Wilty but Repotted

This is the first week that I've attended class every day, and I was so discouraged by the huge difference between my language skills and my classmates' that I asked my teachers today to move me down to the slower section of level 6. I'm in section B; section A has far more westerners, which slows down the pace considerably. Although we cover the same content and have the same book, having other people in the class who also have to look up 20 to 40 words per lesson would help me feel less of dunce.

I've always felt that my Japanese and Chinese classmates were far ahead of me in terms of recognizing and remembering Korean words (people who know Chinese or use Chinese characters in their native tongue are naturally better positioned to understand Chinese-based words), but in level 5, as long as I looked up the vocab list before each class, I could follow the class discussion pretty well.

This term, I feel lost a lot, as if I'm listening to a radio that keeps fading in and out -- I get the gist of everything, but not enough to participate with any depth. The problem is the addition of two new students whose language abilities are really more suited for level 7 than level 6. One woman, who hails from Taiwan, has been married to a Korean man for more than 5 years, and whose pronunciation and grasp of structure and vocabulary is close to native. Another man is a Japanese professor who has said that the textbook is easy for him.

In comparison, I'm previewing the lessons, looking up the definitions for as much as 6 words per sentence, reviewing each lesson, and struggling with grammatical structure. To make it worse, the presence of two excellent speakers makes me feel tongue-tied during class -- the same feeling I get in front of native Korean speakers. A couple times this week I felt like I really wanted to cry in class because classmates were using vocabulary that I didn't know or I just didn't get the meaning of the text enough to say anything remotely analytical about it.

I tried to keep in mind that I missed a lot of days due to travel or sickness. I reminded myself that I couldn't expect to know as much as the Taiwanese woman, or hope to learn new words as fast as my Asian classmates. I told myself that I was pretty good for a westerner. With that in mind, I tried to treat the class as a challenge, and attempted to persuade myself that it was good for me to be in a position where something I wanted to be good at didn't come easily to me.

Yesterday, during video class (which is actually at the right level of difficulty; it's my speaking class that's killing me), we watched a documentary about the first Asian person (a Korean woman) to become a simultaneous interpreter of English and French. In college, she studied French obssessively, befriending her French professor and family, following her professor even to the hair salon, going to French movies instead of on dates, and reading French novels and newspapers -- in short, becoming completely devoted to learning French.

In 1979, she entered the premier simultaneous translation school in Paris, and found that being the best French language student in Korea meant nothing in France. On her first test, she got a total of 2 points out of 20. But she rose to the challenge, submitting a translation of a French newspaper column everyday until the comments changed from "Mal" to "Moyen" to "Bien!" When she was hospitalized in her second year, she woke up and peppered the nurse with questions about what each step of the examination process was called in French -- and then looked them all up in English too. In 1981, she graduated with 8 other students -- out of an entering class of 109.

For homework, we had to write a paragraph about a time when we'd felt frustrated in learning Korean, and with a full heart, I wrote about my insecurities and discouragement over the last few days. But as I wrote, I couldn't help but look at the documentary's subject and see how far I was from her example. With the move to this apartment, I've fallen into the habit of watching at least an hour of English language television every day (and usually it's more than an hour). It's true that while I was traveling, I didn't have an opportunity to practice Korean, and it's true that I really did need to think in English when I was making The Decision. But overall? I don't listen to Korean radio, I don't read Korean newspapers, I don't even watch Korean TV. I haven't been meeting my Korean friends -- with whom I mostly speak English anyway -- and I still use mostly English with my dad.

In short, I haven't been devoted to learning Korean. And that's okay -- in my meeting today with my speaking teacher, she asked and I told her that my goals in coming to Korea were many, and that learning Korean was just one of them. But hell, I'm never going to be able to replicate the opportunities here for learning Korean in the States, and I haven't taken advantage of them at all. I may as well be taking an immersion class in the U.S. for all the Korean I use outside of class.

My speaking teacher told me after school today that I would not be able to transfer down to section A, because it was too full. I felt crushed, but sometime after meeting with her, I felt the slight stirrings of determination beginning to rise. After all, am I a man or a mouse? (Well, neither, but you get my drift.) I don't want to be the person who's not going to rise to the challenge. Or be held back by my fear of looking stupid. I thought I'd come a long way in that regard, but there's still a lot of work to be done.

So, no more nights up til 3 am (like yesterday) watching B-movies on TV. Time to put the Harry Potter books away and pull out the Korean/English book of Agatha Christie short stories that I bought six months ago. Time to try reading the paper again. Time to stop indulging.

[Wrote this on 4 hours of sleep, so have, I know, rambled and used 50 words where 10 would do. Not the best entry. Ick. Annoying. I can do so much better. Discipline's what's needed here. And after all, "a day in the Corps is like a day on the farm -- every meal a banquet, every paycheck a fortune, every formation a parade. I love the Corps!" And I love Aliens. Wow. You really can find anything on the Internet. Okay. Sleep now.]