Tuesday and Thursday's with Yunjin

This past Thursday I met with a language exchange friend. I was looking online to find some way of learning Korean from a human instead of on the computer and I found a posting on craigslist for a language exchange friend. They were looking to learn English and in return teach Korean, so I emailed them and had a couple emails back and forth of basic introductions and setting up were and when to meet. I found out that she actually lives in the same area as me which is convenient for meeting.

Well Thursday came around and I met up with her at the subway station and went into a starbucks to sit and talk. Her English was very good for never actually being taught the language, she said she learned by just watching American television shows. I am always surprised by this phenomenon, when I was in Sweden everyone I spoke with learned English the same way and it was perfect with no accent. Well Yunjin has an accent and her English isnt as good as the Swedes but was still good enough to hold a conversation. She was nervous in the beginning and would laugh and look away a bunch but as we continued to talk she loosened up. She told me that I was a good look man with a nice smile and that I could be on TV. She likes movies and TV shows a bunch so I told her that I like to produce films and she was impressed and said I was the only person she has every met that has done that. Another first I found out was that I am the first Jew she has ever met. She didnt know much about Judaism so she said she would look it up on the internet but what was funny is that she knows of Israel but didn't know that it was a country of Jews.

Well after discussion ourselves, family, travel and our interests we started to get into what it is we want to get out of the exchange. I told her that I would like to refine my ability to read Hangul and then to start building a vocabulary of words that are practical to my life. I will be bringing flash cards next time with words and phrases with English on one side and she will write the Korean on the other so I can study them. She will also be explaining me the more technical side of Korean as to the grammar and when/why you use certain words instead of others for the same thing. As for her, she wants to work on her speaking as she doesn't use English at all so I will be talking with her on various subjects and correcting her during the conversation. She just mostly needs someone to practice her English with so she said she would bring a topic of conversation every time and we will just sit and discuss the topic and our opinions on it, easy enough for me.

So for now every Tuesday and Thursday I will be meeting Yunjin for a language exchange at noon for a couple hours before work. It hopefully will be a nice way of learning the language and I also get to make another local friend which is always enjoyable.