#(and it will help me study...i plan to watch with korean subtitles this time around so i can absorb things more efficiently)

[eddis-not-eeddis]

Well, just had the very worst day ever at work, so it is time to watch 이동욱 get beaten up for roughly twelve hours over the course of the next few weeks.

[dinosdawn]

First Christmas

This is something that I wrote for me and my friend, who in this is in a relationship with Hyunjin.

Blurb: You and Chris prepare to spend Christmas Eve with your best friend and her boyfriend, Hyunjin.

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: Language (I use one curse word lmao)

Members: Bang Chan, Hyunjin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a bitterly cold winter, snowing almost everyday that week. Y/N had just finished moving into her shared apartment with Chris and invited Y/F/N and Hyunjin over to spend Christmas Eve together. The apartment was lavish and warm, the main wall being floor to ceiling windows with a breathtaking view of Hongdae, the busy streets and nip of the cold locked out. The walls were cream with crown molding and a hardwood floor throughout the home. 

It had 3 bedrooms; one they shared, and a studio for both Y/N and Chris respectively, a relatively large kitchen with plenty of counter space, 2 bathrooms and a large living room. The walls were decorated in golden tinsel, the doors had holly wreaths, and fairy lights hung from the ceiling giving the room a warm glow. 

Nestled in the corner of the living room was a beautiful douglas fir that had white lights and pink and silver ornaments scattered on it. The tree was home to several presents, Y/N and Chris both agreed only to get the other a few gifts but as soon as they went shopping they threw that agreement out the window. There was a large L-sofa with a coffee table in the middle facing a flat screen.

Y/N had been cooking all day, both American, Australian, and Korean dishes so everyone would feel like they were at home while they celebrated. She made about 7 different main dishes, 5 side dishes, and plenty of homemade candy for everyone to snack on. She really had been standing all day, feeling the effects of being in the same place for over 5 hours but she didn’t mind, it was the first time that she would be spending Christmas in her new home and wanted it to be perfect for everyone. Especially Y/F/N and Hyunjin since it was their first Christmas together. She was so excited to see her longtime friend with someone, even more so that they were in the same group that Chris was in. 

Needless to say Y/N wasn’t surprised when Y/F/N admitted that she liked Hyunjin in a romantic way, and was thrilled knowing he felt the same way. It took some careful planning with Chris to get them to accidentally run into each other but clearly it worked since they’ve been together for 8 months now.

Y/N moved to Seoul 2 years ago to pursue a career in music while studying at Yonsei University. She had been doing YouTube primarily, producing her own music and filming mini music videos and choreography videos. That’s how she met Chris, JYP Ent. had reached out to her regarding a potential collaboration between her and one of their artists and she jumped at the chance. When she went to the business meeting she was still in her school etire, backpack in hand and barely made it.

When she found out who she was going to make a song with she died right then and there. Chris had been watching her on YouTube, stays recommended her music to him during his live, and when he realized she was based in Seoul he took the chance to make something with her. They signed a contract and began a 2 month process of writing, composing, recording, and choreographing a single they were going to release together. 

Naturally they grew closer together and once Chris checked with JYP that it was alright for him to date he asked her on a date immediately. Of course she said yes and it grew from there. That was a year and a half ago, they were very serious at this point and decided to buy an apartment together and move in. Which is where they are now.

Y/F/N, on the other hand, moved to Seoul a year after Y/N did. She saved up for years and was able to afford a small place nestled in the heart of Gangnam. She got a job as an assistant producer for Starship and began to flourish, often finding Y/N staying on her couch because her roommate was fucking in the middle of their shared room. 

Y/F/N viewed Y/N as a little sister and had no problem taking care of her. When Y/F/N finally met Chris, Y/N swore she was going to pass out. Y/F/N did her best not to come off as a clingy fan in respect of him but Chris understood and brushed it off. He even offered to show her around the city and help her meet more people since it’s hard to meet new people with the culture. 

That included meeting the other members of Stray Kids, which also almost killed her. They were all so friendly to her, helping her learn Korean and being very patient with her mistakes and stumbles when it came to the language. The person who helped her the most was Hyunjin, who was proficient enough in English to not need Chris or Felix to help translate, and they began to spend more time together whenever the group would get together and hangout. 

Once Y/F/N confessed to Y/N her feelings, she switched into matchmaking mode, setting up times to meet up but oh no something came up i'll call you later. This went on for a few months until Y/F/N built up the courage to ask Hyunjin out. He was very flustered but said yes, being more shy when it comes to his feelings then Y/F/N was. 

There was about 15 minutes before the couple was set to arrive and Y/N was almost finished with the gingerbread when a pair of arms wrapped around her waist and a chin rested on her shoulder. 

“They’ll be here soon, don’t you want to change before they get here?” Chris’ voice soothed next to her ear. She leaned into him while cutting shapes into the dough. She let out a sigh, “Yes but I need to finish this and get it in the oven before they get here, I want to surprise them with cookies.”

He chuckled and slowly spun her around so she was facing him and kissed her nose. “You’ve been cooking for hours, let me finish up so you can get changed. You haven’t let me help all day baby, you look so tired.” She scrunched her nose up at the feeling and smiled at him. “Alright fine, but I want those cookies looking like Gordan Ramsey made them.” 

They both laughed and shared a soft kiss before she rushed off to change into something more comfortable. She trusted Chris in the kitchen but didn’t want him doing much because he’s been training almost everyday for a month and just wanted him to relax on his vacation. 

She put on one of his baggy hoodies and a pair of leggings and some fluffy slippers. She always felt so warm and safe in his shirts and knew he loved seeing her wear them no matter how much he complained about her stealing his wardrobe. He was wearing a loose pair of pants and a Christmas sweater Y/N picked out. It had a little pug with reindeer antlers and the antlers lit up. It was adorable and Y/N loved that he actually wore it. 

By the time she was done the cookies were in the oven and Chris was putting on Polar Express for background noise, making sure to turn on Korean subtitles for Hyunjin. He didn’t necessarily need them but sometimes they talked so fast it was hard for his brain to keep up. He looked over at his girlfriend and couldn’t hold back the smile as she stood there with her hair pulled back and sweater paws. He loved her wearing his clothes because the arms were always too long so only her fingertips would be visible. 

The doorbell pulled them out of their staring contest and Y/N rushed to the little screen that illuminated the hallway outside their home. The fuzzy screen showed a short figure whose arms were full of presents and a taller figure with a few dishes in their arms. Y/N squealed and rushed to the door and threw it open, not even putting on the right shoes.

There stood Y/F/N and Hyunjin, lightly dusted with snow, and Y/N immediately took some of the presents from her friend. “I thought I told you no gifts yet!” 

“I couldn’t help it, you know how I get.” Y/F/N responded with a huff now that her arms were less full. Y/N invited them inside and told Hyunjin where to put the food and Y/F/N the presents. Once hands were empty hugs were exchanged and they began talking about how life had been since the last time they’d seen each other, literally a week ago, but they loved it non the less.

“Y/N why did you make so much food?” Hyunjin asked while looking at the numerous dishes. Y/N blushed and scratched the back of her head. “I wanted everyone to have food from their childhood so it would feel like home.” 

Chris wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her head. “And you did just that, I wish you would’ve taken it easy though. She was cooking for at least 5 hours, I could barely get her to go change.” Y/N slapped his chest and blushed even harder. “I’m making hot chocolate.” She mumbled and hurried over to the kitchen where she had mugs prepared.

Y/F/N sat on the couch and looked at the tv. “Polar Express?! I haven’t watched this in years!” She exclaimed and grabbed Hyunjin’s hand, pulling him onto the couch with little resistance. He knew that his girlfriend loved movies and couldn’t help but get excited when she did. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into him and kissed her head gently before resting his head on hers. 

Chris went to help Y/N with the hot coco and tried to get her to stop ignoring him. It didn’t take much and he knew she wasn’t really upset with him, so when she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and rushed off he couldn’t stop smiling. They carried the drinks over to the other couple and quickly took the same positions on the opposite side of the couch where they all watched the movie full of content. They exchanged pleasantries and both of the girls couldn’t help but sing the hot chocolate song when it came around.

They stayed like this for hours, wrapped in the serenity of each other's comforting touch. They ate food, played card games, laughed and sang for hours til it got late in the evening. Chris and Hyunjin cleaned the dishes while their significant others went into Y/N’s studio to listen to her new work in progress. 

The boys joked around and began talking about what their schedule was going to be once the New Year hit and how hectic it was going to become. They were both dreading having to leave the healing atmosphere of staying at home with the love of their lives but they knew what they signed up for being idols.

After a short while Y/F/N and Hyunjin were bidding the other couple goodbye and returned to Y/F/N home. Hyunjin was staying with her as long as he could, he still lived in the dorms with some of the others. Y/F/N took a shower first followed by her boyfriend. When he had come out and changed Y/F/N put something on the tv and held her arms open for him to join her. He complied with no resistance and held her in his arms.

“Tonight was amazing love.” He whispered while staring at her. She was everything he could ever want in a person. Caring and kind, giving so much of herself while not dealing with anyone's bullshit. He loved her for that. He was so happy to spend the first of many Christmases with her. He looked forward to the Christmas they would spend together married, the ones they would spend together with little ones running around. She was everything to him and he wasn’t going to let that go. Ever.

She smiled and agreed with him. “It was perfect. I’m so glad we get to spend this together. I love you.” He beamed at her. “I love you too.” He leaned in slowly and pressed his lips softly to hers. They were content with what they had and not pushing the other, just simply taking in the other. Never asking for more. They were perfect together and everyone could see that. When they pulled away for air they just smiled at the other, feathering kisses here and there and whispering sweet words that were meant for only them to hear.

Y/N and Chris ended the night in a similar fashion, with kisses and cuddles. Y/N was exhausted both physically and mentally and he knew that. He was content holding her as she fought off sleep to spend more time with him, singing her songs in hopes of helping her drift off to sleep. It took very little time for her breathing to even out and he only allowed himself to drift when he was sure she was asleep.

[smilemingyu]

joli

member: kim seungmin (stray kids) 

word count: 4.4k

genre: fluff!!!

a song to listen to: joli garçon by pink martini

warnings: so much fluff,, paris cliches,,,, haha

all i can think about at the moment is how fun a vacation to france would be with seungmin okay!!

okay so like ,,,

you’re seungmin’s best friend and he was like,, i want to go to france and take pictures and you’re like “ok, have fun!” and he’s like “no but…. i don’t want to go alone :(“

and you’re like uh oh,,, he’s pulling out his puppy dog eyes and you can’t say no to seungmin’s puppy dog eyes

and he also offers to pay for everything so like could really pass up a Free trip to france with your best friend???? absolutely not

so he plans it all out for you both and all you have to worry about is packing,,

you guys have a sleepover a little bit before and buy a notebook to write down some places to visit and some things to eat and you’re both just so excited to go

you buy a french translation book and you both study some common phrases and try to have conversations in french

which usually ends in both of you being confused and just laughing over how bad the others accent is

so your plane day comes and seungmin comes to your apartment at 4 am to make sure you’re prepared and he checks through a list of things before you guys go off to the airport

and you’re like,, so tired but can’t help but be fond of seungmin and his want to make sure everything goes well

on the airplane you both fall asleep and only wake up when you guys accidentally bump heads

and then you guys decide to watch a french movie without subtitles to see how much french you guys know

and throughout the whole movie you guys are like ???????? what is happening ,,, je ne comprends pas

so yeah your book didn’t help other than knowing Very Very basic phrases

but you don’t care because you both can speak english and they’ll probably have some english speakers in the touristy places

when you land, you’re both super tired so you go straight to the hotel seungmin had booked

and it’s a one bed room because it’s cheap and neither of you care about sleeping in the same bed because you already do when you have sleepovers anyways,

also it has a great view to all kinds of pretty lights because why would he get a bad view

you both knock out pretty quickly but you ordered some food first since you both had accidentally slept past the food being served on the plane

when you wake up the next day, it’s to seungmin shaking you awake and telling you you guys have to get breakfast

and you get dressed into a cute french inspired outfit because why wouldn’t you come on if you’re gonna be a tourist you might as well be a tourist

you and seungmin may have maybe went shopping beforehand to look for cute outfits together so you’re both dressed in similar outfits and you make sure to get a mirror selfie as seungmin blushes because,

you look like a couple AND you’re cute

and he definitely blushes harder when you say exactly that but he covers it up by rolling his eyes and grabbing his camera

you both head out to the latin quarter and go to a cafe seungmin had found online and you both order some food and coffee and sit at a table outside

seungmin takes some photos of the view you guys have from there, at the people walking by, and makes you pose for some photos with your coffee and shows the photos to you excitedly which is so endearing because he looks up everytime at you with sparkly eyes to see your reactions and it makes you melt inside because he’s the cutest

after he’s done taking photos he pulls out the notebook you guys planned together in and asks what you guys should do after he eating

since you’re already in the latin quarter and are near it, you pick to go to the panthéon and take some pictures there

you also decide to check out some of the stores around and then you set out to do what you planned

you buy a few things from a store, including something that seungmin likes and seungmin tries to pay for it but ur like , bro you’re paying for everything let me buy you something so he shuts up and gives you a smile when you hand it to him after buying it

you stop a few times, seungmin wanting to take a picture of you in front of some of the more aesthetically pleasing shops and wanting a picture of you on the road and you try to get him to give you the camera so you can take pictures of him also because he is cute TOO but he refuses

so you resort to sneaking pictures of him when you know he isn’t looking

and when you look at the photos you took later that night your favorite photo was one you had taken when he was taking a picture of a family (with their permission, of course, he’s not weird,,) and he just looks so focused and serious but cute all at the same time !

(side note: i love kim seungmin,,,,,,,,,,,, he’s the cutest he deserves the world okay ,,)

he lets you take a picture of him with his camera in front of the panthéon because like why would he pass that up,,

and you’re pleased when a lady passing by offers to take a picture of you both together so you both pose cutely and she comments on what a nice couple you are and both you and seungmin blush but you had already gotten a comment like that from the barista that you were just like aight,,,, guess in paris we’re a couple then

you guys giggle about that together and stop at another cafe to plan out your next move

you guys decide to plan a visit to the catacombs so you go back to your hotel to change into something a little more suitable that way you wouldn’t get your cute outfits dirty

you stay in the hotel room a little bit, looking at the photos seungmin took and texting your friends about how pretty paris is

hyunjin texts back with how he’s jealous and seungmin should have took him instead and you say better luck next time but the group chat had already started planning a group visit and you’re not complaining, because that would be fun

you guys head out soon and stop by a shop to buy a flashlight based on advice online that said to buy one

seungmin also secretly buys you a stuffed animal he noticed when you were looking at what drinks you could buy you both just in case you get thirsty and he hides it in his bag to give to you later

on the way to the catacombs, seungmin does the same as he did at the latin quarter and stopped to take some pictures, even asking some couples if he could take pictures of them in some broken french

he always compliments the couples which usually gets a compliment back to you and him which you thank them for because you might as well you know

you guys arrive to the catacombs and have to wait in line to actually go in so you both make conversation with a couple in front of you

they’re two girls your age who hang off each other and they tell you guys about what they’re gonna do afterwards (go and get some drinks at a cabaret) and offer you guys to join them and you’re like,,, sure sounds fun and seungmin also agrees

they make conversation about how they got together (they were best friends and just naturally slipped into a relationship) and they ask you how you and seungmin got together

and you and seungmin exchange looks and it’s obvious you’re both like ok what harm could it be to pretend we’re a couple in the pretty city of paris

so you make up a story about how seungmin confessed to you when you were stargazing one night and he wraps his arm around you naturally

so you enjoy the catacombs together with the couple, taking pictures inside and you take some photos of the couple and they take some photos of seungmin and you and you and seungmin start to hold hands sometime after leaving to keep the couple illusion going

you all decide to just walk around some shops and wait for it to get darker before you go to the cabaret and you try to ignore how good it feels to be holding hands with seungmin so naturally

you all go to the cabaret and order some drinks and you and seungmin don’t drink much because honestly you wanted to enjoy paris sober more than you’d want to drunk

you part ways with the girls later in the night to go back to your hotel (after exchanging numbers and saying you’ll definitely have to meet up for lunch the next day)

even after you had parted ways seungmin still held your hand but you tried not to think about it too much

when you get into the hotel room, he pulls the stuffed animal he had bought you earlier and hands it to you and you blush and are like “what’s this” and he blushes also and was like “it’s cute, reminded me of you so i wanted to buy it for you” so you give him a huge smile (which makes his heart beat a lot) and you give him a big hug

you fall asleep while you both watch a movie, cuddling the cute stuffed dog he had gotten you

the next morning you wake up a little later than the day before

seungmin was already awake and eating a bagel on the balcony and he has one prepared for you also when you come out to join him

you guys eat in silence looking out at the city until he breaks the silence

“our eiffel tower day is the last day, by the way..,, wanted it to be more exciting,”

you nod agreeing with his planning

you had two more days to go

when you’re done eating you guys pull out the notebook and makes plans for that day

you plan to go to the louvre and then meet up with the girls from the day before for lunch and then you’ll go to domaine national du palais-royal afterward,,,

and then you found out there’s a korean market near there so you both plan to stop by there to buy some stuff so you can make some dinner in the hotel room together

excited to have your day planned out you and seungmin dress into another couple outfit and you decide to mention that little uhhHh scheme (?) you guys had made the day before

“so ,, are we just gonna pretend to be a couple here,,?” you ask and seungmin looks surprised as if he didn’t think you’d mention and you see his ears turn red but don’t tease him for it.

“i mean,,, here is considered a pretty romantic place so,, i guessed we might as well,,” and you agree and grab his hand “then hello boyfriend” and blushes and laughs, before presses a kiss to your cheek “hello (girl/boy)friend”

it’s easy to fall into that kind of relationship with him, even if it’s just for show

it was like how the other couple had talked about,, very natural that you knew you were going to be sad once the paris trip was over because you already had a crush on him anyways but you decide it wouldn’t hurt too much to at least enjoy this charade for the time being

so you guys set off, holding hands and go to the louvre excited to see all the pretty art and take some great photos

he immediately unlocks his hand from yours to make you take photo in front of it first and has you do a bunch of different poses, laughing when you do a silly kind of pose and you smile back fondly and he snaps a photo again

he comments on how pretty you look before you take the camera from him and have him do the same as you

you ask a lady to take some photos of you both which she gladly does, giving you both a smile

seungmin gives your cheek a kiss when she takes a photo and you know you must be blushing in the next photo when he is looking down at you

when the lady hands the camera back to you both, she comments on how much you guys remind her of her and her husband and you smile and thank her

seungmin intertwines your hands again and you wait a little until you can go into the museum

you don’t notice when he takes some photos of you inside, before taking photos of the art because cliches are cliches for a reason and that’s because they’re fucking fantastic skfsj

you’re fascinated by all the art inside which seungmin finds really cute and he pays close attention to your words when expressing your love for each piece

my heart HURTS

he cutely smiles whenever you smile widely at him and can’t stop from taking more photos of you

when you guys leave, you’re a little sad but thankful you were able to see the nice works and you cheer up when seungmin wraps his arm around your waist as you both walk to meet up with the couple

while you all eat some lunch, you tell the couple about the louvre with all the passion you have for it, talking about how much of a life changing (i literally just wrote changbin five times before i could finally type that right imskfjsk) experience it was and one of the girls comment about how in seungmin looks with you which causes you to look up and make eye contact with him and you see how fond his eyes look and you’re done for-

you giggle when seungmin blushes and just buries his head into your shoulder, patting him on the head and earning coos from the girls about how cute you both are

after you guys eat you ask if the girls want to come to the domaine national du palais-royal (there has GOT to be a way to shorten that) and they agree to come with you (mentioning that they were leaving tomorrow morning and you’re a little sad but seungmin was secretly fine with it; not because he didn’t like them but because he had already made plans for the whole day tomorrow for the two of you) and you guys have some fun taking pictures there

the girls try to have you guys taking a picture kissing but seungmin just kisses your cheek and shyly says he doesn’t want to kiss for the camera to them which makes you feel a little insecure but you ignore the feeling

you all separate when you and seungmin go over to the korean market and you plan to make some bibimbap and rock, paper, scissors over who is going to pay

seungmin wins so he gets to pay but you secretly slip some cash into his bag when he isn’t looking

when you get to the hotel room, you both change into something comfortable before starting on the food and it ends up being just you making it with seungmin backhugging you and encouraging your hard work

you roll your eyes at him but keep yourself relaxed in his embrace

you both decide to eat on the balcony like you did that morning and you look out at the lights, admiring them

“everything about this place is so pretty,,” you mention and seungmin nods, “it really is” he brought his camera out to take some photos and he takes some photos of you too

you reply to your group chat and they ask you for pictures at the louvre so you have seungmin send you them (which he had already uploaded into his phone)

you send him the pictures that the lady had taken of you and seungmin and try not to blush when you see how fond you both look of each other and you send him so pictures of the art

seungmin sends the pictures he had taken of you without you knowing and texted “the real art!” making you blush even more and you’re surprised you didn’t even know he had taken them

so you send the photos you had snuck of him the day before without his knowledge when he was taking the photos of the family and text “the real camera focus!” and he looks surprised when you look at him

you both laugh when jeongin sends a “get a room” and you’re confused when hyunjin sends a “i thought you weren’t confessing until the eiffel tower??”

you look at seungmin but he looks as confused as you and texts “i have no clue what you’re talking about”

felix says something about hyunjin being dumb before hyunjin was like “lol wrong best friends,,, hyunjin and heejin are going to paris and heejin was planning on confessing,” and you’re like,,,,,, “haha what,,,,, we meet some girls named hyunjin and heejin” and hyunjin was like ,,, wait ,,,, send pics

and seungmin did and he was like “yo wtfff that’s them” and what a great coincidence that was

so you guys decide to do a group facetime with your group and you tell them about how cool paris is and you show them the view that you have and chan is like “woawww it seems so romantic” and seungmin is like “! it is !” and you’re like “haha yeah,,, everyone thinks that we’re a couple here” and minho is like “i’m pretty sure that’s not just a paris thing” which causes seungmin to glare at him and you to blush

jisung asks if you guys have learned any french while there and you answer, “oui, seungmin est un joli garçon” which seungmin looks confused at and you giggle and changbin is like “from my listening of french music,,, i know what that means” and you put your finger to your mouth in a shushing movement which he nods and laughs at

“I’m googling that,” seungmin says and you just shrug

you guys go to bed later in the night after facetiming with everyone for almost five hours and you’re so sleepy when you cuddle with your stuffed dog (you decided to name rimbaud) and seungmin is a little jealous of it even though he bought it for you

(have you guys ever facetimed your friends for five hours because if you haven’t i do recommend, it’s so refreshing,,,)

you wake up later than seungmin again and he’s not on the balcony or in the room when you look for him and you almost panic because didn’t kim kardashian get robbed in paris what if the same people took seungmin but then you find a note underneath a snack pack of fruit that reads “went to grab us some food! i’ll be back soon, joli (fille/garçon) <3” and you blush upon him calling you pretty (girl/boy)

you eat the fruit gummies and watch some TV until seungmin comes back

he’s holding a picnic basket when he comes in and he smiles at you

“i already planned today’s day specially, if you’re okay with that” and you smile brightly, “of course i’m fine with it”

and he tells you that you’re going to check out another museum, first off, as he puts the picnic basket into the fridge and you get dressed to match his outfit that day

you both take a selfie and text to your group chat that you’re off and you go out

he takes pictures as he did the other days and you’re happy that you stop by a cafe to get some coffee, smiling when the barista compliments your outfits

you both find the museum fascinating and this time you’re sure to take some photos of seungmin also

he smiles at it and then pulls you to switch your camera to your front camera and you both take some photos with the art and you decide to kiss his cheek at one piece of art and it was his turn blush over it

afterward, you head back to hotel and when you get there he grabs the picnic basket he had that morning out of the fridge

“now,” he says, “we’re going to have a picnic! i know you always want to have a nice picnic so i thought this would be the best place to do it… a lot of people recommended jardin du luxembourg for it, so we’re going there” you get really excited over it,,, you love picnics

“where are we going afterwards?” he blushes, but smiles, “a surprise” it makes you very curious

you arrive to the place for the picnic and put down a pretty blanket, and seungmin brings out some sandwiches and a bottle of wine “i felt like we needed a proper french picnic” you laugh as he brings out wine glasses also

(side note: i wrote this part while listening to quatre épines by josh savage ft. angéline so i recommend it!)

you both say a cheers, before drinking and listening to some music on a bluetooth speaker and eating

you end up laying down and looking at the sky, your head in seungmin’s lap and him playing with your hair

you feel so comfortable that way and almost start nodding off until seungmin mutters something

you open your eyes, curious, and he’s looking down at you smiling “huh?”

he chuckles, “nothing… you’re just… really pretty, you know?” you smile satisified, and your eyes begin to flutter as he starts playing with your hair again,,, you didn’t even know he had stopped, “you’re not too bad yourself” you mutter, before you feel yourself sleep into a comfortable sleep

while you sleep, a couple actually comes over and compliments how cute you guys are and seungmin thanks them before asking if they could take a photo of you both

they do, and seungmin is very happy with the photo he gets out of it, before taking some photos of you

he wakes you up a little later, shaking you from your sleep and having you stand up with him

he says he wants you both to stop at the hotel room to drop off the picnic basket and you walk with him, and he lets you lean onto him as you try to wake yourself up more

you stop by a cafe when you leave for the next stop to grab some coffee and you head up to the next attraction and you notice seungmin getting a little nervous when heading there so you grab his hand and try to soothe him, though you’re confused as to why he’s nervous

you guys get to a place called the wall of love, and you’re fascinated by it, immediately taking pictures of it

seungmin watches you silently before telling you he wants a picture with both of you in front of it and he asks someone to take a picture of you both and he says something you can’t understand in french to them

he turns you towards him when you’re getting ready to pose and decides to say something

“i was going to be cliche and do this at the eiffel tower but i decided this was undoubtedly a better place to do it,” before you can question him about his words, he holds your chin before leaning in and kissing you and you don’t even hear the shutter of the camera because you’re too busy kissing him back and trying to calm your heart

“i love you,” he says when he pulls back, and he points at the wall of love “i love you in more than 250 ways, but i felt like this would be fitting to show how much i love you”

your heart melts and you almost feel tears prick at your eyes, before you pull him down to kiss him again and that time you hear that camera shutter but ignore it “i love you too, so much. wow, do i love you.” he smiles brightly at you and your heart feels like it’s flying

he thinks the guy who took the photos for him and offers him money, but the guy shakes his head and smiles, “anything for a couple in love!” and you smile back over it

you take some more photos at the wall, smiling at how many times seungmin kisses you and seungmin asks some other people if he could take photos of them

that night, you both kiss on the eiffel tower, looking out at the city and you take some pictures there too, sending them to the group chat later on and gaining so much response from everyone that you laugh at and tell them you’ll talk about it when you both arrive back the next day

when you both fall asleep that night, it’s cuddling together and exchanging little kisses before actually nodding off, and seungmin almost feels bad that the stuffed dog he had gotten you was kind of forgot in that moment,

but he’s glad it’s him you’re cuddling instead.

notes: this makes me want to go to paris now i did this to myself,,, also my skz bias is changbin but i’m on such a seungmin kick lately,,, thank u seungmin. i’m lowkey proud that the french i wrote in this are from my own knowledge because of the one time i took french my junior year (even though i live in florida and everyone else took spanish,,,,, i’m kind of dumb bitch) okay i’ll shut up now,,,, also i recommend looking up the wall of love! it’s cute!!!! also i named the stuffed dog after french poet arthur rimbaud! he has amazing poetry and a pretty interesting life when he was alive, there’s a movie about him that leonardo dicaprio stars in! hope you guys enjoyed this, haha, it took a lot of research ksskj and 8 pages in google docs <3

[4nime6-blog]

Cool Hip Anime!

Anime

Large sparkling eyes, brightly coloured frizzy hair, obscure nose and high facial expression reminds us connected with only one factor.

Anime

Can you do you know what the item is?

If your response is actually Anime, then STOP, to see an otaku's brain!

Cartoons (pronounced: "Ah-nee-may") will be a form of animation typically from Okazaki, japan. They have got their own style this means you will show that in peculiar and wonderful ways. Cartoons also has its very own sense associated with comedy along with has a unique thought processes. It can get actually strong and serious, as well as it could truly be silliest (like: "Lucky Star", "Kill Me Baby") in addition to craziest (like: "Death Note", "Gintama") thing a person have ever before seen. Many Anime demonstrates are centered on popular mangas (Japanese Comics), just putting any not much more life into these people. Cartoons often covers far more serious issues than normal cartoons. In the united states, cartoons tend to be considered a form regarding enjoyment meant for youngsters. In Okazaki , japan, people involving all ages (no, not necessarily newborn babies! ) see anime. Most shows and flicks are centred for youngsters, teenager or young older people, but you can also get many cartoons that are made with regard to older crowd even business people and housewives!

The phrase "Anime" is the close pronunciation connected with "animation" within Japanese, exactly where this expression references just about all animation. Outside the house Japan, cartoons is applied to refer specifically toon from Japan or Western disseminated animation style usually characterized by colourful visuals, attractive characters and fantastical designs. Japanese animation commenced inside 20th century. Katsudo Shashin is claimed for you to be the first Japan animation. The 1923 Fantastic Kanto earthquake triggered wide-spread destruction including demolition associated with earliest Anime Companies as well as anime works; departing Kouchi's Namakura Gatana because the most well-known surviving animation. The 1st cartoons television series was Otogi Manga Calendar aired by 1961 to 1964.

This introduction to anime ended up being in category four while I watched "City Hunter" in a T. Sixth v. channel, Animax. Though I could see anime (as a make a difference of fact the particular multiple of anime is usually anime) like "Doraemon", "Shinchan", "Avatar-The last airbender", "Summer Days and nights with Coo", "AstroBoy", "Dragon Ball-Z", "Naruto" in the past just before yet I did definitely not recognize the profound perception regarding anime as this was dubbed throughout Hindi (rather I would point out "contaminated" instead of "dubbed" by means of old, ridiculous man noises in Hindi who also would break unnecessary, slap-stick jokes deviating viewers through the plot and also terrain you in a hotch-potch of indianised anime). My very own sister ( three yrs young than me even though I actually refuse to confess she is older when compared with me) took weird curiosity in Japanese anime similar to " Tears to Tiara" and "Stigma of typically the Wind" aired in Animax: that we thought strange from that time while the "patriotic inertia" will stop me from receiving something but Indian products. I got first repelled by often the proven fact that all the words casts have been in Japoneses and to understand history I had to consider difficulty of reading the actual Subtitles in english and had to help correlate the particular speech using the video proven; regarding which great deal involving attention seemed to be required. That was impossible personally in order to do both those exhaustion tasks at the very same time, so I delivered to my old Capital t. V. channels: Cartoon Community, Nickolodeans, Hungama, Pogo, Come back and Jetix.

After some sort of very long hiatus, in type seven, My spouse and i again started out experimenting our skills with understanding anime which often converted out to be a new success, when I 1st delighted in anime including "Hayate the Combat Butler" along with "Fairy Tail". Also! This kind of sweet poison! Following a total hectic day time in school, expenses, floating around classes, art in addition to audio classes, and full various other heck lot of routines; I waited only to be able to settle-back and relax for you to watch these kinds of anime. From that time, nothing was of importance to me; not also my parents, close friends as well as teachers. In that online realms of pleasure My partner and i could equipment my failures and sufferings as effortlessly as I got obtained in successes. Nothing irritated me, except when We were required to attend phone telephone calls or to wide open entrance, if any guests will come when the anime indicates were ongoing. However, cartoons hardly did affect this studies as after seeing two hour long plan, I suffered from PARTS (Post Anime Depression Syndrome) that I suffered typically the sense of guilt of wasting moment that has been more intensified through my very own mother's rebuke (I wish to describe this circumstance as "Kata Ghaye nuun-er Chheta") and this also guilt might propel my family to review harder, concentrate and also perform for longer hours this also occurred as daily schedule in my opinion; so I can easily get the best of most connected with the students be that researching or swimming or even any different work.

Hence to all parents, I actually would like to ask for allowing your kids to help watch anime because it proved helpful out for me (maybe I use strange wirings within my human brain! ). Enjoying anime would help an individual to hone your fictional, vocabulary and analytical expertise. More importantly, it would certainly serve as a enormous source of entertainment, at the very least way beyond the little league of daily Indian soap.

Understanding the culture associated with origins is very crucial to realize the plan, be it Japanese cartoons, Korean language Aeni webtoons, China's Manhua Anime or Us sitcoms (which I endured after i was novice inside observing anime). If anyone have watched virtually any cartoons, you will probably discover that often the characters respond differently along with things throughout general (like properties, vehicles, eating etc. ) are usually bit different from everything you used to. Probably the actual most readily evident distinctions between Japanese computer animation in addition to others is the a muslim everywhere huge eyes (bigger in comparison with nose), brightly girl locks, some well-endowed character types as well as exaggerated emotional movement and also gestures are regular regarding anime. Being hand-drawn, cartoons is separated coming from actuality providing an best path intended for escapism directly into which followers can involve themselves having relative simplicity. The production of cartoons focusses less on the particular cartoon movement and considerably more on the realistic look involving settings like "The Yard of Words".

The particular beginning and credit sequences connected with most anime are combined with Japanese rock or take song which maybe related to the anime series, simply by popular bands. "Nanairo Namida" by Tomato n' Pinus radiata of anime "Beelzebub" along with "Just Awake" of cartoons "Hunter X Hunter" are a few of my favourite anime tunes, which you may try out.

Since there are several sorts of cartoons, one will need to classify these individuals with different genres, some associated with them are generally: Action, Audio, Mecha, Experience, Mystery, Bishounen, Yuri, Yaoi, Akuma, Seinen, Shoujo, Shounen, Kodomo, Piece of Existence and a lot of more. Whether you're the die-hard anime fan (like me generally labelled seeing that "otaku"), a casual watcher, the interested onlooker or perhaps commoner from non-anime website: cartoons genres shall supply you actually with some simple knowledge which help you in order to venture the cartoons planet with ease and joy.

I am going to be able to share some remarkable rates of anime which will etch my heart usually are:

• Motoko Kusanagi regarding "Ghost in the Shell a couple of: Innocence"

"We weep to get blood of a pet although not for the our blood of a species of fish. Endowed are those with any tone. "

• Shinchi Akiyama of "Liar Game"

"People SHOULD be doubted. Many people get me wrong this specific concept. Doubting people is simply a part of getting for you to know them. Just what quite a few people call "trust" is absolutely just giving up about wanting to understand others in addition to that extremely act is definitely far more serious than questioning. It is actually 'apathy'. "

• Hachiman Hikigaya of "My Teen Passionate Comedy SNAFU"

"If simple truth is cruel

Then

Lie needs to be kind

Then

Kindness need to be lie"

You can observe anime with T. /. by opting-in to Animax, Aniplus, AnimeCental, TV Tokyo or online on internet sites like animehaven. to help, kissanime, Funimation. com, Netflix, Crunchyroll. com, hulu, Vimeo and so forth.

ENJOY WATCHING CARTOONS!

[anthro-lang]

Update: Self-studying 4 + 1 + 1 languages!

in April I posted about self-studying 3 + 1 languages, but since then my priorities have changed dramatically (and i’m entering a new phase in life), so here’s an update on what i’ve been doing and what my new plans are:

1. Spanish

proficiency: B1

what I’ve achieved since April: 

nothing! I’ve been putting Spanish on hold because i’ve been distracted by other shiny new toys (read: languages) and I’ve lost the motivation to learn beyond what I already know

the old plan I devised was way too time intensive, and was unsustainable in what was a Very Busy Semester

also holidayed in Spain for 2 weeks and managed to get around and have conversations in broken but decent conversational Spanish, so I’m not too worried about losing my speaking ability entirely

updated goals:

plan for immersion rather than repetition and grammar. Take some time to come up with self-study plan that works for me, and works with my limited time

I’d like to continue watching Spanish speakers and listening to Spanish podcasts. So far those that have stuck are Coreano Vlogs and HelloTaniaChan on Youtube, Historias Perdidas podcast on iTunes

2. German

proficiency: C1+?

what I’ve achieved since April:

I’ve put German on hold because I /live/ here and speak German every single day. Honestly I don’t know what my German standard is anymore because I was tested at C1 three years ago and have improved so much since then, but I hesitate to call myself C2 because I still have so many doubts about everything

I’ve become more German -- learned more about German culture and done some Truly German Activities like hiking, chilling by the lake, gardening...

updated goals:

find a way to continue connecting with this community after my time here is up

find a way to review the grammar without boring myself to death

vocabulary! I love learning about the nuances of vocab and I’ve got plans to make it through a synonym book (already at C)

3. Mandarin Chinese

proficiency: HSK 6+ / native

what I’ve achieved since April:

I have read entire books. I have watched entire shows. I no longer think my Mandarin is that problematic

updated goals:

it’s been helpful picking up vocabulary from Du Zhe - my new plans are to integrate those close reading sessions with quizlet sets where I can train myself to write better and more intuitively. 

post more of my vocabulary practices to tumblr. I’m enjoying writing and learning and the characters are beautiful

watch Meteor Garden on Netflix without subtitles (and without cringing?)

finish the book i’ve started (10% through after a week)

4. Dutch

proficiency: B1

what I’ve achieved since April:

went from 0 to B1 real quick thanks to a good grasp of German grammar and German grammar rules. Did a semester of Dutch classes at the uni.

right now I’m trying to intensify my learning and absorb as much new vocabulary as possible, while focusing my grammar learning points on the differences between Dutch and German

updated goals:

engage all levels of speaking / hearing / reading to become proficient at the language as fast as possible. I want to be conversational, and I want to be conversational fast.

continue through my self-made intensive lesson plan (10 intensive sessions in 2 weeks, followed by an intensive grammar run through a basic Dutch grammar book within 2 weeks, accompanied by learning vocabulary on Memrise)

+ 1! Korean

proficiency: 0

motivation behind learning Korean:

Korean has always sort of been in my cultural consciousness, I watched Running Man devotedly until 2012 and friends are K-Pop fans. It only felt natural that I pick up Korean eventually, especially since Korean major friends have more or less taught me to read the alphabet

I’m looking for a challenge, and Korean grammar is notorious for being ridiculously context-driven and nuanced

goals:

get to a TOPIK I or equivalent level by the end of 2018, and enjoy the entire process as I do so. 

continue following a 2x weekly informal class, and get up to speed on Lingodeer. I think once I’ve completed what’s available for Lingodeer, I’ll move on to a more serious stage of trying to learn with a proper book

continue having fun learning Korean! whether it’s listening to Korean makeup gurus tell me how to do my makeup or reading the hangeul for K-pop songs, I want to enjoy this every step of the way

+ 1 more because why not! Cantonese

proficiency: I understand conversations, I can’t speak it

motivations:

it’s embarrassing that I can eavesdrop on people, but can’t speak. I would love to train my speaking

honestly i love the look of traditional characters and would love any excuse to read them

goals:

still looking for a good way to learn Cantonese in an immersive way. There aren’t many (free) resources for intermediate learners, and I don’t need to learn vocab in English. I need to learn how to pronounce things! CantoneseClass101 is pretty good I guess, but a 7 day trial is hardly enough!

fiddle my way through a Memrise Canto course. They do characters, not just jyutpin, so we’ll see how good that goes

[serenataichou]

flower

SEVENTEEN FANFICTION: WOOZI X READER

PART 1 >> PART 2 >> PART 3 >> ??

AU, ANGST, SLIGHT LANGUAGE

*Actual release dates of songs/albums do not apply to this AU*

SUMMARY:

You stare at him blankly from across the street. He knows you don’t want the surgery, is that why he is telling you this now? Tears slowly stream down his face, you want to cross the street and wipe them away but you remain still. You’ve never seen him cry. Not even when he first found out about your disease.

Jihoon slowly opens his eyes, Joshua's wake up call disturbing his sleep. The first thing he does when his mind is able to think clearly is check his phone. He doesn't see the notification he wants and immediately lays his head back on his pillow with a slight whimper. He checks his phone again and looks at the time, 'Its 5 am. Why would she be up at this hour anyways? Dumbass.'

Jumping out of bed, he gets ready for their schedule. They have a comeback stage to record among other promotions for their 4th mini album. They also have to further discuss the plans for their world tour. Jihoon can feel the lack of motivation start to settle into his bones. He reminds himself that he's a leader and their producer, he out of everyone cannot slack off even the slightest bit. The heaviness on his shoulders does not lessen, but at least it gets him out of his room.

Throwing the album to the side, you decide to forget about it until you can talk to Adam about it. You don’t usually talk about Kpop related things with him, not because he’s judgemental about it but you find that he has much more interesting things to say than you do. However, you want to respect Jihoon’s privacy and quite frankly you don’t trust any of your kpop friends to not go blabbing about what happened on social media. Not that they are bad people, they would just get way to excited in the moment to think about their actions. You trust Adam completely, mainly because he has no idea who they are and he better than anybody knows how much music, and by extension some artists, means to you. He would never hurt you that way.

You move your head slightly to look at the time, it’s far far too early and you don’t even have class today. Suddenly, your apartment feels unbearbly quiet. You shared a room with at least one of your siblings most of your life and although the school year is already almost over you still aren’t use to being alone. You turn the TV on and just let the news play while you start cleaning up and making yourself breakfast. Despite yesterday’s episode and the ache in your body, your chest feels lights today. Talking to Adam always did have that effect on you.

It’s almost lunchtime when you finally finish doing all the chores you could possibly think of. You have homework to do but just thinking about the assignment makes you want to cry out of laziness. You are more of a music nerd than a film nerd, which isn’t saying much because you can’t even read music notes for christs sakes, but you’d much rather analyze a music track than a film. Working toward a journalism degree, you don’t understand at all why you have to take these TV & Film classes. You groan as you throw yourself on your couch. To procrastinate you scroll through Twitter with your fan account.

You notice that your follower count increased and you make sure to follow back. A year ago, you started gaining followers when you tweeted that you were going to school in South Korea. Then you started gaining more followers when you tweeted that you were going to the Seventeen fanmeeting. You didn’t tweet those things for any special attention. You tweeted them because you were excited and wanted to share it with your followers who would be happy for you. But people were eager to know how life in South Korea is like so they followed you. Being an international fan you felt sympathetic so of course you opened a curiouscat account. Some questions are weird, others quite serious, and the rest are simple. Today most of them are from carats asking about the fansign. You skim through them all so that you can see which questions are asked more then once.

The beginning ones are just typical questions like how did it go and what did they say, but after that they get really strange.

Anonymous:

You’re the only international fan I know who was there. If it’s you, please talk to k-carats.

Anonymous:

Is it true? People are saying its you :( please be okay.

Anonymous:

I don’t know if it’s you, you’re probably getting a lot of asks and dont know what’s going on :/ here: https://twitter.com/wooooooooooozi/status/975688491420938241?s=21

You’re glad that your online kpop friends are all from Tumblr, not Twitter. You never participated in selca days so none of your followers know how you look like. Before you had started gaining follower your account mainly consisted of retweets of photos and videos of your favorite groups doing cute or stupid things. So without thinking twice you deactivate. Truthfully, most of your social interactions are all done online or through text. But you didn’t think that deleting your stan account would leave you feeling so empty.

You go into your room and throw yourself onto your bed. It wasn’t uncommon for you to lay there and wish for your existence to just end. You didn’t want to die. Not when you knew you would be hurting your friends, your family, and Adam if you did. But you are dying. You will die soon.

You accepted that the night of graduation, when Adam had ditched his track friends and went to go look for you. He found you on the rooftop, looking at the stars while drinking an iced tea that mainly consisted of tequila. He was never a drinker, but you definitely were. There was a point in high school where’d you go to a party every weekend just to get plastered, not because you necessarily liked parties. You just liked alcohol. So you were surprised when he took your drink out of your hand just to chug it himself. “I...I needed to get shitfaced...to try this,” he slurred before smashing his lips to yours. You were too surprised at that time to quickly process what was happening, and just as you were about to reciprocate he pulled back. With a disappointed sigh and a frown on his lips he said, “I...I didn’t feel...anything. I wanted to.”

That was the first time you coughed up hydrangeas, blue petals stained by red as the crushing weight on your chest, that you normally associated with anxiety, became all too real. Upon hearing his words you knew immediately that that its not like he’s never thought of you in a romantic sense or whatever else typical troupe is used in those movies where the two best friends fall in love. He just doesn’t like you romantically. So there will be no happy ending for you.

Your breath hitches and your eyes burn. It’s been awhile since you last tasted salt instead of iron. You start sobbing. You are most likely going to die while studying in South Korea, with no family or friends around. Which is what you want, you don’t want them to see you. Hanahaki is not a pretty death despite the presence of flowers. Even so, it hurts to think of how you are going to die all alone.

Jihoon eagerly checks his phone when his manager says their lunch break is about to start. The little red one at the top right corner of the messages icon gives him more hope than it should. Licking his lips nervously, he opens the app.

XXX-XXX-XXXX

Is this Jihoon-ssi? It’s Y/N from the fan meeting.

He can’t help the grin that shows up on his face, but hides it quickly before the members can see. If they notice he will definitely get interrogated and he’s not exactly sure if what he did was something he’s allowed to do. However, now that he’s received the message he’s not sure what to send back. Quite honestly, he didn’t think he would get this far. Before he can start panicking and end up sending whatever first pops in his head another message pops up.

XXX-XXX-XXXX

Do you listen to Epik High? Have you listened to ‘We’ve Done Something Wonderful’? I’ve listened to it so much but didn’t notice that ‘Here Come The Regrets’ was all in English until like two days ago.

Jihoon licks his lips to keep himself from chuckling. He doesn’t really understand the struggle of knowing more then one language, yes they sometimes sang in Japanese but he wasn’t fluent and his English was...well..He’d rather not think about it. But it’s amusing nonetheless.

Me

Sometimes when I watch anime for too long with the subtitles on, I swear I hear them speaking Korean.

XXX-XXX-XXXX

That happens to me, but with English. Thank god, I thought that only happened to me and that I was crazy.

Me

Honestly, we are probably still crazy.

XXX-XXX-XXXX

That’s true.

The conversation goes along so easily. He doesn’t feel nervous at all, but his heart is still beating far too fast.

[fursttimes]

Pandemic trip to South Korea

10/22/20 - 11/22/20 If you haven’t yet been to South Korea, I highly recommend it.

Why South Korea?

I wanted to visit South Korea for over a year since I discovered K Pop (and especially K R&B) and started watching K Dramas.  Here’s a gorgeous scene from the historical romance Mr. Sunshine.

My goal is to consume K content without subtitles. After studying on my own and hiring two different language teachers, I wasn’t improving much. In this situation, I rely on immersion.

I also listened to Miyoko Schinner’s Home Comforts where she cooks every Friday on a theme. That day, she was cooking Korean food inspired by her recent trip to South Korea. She said there was an entire vegan street in Seoul.  Then she said she brought a rescue dog back to SFO as the volunteer courier and that it was really easy.

As a 1st world country, South Korea shouldn’t be as challenging to navigate as other places.

Why now?

Yes, it’s odd that I’d be traveling during a pandemic where there’s a deadly airborne virus spreading across the globe.  Don’t get me wrong, there were a few bright spots during the year, Animal Run’s 1st Virtual Event being one, but combine the factors of

South Korea being a model for having one of the best containment strategies in the world (they never truly had a shut down)

Random lock downs in California

Weight gain from working from home

Working from home all by myself (with my cats)

I was buying useless things online

One cat passed away

Heat waves

Multiple forest fires

An extra-depressing day of being trapped underneath the dark smoky skies without sunlight

6 months left in a contract job that doesn’t require much brain power

Another crazy presidential election looming

I haven’t gone overseas since 2014

I’ve never been there before so my anticipation level was high

I wanted to bring a rescue dog back with me

My partner was OK with holding down the fort for a month without me

My job approved working remotely for two weeks and then taking two weeks off

10 days after getting approval from work, I boarded a plane to quarantine for two weeks and then explore the small but mighty country.

What’s the worst that could happen?

I could die. But when it’s time ...

I could catch the virus and spread it. But I was quarantining so bringing it back to the US was more likely than bringing it into South Korea.

My work laptop wouldn’t work.

Flight to Seoul

The direct flight was 12 hours and super easy. The plane was only 1/3 full so I was able to lie down and sleep for most of the trip. When I woke up, there was only 1.5 hours left before I landed at 4am. 

Stuck 4 hours at Incheon Airport

I pride myself on my research. Sure, I only had 10 days to study but I’ll watch a few YouTube videos and do some Google searching of what quarantine would be like. Then once done with my quarantine work day, I’d plan how to navigate the country which I knew very little about. 

Fact: When you don’t know what you don’t know, that’s just life testing you.

The plane landed smoothly and I turned on the airport wifi which was much stronger than SFO wifi. We walked over to immigration and they asked me why I was here. I’m a tourist. Do I know anyone in South Korea? No. I was able to pass to the next section. 

Down the hall, there were several tables with young military people interviewing everyone who just landed. I sat down and they asked what I was doing here. I’m a tourist. Do I know anyone in South Korea? No. Do I know anyone with a South Korean phone number. No. 

They explained they needed to call a South Korean phone number with someone on the other end who would pick up and say that they would be my “guardian” during my time in South Korea.  I told them that I thought the procedure was to install a sim card in my phone so I could be tracked wherever I went. They said no, they didn’t know about that, but I still needed the Korean phone number. 

I told them to call my hotel which I reserved for after quarantine. The hotel denied my request. Until I could come up with a phone number and guardian, I could not leave the airport. 

This was the moment I became worried. I wracked my brain for someone I knew might have a contact or relative living in South Korea.  I called Greg first to tell him the situation and to see if he had any patients who could help.  He did not. 

Next, I called a co-worker from several years back and several companies ago. She picked up and suspiciously said “Hello?” I explained my situation and it was a VERY awkward conversation. Ultimately, she was not able to help.

I decided to text a friend of a friend whom I’ve never met. A good runner friend FB introduced me to him a few days before my flight. He was kind enough to give me some recommendations of places to visit. I explained my situation in text. If I was lucky, maybe he would respond in the next hour or two.

After 3 strikes, I felt some panic and decided to sit down on the airport floor and take several deep relaxing breaths. After a few minutes of sitting quietly, it occurred to me to call the US Embassy. This thought came directly from my Peace Corps experience where I learned that embassies are there to bail out their citizens in trouble. So I requested a call to the US Embassy and he thought that was a great idea ... except that they are closed on Sundays. Sigh.  

I knew they have an emergency number though. I hesitated in calling that number since my situation was not life or death, but I thought about sleeping overnight at the airport ... so I asked the guy to call the emergency number.  

The woman on the other end was confused. She told me she had not heard of this requirement and thought that the procedure was to install a sim card on my phone. But she spoke to the guy and said she would straighten this out in 15 minutes. 

WHEW!!!!!!  

While we were waiting for her to call back, I learned that these full time military guys (not the 2-year mandatory military people) are rotated into the airport twice a week to do this interviewing job. I asked if there were other people like me who didn’t know about this requirement. He said yes. I asked him what those people did.  They also panic dialed people they knew, but I was the first (that he knew about) to call my Embassy.

I made it it through that critical step. My next step was to go ahead and install the sim card anyway. Another nice English speaking guy said he would help me, which was great, because the sim card lady spoke no English. Everything was going well until she hit a screen on my phone asking for an unlock password. 

UGH!!!  

I had paid AT&T in full to own my phone so it could be unlocked for this trip. This was a big missed step.  Oh well. The nice lady gave me my receipt, instructions on how to install my personal sim card back into my phone and a Customer Help number to call from my hotel during quarantine.  

Just one more interview before I was allowed into baggage claim. This guy asked me what I was doing in South Korea. I’m a tourist. Did I understand that I’d be quarantined for 2 weeks and that I would be paying between $1,400-$2,100 USD and that these prices are set by the Korean authorities?  Yes. 

Finally I was allowed to get my bags. With my brain completely fried, I descended to baggage claim and promptly made a wrong turn. I wandered through the intimidatingly cavernous baggage claim section. It was a strange experience to be in a fully lit air hanger with no other soul around, with no sound and where nothing moved. I certainly got my steps in.  After what felt like forever, I finally saw someone who pointed in the right direction. I picked up my bags and was told to board a bus headed to my quarantine hotel.  My plane landed at 4am and I boarded the shuttle at 8am.

Quarantine

It took 30 minutes from Incheon Airport to Gimpo’s Ramada Encore Hotel. This is a random quarantine destination probably depending on the time of day each bus leaves from the airport. 

I was excited. I officially entered South Korea ready to experience a two week quarantine in a new country. Hopefully, this was going to be the closest thing to prison that I will ever experience. 

When we parked in front of the hotel waiting for our instructions to disembark, a Russian woman with an infant started to cry.  She had an apartment in Seoul so the quarantine thing was a mistake. She didn't pack any diapers or formula for her baby.  She decided to stay on the bus because she didn't want to implicitly agree to the quarantine. I hope it worked out for her. There were about 10 other people on the bus with me.

We disembarked and lined up in front of people in hazmat suits who told us to line up, leave our luggage, and enter the processing room.  This was the hotel dining area or conference room which looked like a semi-organized mess.  Tables and chairs were stacked on top of each other.  The hotel was no longer a hotel but was a "processing center" so it looked like things were just shoved aside to make room for processing equipment.  There is no hotel staff.  These were employees of some agency.

The hazmat people taught us how to use the daily temperature check app (we need to take our temperatures 2x day) and assigned our rooms. I asked how many people were quarantining in the building? ~300. How many quarantine centers there were? 5-6 hotels. I told them I was vegetarian since vegan was not an option. They charged my card $1,450. I was lucky.

I got room 901. Once I went in, I cannot step outside of it for 14 days. As I took the elevator up and walked down the hall, I noticed orange bags filled up in front of the doors.  Those were the orange garbage bags with the hazard sign on it so that it would all be disposed of like radioactive waste.  

I entered my room and it was HOT.  I looked at the temperature gauge and it was 28C (82F).  I tried opening the window and it opened, but not enough to let cool air in. I tried the air conditioning setting but it was broken. 

There was a sign on the inside of the door warning me not to leave the room but to call the command center for questions. I called that number and told them that my air conditioner was broken and they said they turned it off, because it was fall, but they'd send up a fan. Sigh.

There was a white plastic bag on the floor with my welcome kit. 2 bottles of water, a toothpaste tube, a toothbrush, several small hotel hand soaps, slippers, five small hand/face towels and what looked like a cigarette box but had 10 small servings of instant coffee.  

I heard a knock on the door and it was food along with the fan, both wrapped in plastic bags. The food was AMAZING!  It was in a plastic tray and the main item was cauliflower and two awesome banchan, chillied perilla leaves and sweet yellow pickled radish.  So much flavor!  Whatever I suspected containing egg or dairy was thrown out along with the rice. With three meals a day, I was never hungry and I even managed to lose 4 pounds during quarantine.

I started unpacking and took a shower because it was so hot. When I stepped out, the hotel PA system turned on and a woman's voice said in English "Sir on the 9th floor in a red shirt, please go back to your room immediately."  Oh boy. I would find out later that my room has a hidden camera, because the PA system would go on reminding people not to smoke inside the room.

I checked if my laptop worked. It did!  Whew!!!  Then I heard a knock on the door.  It was two guys in hazmat suits ready to give me my first covid test.  I asked the first guy to help set up the TV screen as my 2nd monitor. BIG win since I didn't need to struggle with the Korean instructions. 

Then the 2nd guy took my temperature, swabbed my throat (I gagged) then told me the last step was going to hurt and which nostril would I prefer? I said "suprise me" and he proceeded to invade my brain through my right nostril. It was HUGELY uncomfortable but not quite painful. It felt like that nostril was drowning while I was still able to breathe through the other nostril.  Once it was over, I had a headache. I decided to call it a day and knocked out hard.

Quarantine Days 2-13

I woke up Bay Area time at 8 am which is midnight in Korea. The deal was to work during Bay Area hours then take 2 weeks off to explore.  I arranged the room to make it a home for the next 13 days. 

I pushed up the twin beds to give me more floor space. I set up my work station. Hung up my clothes. Placed all wastepaper baskets outside my door so that I wasn't collecting garbage inside my space.

My biggest fear was that something would happen to my work Chromebook during the trip from my house to the hotel. I was SO pumped to know that it was working once I popped it open. The following morning though, I noticed the battery was really, really low.  OMG!!!  I only had an hour of charge left. 

I checked the cord connections were firmly attached and looked up the voltage requirements.  The US has 110V and South Korea has 220V.  The plug said the laptop was fine to use in both. I verified online as well. Basically, I didn't need to have the cord plugged into the $50 voltage converter I bought specifically for this trip. I could plug it straight into the wall with an adapter. 

My humidifier, my toothbrush and my monitor had appeared "broken" as well. I plugged in my humidifier directly into the wall and it started working straight away. Although I was VERY nervous about it, I did the same for my laptop.  I listened for a “pop” sound in case the higher voltage fried the device, but I didn't hear one and saw that the laptop was charging normally.  WHEW!!!  That made me realize that most of our electronics are made in Asia and probably had to be modified for the US.  I didn't need to spend over $100 on two voltage converters from Best Buy. Lesson learned.  

I needed Greg's help with contacting AT&T to unlock my phone screen. That was a huge help. But then, I realized that I wasn't getting text notifications, required for some apps for identity verification. So I contacted Korea Telecom (KT) hotline to ask them how to fix it.  They sent me an email with English instructions but the texting still didn't work. Ugh!  They told me I needed to talk to tech support but but since they don’t speak English, I would need help from a Korean speaker. This ended up being very inconvenient but not terrible. 

Lesson: Next time, I’ll just rent a phone from the airport with a separate data card installed. 

Luckily the room was non-smoking so I didn't have to deal with a bad smell. Plus, there was ample shampoo/conditioner and body gel wash in the shower so I didn't have to use my supply. But what I saw in YouTube videos, I didn't get detergent and daily coffee. One YouTube video guy, who also quarantined at the Ramada, did mention that the floor was dirty, which I can confirm.  

I asked for a vacuum, detergent and coffee from the command center.  They gave me a sticky roller for the floor (I used two of them), an extra bar of soap for my clothes and told me they don't give more coffee. I can have as much water as I wanted though. I went through two sticky rolls, used the gel soap for my clothes and ordered coffee online from GMarket. Delivery takes 3 days so I had to ration my little mini sticks of instant. Rationing those sticks was my biggest challenge during the quarantine situation. Otherwise, it was fairly pleasant because I stayed busy working, exercising and vacation planning.

I strapped my phone onto my body to track my steps and tried to surpass it every day. The highest I got was just over 5k steps and averaged around 3.5k steps. I wrapped the 50-pound band to the door handle and did rows every time I threw something out on the other side of the door. I used the other 50 pound band for triceps and biceps. 

The early morning wake ups are cold and that's the best time for me to cardio. Then once 8am hits, the sun hits my window and it gets warm very fast so I have to use my blackout curtains and turn on the fan. I wash my clothes while I'm in the shower and let them dry overnight.

I would also get infrequent Covid cell phone alerts (like Amber Alerts) related to the residents in Gimpo. 

As I traveled around the country, I would get these alerts for the region I was in. When I returned to Seoul, I noticed the alerts were more frequent, but then again, 50% of all South Koreans live in Seoul. 

Day 14 Covid-Free and Freedom

If I had someone to pick me up, I could’ve left at midnight on my last day. But I had to wait to take the shuttle at 8:30am to be dropped off at Seoul Station, which is the main hub to the rest of South Korea via KTX train or subway.

When I finally left my room to go back down that elevator to Floor 1, the wind hit me like a jump into Lake Michigan. My room had been so warm that the 45 F degree weather shocked me.

Once we were dropped off 30-minutes later, I took a taxi to the hotel, initially to the wrong hotel, but eventually landed at the Nine Tree Premier Hotel Myeongdong II on 28 Mareunnae-ro.  There are three Nine Tree hotels so getting the address correct is important. 

Check in was at 3pm, so I left my bags and hit the streets like a race horse out of the gate. I happily overdid it by getting lost on the subway and walking over 10 miles on Day 1.  Four of those miles were pure stairway climbing because the subway system in Seoul is like navigating an underground mountain range. I continued to overdo it on Day 2-3.

My Itinarary 

Some pics and videos from each place

Seoul 3 days

Jeju Island 2 days

Busan 2 days

Gyeongju 2 days

Seoraksan 1 day

Seoul 4 days

Seoul - Olympic Park

Seoul - Museum of Modern History - Picasso’s Massacre in Korea 1951

Seoul - teamLab at Dongdaemun Plaza

Seoul - Royal Palace

Seoul - itseoulgood.com Mike Kim took me on a Vegan Food Tour 

Jeju Island - Iho Tewoo Horse Lighthouses

Jeju Island - Haenyeo Female Divers

Jeju Island - Hallasan

Jeju Island - The best vegan yogurt @ Cafe 901

Busan - Landscape. The buildings look like fake cardboard cutouts

Busan - Steamy Cart

 https://youtu.be/M9Sy3zvg17U

Busan - Seaside Temple

Busan - Gamcheon Culture Village

Busan - Cinema Center (Skater kids enjoying the enormous public space)

https://youtu.be/NHoiDJoiMUY

Busan - Cinema Center (Busan International Film Festival)

Busan - Joung Eunsun and her three challenges (which I brought home)

Gyeongju - Incredible Photo of Korean Refugees at a Restaurant

Gyeongju - Tumuli Park Burial Mounds

https://youtu.be/6pnKCMYgnIY

Gyeongju - “Cheomseongdae is the oldest surviving astronomical observatory in Asia and possibly even the world. It was constructed in the 7th century in the kingdom of Silla. Cheomseongdae is mentioned in the popular Korean drama Queen Seondeok. In the 2009 drama, Cheomseongdae was constructed when Queen Seondeok was still a princess; this was her first decree as a princess. Cheomseongdae was meant to share the knowledge of astronomy with everyone, rather than letting one person (Lady Misil) abuse the knowledge of it. By doing so, she also abdicated her divine rights. Because this was uncommon at the time and unsupported by many conservatives, at the opening of Cheomseongdae, barely any nobles showed up.” - Wikipedia

Gyeongju - Wolji Pond

Travel Day! View from Gyeongju to Seoul on KTX

https://youtu.be/7LOpwQHFKpk

Travel Day! View from Seoul to Seoraksan on bus

https://youtu.be/XtUWWYcWjDE

Seoraksan - Giant screen at the park entrance

https://youtu.be/ZuTFW3acURg

Seoraksan - Yes, that is a guy riding down outside of the gondola

Seoraksan - Temple

Seoraksan - Reunification Buddha

https://youtu.be/HUo4IhzdWoU

Seoul - Insadong entrance mural of Royal Painting of Sun and Moon

Seoul - Art in Insadong

Seoul - Art in Insadong

Seoul - Subway scene (this is far from crowded)

Seoul - Night Hike along 600 year old Seoul Wall

Drinks afterwards

Seoul - My first makgeolli. It was good!

Seoul - While waiting for the Secret Garden Tour to start

Seoul - Secret Garden

Lessons Learned

[rigelmejo]

personal updates on my progress:

I watched episodes 3 and 4 of Granting You A Dreamlike Life in only chinese with chinese subtitles, and looked up no words while watching. I paused perhaps once an episode to read a line that was too fast that I wanted to look at better. I comprehended most of what was going on. I feel I caught the gist of the faster spoken scenes, even though I didn’t catch all the words in those scenes (visual storytelling sure helps - so I’m sure it was my brain catching words I knew and heard, combined with words/characters I caught and read, combined with the visuals and acting, for me to figure out what was happening). A lot of the less meaty scenes I followed mostly everything.

I consider this a huge accomplishment for myself! ;w; When I started trying to learn chinese in August 2019 knowing nothing, comprehending nothing but greetings and numbers... imagining getting to be able to do this was an incredible thought!

Based on this... I think I could start diving into watching some chinese shows I wanted to watch, that have no english subtitles.

Anyway I was just incredibly happy to accomplish this! 

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My process, and the progress over time:

Every few weeks for the past few months since December, I’ve been trying to watch chinese content in only chinese, and it’s been slightly less of a slog each time. The first time, I tried watching Anti-Fraud League and only got through 12 agonizing minutes of being very focused to only catch about 50% of what was going on. Around that time I also watched some all chinese youtube videos where I’d catch 25-75% of what each sentence meant, and not enough to overall follow the videos (they were show/fandom discussion videos). Then I tried watching The Shaw Eleven Lang’s first episode in chinese only, which managed to be comprehensible because it’s mostly action - but I did not catch a TON of words. Then I tried Anti-Fraud League again, and got 25 minutes through it... I caught a lot more, so it was easier, but it was still mystifying enough that my brain felt FRIED trying to focus enough to understand. Next, I tried watching Handsome Siblings on Netflix - with a translating app open to look up words, and paused a lot. It took me 1 hour to get through the 40 minute episode. I managed to follow the gist, but again it was a slog in the sense my brain felt quite fried after an episode. So next I watched episodes 2 and 3, still with a translator and pausing, and felt equally fried. But i managed to follow the plot, while only looking up 10-20 words an episode. 

 It was too draining though, so I took a break (because I am LAZY). A few weeks later, I went and tried to rewatch the first episode of Handsome Siblings. I caught a LOT more words, and comprehended a lot more phrases and sentences. I still was looking up 5-10 words an episode though. It felt less draining, less of a slog.

A week after that, I tried watching episode 1 of Granting You A Dreamlike Life on Viki app. What is really cool, is viki has the ‘learn english’ mode on their phone app now. So I used their dual chinese/english subtitles for episode 1, and used their click-for-definition subtitles to look up a TON of words. I probably looked up 50 or more words in the first episode. It took me like 1.5-2 hours to finish that first episode. I would compare it to intensive reading, mainly because I did look up SO MANY words since I had the convenient ability to.

That was, as expected, a SLOG. But comprehension wise it was quite easygoing, since I had english the whole time to fall back on. It took a conscious effort for me to focus on the chinese subtitles instead, and look up words, so that I was doing some studying instead of just ‘watching the english subs’. I think used in the right way, the viki ‘learn mode’ is so useful! (And I’m super excited they expanded it to all chinese shows subbed with english - before, it used to only be on a handful of shows). Now, I think this was a fantastic way to study. But it was also intensive. And... as we know... I am LAZY.

So the next day, I watched the 2nd episode on youtube where there’s only chinese subtitles. Like with Handsome Siblings, I had my phone translator app open and looked up 5-20 words during the episode. Also like watching Handsome Siblings, this cut down my watch time to 1 hour or less to get through the 40 minute episode. And, like watching Handsome Siblings, it was managable but somewhat draining simply because the urge to comprehend MORE instead of just the main gist made me want to pause/look things up a lot. It was clearly getting easier though. I think part of the ease was the fact that for episode 1, I intensively looked so many words up - so I already had exposure to a lot of the words the show might decide to use frequently. (Like meatbun oh WOW does this show say it a lot).

And so, because, as we know, I am lazy... I just decided to watch episode 3 the next day without looking up any words. So I just didn’t. So the episode took maybe 45 minutes instead of 40, to add in the short pauses I did to rewatch a couple phrases or look at a few complicated sentences while my screen was paused. Definitely the ‘easiest’ experience so far. But that is certainly because I have improved in my chinese, and because I did a bulk of my ‘looking words up’ in episode 1, so I have a nice base of knowledge to rely on. Like... this show also says ‘theatre troupe’ and related words a lot, and because I saw those unfamiliar to me words constantly in episode 1 when I looked them up, I now recognize them much easier in subsequent episodes. So I feel my ability to watch this show without any english, including without looking words up, is probably in part to the experience of looking so many words up in the first episode. I think if I tried to dive into an entirely new show, and look up zero words ever, I’d be struggling a great deal more.

Anyway. Back to the description of the experience: watching episodes 3-4 were pretty easy going. They didn’t feel like a slog! They didn’t feel draining! Which is super exciting to me, because for many months when I’ve been practicing trying to watch chinese shows with only chinese... it has been immensely draining, and I’ve had to focus so hard that I felt burnt out quickly. This time, I did not feel burnt out, and could have kept binging the show. This change is a huge improvement for me. Because, the easier it gets to engage with content and not feel burnt out, the easier it is to want to keep trying to do it. And for a long while I’ve been having to balance the rates of “looking things up to understand” with “comprehending enough of the gist to keep watching.” When I have to look up things constantly, it’s draining and I’m apt to not try to do it very long. When I watch something I barely comprehend, I have to focus so hard I get exhausted and the high amount of confusion is also very draining. Ideally, I look up just enough words to boost my comprehension to a percent I can bare to continue watching without feeling drained, while also limiting my look-up frequency enough that it doesn’t become a burden. 

---

A semi-related side note, dual subtitle tools: if you do think the resource of dual subtitles and chinese subtitles you can click for an instant definition sounds like a great thing to use, there are tools to do it on multiple platforms. All of the following tools are free. Viki app and website have ‘learn mode’ (which I believe they also have for korean and japanese). Viki’s learn mode works on any show with over 50% english subs (I’m so glad they expanded the tool to so many shows). I think its a phenomenal tool! There is a similar tool for Netflix, a chrome extension called “Learn Languages with Netflix” and it has a plethora of setting options which are cool to explore, in addition to the same features as viki’s ‘learn mode.’ I personally don’t use the netflix one, because I prefer watching Netflix on my tv - so I just use chinese netflix subs, and look words up on my phone. But I think the extension is super useful - you can even change the settings to watch only in chinese subs, with a definition if you click on a word (which is a nice middle ground between my method of using a dictionary with only chinese subs, and full dual-subtitles with definitions). The maker of that chrome extension also recently made an extension for YouTube called “Learn Languages with Youtube.” That extension is also free and in beta right now. The extension requires that the youtube video has both english and target language captions. I personally do not use it, because again I prefer watching Youtube on my tv. My method is: I find chinese shows on youtube that already have chinese hard subtitles on the video (which are most chinese shows, thankfully). Then, I just watch the show and look up words if I need to. If I am desperately confused, I can click ‘captions’ and turn on the english captions for a moment to get a full sentence english translation. An alternative way to do my method, and what I did more at the beginning: find a chinese hard-chinese-subbed show on youtube. Turn on the english captions. Then whenever you want to learn a new word, stop the video and turn off captions (to see the chinese hard-subs). Sometimes on youtube, the english captions will not cover the chinese hard subs, and you can see both at once like ‘dual subtitles’ - this also helps with matching new words to english. I find that doing it this way is easier when I’m mostly just trying to focus on a few chinese phrases/sentences/words an episode, so it’s more suited to beginners if you plan to do it all the time. I think the extension “Learn Languages with Youtube” is overall a good alternative method, I just do not use youtube on the computer enough to use it myself. 

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Final notes - my thoughts on how much watching chinese shows in only chinese is helping, and why it may help me improve, and what it might be helping with specifically: 

I don’t know how we learn or acquire language. I have read on these topics in some articles and books, and watched some lectures on these topics. But I certainly don’t know the way any expert does, so all of the following are just my thoughts and theories based on my own experiences.

What I am fairly sure watching target language content in only that language is helping with:

Helps me get more context for words I’ve studied, more exposure to those words used in different ways and situations, and helps me remember them better. This exposure also helps me learn more about how to actually use these words in practice.

Same benefit for grammar structures - allows me to see the grammar I studied in target language context, being used. This helps me remember the grammar, and helps me get used to the different ways it actually occurs. Helps me get a sense of when it should be used. Basically, it provides practice to reinforce the grammar I’ve studied and also to learn more about how it’s used in practice.

Helps me get used to following native speaking speed, because in materials focused on language learning the speaking is usually clearer and slower. So engaging in content meant for entertainment instead of education means seeing the language used in more varieties of ways, spoken in more varied ways. So it makes me get used to listening to quicker speech, to variances in speech, to guessing slang from context. Basically - reinforces what I know and makes me improve in using what I know at faster speeds and with more variance. 

Helps me improve reading speed, or at least improve my ability to skim through text for main ideas. Depending on how good my listening ability is for a given scene, I will either rely more on my listening ability or my reading ability to figure out what’s going on. For a lot of chinese words, I’ll either remember the written form or the pronounciation a little better - so for me personally it often varies on which ability I’m relying on more to understand a scene. Sometimes I’ll catch sounds I know and try to figure out what’s going on based on the words I heard and understand. Sometimes I’ll see characters/words in the chinese subtitles that I know, and try to figure out what’s going on based on that (for example, in Granting You A Dreamlike Life, I guessed what 心跳 xintiao meant by knowing it was ‘heart’+’leap’ and based on the scene realizing it means ‘heartbeat’). So, if I plan to minimize how often I pause, I have to get used to glancing at the chinese subtitles as fast as they’re spoken. I have to get used to glancing quickly at those sentences, identifying which characters match up to the words I actually know and recognized when I heard them, then continue to scan the sentence for unknown words and try to match those to what I’m hearing (based on if I know any of the character pronunciations and can match them to what was spoken, based on if I know the character meanings individually and can guess from context what they mean when combined in a word/phrase, etc). The worse my listening comprehension is, the more I rely on those chinese subtitles. The more my listening comprehension is decent, the more I have to focus on BOTH listening and reading to try and link up what I’m hearing to the text and to use ALL available knowledge I already have to guess at what the unknown parts mean from the surrounding context. 

Basically: I am fairly sure watching a show with only chinese audio and subtitles gives me the ability to practice my vocabulary recognition by providing more context and exposure, listening comprehension of words I know, more exposure to grammar I’ve studied with context, listening comprehension speed, reading comprehension speed, and comprehension of words I know. 

It’s certainly beneficial to some level, to use engaging with totally target language content to practice consolidating what you have learned, and improve your ability to understand what you’ve already studied.

To a smaller degree, it also helps me pick up a few new words and phrases - especially if I already know surrounding words, if I know the characters/words that combine to make the new ones, and if the scene provides a lot of clear visual context for what’s going on. (To use Granting You A Dreamlike Life as an example - shifu, dage, meimei, dagongzi, gongzi, jingcha, laoban, changge, xiban, baoqian, shengjian bao, gege, xihuan, shenti, da si, mai, are all words that even a beginner who didn’t know those words could probably pick up from context of the scenes alone, since the scenes they are said imply their meaning pretty clearly). 

This smaller aspect, is what I am most curious about. I am curious about how many NEW things I could potentially learn from engaging with target language content in ONLY the target language. The benefit of improving understanding and practicing what you’ve Already studied is pretty obvious. But how many new words/phrases can you acquire/learn, how many new grammar patterns can you pick up, if you engage with target language content and do not use any translations to help you (so no dual subtitles, no dictionary look up)? 

I’m definitely going to be testing this question as I go through and watch more of the show.

I’m curious as to what the answer will be. There’s definitely the possibility that my mind may decide it “understands enough of the gist to follow the plot” based on the words it already knows, and just relies on that existing knowledge without learning more. 

There’s the other possibility, that I might ‘naturally’ acquire more words as I watch more, because they’ll be understandable from context and repeatedly shown to me, so I will eventually ‘pick them up.’ (This would be the ideal outcome.)

The only other experience I have to compare this to, is when I was learning french. At a certain point when studying french, I stopped looking up new words that confused me. Because I am lazy, and I got good enough to follow the gist of the main ideas of what I read without needing to know those confusing words to do so. Because I am lazy, I just stopped looking things up. Even though if I had continued to look words up, it would have helped me improve and understand more.  So... I went to only learning these new confusing words, by guessing their meaning through context. That was the only thing I did. The thing about french though is... a ton of french words are cognates (or at least resemble a similar meaning word) in english. So it is incredibly easy to figure out the meaning of new french words in context. And once you know enough french words, and there’s only a couple ‘mystery’ words a sentence - even if those words do NOT resemble english at all, there’s so much context around them that you DO understand that make figuring out their meaning easier. This process, as expected, was a slog at first. I often read books and only understood like 50% of the pages I read (I could follow the main ideas, but rarely the finer details). Eventually, it just became easier. Probably because over time I picked up more new words. 

Learning Chinese is a fair bit different. There are very few english cognates, especially compared to french. So there are a LOT more words that I cannot guess from context. At least, not unless I have managed to learn all of the words surrounding the new unknown word. So in french, I could look at a sentence with 60% new words, guess all the cognate meanings and then be left with 10% new words that were confusing enough I had to actually contemplate their meaning based on context. If I look at a sentence in chinese with 60% new words... I will maybe, at best, be able to figure out one new word’s meaning from context. And that is IF I happen to know the characters individually that make it, IF I know enough of the grammar structure to guess what the function of the new word is, IF I managed to understand enough of the surrounding sentences to guess at what the hell these 60% new words might even be ABOUT. There is a lot more I need to rely on and lean on, just to pick up a new word in chinese. 

Now, some study methods help with this issue. Using Memrise to grind the 1000 most common chinese words has been an excellent help. Me being able to recognize the most common words has helped enough that now, I run into a lot more sentences where I only run into 20% or less new words. So these mostly-comprehensible sentences give me chances to learn the few new words from context. But bigger sentences, or sentences on more specialized topics, still basically stump me. I’ll continue using Memrise to learn more common words, and characters, because this has been helping a lot. Second - me studying characters seems to help as well. Mostly because then when I see new unknown words, I have at least one hint about what they might mean, and I can pronounce them (so its very fast for me to look them up in a dictionary). When watching Granting You a Dreamlike Life, the new words I’m picking up easily are the ones made up of characters/smaller words that I already knew. Third - using Clozemaster as an ‘stepping stone’ place to learn from context. Clozemaster gives cloze sentences with one missing word (that you will learn in the context of the sentence). It starts with the most common words, and slowly progresses to teach you less and less common words. This means the sentences tend to increase in difficulty at about the same speed as you gain the ability to comprehend these more difficult sentences. A total beginner will find Clozemaster a bit brutal. But upper-beginner and onward learners may find that Clozemaster is a great way to quickly find i+1 kind of sentences. (i+1 sentences are generally sentences where you understand almost everything in a sentence, except for 1 new word or phrase or grammar point). The app is designed to basically give you i+1 sentences that slowly increase in difficulty as you learn, so that the sentences never become too easy and progress in difficulty with you, and so that if you follow the order of their sentences you will not run into sentences far beyond your level either. So, these are the tasks I have been doing to give myself enough ‘supports’ to lean on, so that when I find new words in target language materials, I have some tools to rely on to help guess their meanings from context when I’m able to. (Another thing that helps build this ‘support,’ is studying grammar. If I recognize the grammar structures, that’s more additional context I can use to try to determine the meaning of a new unknown word. I didn’t include grammar study in this list because I did a ton of grammar cramming early on in month 2 of learning Chinese. Nearly all my grammar study after that has just been me reading/watching chinese and reinforcing those points I already read an overview on. If I ever start struggling again though, I plan to delve into studying grammar more to help give myself more ‘support.’)

But yeah. Basically... I am curious of how much a person can learn SOLELY from engaging with target language content in only the target language. With no additional flashcard studies, no dictionary translation lookups. How much can really be learned SOLELY from the context of a show/book?

With french? In my personal experience, you can pretty much just improve ‘naturally’ over time by trying to engage with target language material and watching yourself ‘naturally’ learn more over time. Once you’ve got a solid common-words basis, and can at least understand the grammar structures when you see them, words themselves are pretty easy to pick up from context over time. It does NOT always feel ‘easy’ by any means, in fact it feels draining and takes intense concentration at first. But you can basically improve without any more vocabulary flashcards or drills, without any more ‘outside of target language content’ studies. You can just immerse, at a certain point, and you’ll improve without any specific focused effort. At least that’s how it was for me. If I wanted to get back into french, I’d probably just start reading some of my french books again and it’d come back to me. Then I’d keep reading, and I’d probably improve. (Take me with a grain of salt, because my writing/speaking was never studied much, and so I would be doing purposeful study drills for those... I am only talking about comprehension).

With chinese? Because there are no cognates to rely on, and certainly dependent on how many characters in a given sentence I recognize... I have no idea if the same approach as I had in french would yield similar results. I don’t know if learning vocabulary can be acquired the same way. I’m interested in finding out. I do know that... for me personally, based on my specific tolerance/intolerance for ambiguity, I needed to learn a solid basis of characters and words before I could brave trying to engage with target language content without english to fall back on. Like... realistically, even when I was first starting and could only focus on a show for 12 minutes to comprehend THE BARE GIST of the MAIN IDEAS, I knew about 500 common characters well (and recognized probably 1000), I knew about 300 common words well (and recognized probably over 800). Now that I am finally feeling less-drained engaging in target language content, I know around 800 characters well (and recognize probably 1500+), and I know about 1000 common words well (and recognize probably 1500+ words - I have no idea how many are common words though, because I know all the HSK 1-3 words, some HSK 4 and 5 words, and also a smattering of specialized genre-specific words based on the specific chinese content I regularly consume). 

At this point in my studies, I can’t actually say how many characters or words I recognize at least somewhat, I can only firmly determine the amount I know I’ve purposely recorded studying (so only the words I have done flashcards for). I know I’ve done 1000 flashcard words. I also know I have 660 cards in Pleco (which are the more specialized vocab I look up and save for later reference, and I know they’ve got some overlap, hence my guess of 1500+ total recognized words). I also know that when I come across words I think are easy to remember, I don’t bother with flashcards (so shifu, gongzi, baoqian, zhengming, heibai, hei, hong, hongse, yu, ying, xing le, hao de, gongsi, banfa, mao, gou, gou le, mingming, ba le, suan le, etc... I never make flashcards for those... any words I think are self explanatory or hear so much I remember them easily, I don’t bother). I also delete my Pleco flashcards when I no longer feel like I need to regularly glance at them for reference. I can say for certain, that I know at minimum 1000 words well. I don’t know how many more words I know well. I can say for certain I know at least the 800 characters in one of my hanzi books known well, because I finished reading the book and when I look over it I no longer find any new information. I know I recognize a solid amount more than that, because I have a 2,500 hanzi book where I have about 1000 hanzi highlighted as recognized - and some of those hanzi overlap with the known ones in the 800 hanzi book, so I am not sure how many beyond 800 I know solidly. 

---

idk some last comments: I do NOT recommend Granting You A Dreamlike Life as your first cdrama lol! Pick a show you like!!! Maybe pick a show you’ve already watched once with subtitles in your native language! Or pick a show in the genre you are prioritizing learning words for (daily life, detective, wuxia, romance, etc)! I personally think action shows and daily life shows are the easiest to jump into. Followed by shows in the genre you consume the most. Now... I do think Granting You A Dreamlike life is relatively approachable - lots of daily life conversations, visually a lot of scenes are clear from context. But it is... not the greatest show by any means. I’m only watching it for Zhu Yilong and Bai Qian’s evil cousin from Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms lol. It’s... kind of fun, maybe? for a weird mess? But part of why I’m doing this show, aside from more Zhu Yilong, is I also don’t care too much about the plot. So I don’t get annoyed when I don’t understand something, since I don’t care enough. When I was doing this with Handsome Siblings, I cared about the plot a LOT so the vague parts I didn’t understand frustrated me immensely, and I wanted to pause/rewatch/lookup so much it slowed me down considerably. It also drained me more, because I was trying to pay attention to everything super hard. Whereas with this show, it’s not a big deal to me if I miss some details, so it doesn’t feel as draining. 

So I guess... the positives of picking a show you already watched once: you won’t be frustrated if you miss details since you already know the plot. The positives of picking a show you REALLY want to watch: you’ll care and be interested in it... but you may find it more intensive of an experience, which can be draining. The positives of picking a show you find kind of fun: hopefully keeps you interested, but also hopefully is less intensive since you don’t care if you miss a detail. The positives of picking a simple show: easier to follow! Easier on your focus! (although I don’t personally know any ‘simple’ shows except maybe... peppa pig? Which I don’t want to watch). 

For me personally, interest is the biggest driving factor in what I’m choosing. Because I need to be motivated to actually get through an episode. The second biggest factor is ‘if it’s something new I have never seen before.’ Because for me specifically, I want to test my progress in being able to comprehend things. And I feel I can do that best by watching something I have absolutely ZERO summary or prior knowledge of, and then seeing how decent I am at actually figuring out what’s going on. If I watch something I’ve already seen, then I can’t test this progress as clearly. There are plenty of benefits to watching something you do already have context for/have already seen once: that’s why many people suggest reading a summary of episodes beforehand, or rewatching/reading something you already experienced in your native language. Because the context may help you pick up new words easier, and may help prevent you from getting frustrated at the parts you don’t comprehend. For me personally, I prefer to do this by watching something brand new, to test my progress, then watching it a second time (after reading a summary to check how much I comprehended the main ideas, or watching it with eng subs a 2nd time then again in all target language a 3rd time) if I want those rewatch benefits.

[justkpopstuffinmyhead]

Luhan- The one out of Billions ♥ [Part  2]

Member: Former Exo Member Luhan

Pairing: Idol!Luhan & You

Genre: Fluff

Words: 2,356

Summary: People rarely have the chance to find their soulmate, but it looks like you just met yours. Your one out of Billions. And he just might be your Bias as well.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Back at home I open my Tumblr, prepared to write something for the other Exo-Ls, but then stop myself. 'No. Although they'd hate me if they'd know. . But I can't to this. They spent private time with me. I don't want to disappoint them by telling everyone online about it.' So I just take my diary and sum up the entire day. 'This has to be a dream.' I tell myself over and over again. My fantasy is finally making me go crazy. I look at the pictures on my phone again and smile stupidly. “It's real” I whisper to myself and start putting my schoolbooks into another bag. I don't want to risk losing the signed bag. Although I'd love to show it around. Later that evening, I fall asleep with a smile on my face.

After meeting them I started studying harder and harder and harder. Of course, my sleep suffered a bit from it, but that was no problem. On the days of my finals I saw the paper and didn't look at the first question with fear. Suddenly all the questions were easy and I answered all of them quickly. After the last final, I went home with the plan to nap for one or two hours to catch up on the sleep I missed because of the stress and studying. I've had trouble falling asleep for the last few weeks, but it's probably due to the stress I've had in school. I've always had trouble falling asleep because my head tends to be busy whenever I want to fall asleep. Currently it's filled with pictures of 12 guys, but one of them is part of my dreams more often than the rest. My heart has also been heavy throughout the last two weeks but I still don't know why. 'Maybe because I avoided tumblr and my fangirling-life' I think jokingly and turn on my computer. My tumblr-dashbord is full of Exo, as always. Subconsciously I type HIS name into the search field. His eyes have been following me in my sleep and when I see how they look like right now, I feel my heart breaking. More and more pictures and posts pop up:

 “Luhan seems really unhappy”

 “What happened to Luhan? He lost weight in the last two weeks”

 “Luhan looks tired. I hope he takes good care of himself”

 Thousands of pictures of him being grumpy and moody during interviews and him making mistakes during concerts, which already resulted in him falling and hurting himself. Is it because of our meeting? Is that why he's being so weird. 'No. Don't be silly. ‘but. .  I mean that was two weeks ago and ever since then he doesn't seem to be himself anymore. I chew my lower lip and start looking up interviews with subtitles. The other fan girls are right. He looks unhappy and annoyed. 'What happened in those 2 weeks' I wonder and look at more and more pictures and posts of him. I shake my head and turn off my computer. Then I cuddle into my bed and close my eyes tightly. This is the first time in forever that I fall asleep just a few moments after my head hits the pillow

 I wake up at around 8 pm and already know that my sleeping schedule is completely messed up now. 'This will be a long night on tumblr.' I think to myself and get myself a bowl of cereal. My mum is at her boyfriends house and my sister moved out just a few weeks ago. Back at my computer I see that there is a new post of Luhan on tumblr. I scroll down and see that the same gifs are all over my dashboard.

It's him, with Lay, Suho and Kai. Luhan has a mic in his hand, his hands are shaking. The movement of his mouth is telling me that he's speaking English. I squint my eyes and start reading. “I hope you'll see this. We met two weeks ago. And I can't get you out of my head:” He takes a deep breath. 'Is he talking about me?' “I-If you feel the same. We're looking for you. I remember your name. And you mentioned that you are on tumblr.” he chuckles carefully, as if the thought amuses him. “I'll just ask you to write your name in the tags.” His voice is shaking and he takes a deep breath. Again. But this time he doesn't say a thing. Suho takes over the mic and immediately slips into his leader role. “Please. If you remember us, help us find you. Somehow. We signed your Exo backpack. If you have a backpack at home, personally signed by all 12 member, please contact us.” This is not what I expected. “Are they talking about me?” I whisper and feel myself blush. No they're not. I mean. I'm just an ordinary girl.. My hands are shaking slightly as I open a new post on tumblr. “It's worth a try, right?” I simply put the picture of Luhan and me in there. I don't choose the one where he looks at the camera, but the one where he looks at me and write 'Are you looking for me?'.Those are the only words I add to the picture. I quickly check if I put my name on the picture, so people don't misuse it. My only tag is my name. Nothing more.. 'I will keep this picture up till tomorrow morning' I tell myself 'and if I don't get a message by then, I'm not the one he's looking for.'

 I try to distract myself by playing a video game, but my head always returns to Luhan, so I stop after three hours and check my Tumblr. 10 000 notes on my picture. I check again and it turns out that this is real. People are going crazy sharing the picture. I go to my twitter and see the hashtag #findlulussecretgirl. My picture is all over twitter, as well as my twitter name. I see that there are a few messages in my inbox. One immediately catches my eye. “If it's you, please add me on skype.” And a weird name, consisting of letters and random numbers. I immediately add the person, my hands shivering. “What if it's Luhan?” I mutter and take a look in the mirror. I quickly smooth my hair an put on a T-shirt and jeans. “okay. You can do this.” I press call and the call gets answered immediately. I feel disappointment when two middle-aged men answer the call. I see their face and quickly cover my camera. They are saying something in Korean and I know that it isn't directed towards me. I can hear a soft and tired voice from outside the camera saying something in Korean. Then the same voice says something in English “Please show me your face again.” I carefully remove my hand from the camera and look straight into the lens. I hear a relieved sigh from the other side of the screen and see the old men leave. Curiously I wait for the owner of the voice to show himself and can't believe my eyes when a slightly sweaty Luhan sits down. “No” I whisper and look at him. “A-Am I not what you expected?” He looks hurt and insecure. I quickly shake my head. “I just can't believe it's you. You're looking. . For me ?” His tired face relaxes. It looks slimmer than two weeks ago and his eyes lost their sparkle. “You look tired” I whisper and he yawns like a little kitten. “I know. I am tired. ” His voice is nervous, as if he's scared to say something wrong. We are both quiet. “Maybe you should go to bed” I suggest “I don't know what time it is in Korea, but it's 10 pm here.” He looks at me in panic. “No No. It's afternoon here. I just can't sleep and we have practice right now eitherway.” he shrugs as if everything seems irrelevant to him. “Does that mean you're missing practice?” He nods and looks at me intensely. It's the first time since we started the call that I can see a glimpse of the Luhan I saw in the restaurant. The man who was staring at me intensely with his shining deer-like eyes. “We can still talk tomorrow. I mean it seems like you waited for me for 2 weeks. You can wait another few days.”

 "No No No.  The guys are happy that I finally found you. I've been a little moody lately." He laughs carefully "How did your exams go?" He looks at me and curiously smiles. He still looks really tired and exhausted, but it seems like he's happier. "Okay. After you left, I started studying and it turned out really well." I tell him and he seems content. "That's amazing." His eyes sparkle. "So. . " I look at him. "Why are you looking for me?" He bites his lip and looks at me "I want to tell you personally. Can you come to Korea?" He looks at me hopefully and I smile a little sadly "I don't think so. I kinda have no money to go there. The plane ticket is really expensive." He sighs and rubs his forehead. "I could pay for the ticket?" He smiles hopefully. "I would love to come back to Y/C, but our schedule is quite tight currently, so I don't really have time to travel. We have to practice everyday."

“If that's the case it doesn't make sense if I'd come. I mean. You'd have no time for me and I don't know anyone in Seoul.”

“You could watch our practice. I bet we would dance a million times better if a cute girl like you was watching.” He winks and I giggle wholeheartedly.

“Well. Maybe. But still. I can't watch your practice the entire day. Please just tell me what you have to say.” I whine and pout adorably

“Well. I don't know if it feels the same to you, but to me it was. Terrible to stay away from you.” He looks at the keyboard and I pull my hand through my hair. “And I think maybe. . That we're each others destined. . ” He adds and leaves me surprised. “Destined?” I ask and he nods again. “Wow. I. . I definitely felt a pull. And that I missed you. But I thought I was being silly. Now it makes sense.” I smile and look at my phone. It lights up and reveals a picture of Luhan.

 “By the way. Do you have a messenger on your phone or something. I usually don't use Skype. So we wouldn't be able to talk a lot.” I frown and he looks at his phone. “I have Kakaotalk. But I don't think it's very popular in Europe.” Now he's frowning, while my face lights up. “I have Kakao. My name is Y/N/N the Kitten. Don't ask please.” I giggle and blush. He smiles while he type on his phone and a few minutes later I receive a message.

 “Is this you?” He asks. I quickly rename him a 'Luhan' and nod at him. “Yeah it's me” His smile makes me really happy. After seeing those pictures on Tumblr I worried about him a lot. “So you won't tell me why you were looking for me until we meet in person again?” I pout and he laughs a little. “N. . ”He suddenly gets interrupted by the door being slammed open. I hear excited chatter. “HE LAUGHS !” That's definitely Tao. “Whoa. He does laugh!” and that's Lay. His English is a little shaky, as if he doesn't use it a lot. Suddenly there isn't only one head on the screen, but 12. Well some of them are only half there or are covered. I wave shyly and the all go crazy. “IT'S HER IT'S HER!” Baekhyun and Chanyeol chant and Chen joins in. The boys are surprisingly well rested. I look at Luhan, who seems kind of annoyed by them being there. He rolls his eyes and takes his phone. “They probably won't leave. Can we skype again sometime. Just the two of us?” I receive the message and read it and my cheeks start hurting because of how wide my smile is. “WHAT ARE YOU TELLING HER?!” It's Tao, who tries to grab Luhan's phone but Luhan only puts it into the pocket of his pants. “Yes or No?” I look at him and smile. “Of course!” I nearly scream it and the boys laugh, except Luhan who smiles happily. As if he's a kid and I just told him that we'll get a kitten AND that I'll buy him the new Nintendo console. Suho pushes himself into the centre and looks over Luhan's shoulder. “Is it okay If we take him back to practice? It doesn't really make sense if we learn the choreography without him.” I nod and look at Luhan “I told him that he should go back to practice, but he said that It was okay if he stayed. I'm sorry.” I explain to Exo's leader and he just laughs it away. “It's fine. I'm just glad that he found you. Without you he was really annoying.” He answered “HE MESSED UP THE ENTIRE TIME” I recognise Sehun's voice immediately. “But I don't want to leave!” Luhan tires to convince the others by doing aegyo but it doesn't work, they all just start laughing and pull him away from the screen. Suho stays after the door closes. “Thank you. We'll bring him back in one. I promise.” I laugh as he disconnects the call.

  “He WAS looking for me.” I whisper and my heart seems to jump out of my chest. “I should say thank you on Tumblr. I mean. It's partly because of them that he found me.” I mumble to myself and open another entry.

 Thank you all

              He was looking for me.♥

 I press send and smile happily. Suddenly my phone chimes.  “You've been added to a group” 'Wait what. Only 4 or 5 people have my Kakao ID.' I look at the group. “Chanyeol. Baekhyun. Lay. Kai.” I read the names carefully. It's basically the 12 members plus me.

 “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N” “Y/N”.

 That's the entire chat until now. Just my name. I giggle quietly.

“You have to practice!” I add an angry smiley and a cat smiley and press send than I switch to Luhan's chat and write “They stole your phone? :D” He answers with a sad smiley and a heart “Don't be mad.” I have to smile. Why would I be mad? I mean millions of girls would kill for that group chat. It's okay. By the way. . I like your picture.” It's the one of him and me. The one I posted on Tumblr. “Thank you. I also like it.” he agrees and then sends me a heart smiley again. ”I have to leave. The boys are being annoying again. Will you go to bed soon?” “I don't really know. I napped and kinda ended up sleeping for 5 hours. :( So I'll probably stay awake until 1 or 2 am my time.” “We'll still practice then. :/ Write me as soon as you wake up. Good night. ♥” My heart jumps and I giggle to myself stupidly. “I will. Be careful. (: ” I close the app and lay on my bed. 'Luhan likes me.' I end up reading, trying to stay awake long enough for him to send me a message again, but I just end up falling asleep with the book on my face.

[ahermionewannabe]

SUMMER APPS MASTERPOST

Summer is awesome. It’s also a deep, deep well where you can drown in Netflix and chips, and re-emmerge in September all disappointed because you didn’t do all those wonderful things you did you would, you didn’t try or you didnt learn. Here are some apps and webpages to help you survive summer holidays.

HYDRATION

Summer is HOT. BE CAREFUL NOT TO DEHYDRATE. REALLY. The average adult is supposed to gulp down 2 liters of water a day. With this apps you can see how much you need and track how much you have already drunk.

PLANT NANNY(iOS/Android): by planting cute plants in your virtual garden and watering them with the water you drink throughout the day, you’ll stay hydrated, and it’s also kinda fun. It has different plants you unlock using the seeds the plants you have already finished watering give you. It allows you to calculate your required intake using your weight and usual physical activity, so it’s quite accurate. It also sends you reminders.

HYDRO COACH(Android): it’s the same but without the funny plant thing. It also has way better graphs.

ALSO ON THIS LINE: WHENEVER YOU ARE GOING TO BE IN THE SUN, USE SUN SCREEN!! EVEN IF ITS ONLY FOR A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME, TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF! A SUNBURN HURTS, AND IT CAN GIVE YOU SKIN CANCER. BE CAREFUL!

SPORT

For most people, sport is more difficult to practise in summer than in winter, because you have more free time, but also tend to procrastinate more and its way too hot to go for a run. Here are the best apps to exercise in your house, without having to go to gym.

NIKE+ TRAINING CLUB (iOS/Android): my personal favourite, it creates programs that adapt to your age, physical shape, time you want to spend exercising, everything. It’s totally free and has a lot of great features. Besides, it’s Nike, a good sports brand, so it does seem trustworthy, unlike many other exercising apps you can find.

FREELETICS BODY WEIGHT (iOS/android): it’s also pretty good, it adds a points system to a more or less personal trainings, but it’s not as customizable as the Nike one. If you want the totally customizable version, you’ll have to go pro.

30 DAY FIT CHALLENGE (iOS/android): This one is the good version of most fitness apps around the web that promise thigh gaps and ab cracks and stupid fashion trends that tend to be unhealthy. To say the least. No, really, don’t believe those things. You have to be healthy, NOT THIN. This app is good for that: it proposes a 30 day exercise plan, not very customisable, but it does have  levels and you can choose which body part you want to focus on. While the other two previous apps are more long-term, this one is more like…yeah, a challenge, just like its name says. Its so good you’ll probably do one 30 day after another, and the trainings are short, so its great for summer.

SWORKIT (iOS/Android): It’s pretty good too, but, as in freeletics body weight, you have to go pro to get the really good version of the app. It has a great yoga/pilates/stretching section though, and it tells you the exact number of kcals you burnt.

LANGUAGES

Most people decide on taking languages up while summer vacation, because it’s easier than giving yourself math classes. The best thing you ca do to learn a language is use it, so WATCH AS MANY SERIES/MOVIES/READ AS MANY BOOKS AS YOU CAN IN YOUR LANGUAGE OF CHOICE. USE SUBTITLES IF NEEDED, BUT REALLY, IT’S THE BEST WAY TO DO THIS.

DUOLINGO (iOS/Android): The most known language app: it allows you to learn basically every language, in small sections everyday. You can choose how much time you want to practise, and join clubs and chat groups with people who are your same level.

MEMRISE (iOS/Android): Its slightly better than duolingo in the learning department, but it doesn’t have as many interpersonal options, and it only is available for Spanish, French, English, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese and French.

OTHER STUDYING APPS/PLATFORMS

EdX: it has some AWESOME courses. Really, i did one on cell programming taoght my MIT teachers FOR FREE. They also give you diplommas for your courses, although you have to pay for those, as well as for some courses. Most of them are free, and there are great unis there!!

Khan Academy: Of course. You all know this one already :)

Code.org: To learn some coding basics. It’s not very wide but the courses are quite good.

NUTRITION

For those of you trying to mantain healthy habits:

LIFESUM (iOS/Android): one of my favourites, it allows you to choose wether you want to lose weight, gain muscle, stay healthy, and has many diet choices (only available for pro, though). It is very pretty, and it tracks your water, your vegetables, your fruit, your meat, etc. This way it not only counts your calories but it also allows you to make healthy decisions on what to eat.

MYPLATE (Android/iOS): Very similar to lifesum, it doesn’t have the different types of food tracker, but it has different topic forums.

MY FITNESS PAL(Android/iOS): It’s uglier than both lifesum and MyPlate, but it’s the one that gives you the best insight into your nutrition, because it doesn’t only track the amount of water, carbs, proteins and fats you eat, but also fiber, sugars, sodium, etc.

All of these apps are trustworthy. No crazy diets, all of them are run by nutrition experts and are flexible enough. Please, if you want to start a diet, ask your parents if you are under 18. Also, beauty is not about being skinny: it’s about being strong and healthy. Please don’t kill me for posting these apps here: I personally find them very useful to see how I eat, and I’m a health junkie.

YOGA

Probably what everyone says at least once in their lives that they are going to try and never do. Taking up yoga is also a great idea before the next school/uni year comes, so you can move it into your all-year routine, which is difficult to change once it has begun. Here are some great apps for beginners, so you can actually try it this summer.

DO YOU YOGA (Android/iOS): Awesome app (check their webpage too), with different types of yoga, different programs, etc. They are very well explained in videos, and you can pretty much choose between an infinite amount of programmes. Some of them are premium features, though, and it can be a little bit too big for a total beginner, because who knows which of the millions kinds of yoga styles is theirs?

DOWN DOG(Android/ iOS): This app is simply amazing. It creates different programs according to your level, and you can totally go without the premium features.It teaches vinyasa, one of the most popular yoga styles, the flow, with continuos movements, very well guided.

DAILY YOGA(Android/iOS): the programs are very customizable, but for a total beginner its a little chaotic, because all guided programmes adapted to them are only available for pro users.

Now, that’s a lot of habits. So here are some apps to track them all!

HABIT TRACKING

ONCEADAY(Android): Its really pretty, but its functions are very limited. It only works for habits that you have to do every day, and there are no stats/notes whatsoever.

HABITICA(Android/iOS): It literally urns your life into a game, where you can set goals, habits, to-dos, etc, and get rewards not only for your avatar onscreen, but also for your real life you. Its a great app, I always reccommend it. It has no stats at all though!

REMENTE (Android/iOS): just kill me if this is not the best tracking app EVER.  You can set several goals/projects, add tasks to them (very specific tasks, programmed tasks, repeated X days or to-dos… the possibilities are infinite!), track your feelings, give a mark to different parts of your life… Really, try this one out.

So that was it. Please feel free to add your own apps and stuff to survive summer. I made this list according to my personal interests, and I hope you find it useful!!

[lindsaydoeslanguages]

FluentU Review 2019: Learning Korean with Videos

Back in 2015, I first discovered FluentU and used it to support my early Japanese studies. Another language FluentU supports is Korean, and when they reached out again recently and invited me to test the app and all its updates in the past few years on a free trial, I thought this was a great chance to update my review and learn Korean with videos. So, here’s my updated FluentU Review.

What is FluentU?

I made a quick 3 Minute Review to explain what it’s all about. Click play on the video below to watch that, or read on if you can’t watch video right now.

FluentU uses genuine video content from the internet to create their video based learning. There’s a website and an app available on Apple and Android.

Typically for each video there’s optional subtitles added below and a quiz for the new vocab you learn in that video. These words and phrases are then saved as flashcards on an SRS system (spaced repetition.)

There’s a good range of languages too – Spanish, Chinese, French, English, Japanese, German, Italian, Korean, Russian.

So what’s it all about?

Here’s how it works. You browse the videos available for the language you’re learning by level, once you’ve spotted one that takes your fancy, pick it and watch. The subtitles appear below in both languages. You can also tap any word throughout for a direct translation.

What I noticed and really liked is that the videos are ordered in a logical order too for your ability.

I’ve been working through some really fun Hangeul songs that I would have never found otherwise.

When the video is done, you have the choice to play with a quiz to start learning the words featured in the video. This is done by multiple sample sentences, some from the video and others not, ensuring that you can identify and understand your new vocabulary in different contexts. Smart idea, huh?

This is what’s normally missing for me when I learn vocab. I learn a word and then I remember it (or not) but I have no context. So for me, having different sentence examples is a big advantage.

In a nutshell then, FluentU is a fun and natural way to learn languages without feeling like you’re studying too hard. Pretty nifty.

How much is it?

FluentU isn’t free. But stuff this good rarely is. However, the pricing is nice and simple.

You can join for 14 days for free to try it out. After that, you have just one simple payment option. Either you join and pay the monthly subscription or you can also save if you join via an Annual Plan. In fact, that gets you 4 months free, which is a really good deal. So if you’re looking for something new to use regularly, then it’s a worthwhile investment.

Click here to visit their site and sign up to the free trial to have a little look around before buying. (That’s my affiliate link, which means FluentU give commission to me when you join via my link, so it’s also a great way to support Lindsay Does Languages!)

How to Make the Most of FluentU

Ok, so now you know more about what FluentU is about and the basics of how it works, let’s take a look at how you can make the most of FluentU. Because when you’re paying for a subscription, that’s exactly what you want to do.

1. Download for Offline Use

FluentU naturally works better on a tablet or a computer. That’s not to say that it doesn’t work on a phone – it does. But it’s much nicer to use with a bigger screen.

And the great thing in particular about using FluentU on a tablet is that you can download for offline use. So wherever you are, you can be using FluentU to help you learn languages on the go.

To do this, simply click the cloud with a little down arrow next to a video from the main feed. To access your downloads, click the top three lines in the top left corner of the app to open the menu bar, click ‘My Content’, which will open up a drop down menu. Now click ‘Downloaded’.

2. Make Playlists

Much like when you log onto YouTube, when you open FluentU, you’re presented with an array of videos.

These are adjusted to the level that you’ve listed for that language, but to really make the most of FluentU, create playlists of videos you want to watch.

You could group these playlists around particular topics, specific grammar points, or something else.

To do this, simply click a video from the main feed and click the very top ‘+’ that appears in a circle. You’ll then see a page asking you which playlist you want to add this video to. You can select an existing playlist or click ‘New Playlist +’ to create a new playlist.

To view your playlists, simply click the top three lines in the top left corner of the app to open the menu bar, click ‘My Content’, which will open up a drop down menu. Now click ‘My Playlists’.

3. Review Your Flashcards

Whatever you learn from the videos and the quizzes is saved in your flashcards. These work on an SRS (Spaced Repetition System) basis, which means you can trusts FluentU will only show you something when you need to practise so you won’t be wasting your time.

The flashcards work like the quizzes after the videos, so you get to see most words in various contexts too, sometimes with additional video clips instead of images to help you remember.

If you click ‘Flashcards’ on the main Browse bar (All, Video, Audio, Flashcards), you’ll see a range of flashcard decks available for download. But, to view your own, you’ll need to access it from somewhere else.

To do this, simply click the top three lines in the top left corner of the app to open the menu bar, click ‘My Content’, which will open up a drop down menu. Now click ‘My Flashcards’. Here you’ll see ‘My Vocab’ and ‘Already Known’ at the top.

4. Filter content

The content you see in your main feed when you log on will be adjusted to your level already depending on what you said your level was for that language when you first signed up.

If you feel like a challenge however, you can adjust this to filter content to show only specific levels. Perhaps this would be a good chance to create a playlist or two of interesting videos you want to catch up on in the future.

Alternatively, you could also filter content by the topic. For example, if you’re really interested in art, you’ll have much more success using content that’s interesting to you.

Finally, you also have the option to filter via format. Are you looking for clips, music videos, commercials, movie trailers, news or something else? The format of the video you watch might vary the style of language used so this can be a useful feature to help make the most of FluentU so you’re only seeing the best content for your level.

To do this, simply click ‘Filter’ in the top right on the main page when you open the app. Then select your filter options – you can select multiple options here – and click ‘Done’ to see your updated video feed.

5. Set a Daily Goal

Goals work. You probably know already if you’ve read anything on the blog before that I love me some good solid language goals!

FluentU allows you to set a daily goal right within the app. It’s even possible to set a daily notification reminder for your device so you’ll always remember to study.

To do this, simply click the top three lines in the top left corner of the app to open the menu bar, click the Settings cog at the bottom, and scroll to click ‘Daily Goal’. And if you want to set a Notification, tap that too to pick when you want your daily goal reminder. You’ll also need to allow notifications for the FluentU app in the main settings on your device for this bit to work.

6. Multiple Languages

What’s great about FluentU is that for the subscription price, you get access to all the languages they offer. Currently that includes Chinese, Spanish, English, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Russian and Korean.

Already got years of experience learning French back in school but feel like gentle practise and a refresher alongside your new language? You can do that. And you totally should seeing as it’s included in the same subscription.

To do this, simply click the top three lines in the top left corner of the app to open the menu bar, click the Settings cog at the bottom, and scroll to click ‘Language’.

Join FluentU

Ready to join FluentU?

Click here to sign up now and enjoy your free 14 day trial to see if it’s right for you.

Your Free Ultimate List of Language Learning Resources!

Looking for more language learning resources? I’ve put together an ever-growing Google Sheets file with language resources for over 30 different languages. It’s totally free and you can get a copy when you join my email list by clicking the image below.

Have you tried FluentU? What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments!

The post FluentU Review 2019: Learning Korean with Videos appeared first on Lindsay Does Languages.

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[reg-reviews]

Train to Busan - Remembering the Wheel

Train to Busan was my favourite film of last year. Not just my favourite Korean film; not just my favourite genre film - it was without any doubt in my mind my favourite film of 2016. Before I bought my ticket I hadn't heard any hype, hadn't seen the trailer, and literally all I knew about it going in was that it was a Korean zombie movie (which should be enough in anyone's book). So it's fair to say I wasn't expecting to have my mind blown as much as it was when I sat in my seat. But blown my mind was, to the point where I seriously considered standing in my seat and applauding when the credits finally rolled. No, seriously. 

Now, naturally I was in a serious rush after that first viewing. Looking back now, it's possible that while a significant part of that was the quality of the film, some may have been the excitement of discovering something new that I hadn't heard anyone else talking about – not my friends nor any film buffs or reviewers I followed. There's something to be said about being The First in your circle to discover something amazing, as well as the hope that you'll inspire others to seek it out and the satisfaction in hearing their approval. But there's also something to be said about staying power, and when I started to come down off the high I began to wonder if I should dare a second viewing. Would it be a film that reinforces my love on a second viewing, like The Spectacular Now, or would the roller coaster be to some degree less exciting once I knew all of its twists and turns ala Snowpiercer?

As you may have guessed, I was pleased beyond measure to find it to be the former. If I was surprised Train to Busan made me cry the first time I watched it, I was astounded to find myself crying again for round two. And I guess that’s when I began to wonder. I've seen a lot of the tropes in many films before, but why had they worked so well in this film, yet fell flat in so many others attempting the same? Why could I find myself remembering every character and dramatic moment in, of all things, a zombie movie? Over the many long, wearisome months between the film's cinematic run and its (thank God) eventual Blu-ray release, I found myself mulling over it in my mind, and now after watching it again, I feel compelled to get some kind of attempt at an analysis out of my system.

I should admit from the get go that I did not study film at University, and that my relatively limited knowledge of film technique comes primarily from various Internet essayists (both text and video). So I'm in a somewhat difficult position – I'm convinced the film demonstrates amazing storytelling, but I'm far from an expert in deeply analysing them. The main reason I feel compelled to even try is, well, I can't find any kind of in-depth analysis of the storytelling in this film. Hell, I can't really find any analysis at all. I mean, without looking, I can guarantee there are some fairly complex analyses of recent films like La La Land, Moonlight, and even genre movies like Arrival and Shin Godzilla, and they're all deserving to their own degrees, but I'd easily consider Train to Busan as worthy of such discussion. So, since I can't find anything to help me understand why this film worked so well, I'm left to try and get my own thoughts down and attempt to work it out for myself.

When I initially started this piece, I was going to keep the spoilers to a minimum. That plan will go out the window by the end, but for the first few paragraphs at least I'm going to focus primarily on the clip below. For context, it takes place about a third of the way through the film after the passengers have disembarked from the zombie-infested high-speed train, at a station they believe is safe from the infection. As an aside, I love that this clip is available on YouTube. Not only do I feel it perfectly encapsulates everything I love about this film, but the lack of subtitles (a feature I wish were available on the Blu-ray) and no familiarity of the Korean language allows for a complete focus on the visual storytelling on display.

For arbitrary reasons, let's start with why I cared about all the characters so much. While it must be mentioned that the casting is amazing, the actors all charismatic, and the costume designs are visually distinct and striking, I feel there's more to it than that. If that was all it took, then I why did I care so much more for the characters in Train to Busan than those in a film with equally strong examples of those attributes, like The Force Awakens? There are vague terms I could throw around like "flawed", "likeable", "realistic" or even "badass", but I guess if I were to do a post-viewing analysis as to why I found these characters compelling, I think it comes down to a little bit of visually demonstrated personality, a little bit of understanding character behaviour, and a feeling sense that the characters are driving the story while remaining true to themselves.

Let's look at the clip above. Now, at first glance it would be easy to see this as just everyone running away from zombies, which in a way it is. But to paraphrase a quote or idea I once heard somewhere that's stuck with me (though for life of my I can't remember if it was in a storytelling, inspirational, or political context, weirdly enough), "We are not our situations – we are how we react to our situations". And that's exactly what's on display in that scene – yes, everyone is running away from a horde of zombies, but their distinct personalities and psychologies are evident in HOW they're reacting. The degree of their emotional responses, their body language, and especially who they prioritise (whether themselves or others) speak volumes about each of them.

Let's get more specific and look at the main cast of characters one by one. We first see Sang-hwa in the blue jacket descending on the escalator. He displays an immediate reaction of panic and fear upon seeing the oncoming zombie horde, but he follows this up with a (relatively speaking) calm and coordinated move of lifting his pregnant wife (Seong-kyeong) over onto the stairs before following himself. Later we see him risking his own life by charging to attack a zombie before it grabs the little girl Soo-an, and sticking around to hold the doors allowing the survivors more time to escape. So, on paper this sounds like he's a generic hero, but his facial expressions and body give him some more depth. Sure, he looks scared and concerned, but you can also see hints of frustration and perhaps even anger there, which I think is also expressed in the way he punches the zombies almost out of spite and annoyance. This reinforces earlier and later scenes which demonstrate his short temper, and can even be seen in the way he hurries the Homeless Man out of the way, and when he calls out to the business man Seok-woo to hurry up (hell, in the subtitles he calls him "Asshole"). As an aside, I've seen some websites claim Sang-hwa is meant to be a professional martial artist, but I don't agree. The actor who plays him is a mixed martial artist in real life, so I believe they may be projecting those attributes onto the character. If anything, to me the fighting looks scrappy, raw, and full of anger and annoyance, which feels a lot more appropriate for the character.

As for Seong-kyeong, while we don't see as much in this particular sequence, we can get more than just "pregnant wife" from her character. She too maintains a constant look of fear and panic, naturally, but like her husband she remains relatively focussed and in control. We see her run towards her husband and Soo-an, focussed primarily on getting the latter to safety. Before descending the steps to the station, we see her check out the window, showing her intelligence and attentiveness (also seen quickly after they're on the platform and she's looking around to ensure the coast is clear, whereas most everyone else is running in a blind state of panic). Soon after, we see them pause temporarily upon seeing the zombie that's fallen between the two elderly ladies, then move TOWARDS one of the ladies to help them, further demonstrating both being selfless. But even in this brief scene we see she may not be so perfect, namely in her reaction when the Homeless Man blocks the door. She clearly hesitates, perhaps worrying that letting him in would let a zombie in too (perhaps even worried he's become a zombie), and after she opens the door for him she steps back with a look of disgust on her face (which wouldn't be the only time themes of classism are brought up in the film).

Now let's look at Soo-an's father, the business man Seok-woo. As extra context for this scene, the reason he, Soo-ann, and the Homeless Man are on this walkway instead of descending with most of the others is because Seok-woo called a business associate in the area (listed in his phone as a "lemming" indicating both his position in the corporate hierarchy and his attitude towards those beneath him) to find out a way to avoid the quarantine they were all heading for (The Homeless Man overheard him on the phone). We first see him talking to his daughter, like he's trying to reassure her, before he walks towards the military officer across the walkway. But this isn't a typical "Everything is going to be okay, I'll be right back" type of reassurance – it's incredibly brief and detached, as evident when he immediately starts running away while Soo-ann visibly wipes tears from her eyes (tears shed because she was upset at her father's selfishness) and the camera zooms back to emphasise her feeling of abandonment. But while he may not care very much about Soo-ann's feelings, he clearly cares about her – as soon as he realises things have gone to shit, he immediately looks back and runs towards her. As for aspects of his character, as well as the business attire (which I should stress he didn't even really need to wear that day), his default expression of fear comes across as desperation and stress, and as when he's called over towards the glass doors by Sang-hwa he doesn't even consider helping anyone else on his way, only himself. We also see he's not a violent or aggressive person, perhaps exemplified by the fact he literally tried to fight off a zombie using a book.

Rounding out the rest of the cast (besides Soo-ann, whom I think I more or less covered across the previous entries), the Homeless Man is clearly a clumsy, panicking, even somewhat cowardly man (seen not just in his facial expressions and limp, but also in how he doesn't stay and help secure the glass doors), he's not completely selfish as evidenced by his brief assistance of Seok-woo with his coat. Yong-guk (the young male baseball player) is seen urging Jin-hee (his female friend) to escape, the latter hesitant to leave (and all of this is clearly told through maybe 3 seconds of body language), both showing their selflessness by his helping with the glass doors and her assisting others into the train. And finally we have the elderly business man Yon-suk, who is clearly not only scared and desperate but completely selfish. While he appears to grab someone and help them when they see the horde, this is only because that man was the train driver and hence somebody useful to him. Though this may come across as thoughtful, once he's on the train he hysterically grabs the train employee in a desperate plea to get the train moving, showing he only cares about his own safety. Then later once the door is closed does it again but more threateningly, even going so far as to shove aside Jin-hee when she objects.

As well as the above-mentioned visually-reinforced character traits, each character has a consistent psychology throughout. You constantly understand why each character behaves the way they do in every scene, so it never feels like a character is acting inexplicably or "stupidly" for the sake of raising the tension (unlike, say, the more recent Alien films). Even the arguable villain of the piece, Yon-suk, feels all too human and in a way pitiful, despite him acting consistently selfish and destructively.

So, that's enough about visual characterisation for now, so let's try and analyse some of the other storytelling techniques in this one scene (again, I'll stress I'm somewhat limited in my knowledge here, so bear with me). If there's one thing I'm a sucker for, it's a film with great editing. Hell, I'll admit that The Accountant is a bad film, but I thoroughly enjoyed the hell out of it because the editing was so damn good. In any case, Train to Busan is no exception. Even setting aside vague notions of the rhythm of scenes, and appropriate length of shots to let the emotional beats play out, there's just some solid cuts going on here. One of my favourite examples is the quick close up shot of Sang-hwa reacting to the horde before panning outwards, allowing the audience to become more invested in the situation by focusing on a personal reaction amidst the chaos. Another is right after the zombies attack the soldier pleading for help on the walkway. We pan from the Homeless Man to Seok-woo, cut to a close-up of him from the opposite angle turning around, then cut to where he's looking (his daughter waiting as commanded while chaos ensues behind her), then cut to his feet starting to run. It's simple but elegant motivated editing – seeing a person looking a direction and then cutting to their point of view – but it works.

Another of my favourite little techniques in this scene in the use of slow motion. It's common to see slow motion in other films used to make an action sequence seem more exciting or give it an epic feel, but here (like in its rare use throughout the rest of the film) it's used to emphasise the panic and desperation, mimicking what happens when the adrenaline kicks in (along with the sound drowning out). And like with one of the previous editing examples, it allows the audience to focus on another personal situation amongst the chaos, and also give us time to take in all that's happening in what is for the characters a short amount of time. As a cherry on top snapping back to real-time when the immediate danger is briefly alleviated with Sang-hwa's elbow gives that strike additional weight.

While it's hard to pin this down to a single technique, I must also really praise the film's sense of geography. Whether it's something vague like genius storyboarding or the above-mentioned motivated editing or what have you, you really do have a strong sense of where everyone and everything is in relation to each other in every scene and shot. Another classic example of this idea: the station shoot-out in The Untouchables. This may not seem relatively important, but as a recent example my enjoyment of the recent Free Fire was hindered because I was frequently confused as to the relative locations of all the characters. Now, you could argue that this sort of spacial awareness is harder to get across in a more open environment like an abandoned factory than a more two-dimentional setting like a train carriage, so it may be an unfair comparison, but I still feel that a little bit more understanding and cohesion like this can go a long way in terms of engagement.

Let's take a look at my favourite scene in the film, which I think exemplifies this idea perfectly. This scene comes much later in the film, so let’s raise the spoiler warning to the next level.

Even if you go into this scene fresh, you can tell exactly where everyone is in relation to each other, including the zombies, without ever showing the two main groups of characters in the same shot. It's mostly told through the framing and angles of each shot, and the editing flowing naturally from where each character is looking to what or whom they're looking at, and all in the space of less than 20 seconds. On top of that, the "Oh fuck" moment is beautifully executed. First we have the classic countdown, second we have the rising tense music with the slow zoom in, third we have the established pattern with the shots cutting back and forth between the two characters, and then finally that pattern and hence the tension is broken with perfect sound mixing – following up the isolated, enhanced sound of the soda can being crushed with deafening silence. Setting up the pattern, building the tension, then releasing it to maximum effect.

Speaking of tension, I must also take a moment to praise how Train to Busan manages to frequently raise it without feeling too contrived and forced. Focusing on the station escape sequence once more, the few moments where more shit hits the fan all feel believable and organic given what has already been established in previous scenes. A zombie runs into Seok-woo because it's already established that area is swarming with them. A few survivors accidentally open a carriage full of zombies because they were in too much of a panic to take the time to remember which carriage they came from and look through the window. Zombies crash through the glass walkway where we saw Seok-woo and the Homeless man earlier. Later on, the darkness caused tunnels becomes a major plot point, and again this feels genuine enough because firstly of course trains would go through tunnels, and secondly because it plays on an already-established and reinforced attribute of the zombies.

Now, if there's one thing I know less about than visual storytelling in films, its writing and story structure in films, but what the hell, let's have a crack at it. There's a term going around some parts of the web describing an ideal form of story structure, popularised by Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park fame - "Therefore/but". It basically boils down to character-driven cause-and-effect, and that's Train to Busan in a nutshell. For example, let's look at what happens after that station escape scene. The main characters are now split across three carriages, and which carriages they wound up in was determined by their character traits and actions during the escape. The fact they are now separated sets up the tension for the next stage in the plot – some characters try desperately to cross zombie-infested carriages to their loved ones, while others try to prevent their crossing due to fear of becoming infected. The actions each group of characters takes is completely consistent with their actions and choices during the previous scenes including the escape, and the progression of events feels organic and natural, with a logical progression and order. Contrast that with a film I watched only recently but with some similarities - 30 Days of Night. In that, you also have a small group of survivors that slowly dwindle, but the progression of events feels disconnected, like you could jumble up a majority of the set pieces and it would have as much impact. If Train to Busan demonstrates the "Therefore/but" idea of storytelling, then 30 Days of Night demonstrates the "And then" idea, where story beats often aren't impacted by what came before, and don't really influence what happens next.

Continuing on with storytelling and structure, another film I watched recently that gave me a little bit of inspiration was Their Finest. In it, a character comments that while (or perhaps because) in real life a person's death may not feel like it has a point or meaning, in a story a character's death absolutely must. And again, Train to Busan nails this idea almost perfectly. As well as the numerous nameless victims littered throughout to remind us of the constant threat and tension, almost every death of a main character (see below) is effective because it's either caused by another character's actions, it has a clear and distinct impact on the story or another character's arc, or a combination of the above. We care about the characters because they impact the story, and we mourns their deaths because we see how they impact the remaining characters. Compare this again with 30 Days of Night. Setting aside isolated deaths like heroic sacrifices or characters wondering off by themselves and dying, there are a couple of moments when we're clearly supposed to feel something when the main character is forced to put others out of their miseries. But these scenes fall flat primarily because the characters that die aren't well established or impactful, and because the main character's choice to kill them doesn't really feel like it's in service of any sort of clear development or arc. They're trying to come across as emotional, but they haven't earned it.

But here's where I must raise the spoiler warning level to maximum, because, believe it or not, I'm going to talk about what I think was the weakest part of the film and some other major plot points in the last third. Yes, believe it or not I'm going to not only be slightly negative about this film which I adore, but I'll even get a little pretentious and suggest an improvement.  

So let's talk about The Homeless Man. 

Now, I must say up front that the character's weaknesses have nothing to do with him being homeless. Rather, the character doesn't completely work because it's lacking in a lot of the qualities I've mentioned above. While his fear, clumsiness, and shock are all solidly depicted visually, his actions don't feel completely consistent. Just before the station escape clip, he's calmly and stubbornly refusing to leave the walkway because he overheard Seok-woo on his phone organising an alternate escape route, but at that time he was visually shown as still being in shock and hysterical. During the escape, his choosing to help Seok-woo by covering the attacking zombie with his coat also doesn't feel completely consistent with his desperation and clumsiness.

A friend of mine has a theory that by setting up the Homeless Man as an intruder on the train, along with the editing fake-out just before we first see him, the audience associates him with the infection and thus gets us off on the wrong foot. I agree, and would add that on top of that he is reinforced as a hindrance and liability for the group on at least two other occasions. But these might not have necessarily been death knells of audience empathy, and could've served as functional set-ups for a redemption death. In fact, let's take a closer look as his death scene.

Now, on paper this should've worked – the once-cowardly character here sacrifices himself so Soo-ann and Seong-kyeong can escape, culminating in a bleak yet almost beautiful sequence in which zombies pour through the breaking glass like gushing water. And yet whilst its far more stylish than the deaths of both Sang-hwa and Seok-woo, it falls completely flat emotionally. The reason, I think, is that unlike the other two deaths this one feels completely one sided - the tragedy is the Homeless Man and his alone, whereas the deaths affected other characters. Sang-hwa's death worked because he bonded with Seok-woo and helped him grow as a character, and Seok-woo's death REALLY worked because he tragically died just at the moment he finally became a decent father to Soo-ann. The Homeless Man needed some sort of relationship and arc associated with another character, and I believe there's an obvious candidate: Seong-kyeong.

As you can see in the clip, just before The Homeless Man dies, Seong-kyeong looks back at him, as if (from a storytelling perspective) it's meant to be a pay-off for an emotional beat that wasn't fully established or fleshed out (perhaps, and I should stress I'm completely speculating here, in a scene or two that were cut for whatever reason). I mentioned above how Seong-kyeong appears to briefly react to The Homeless Man with disgust and weariness when he jumps in their carriage at the infected station, so one possibility could be that her look was her coming to realising her own misguided prejudice of him. Personally, while this this fits into the themes of classism well enough, I don't think this works psychologically for Seong-kyeong at this moment – she's undoubtedly still mourning her husband, and THAT'S what the filmmakers could play off. Remember that clip above with the soda can? Just before that sequence, The Homeless Man was lagging too far behind, and after he steps on the can it leads to the situation where Sang-hwa is bitten by a zombie and doomed, so it's entirely possible that The Homeless Man could feel responsible in some way for Sang-hwa's death (or for Seong-kyeong to be even more disgusted in him). So all we'd need is an extra scene to reinforce one or both of these dynamics, perhaps after they're kicked out of the "safe" carriage or as they're walking along the tracks. After an accidental glance, the two shy their eyes away quickly, her in disgust and maybe hatred, and him in shame and guilt, all in the space of even 5 seconds, and that might've been enough. That way, The Homeless Man's death becomes not just a heroic sacrifice, but a moment of redemption for him, and forgiveness from her

As an aside, a further nit-pick of this scene is the forced setup. While I praised Train to Busan for cleverly raising the tension in previous scenes, here the cause is a literal fiery trainwreck that comes out of nowhere . Again, might be minor, but a sense of contrivance (even subconsciously) probably didn't help. 

Looking over all of this, it looks like I’ve only pointed out tried-and-true storytelling techniques – body language, character interactions, motivated editing, slow motion, basic sound mixing, cause and effect storytelling – and haven’t really highlighted anything truly experimental or innovative. But that’s exactly my point, and perhaps the reason why this film isn’t being talked about more and why I feel it should. Train to Busan doesn’t really break new ground in terms of storytelling, and if anything sticks quite rigidly to established tropes and cliches of the zombie genre, and yet it’s still incredible. So many recent big-budget blockbusters fail in these basic areas that we need films like Train to Busan to show everyone how it’s done.

Train to Busan doesn’t reinvent the wheel. It remembers why the wheel worked in the first place.

[eurolinguiste]

Learning a language can be challenging. It takes time and effort. And sometimes, you can’t help but wonder what you were thinking when you started. But what if language learning could be fun? What if you could watch your favorite tv series while you learn?

This is exactly what I’ve done with Netflix. I’ve found a way to use it to my advantage, and I want to share it with you.

Why Learn a Language with Netflix?

Today, Netflix is one of the most convenient ways to indulge in our latest tv obsessions. With over 125 million subscribers it is also one of the most popular ways to stream the latest and greatest.

Not only can you choose from a huge range of series, movies, and documentaries, but you can also watch whatever you want from wherever you want. Even offline.

With series from all over the world and movies in many different languages it is very easy to find something in the language you want and with subtitles in different languages.

It is also as easy to switch audio and subtitle languages as you’re watching. You have the freedom to try out any number of subtitle and audio combinations in real time.

We Use Netflix Either Way, So Why Not Use It Wisely?

On average, people spend one and a half hours a day watching something Netflix. So why not use that time wisely by learning a language while you do it? With Netflix, you have the ability to do it your way – with a series you’re already watching or by indulging in something new in its original language.

By watching a series from a country where the language you want to learn is spoken, you will not only learn the language but also get insight into the people who speak it and the culture tied to it.

Are you sold on the benefits?

Great. You may now find yourself wondering just how to use Netflix to learn a language. Listening is a very important part of that strategy.

You may know a ton of words in your language by sight, but if someone talks to you and you don’t understand him what good does that knowledge do you?

This is why Netflix is a great way to get exposure to the language and to boost your listening. Plus, you can use it to boost your vocabulary.

And the best part is, by watching tv series, that vocabulary includes useful words you might never learn in a book or app.

Who is Learning with Netflix for?

Netflix can be used at any stage in your learning. In the beginning, you can use it to start getting used to the way language sounds, its rhythm and how its really used by native speakers.

Over time, you’ll have the chance to improve your listening comprehension and really start to understand people when they speak. You will also get used to processing the language at a normal speed as spoken by native speakers.

As you progress, you can use Netflix to pick up new vocabulary. This is great not just because you’ll learn the everyday words you need, but also the colloquial way of speaking from native people. You will learn common expressions you might not otherwise get exposure to without visiting the country.

Once you can speak the language, watching tv series is a great way to keep up your exposure to the language.

The Netflix “School” of Language Learning

Let’s jump into how I have used Netflix to learn.

I started learning Portuguese and used Netflix a lot to help me. Now I am able to understand a lot, and because this method is so effective, I’ve also started to use it with Korean.

The first step is to find a series that you want to watch. I recommend finding a series that covers an area or genre you’re interested in. And it should originally be in the language you want to learn (not an overdub).

By doing this, you avoid poor translations and picking up any inaccuracies. It is also a great way to learn more about the language’s culture.

Because you are going to use it as a learning tool, you won’t want to watch a lot of episodes at once. No binge-watching here! You should also have pen and paper ready.

Using this method, you will watch short segments of the series. Usually in the range of 5 minutes. I recommend no longer than 10 minutes at a time, especially at the beginning.

Round One

Once you’ve selected the series you want to watch, it is time to start watching. The first time you tune in, you are going to watch the series in its original version (the language you want to learn) with subtitles also in the original language.

In Round One, the rules are simple. Just watch and do your best to understand what is happening through context. This round is so that you can start getting used to the sounds of the language.

As you improve in the language, you can do this first time without subtitles.

Round Two

Round Two is all about understanding what is being said in full. This means that this time around, you’ll change the subtitles into your native language.

This time you will understand everything, maybe not in the language that you want to learn, but you will know what the series is about and what is happening because you are reading it in your native language.

You might have understood some things the first time you watched it, or some you thought you did but were not sure. Now you will realize how much you actually understood the first time.

Round Three

In Round Three, you will watch it again in the language you want to learn with subtitles in the same language. This time have pen and paper ready. Plan to hit pause a few times as you’re watching.

When you begin this time, one of the first things you’ll notice is that you understand more than the first time you listened. Thanks to reading the second pass in your native language, you can now understand a few words.

On this third viewing, you are going to hit pause every time you have trouble understanding. Rewind and write down the phrase you had trouble with. Because you’re using the subtitles, you will have the subtitles to reference as you’re writing.

Even though it may feel as though you’re writing down a lot, take pride in the fact that you’re writing down far less than you would have if you had done this step in Round One.

Translating the Words

Now that you have written all the words down, it’s time to translate them. Look for the translation on the internet or on a dictionary (not by watching again with the subtitles in your native language).

This way the words will stick because you’re giving them a new context.

Do this for about 5 to 10 minutes. The shorter amount of time you do this, the more you can focus, and the easier this task will be.

As you understand more, you will need to write fewer words, so if you’re up for the challenge, you can always increase the time.

Once this step is done, you can watch the entire episode once more (without having to pause) so that you enjoy the entire storyline uninterrupted and with greater understanding.

At Which Stage Can I Start This Method?

When you start this method depends a bit on which language you are learning. The more similar it is to your native language (or a language you already know), the more manageable this method is.

If it is similar to a language you already know (and with the same writing system), you can start right away. That’s what I did with Portuguese. Since I knew Spanish, I was able to start using this method on Day 1.

If I were learning a more distant language like Polish, on the other hand, I would wait to start after I knew a few basic words or phrases. I would also likely start with a kids show or a “soft” comedy with more accessible vocabulary.

For languages with a different writing system, I’d do the following…

Learning Korean with the Netflix School of Language Learning

Up to this point, I’ve discussed this method generally. That way, you can apply it to any language. I focused only on using it with languages which are similar to those I already know, but now, I’m going to dive deep and share how I’m applying this same method with Korean.

Why is it different with Korean?

With Korean, the most notable difference is the new writing system. When learning a language with a different writing system, it means you have to deal with subtitles using that writing system. So you need to know how to read it.

Another thing that can make this very complicated, especially for people that have never had contact with a language this distant from their own, is that it will sound very different. There are fewer cognates and loanwords, so they’ll be less vocabulary you’ll recognize by association. Very often, it will sound more like random sounds than words. It’s difficult to figure out when a word starts or finishes.

At least at the beginning…

How to Apply Learning With Netflix to Korean

You might be wondering whether or not it’s possible to use this method with Korean. My answer? A resounding yes!

My only tip is to wait just a little bit longer along your language learning journey to apply it.

Since the writing system is different, I first recommend taking some time getting acquainted with it. Before beginning, I recommend being comfortable the letters or characters (even if you don’t understand what you’re reading). If not, there is no way that you will be able to follow along with the subtitles.

The Korean alphabet is pretty easy to learn. And bonus – while getting familiar with the alphabet, you’ll pick up a lot of words and phrases.

When you start to apply the Netflix method, this is great because you’ll already understand some Korean.

Once you’ve become comfortable reading you can start applying the method, in the same way, I explained before.

Why Learning a Language with Netflix Works

Listening is a very important part of the language learning process. You need to be able to understand what other people say to you in order to be able to converse and use your language.

It can often be difficult to get exposure to language so that you’re ready to use it when the occasion arises.

That’s why watching a series or films is so effective. It’s something that you can do easily from the comfort of your couch.

You also get to hear how people speak, the expressions they use and the more colloquial way of speaking.

When I was learning English, I watched every movie and every tv series I could in the original version. In result, my listening comprehension skills allowed me to understand everything I heard when people talked to me.

Of course, to really converse, you’ll also need to practice speaking. But using this method to boost your listening skills is a great way to get started along the right path.

Final Thoughts

Learning with Netflix works. And it’s a fun way to learn — better than the usual listening material aimed at learners.

You can choose what you want to watch. And by choosing something that interests you, you’re more motivated to learn.

If you find movies and a series that you really like, you’ll be eager to understand without subtitles. You can more fully immerse yourself in the story that way. That’s certainly the case for me with Korean.

If you’re already watching stuff on Netflix, it’s simple to start using that time wisely. What better way to learn a new language than by enjoying your favorite tv series?

If you try it out let me know what you think. I’d love to hear if it helps you and if you have any suggestions for improving this method. Let me know what language you are learning in the comments below.

About the Author: I am Carla and speak 4 languages, and I am on the journey to learning my 5th. Together with Oliver, I run Exciting Adventure where we share our journey on becoming digital nomads, as well as travel and language learning tips. I believe that everybody should do what they love and that is why I started the blog.

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