The SONGS

The songs I have selected is:

1) 까만 안경 - it's nice, slow, simple and diction is clear, but I really do not like the "dramatic" MV.

2) 사랑스러워 - something more upbeat, and you can learn about body parts like, 머리 and 발.^^

3) 잊지말아요 - it was a fight between this and 오늘 혜어졌어요. The words are simpler, so it won.

4) Heartbeat - just because I want to. The dancing is so drama-mama. The song, like most recent pop songs, is really too fast for learning. But I heart it, and I am the teacher!

Other songs I have considered that are not in the countdown list:

1) 이승기 - 내 여자라니까 : He was 17 when he debuted with this song! I think the lyrics it's a little inappropriate. ㅎㅎ

2) 윤아 - 오늘혜어졌어요 : Too many difficult words

3) DJ DOC - Run to You : Bestest song when running on the treadmill.

4) Brown Eyes - 벌써일년: Voted best album by Koreans in their 20s recently and it came out in 2001!

5) 포지션 - I love you : Aaron Kwok sang the Chinese version before!

6) CN Blue - 외톨이야: No 1 reason not to choose this song: they kept singing "외톨리야, 외톨리야"! Bad enunciation. Great song though.

..and many more... half of the above 6 songs actually reflects how old I am...ㅎㅎ

Dictionary and Translation

Maybe there will come a day when machines take over what humans do, but not today.

My favorite site to use is Naver dictionary which finds Korean meaning for English, Chinese and Japanese words, even technical terms and it links to encylopedia.

There's also Duam dictionary, but I've never used it.

I love this online chinese dictionary, Nciku, because it allows users to "write" words. Sometimes I will write the chinese word, then copy and paste it on the Naver dictionary to retrieve the Korean word.

A few sites, like Google Translate and Yahoo Babel Fish, provide translation which can be very helpful in getting the gist of the content. But be warned that most of the time I get a good laugh over the translated text.

Here I have borrowed a work associate's name as an email example. BTW: Like Chinese compound surnames, eg 司徒, there are Korean family names with two words.

Basically, the email reads, as translated by myself:

Hello. I am Namgung Yong from Beyond Tech.
Currently, the results are not good, so it seems that we will have to work hard.
Regards, Namgung Yong.

Here's the translation from Google Translate.

Dream fro Namgung???? At least Google got "hello" correctly...

Here's what Yahoo Babel Fish got.

"안녕하세요" is Goodbye??? Haven't "hello" already "Goodbye"...
And Mr South Palace ( 남궁) must be very eager to do do.

Translation widget from Mac also bids farewell before the message even started.

Song Countdown (7)(8)(9)

Evidently, I am not good enough at Math to do a proper countdown. So here're 3 more songs on my list.

7 ) MJ (Sunny Side) Featuring. 김현중, Miss S미스에스, U주 - 내 맘을 아냐고

I'm not exactly sure how I came across this song, but it had something to do with the TV show 남자의 자격. The most unlikely star of this TV show, 김태원, is the leader of uber Korean rock band, 부활. I'm glad he's come out of his comedian closet.

8 ) 김종국 - 사랑스러워

Another song for the 노래방. After seeing him for so many years, I am still surprised every time I see him sing, "that voice and appearance actually belong to the same entity???"

9 ) SG 워너비 - 라라라

SG wanna be like an angmoh singing group. Guess which one? I'm not telling.. wiki it!

Song Countdown (6)

I spend more time on the ski- lifts going up the slope than on the slope itself. A few songs remind me of the s-l-o-w, sometimes cold, ride up the slopes, like Big Bang's Sunset Glow, Wonder Girl's R&B version of Nobody, Jason Mraz's Lucky. They were on heavy - rotation, blasting from the PA at Vivaldi Park which I used to frequent. I first heard 사랑 그 놈 on one of those rides. My favorite part "사랑해 널 사랑해, 불러도 대답 없는 멜로디..." just resonates. This song always reminds me of those slow, yet anticipatory lift-rides. I love this song.

Song Countdown (5)

5 ) 자우림 - 27

Two years ago, I bought a Korean CD. It's the last Korean CD I have ever

bought since. My then-housemate said that I must be a real fan of 자유림 to buy their CD. I guess she's right. I even went to their concert. This rock band used to be dark and moody but they have since mellowed with age, but still very quirky.

The lead singer, 김윤아, is what the koreans call a "fashionsta". Trivial: She's married to a ex-entertainer who is a dentist now.

One of my favorite song to sing in 노래방 is 하하하송. It's from my fave 자우림 album, All You Need is Love.

A song I really like from their last full-length original album, Ruby Sapphire Diamond is "27". At their concert, it was revealed that the guitarist wrote it for a girl who worked at a cafe they frequented near their recording studio. The guitarist never approached her, but just kinda had a silent major crush on her. It was 10 years ago, when he was 27. Yes, he's the grumpy-looking shaggy-haired one.

Song Countdown (4)

4 ) 이루 - 까만안경

까만안경 is a nice and easy song. The MTV for 까만안경 stars one now-super-famous BOF. 이루's father 태진아 is a really famous Trot singer and funny too.

Song Countdown (3)

3 ) Big Bang - All Their Hit Songs

When I was at the hairdresser's, I think 2 years ago, in Seoul, the young assistant asked me which entertainer I liked, I always say 설경구 (who??!). But this time, somehow I proceeded to say I like Big Bang because 대성 is so funny. I was probably trying to act young and trendy. And the girl said she liked Big Bang too. And I said, I used to not understand why they were so popular, because they were so UGLY. We both agreed that they are really talented, and better than ____________. ( I dun want no hate mails).

붉은노을 MV has a really meaningful message. It's encouraging people to go back to 서해 (West Sea) which was polluted by an oil spill in Dec 2007.

That area was popular for its scenery and seafood and had seen tourism dropped after the oil spill.

*SPOILER ALERT* I didn't choose any of BB's songs eventually because their songs have too many English words and are too fast. However my main grouse is, as much as I LOVE GD, he sings like angmohs trying to speak Singlish. He over-stresses and elongates the vowel. Personally, I think it's cool, but definitely not a good example for students.

Song Countdown (2)

2 ) Gee - 소녀시대

The second song on my list is the NUMBER ONE song of 2009 (depending on which chart you look at).

From Mnet:

I know for a fact that teenage boys (and middle-aged boys) are gaga over this bunch of girls. This is my favorite version of the song, from the ladies in 무한도전. It's called EnerGEE!

Song Countdown (1)

The new term will start in two weeks' time. I have decided on the additional songs for the coming term. I have thought long and hard about which songs to use. There were many factors to consider before the songs were finalized. Is the song too fast? got useful words or not? is it PG? nice or not? There were many nominees to choose from.

So here are the nominees.

1 ) Heartbeat - 2PM

This song gave me the idea to use k-pop specifically for teaching Hangul. I never really liked this song until I saw a parody of it in a Lunar New Year's special program, Dance Battle.

Skip to 5:24 for Heartbeat.

I love 조혜련! She's so funny. And R.E.S.P.E.C.T to her for taking on the Japanese entertainment world.

2PM is not bad. But SJ definitely wins this battle.

Hanok Korean Class