Lesson 31 (Beginner 2A L7): Ending Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 Vocab

We spent the first hour finishing up chapter 7, and the last half an hour going through the vocabulary for chapter 8.

I realised after a week of Zoom meetings this past week (I had a couple of workshops for work), how amazing this teacher is at using Zoom. She switches seamlessly between screen share and then stop sharing, to share different files on different software (some are in MS Word, others are in Adobe Acrobat). The way she uses the annotation tools (okay, yes, that's not exclusive to Zoom). And the speed at which she creates breakout rooms. It's really something I didn't notice until I saw how others struggled with it.

Another good thing that's like air. It's like how good UI and good UX are invisible. Good IA too. Until they are horrible and then they are noticed. Okay, that's a digression.

The remainder of the chapter 7 content that we covered were all from the textbook.

We restarted on page 175, the page with the dialogue of a presentation. We practised that, and also shared something we wrote from the homework, which was an exercise on that page.

There were listening exercises too and then another dialogue about going somewhere, and talking about the weather. I picked Paris because... well, I had no idea how to say any city in Switzerland or even Switzerland in Korean (this is rectified; I've checked and added a few to the vocab list).

Culture Note

The culture note discusses food eaten in summer and winter. Unfortunately I live in the tropics so what is winter? The weather is always hot.

The food items introduced included 팥빙수 (patbingsu), which is red bean shaved ice. 팥 means "red bean" and 빙수 means "shaved ice". Naturally, this is eaten in the summer.

Other varieties of shaved ice exist, such as 딸기빙수 (strawberry shaved ice) and 망고빙수 (mango shaved ice).

It's somewhat similar to the ice kachang dessert here in that they are also shaved ice... though I guess the Taiwanese shaved ice desserts would be even more similar.

Then there is 찐빵 (jjinppang, steamed bread), very similar to the local 包 (bāo), but traditionally this only has red bean paste filling. The local 包 usually... well, for me, I like the meat ones. This is hot food eaten in the winters.

The third item is also eaten in the winter, and it's 봉어빵 (bungeo-ppang, "carp bread"). This is also filled with red bean paste. When I saw the picture, the first thing it reminded me of was taiyaki ("baked sea bream"). Yes, it turns out that bungeo-ppang was derived from taiyaki, and the type of fish it was modelled after changed... though... I have to admit I'd not looked closely at the type of fish before this.

There is also of course 삼계탕 (samgye-tang), the famous ginseng chicken soup.

I say famous because this is the one thing that I know every Korean tour I've been on (two, the last one being... something like in 2009), we ate this thing and I still remember it. I have to confess that I never knew the Korean name, and thus on Memrise, never made the connection. Memrise's Korean course has this word, but the English "translation" is "samgyetang" which is completely unhelpful.

This is eaten on extremely hot summer days, although the soup is hot, because it is a way to "fight fire with fire" (이열치열, from 以熱治熱). Though, I realise the Chinese expression I am familiar with is 以毒攻毒, to "fight poison with poison". But at the same time, I think the heat aspect isn't too unfamiliar, I think it refers to "heaty" foods (fried foods are an example, and I think ginseng too). Something to do with yin and yang, heaty and cooling foods, which I don't really get too, but basically there's this concept that you shouldn't eat too much heaty foods or you'd get sick... not that I really know what is considered heaty or not. Usually it's something my mother says and I... uh, conveniently forget.

Naturally, there is also 이냉치냉 (以冷治冷), though this is not as common as the "hot" variant. So on really cold winter days, they eat 냉면 (cold noodles).

Pronunciation

The pronunciation rule for chapter 7 lays out what we have already seen in:

1. Lesson 23 on the numbers
2. Lesson 29 with formal speech

Lesson 23:

십만 [심만] ... softening the sound when the previous end consonant meets the ㅁ (m) of the next syllable

Lesson 29:

The ㅂ sound is softened to [ㅁ] because of the ㄴ sound that follows. It is [슴니다] and not [습니다]. And it's [함니다] not [합니다].

The rule states that when the final consonant sound [ㅂ] is followed by a syllable that begins with ㄴ or ㅁ, then [ㅂ] is prounounced as [ㅁ].

Examples:

1. 입니다 [임니다]
2. 배웁니다 [배움니다]
3. 십만 [심만]

Vocabulary

This section includes vocabulary for both chapter 7 (new things that came up in the lesson today) and chapter 8.