Ahhh, Shinsege....bustling with Korean hipsters thousands and thousands of them. It is literally an army of bound and ready consumers that just flock to these places and shop. For a second I thought I was back in Okinawa participating in Tsunahiki (a giant Japanese tug-of-war event) except I was just crossing the traffic light. Armed with an arsenal of broken Korean and a little can do attitude, my mission was simple: to infiltrate Kyobo Bookstore and find me some JLPT prep books and some Korean books for foreigners.
While the book "Korean for Foreigners" was a good book, I could not help but notice the title. There was "Korean for Japanese", "Korean for Chinese", and then there was "Korean for Foreigners". I must say that this book is grammar heavy, yet effective. However, I am at odds with the title. Why are Japanese and Chinese people are being acknowledged in English "for Japanese and for Chinese" but English speaking people are known as "for Foreigners"? I think the Japanese company 3A had the right idea and gave themselves a place neutral title. "Minna no Nihongo" (Japanese for Everyone) because frankly even Japanese people can learn grammar from this book. I notice one thing about the book market in Korea. Cram books are popular. They had the HSK, TOPIK, Tofel, Toeic, JLPT, JPT, SAT, MCAT, and books on how to get into Ivy League schools. (No really! They did!)
So your probably wonder as to how Japanese got me out of a jam. Turns out, my Japanese is very useful in Korea. There are quite a few Japanese speaking Koreans over here in Korea with a even higher proficiency than me in Japanese. I had to say and they were the best thing since sliced Kimchi at the moment. I honest had a hard time finding a decent Korean learning textbook. There was one in my place that is ok. Complete Korean is reading heavy. I just wanted something a little more grammar heavy to get over the hurdle of difficulty I was having in learning by myself. Right now, I am not in a school, but I am learning Korean and more Japanese on my own. The hard thing with learning on your own is checking grammar. For me, it is basically trial and error. If my co-workers says my grammar stinks like moldy kimchi than it is back to the drawing board. Each day is getting a little easier on me and it has been a interesting learning experience studying a language without much help from an institution. I am thinking about taking classes due to grammar in Korean being a little harder than Japanese, but I will see how far I progress on my own first. I feel I am able to handle a basic 15 second conversation which is a start. I can say hello, say I like something, order food and apologize. I think those are fairly important skills. Slowly I think Korean will overtake my Spanish and Chinese. I am starting to feel like I know more Korean than Spanish, but I know right now that isn't true. It probably will not catch up to my English and Japanese, but there's no telling what the future holds. My Korean did not get me out of the Kyobo bookstore dilemma, my Japanese did! I was wondering around the Japanese sections and I struck a conversation up in Japanese because I was honestly lost and did not know where the foreigner's section was. I had some help choosing my book and then that person left. I was still looking for a certain Japanese book series, but I could not find it. While I was recommending books for this one person (because I was under the impression that person was just starting Japanese) it turns out she took the 1kyuu of the JLPT. So after shooting the breeze with her, I convinced her into helping me look for a Japanese book series known as Nihongosou-matome (日本語総まとめ）. I finally struck gold and find the books I wanted. They were in Japan and Kyobo had to special order them for me to be able to have them in Korea, but the delivery price was dirt cheap compared to America! I paid roughly $20 total for both books. Wow, I thoroughly convinced that Korea has the one up on America when it comes to studying a foreign language. This person took the 1kyuu without ever having stepped foot in Japan. It was honestly super rare to come across such a phenomena! Then again I think Korea's JLPT passing rate was about 47% for the JLPT N1. I have to look at the new results. Tomorrow is a new day. I will hang out with my boss at 11am.
Wow, I have to say thanks to all the people that have put up with my absurd Japanese grammar over the years. Japanese really saved me.
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