Being born and raised in Wales, different languages have always been present in my day to day life.
That sounds a lot more exotic than it actually is! Everyone in Wales is required to learn Welsh until he/she finishes school, so basically, I always had to study that in addition to the standard French and German lessons most British pupils are required to attend. And then, not to mention the millions of pounds the government spends on road signs in both Welsh and English that can be seen throughout the country (the second most common thing in Wales, with sheep being the first).
However, it wasn’t until I moved to Thailand where I started to really enjoy learning a language that I thought about seriously trying to becoming fluent in one. I could understand these weird tonal noises (Thai)- ‘How incredible is that?’ I thought.
I still am not fluent in any language apart from English (and many may question that). So now, a few weeks before I head to South Korea, I have thrown myself into learning Korean, like a 25-year-old virgin throws himself into a brothel. More specifically I have started learning their alphabet: Hangul. I am determined to study these alien symbols and learn to construct sentences using them. I am studying using the following book, which you can buy from Amazon:
I have already mastered using a few vowels and consonants, and I just learned my first word:
(Hangul)
Ill keep you updated on how it goes.
tefltravelling 
There’s a great infographic on the Hangul symbols, it isn’t 100% accurate though. Nonetheless it’s a good jumping off point. You can find it with a quick search of hangul+infographic
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Cheers mate, Ill check it out.
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I totally LOL’ed at the brothel part.
Anyway, awww when I realized that you were teaching abroad, I was hoping to read more entries. Hope that we get to see more soon 🙂 I’m hoping to teach in Korea in the New Year…but not getting the results with recruiters at the moment >_< But here's hoping.
Good luck with learning Korean
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Yes, ill be backdating my 18 months teaching in Thailand. I advise being felxible with locations and age range, more job opportunities will open up for you! Good luck to you!
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Backdating? Great 🙂 Can’t wait to read your posts
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Reblogged this on So, You Think You Can Teach ESL?.
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All the best on learning korean…love the virgin analogy…
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I’m Korean and I think Korean language can be pretty confusing as you speak it. haha
Good luck on your adventure! 😀
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What city will you be in?
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Im in Dongtan
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Liam,
Glad you enjoyed the fluencyTIP. I’ve enjoyed your posts as well.
FYI, you might want to start your own Amazon affiliate store. That way when you recommend a book, you can include a TEXT link that goes directly to the item on your store.
You won’t get rich, but over time you could build some passive income that might come in handy someday.
Best you not accept this post for publication. Just read and delete.
Good luck in Korea!
LJ Stevens
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Thanks for the advice, I will definitely start doing that. All the best & thanks again!
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What a great challenge!
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Thanks
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Hi Liam!
I just love your blog! I most especially love the way you share your experiences and the tips you provide to help teachers abroad. We just started a blog for our website which we hope will also help teachers who want to teach overseas and are already teaching in a different country. I believe our teachers would love your blog with all the fun information and I know that your audience may also find our content useful. As such, I was wondering if we could collaborate with you by featuring one of your articles with links to our site and vice versa?
I was also wondering if you do sponsored posts, because we are looking for an excellent teacher blogger who could write for us about the use of video profiles, highlighting our video questionnaires that we have our teachers complete for their profiles, as we are determined on promoting transparency through video profiles for our teachers and schools. If you’re interested please let me know and let’s discuss the details. You can email me – valerie@truthteacherservices.com
Thanks!
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Thank you very much, I will email you soon.
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Korean language is so difficult! I studied it for a few months since I’ve been here and the sentence structure has always been a bit of a challenge for me to get used to; along with understanding which (and when to) subject markers to use. These days, I can read anything (like a first grader), but I usually have no idea what I’m reading. I feel like I’ve learned a lot, but not nearly as quickly as I would have liked! 🙂
Happy studying to you! Learning a language is so rewarding – that is, when you want to learn it!
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Thanks! It sounds like you have done quite well!
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