A few things to check out

I'd love to sit down and write out a nice long post. But the entire household is asleep (including the dog) and I'm savoring this little bit of quiet time!

Wanted to share these adoption related things that I've run across. Thought some of you might find them interesting.

Adoptionland: From Orphans to Activists
This Kindle e-book is available right now on Amazon for free. It's normally $9.99. I'm an Amazon Prime member so I'm not sure if it's free to everyone right now, or how long this will be available.

Ever wondered what it’s like to be adopted? This anthology begins with personal accounts and then shifts to a bird’s eye view on adoption from domestic, intercountry and transracial adoptees who are now adoptee rights activists. Along with adopted people, this collection also includes the voices of mothers and a father from the Baby Scoop Era, a modern-day mother who almost lost her child to adoption, and ends with the experience of an adoption investigator from Against Child Trafficking. These stories are usually abandoned by the very industry that professes to work for the “best interest of children,” “child protection,” and for families. However, according to adopted people who were scattered across nations as children, these represent typical human rights issues that have been ignored for too long. For many years, adopted people have just dealt with such matters alone, not knowing that all of us—as a community—have a great deal in common. 

I read through a bit of it. It's likely going to be uncomfortable reading for many adoptive parents as many contributors to the book do not have a favorable view of adoption. However, I do believe their concerns are important to hear and understand, and in many cases completely valid.

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Finding Seoul - Trailer from John Sanvidge on Vimeo.

"Finding Seoul" was released recently. Prices are reduced this weekend, with a "rental" at $2.99, and purchase/download of the video for $7.99. Here's how the movie is described on the Finding Seoul website:

Finding Seoul follows one individual as he attempts to find his birth parents. John Sanvidge was raised in upstate New York and brought up in an Irish and Italian household with his two siblings, who are also adopted. During his journey, he visits with his adoptive family to help them understand why he’s made the decision to look now and travels to Seoul, South Korea all in an attempt to reconnect with a world he doesn't understand.

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We are loving these Korean-English books we found on Amazon! They have a ton of different varieties like sports, jobs, numbers, vegetables, etc. Super fun for us all to read and learn with!

The quantities are limited right now, but they say they will restock soon.

Here's a link to the search.



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For Milwaukee area adoptive families, you might want to check out these classes at UW-Milwaukee this summer! Korean language and culture classes for 6-8th graders and 9-12th grade students.

http://www4.uwm.edu/sce/course.cfm?id=28217



Happy weekend!!

Helping children learn Korean

We are plugging along on our Korean language here. I'm in my second semester of Korean at the local university. It was really easy to learn to read. And from there, super easy to memorize lots of words (animals, colors, things, etc.). But after that, putting together sentences....not so easy!

Little Man, however, is soaking up things at the rate of a dry sponge in a pool. I can't believe how fast he memorizes words. He's constantly asking me how to say things in Korean and keeping me on my toes!

Our recent Korea trip reaffirmed my belief that it's really important to help our children learn to speak Korean. Little Man's foster family was overjoyed that he was learning Korean, and people were delighted when he said please, thank you or good-bye in his native tongue. He has many more words than that, but he's a bit shy about talking to strangers.

I found this great blog where another family is working bringing more language into their home as well, and she had a great idea of using Korean words in familiar texts. Eric Carle books are among Little Man's favorites and this blogger has replaced words he knows with the Korean translations. Awesome!

Be sure to check it out and download the free .pdf to get started on your books!

http://keeperofthepark.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/korean-school-resources/

Things to be thankful for

© Cheese Curds and Kimchi

Well, we had some tough competition. I mean, a pumpkin turkey can only have so many feathers, right? But I'm happy to say, we made it into Little Man's Top 4 Things To Be Thankful For!!

#4: "Stars in the sky"
Can I tell you how much I love this? I just adore how observant he is and each day he excitedly points out the stars in the sky as we drive home from daycare (the only redeeming thing about daylight savings time as far as I'm concerned, is that he actually gets to see the night sky before he goes to bed). He knows the Korean word for stars (pronounced pee-yol) and moon (tal) so we have fun practicing our Korean too.

#3: "Mommy and Daddy"
Well, I'm glad he's thankful for us. And his standards are pretty high. I thought maybe the teachers added in this for all kids, but noooo. I took a peek at the other pumpkin turkeys and there are a lot of parents who didn't rank. Way to go, kid! We are thankful for you too. :)

#2: "Stickers"
He's obsessed with stickers. And he likes to share them. Every morning before he leaves for daycare, he puts one on both The Man and I. Usually we get rainbow stickers. And he checks to make sure we are still wearing them when we get home.

But one of the sweetest things he does is to take a sheet of stickers with him to school. He marches into class and pins them on his teachers. And then, a group of kids surround him and he carefully places a sticker on each of them. As new kids arrive, he excitedly runs up to them and offers them a sticker too. I love this part of his personality. He's getting more confident! It's also hysterical because some kids will be bratty (I wanted THAT one) and he's completely non phased. He just moves on. Or if they want more, he calmly points out that they already have one. Love his leadership skills!

And topping the list at #1: "Rainbows"
Yep, our boy is most thankful for rainbows. And who wouldn't be? They are super cool! Now...he just needs to see one in real life. :)

I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone what Mommy and Daddy are thankful for. A great kid who makes us laugh (and cry) daily. Knowing our sweet Little Brother is being well cared for and counting down the days until we can bring him home. Great family, although far away, who support us through our trials in parenthood and in every aspect of our lives. Amazing friends both near and far who make our lives rich. And our amazing and wonderful Tropical Pug. Life is good!

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving to you all!

Happy Hangul Day! Learn Korean!

© Cheese Curds and Kimchi

Today is a national holiday in Korea, celebrating Hangul, the language that brought literacy to the masses. (Go HERE to read a previous post about the history of Hangul.)

Here's a few highlights about Hangul:

• Koreans refer to their language as Hangugeo.
• Hangul was developed by King Sejong in 1446 and is the only written alphabet known to be developed by a single person. Korea is also the only known country to have a holiday to celebrate the creation of it's writing system.
• Hangul characters can be written left to right, or top to bottom.
• The written letters of the alphabet are based off of the mouth and tongue positions used to create the sounds of the letters.

{Image from Visit Korea website}

Cool huh? So today is the perfect time to share our efforts to learn to read/speak Korean in our house. As you know, this is a major part of Operation Adoption Process Survival as we wait for Little Brother.

On Saturday mornings we attend language and culture classes at a large Korean church about 35-minutes from our home. Most of the children who attend these classes are second generation Korean Americans. This year the school opened up a class for adoptive families too!

There are three families in our class and the teacher is no dummy...she has parents attend the class with the kids (as opposed to the traditional Korean families who don't attend with their children) to try and keep those restless three-year-olds wrangled. At this stage, it's important to teach the grown ups so that we can reinforce what the kids learned during the week.

My overachieving nature wants Little Man to pay attention during the entire class, but I realize this is just a ridiculous expectation. I remind myself often that the goal is for Little Man to get used to hearing Korean language and for us to learn what we can to help Little Brother's transition when he arrives. It often seems that Little Man isn't paying attention at all and then he'll shock us when he pipes up and says something in Korean. Really amazing and wonderful!

© Cheese Curds and Kimchi

We have made books with letters of the Korean alphabet and words that start with each letter. I also write in the phonetic pronunciations of the words so we can learn to say them.

The books are especially great during the week and we like to read them before bedtime. Teacher also records words and common phrases for us weekly, and we play the recordings at home or in the car. Little Man really likes that and I hear him repeating the words sometimes. She also has other fun class activities like tossing bean bags while counting in Korean, or Little Man's favorite...asking for and learning to receive kwaja (cookies).

We also learn a lot of cultural things in our class such as how to bow, history and traditions.

We try to use as much of our new language at home so that we can reinforce what we learned and it becomes a regular part of our speech. He regularly says please and thank you (unprompted), hello, and even insisted on counting in Korean. Fun.

Side note: When we were packing up Little Brother's care package we included a phone that could record a message. When I asked Little Man what we should say to Little Brother, he shouted out "Anyonghasseo!" which means "Hello". And so that's exactly what we did. Melt my heart!!

On the adult front, the local university finally offered Korean 1 classes again. Yippee!

First thing I learned is my brain is NOT as supple as it used to be. Holy smokes! Learning the words has been fairly easy, but learning the written language has been darned tough for my aged and sleep deprived brain to absorb.

The class is once a week, for 2/12 hours. There's a good chuck of homework so it's been a bit of a challenge, but oh, so worth it. Lots of fun! If you are interested in learning to speak Korean, I strongly recommend taking classes if at all possible. I have plenty of learning resources, but there are so many subtle pronunciations and sounds that are difficult to decipher which makes learning online or self-teaching incredibly hard (if not impossible). These subtle difference in pronunciations would make the difference between saying it's raining ('pee' with a soft 'p' sound) or blooding ('pee' with a hard 'P' sound).

Yikes. Massive room for error there. I predict many giggles from native speakers as I try to communicate.

Ready to get Hangul in your house?? 

HERE is a link to another great site for learning Korean and to get a good overview of the language.

CLICK HERE for a compilation of great resources for learning Korean that we have blogged about.

And you can meander on over to the left-side rail of this blog under the 'Korea-related links' to find more useful learning sites.

Learning Korean at LP's Korean Language Learning

Another language site for you Korean language buffs. I'm feeling better about my lack of knowledge by passing on these sites to you. Hopefully one day I'll be using them myself!

This site is Learn Korean: LP's Korean Language Learning. This site is pretty basic, but what's nice is there are audio clips to play which help guide you through the lesson. It's also very organized and has some great language guides.

My favorite part of the site though, is the music section titled "learn Korean with music". There are several videos (which play on the page) and have lyrics/concepts in the song broken out with definitions translations. The author's theory is to see if hearing the music helps learners develop listening skills. Great idea!

What do you think?

Learn to speak Korean at Korean Class

Just stumbled across a Korean language site that might be helpful for those of you studying!

I haven't really picked up much any Korean at all. I learned most of my Spanish from books and self-study, but I don't seem to be able to do the same with the Korean language. But to be honest, I haven't sat down and really put a ton of time into it.

I know a few handful of words/phrases that we learned before Little Man came home, and since then just added some words learned by listening to Little Man's Korean baby books. (You know those kind of books where you push the button to hear the word for pig, cow, etc?) But the words on his book are sort of obscure...I doubting there will be much of a need to say things like 'rainbow' or 'butterfly' in everyday conversation.

Any tips on learning Korean out there?

Here's the site. Let me know if anyone finds it helpful!

http://koreangirlinsg.com/category/korean-class-everyday-korean

Friday Flotsam: 8.3.2012

Made this picture of a tip jar at the State Fair. The girls definitely had a sense of humor.

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"No. Bite. Nana. Gus."

Little Man's first four-word sentence last week as he was eating a banana and wanted to tell our dog Gus that he wasn't going to get a bite. (LM is quite bossy with Gus and quite particular about who he shares banana with.)

It's so fun to see his language skills developing. Actually, it's one of the most entertaining things about this stage for me. In the middle of tantrums, indecision and his constant insistence in doing everything himself, when he uses a new word it always makes me smile.

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Great news for several of our Korean adoptive parents who recently received referrals. (Hooray for Dana and Elizabeth!) And plenty of other folks who received travel news. So happy to see things moving again on the Korean adoption front!

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Found THIS awesome tutorial and plans for making a see saw for around $30. Thinking The Man has a new project...my contribution will be riding on it!

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Because I believe all things are connected and I have an affinity for silver rings, totally lusting after THIS right now. They also do custom name rings for all you mamas out there.

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Great piece on teaching your children to be problem solvers in this post Evergreen "answers" to your kids' questions at Parent Hacks. Think I'm going to apply some of these techniques to the adults I know who seem to be independently challenged....

Korean picture book with English translations

{image credit}

Just found these Korean picture book printables at Koko Living. You can print the pages and if you can read Hangul, learn the words for the pictures.

 However, for those not up to speed in Hangul, the lovely ladies at Koko Living have also converted the words to phonetic English translations!

We are going to print these out and laminate them. Now we can learn some of the Korean words right along with Little Man.

Thanks, Koko Living!

Word Wednesday: Korean alphabet audio chart

Flashback! Remember Word Wednesdays?? That was back when I had lots of time on my hands. Lol.

{image from here]

Came across this dandy chart Korean alphabet chart via The Korean Way blog and wanted to share it. It's an audio chart with the consonants and vowels and their combinations. Every letter and combination of vowel/consonant is pronounced clearly and slowly by a real person. Yay!

I've tried, half-heartedly, to learn the alphabet. I always use the excuse that I can't figure out what sounds to make for the letters and it's hard to hear the subtle differences on a lot of learning program..

I guess I'm out of excuses now.

(http://kr.infant.kids.yahoo.com/infantzone/index_pop.html?service=hangeul&mode=popup_viewer&contents_list=6545)

KWOW-Super fun videos to learn Korean

Have you seen KWOW? It's the Korean Word of the Day videos and I love them.

Love. Them.

Simple. Fun. Well produced. And they make me smile.

It reminds me of Word Wednesdays, which I'm too lazy to do anymore. So now I just watch KWOW.

Here a few of my favorites.



Brother and Sister in Korean



Thank You in Korean



Yes and No in Korean



Links to all episodes:

Love               
Really
OMG/oh dear
Brother/sister   
Hello and Good-bye
Sorry
Thank you
Yes and No
Okay
Pretty
Please

Baby games

Thanks to Yvonne for tipping me off that Little Man's head shaking might be a game!

I hightailed to YouTube (what did we ever do without YouTube??) and voila, we now have a new game to try!



(Kunji game)

Happy New Year!

새해복 많이 받으세요!

WORD Wednesday--Konglish jokes

Grace over at Chois R Us share some of her favorite Konglish jokes. (That's Korean-English all mashed together in case you were wondering.)

Here's a sample:

Q: what did the boy say when he dropped his fishcake?

A: o. deng.  

(see this is funny because "odeng" is korean for "fishcake," but it also sounds like, you know...)

Hop on over to her site for more giggles.

Music makes me smile

Came across THIS post on practical tips for learning Korean at Daily Dose of Hangul. The author makes a great point about not relying on the Romanization to learn to speak Korean because of the inconsistency of the use, and the unreliability of Romanization in general. Wish that weren't true because it's a lot easier to read a Romanization that to force myself to learn to read Hangul!

Another tip from the author is to watch lots of Korean movies and listen to music which has been lots of fun. This video really cracks me up. Part Michael Jackson, part James Brown, part Leslie Nielsen and part Supremes. Love it! Hope it makes you smile too.

WORD Wednesday - Basic Korean expressions

The language section of the Life in Korea website has a nice list of basic expressions. It's broken down nicely into categories (getting around, eating out, at the airport, etc.) and by parts of speech (adjective, noun, verb, etc.).

image from Life in Korea-language section

After that, it is further broken down into English, Hangul and pronunciation.

It's a decent list and if you know how to sound out Hangul, you should find these super helpful.

The Life in Korea site is really great, and in the culture and language sections there are some interesting areas. They have provided links to other language related things, such as a language exchange board where you can find someone to practice Korean with, or ask language questions.

Over all the language section is pretty basic at this site. But you might enjoy looking at other parts of the site, including the Scenes of Korea which has some great photography.

WORD WEDNESDAY - Three bears song

WARNING: Listen to this song at your own risk. Listeners may find the song permanently embedded in their brain and find them singing the ridiculous tune for hours at a time. Don't say I didn't warn you!



This is a Korean children's song based on the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Translations seem to vary, but this one seems the most consistent:

Three bears in a house
Papa bear, mama bear and baby bear
Papa bear is fat
Mama bear is skinny
And Baby bear is so cute.
You are doing great.

kom sema-ri-ga
han chi-be-yi-so
appa gom
omma gom
ae-gi gom
appa gommun tung-tung-hae
omma gommun nal-shin-hae
ae-gi gommun na bul-gwi-yo-wo
hishuk hishuk cha-rhan-da

곰 세 마리가 한 집에 있어 

아빠곰

엄마곰 

아기곰

아빠곰은 뚱뚱해  

엄마곰은 날씬해

아기 곰은 너무 귀여워

히쭉 히쭉

잘 한다     

WORD WEDNESDAY - Hangul Day

Hangul Day celebrated by Google Korea

Happy Hangul Day! Actually, I missed the boat on this one. The actual Hangul Day was Oct. 9, but there's still time to celebrate! This is the 564th anniversary, and it used to be honored as a legal holiday (complete with a day off work) until 1991, but they discontinued that practice. Can you imagine getting a day off of work to celebrate the alphabet? That's awesome!

(I won't get into all the specifics of the alphabet because I covered all that stuff in this post.)

Hangul Day (한글날) is the celebration of the written language by King Sejong the Great in 1446. Prior to his invention (how do you invent a written language anyway?? kind of boggles my brain) the language was rarely written. They relied on Classical Chinese when needed, but the language was so elaborate and complex that few Koreans could receive the training necessary, and thus, most were illiterate. King Sejong's goal was to make literacy accessible to everyone, which in turn, would place all people on a more even level. The king made his intentions clear, in this document where he introduces Hangul:

It's written in Classical Chinese (because the people hadn't been introduced to Hangul yet) and according to Language Log, the translation reads:

"The sounds of our country's language are different from those of China and do not correspond to the sounds of Chinese characters. Therefore, among the stupid people, there have been many who, having something to put into writing, have in the end been unable to express their feelings. I have been distressed by this and have designed twenty-eight new letters, which I wish to have everyone practice at their ease and make convenient for their daily use."

It totally cracks me up that the King is empathizing with people, and yet calls them "stupid", but I guess his heart was in the right place.

In Korea, a full spectrum of events are held to celebrate. Exhibitions, dance performances, handwriting competitions, and a fluency competition were all planned.

To see more of this lovely alphabet, check out Hyunwoo Sun's annual collaborative video.

I'm not usually a proponent of "Wickedpedia" but I do admit, they have a pretty comprehensive article on Hangul.

And for a really great analysis of the language from a linguists' point of view, check out Language Log.

WORD WEDNESDAY - iPhone!

I'm getting a bit bored with this Word Wednesday thing. There's no shortage of places to learn bits of Korean, and I've found quite a few great sites to gain a basic understanding of the language. But really, without talking to and with an actual Korean speaker, I'm just not sure about what I'm doing.

Of course, I definitely haven't put in the time I need to either, and that likely makes a huge difference.

So I was thinking about how I could try and fit in a bit more language stuff into my daily routine. I often have a few minutes between assignments, while waiting for clients, or even on the walk from the parking lot to the office. And I always have my iPhone with me....


So another approach--found some iPhone apps for Korean language. They range from free to pricey, and I have no idea what, if any of them, are worth. I've downloaded the free ones, and have played with them briefly. They are OK, but definitely not a comprehensive learning system.

Based on how much I love  their online programs, I think I'd be willing to pay the $7.99 for the Byki app. Not so convinced on the rest.

Here's a few links to some apps/descriptions. I haven't tried any out, so you are on your own. But if you do have experience with any listed or try them, please come back and let us know what you think.

Byki - $7.99

Korean Class 101 - lots of apps listed here, ranging from free to $9.99

World Nomads Language Guide - $1.99

Fun Fun Korean Conversation Class - $4.99

Pocket Korean - $4.99 (50% limited time offer)

WORD WEDNESDAY - Chuseok edition!

I know, I know. I told you all about Chuseok yesterday (click HERE if you want a recap) but seeing as it's a two day holiday, it's worth a second post.

image from Korean Class 101-Culture Class #1

I'm reposting the link to Korean Class 101's Culture Lesson on Chuseok. I was a bit link happy in yesterday's post and it would have been easy to miss. (If you were a special super dedicated blog reader and lready went to this site, you get an A+ and an extra rice cake at dinner!)

The site is great for picking up some language skills. But this particular lesson is a culture lesson where they teach some extra words specific to the culture/holiday, as well as the traditions behind it. It's only about 10 minutes to give yourself a Chuseok treat and take a listen.

WORD Wednesday--Learn Korean Project

Today's language lesson is brought to you by the Learn Korean Project at Busy Atom. Everything on the site is free, and most of the lessons are video lessons.

The site is broken into basic areas, some of which are still being developed. Topics are the Korean alphabet, phrases, numbers and grammar, in addition to basic conversation lessons for beginners. The actual organization of the site was a little confusing at first, but nothing you won't be able to figure out.

The things I like about this program are that the video lessons are fairly compact and easy to learn. JB, the guy who leads the lessons,breaks down pronunciation of the words pretty well and explains the structure of the words. Using the romanization, it's not hard to learn to say the words correctly. JB does have a heavy accent though, so it can be a bit difficult to understand his English sometimes.

This program is definitely worth checking out! Here's lesson #27, self introductions. Enjoy!



Learn Korean Project -  http://busyatom.com/BusyAtom/Learn_korean.html