge desire to learn Japanese every time I talk with a Japanese person. I might try studying it after I finish up Korean.
After lunch I met up with my language exchange friend at her flower shop. Her mom was also there, but she left soon after we started studying. I had my friend help me review new Korean words. During this semester there has been a lot more new words that we have to learn compared to last semester. So she would give me an explanation and I would try to guess the correct word. This usually works fine, but sometimes she uses new words that I have trouble with. Part of the time I can guess the meaning, but other times I need further explanation. It’s good practice. During the language exchange time, she asked me about an ebay problem she is having. She won an auction off of ebay from the US and has been waiting for 3 weeks for the delivery and still nothing has shown up. I checked all the info and found out the package had been sent, but there was no other tracking information. We decided to wait a bit longer and if nothing shows up, I’ll help her write an email asking where the package is.
During the evening I met up with a couple friends for dinner. One of them I hadn’t seen for maybe 6 months. She’s this Korean girl who had joined my church, but sometime after stopped going to church and stopped contacting anyone at our church. It was a bit surprising, but not uncommon here… anyway, she is studying French and is somewhat good at English too. We ate at a duckarbi place which was just so-so and the atmosphere was very loud. The girl is very soft-spoken and I had trouble hearing her just from the other side of the table. I’ve noticed I can’t seem to understand soft-spoken (or mumbled) Korean when I hear it. I’m just not used to it enough yet… I found out she teaches Korean now to foreigners on Saturdays at her college. It was fun seeing her again, but I have a feeling that was my last time seeing her…