It's kind of worrying that the last time I wrote a blog post, it was christmas. last year.
It's not christmas 2015 anymore.
In fact it's not 2015 anymore either.
So happy new year?
I'm sorry *inserts slo-mo gif of me being crushed by the burden of studying and the Indian education system so that you forgive my complete absence*
Anyway, so I want to jump in and a give a quick update, before I go into other things:
So you know how I was very passionate about becoming a surgeon? I was completely set on the idea of going to medical college. However, recently, this entire idea kind of changed.
I am still very interested in biology and find human health and diseases fascinating. But not fascinating enough to make it my profession. I feel like treating real people and having a 24 hr job is not really my cup of chai (tea). And the medical field, barring the occasional excitement, doesn't altogether sound that exciting anymore? I don't know why this change took place in me, but now I am focusing on research more than medicine. I don't know what kind of research, but most probably in some field of biology. I love knowing one particular thing in a great deal of detail and knowing everything there is to know about a particular thing, so research is right up my lane.
I love the idea of becoming an experimental researcher and working in a lab. I know that life is not going to be some sort of dream with new things to discover and insane scientific breakthroughs everyday, but I feel that it will probably be more suited to how I like to live and my interests. By that I mean that I'll get a lot more time to do the things I like, outside of science, like music, dance, language studies, reading, writing, art blah blah blah
Okay! So that's that haha
Now other cooler things.................. ;)
I got a lot more into kpop!
Before, I was a lowkey fan, listening to some songs here and there, not really caring that much about the band members and more focused on just exploring a different type of music.
But I began watching a few interviews around mid last year, and next thing you know, I'm a HIGH KEY FAN. Okay no haha not saesang or anything :D
But I really like certain groups about whom I'll gush later :p
I had always liked how the Korean language sounded. I liked the speed of speech (sometimes a bit overwhelmingly fast) and I liked the few Korean words I knew at the time. I had also read that the Korean language was one of the most well-structured languages with a completely phonetic script (which I also liked the look of :p)
So I decided to give learning a bit. Just some basic conversational stuff and some other kpop-related words to start with.
I started off learning how to read Korean and believe it or not, I managed to pick it up in 2 days.
DISCLAIMER: This is not me boasting about my fantastic skills at language, but in fact marveling at the logical and beautifully crafted Korean script. It seriously so much fun
Obviously, at the start I was reading very slowly and sounding out words like a one-year-old. But as time passed I learned more words and grammar points and became a lot faster at reading with practice.
Now I don't know how but I managed to pick up quite a lot of Korean and now can understand quite a bit! I sometimes even turn the subtitles off on some interview videos and stuff and listen hard and often understand the context of what they're saying! It's so exciting! I love learning this language so much it makes me want to explode :D
I wish I could devote more time to it (I can only give a bit of time per week because of all the study pressure) because I feel like with more time, I could get a hang of it!
And when it comes to pronunciation and speaking, it's actually not that hard for me because I already speak two Indian languages (Hindi and Bengali) and am used to a lot of the consonant and vowel sounds in Korean (and with correct enunciation, "reul" will come eventually too hehe). Knowing Hindi is especially helpful as it has a very wide range of sounds and has a similar grammatical sentence structure to Korean. So when I try forming correct sentences in Korean, sometimes I think of it in Hindi first :D
It would be very wrong of me to not credit the people who are helping me study Korean and that's Talk To Me In Korean.com !! (I love them so much)
They post videos on YouTube and have a site with pdfs and so many other helpful things. They also have a store where one can purchase text books but unfortunately, I haven't been able to buy anything as of now... Maybe some day :)
I know that actually being fluent in a language while learning from the internet is virtually impossible, but I believe that by listening and practicing a lot, I can get faster at it and improve my vocabulary.
I'm really proud of the progress that I've made in the short time I've been learning and I hope that when I go to Korea on vacation (after entrance exam season next year, I am going FOR SURE), I will be a lot better at conversation and comprehension.
I'm super excited about my language journey and once I'm out of this competitive-exam whirlpool, I'll definitely spend a lot of time on language-learning.
Oh heck I've babbled a lot today... :)
Okay, I have to go now
But before I go I'll give a picture-hint of the topic of next time's blog post....
Alvida,
Annyeong,
Squish.
It's not christmas 2015 anymore.
In fact it's not 2015 anymore either.
So happy new year?
I'm sorry *inserts slo-mo gif of me being crushed by the burden of studying and the Indian education system so that you forgive my complete absence*
Anyway, so I want to jump in and a give a quick update, before I go into other things:
So you know how I was very passionate about becoming a surgeon? I was completely set on the idea of going to medical college. However, recently, this entire idea kind of changed.
I am still very interested in biology and find human health and diseases fascinating. But not fascinating enough to make it my profession. I feel like treating real people and having a 24 hr job is not really my cup of chai (tea). And the medical field, barring the occasional excitement, doesn't altogether sound that exciting anymore? I don't know why this change took place in me, but now I am focusing on research more than medicine. I don't know what kind of research, but most probably in some field of biology. I love knowing one particular thing in a great deal of detail and knowing everything there is to know about a particular thing, so research is right up my lane.
I love the idea of becoming an experimental researcher and working in a lab. I know that life is not going to be some sort of dream with new things to discover and insane scientific breakthroughs everyday, but I feel that it will probably be more suited to how I like to live and my interests. By that I mean that I'll get a lot more time to do the things I like, outside of science, like music, dance, language studies, reading, writing, art blah blah blah
Okay! So that's that haha
Now other cooler things.................. ;)
I got a lot more into kpop!
Before, I was a lowkey fan, listening to some songs here and there, not really caring that much about the band members and more focused on just exploring a different type of music.
But I began watching a few interviews around mid last year, and next thing you know, I'm a HIGH KEY FAN. Okay no haha not saesang or anything :D
But I really like certain groups about whom I'll gush later :p
I had always liked how the Korean language sounded. I liked the speed of speech (sometimes a bit overwhelmingly fast) and I liked the few Korean words I knew at the time. I had also read that the Korean language was one of the most well-structured languages with a completely phonetic script (which I also liked the look of :p)
So I decided to give learning a bit. Just some basic conversational stuff and some other kpop-related words to start with.
I started off learning how to read Korean and believe it or not, I managed to pick it up in 2 days.
DISCLAIMER: This is not me boasting about my fantastic skills at language, but in fact marveling at the logical and beautifully crafted Korean script. It seriously so much fun
Obviously, at the start I was reading very slowly and sounding out words like a one-year-old. But as time passed I learned more words and grammar points and became a lot faster at reading with practice.
Now I don't know how but I managed to pick up quite a lot of Korean and now can understand quite a bit! I sometimes even turn the subtitles off on some interview videos and stuff and listen hard and often understand the context of what they're saying! It's so exciting! I love learning this language so much it makes me want to explode :D
I wish I could devote more time to it (I can only give a bit of time per week because of all the study pressure) because I feel like with more time, I could get a hang of it!
And when it comes to pronunciation and speaking, it's actually not that hard for me because I already speak two Indian languages (Hindi and Bengali) and am used to a lot of the consonant and vowel sounds in Korean (and with correct enunciation, "reul" will come eventually too hehe). Knowing Hindi is especially helpful as it has a very wide range of sounds and has a similar grammatical sentence structure to Korean. So when I try forming correct sentences in Korean, sometimes I think of it in Hindi first :D
It would be very wrong of me to not credit the people who are helping me study Korean and that's Talk To Me In Korean.com !! (I love them so much)
They post videos on YouTube and have a site with pdfs and so many other helpful things. They also have a store where one can purchase text books but unfortunately, I haven't been able to buy anything as of now... Maybe some day :)
I know that actually being fluent in a language while learning from the internet is virtually impossible, but I believe that by listening and practicing a lot, I can get faster at it and improve my vocabulary.
I'm really proud of the progress that I've made in the short time I've been learning and I hope that when I go to Korea on vacation (after entrance exam season next year, I am going FOR SURE), I will be a lot better at conversation and comprehension.
I'm super excited about my language journey and once I'm out of this competitive-exam whirlpool, I'll definitely spend a lot of time on language-learning.
Oh heck I've babbled a lot today... :)
Okay, I have to go now
But before I go I'll give a picture-hint of the topic of next time's blog post....
Alvida,
Annyeong,
Squish.
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