Lesson 60 (Beginner 4A Lesson 4): While writing this post...

In this lesson, we finished Chapter 16. I was actually surprised by the speed at which the teacher went through the lesson at the end. When I joined the class, the teacher was having the make-up session with the 2 newest students which did not attend last week. Usually, the make-up session is 30 minutes long and it's before the usual lesson time, but that was when classes were still in person... maybe the other students who missed class just never wanted to take up this offer after we transitioned to online classes.

There was a short review, and we had to each say a sentence of somewhere we went and why (grammar 3 from last week).

Then, we dived right in to the last grammar point for this chapter, which is another 으 grammar. Before the teacher pointed it out, I had not realised all the grammar that we covered for this chapter were all 으 grammar.

Then, we went to the textbook. We started with grammar point 3 (on p. 181 and not numbered as such in the textbook) and then did grammar point 4 as well (on p. 182). We did the activity as well, which took some time.

It was a game of charades of sorts. There were 6 of us in the class, so we were divided into groups of 3. We were sent into breakout rooms. One person was to do the expression and the other 2 were supposed to guess, so we were supposed to decide who was going to do what. At the point it wasn't clear how many sentences we had to do, and we had thought the person doing the expression had to come up with the sentences.

When we got back to the main room, the 2 people who were going to do the expression did a game of rock-paper-scissors, and the winner (not my team) got to decide whether they wanted to go first or later, and they chose later.

So basically the expresser in each team gets 4 sentences all based on the grammar (V-(으)면서, the 4th grammar point) and they had to act it out as best as they could. The teacher also sent the 4 sentences to the opposing team members so they could see what was going on.

There was also an overall timer, so once the expresser is sent the 4 sentences, the timer starts.

In the end, the other team won. It was not too bad given that not every person had to act. I would have hated that.

Then, we did the listening, culture note, and pronunciation. Reading and writing were left for homework. We were running late so we didn't do the self-check.

And at the end... surprise! There is a test in 2 weeks. Next week is the revision lesson, and the following week is the test.

The test will cover Chapters 14-16. That's right, only 3 chapters. So it turns out my guess last year that the next test would only be in February is wrong, because it was based on the wrong assumption that the test would cover at least 4 to 5 chapters.

So if I had to refine my criteria for determining tests, the tests can span chapters across books, but only books that are of the same level. Hard to believe but... the next term after the test means that we're moving on to intermediate level.

When the teacher mentioned that next week would be a revision lesson, I was confused since I knew I did not receive any revision notes or test papers. It turns out that we were to pay for the next term this week, and the revision notes would be sent along with the new textbook.

Now, this term, instead of being 7 lessons, has shrunk to 6. The next term now starts on what was previously the 7th lesson of this term. Because of that, next term we have the balance of 1 class and so the cost of 1 lesson is taken off the total. It's actually pretty similar to what happened last time, except it's being represented somewhat differently.

Grammar

4. V-(으)면서

This is used to express two actions that occur at the same time or period. The actions are performed by the same subject.

Conjugation:

• 받침 O + -으면서
  • Examples: 먹으면서 (먹다), 읽으면서 (읽다), ...
• 받침 X, ㄹ + -면서
  • Examples: 운동하면서 (운동하다), 만들면서 (만들다), ...

Examples:

1. 밥을 먹으면서 텔레비전을 봐요. (I watch television while eating.)
2. 운전화면서 전화하지 마세요. (Don't talk on the phone while you are driving.)
3. 언니가 케이크를 만들면서 노래해요. (My elder sister sings while making a cake.)

Usage Notes

1. The subject of both clauses must be the same. If the subjects of both clauses are different, a different grammar is used: -는 동안.
   • 동생이 텔레비전을 보는 동안 제가 책을 읽었어요. (O)
   • My younger sibling was watching television while I read a book.
2. Tense is not added to the verb preceding '-(으)면서'.
   • 어제 줄리양 씨는 노래를 했으면서 기타를 쳤어요. (X)
   • 어제 줄리양 씨는 노래를 하면서 기타를 쳤어요. (O)
   • Yesterday, Julian sang while he played the guitar.

Culture Note

The culture note was about housewarming gifts in Korea.

After a person moves in, two common gifts in Korea are toilet paper and laundry detergent.

In the case of toilet paper, that is because the action of unrolling the toilet paper is called 풀다. This verb also has another meaning, which is "to solve". So, giving a person toilet paper is wishing that they would be able to solve all their problems as easily as they unroll and use the toilet paper.

If this is too "cheap" a gift (especially for the younger generation), then they might gift something else in addition to the paper.

In the case of laundry detergent, it's that it produces a lot of bubbles. And that translates to wishing that they would become rich (become 부자, 부자 되다), as in, their wealth "bubbles over".

Pronunciation

The pronunciation rule for this chapter makes explicit the rule that we have seen as early as when we learnt the future tense, and then again for the first 2 grammar points in this chapter. (Though I didn't point out the pronunciation in the last post due to laziness more than anything.)

When you have '-을/ㄹ' (i.e. any ㄹ grammar) followed by the initial consonants 'ㄱ, ㅅ', then 'ㄱ, ㅅ' are pronounced as their respective double consonant counterparts [ㄲ, ㅆ].

Examples:

1. 갈 거예요 [갈꺼에요]¹
2. 할 수 있어요 [할쑤이써요]
3. 먹을게요 [머글께요]

Vocabulary