Friday, August 21, 2009

What is the Korean Wiki Project?

On the Web site, the Korean Wiki Project is described as follows:
The Korean Wiki Project is a collaborative effort to unify knowledge on the Korean language and to make the information easily accessible and relevant to anyone.
People have mentioned the Korean Wiki Project to me a couple of times in the Comments section, but I just I kind of ignored them because the idea of discussing and writing about the Korean language sounded so good to me that I was afraid I would get too involved and not have time to do another project I want to finish first. The problem is that if I get focused on one thing, it is hard for me to think about other things, and the Korean language is something I can easily get lost in. I write on my blog here when I am bored and have time, but if I get involved in the Korean Wiki Project, I might feel obligated to write even when I do not have time for it. By the way, the fall semester at my school starts on Monday, so I will probably not be writing as much here as I have been.

Anyway, today I clicked on the name of a commenter named Shanna to see if it would lead to a Web site. It lead me to HangukDrama, which looks quite interesting, though I have not had time to look through it all. However, on the site was a video of a guy named Matt talking about his "Korean Learning Journey." The video impressed me not only because Matt seems like a really a nice guy, but also because the start of his Korean Learning Journey reminded me of the start of mine. When I first started learning Korean, I did not know anything about Korea, either, except that it was in Asia and that we had fought a war there. Also, I joined the navy expecting to learn Spanish and was told I would be learning Korean, instead.

I just want to share Matt's video and say that I will be checking out the Korean Wiki Project. Mike is a cofounder of the Web site. I apologize for not really responding to previous comments about the project.

3 comments:

  1. You're welcome, Matt.

    As I said, I joined the navy to learn Spanish, but in boot camp I got orders saying I would be learning "KP." I did not know what KP meant, but "kitchen police" came to mind. I thought my security clearance had been rejected for some experimenting I did with pot in high school, and I was being sent to learn to be a cook. Later, I found out that KP meant "North Korean," which was just as shocking for me since I thought that learning North Korean would be just about as useful as my learning Martian. At the time, I thought my navy recruiter had screwed me.

    Anyway, my attitude changed after I got to Korea. I got hooked, too.

    By the way, I got my orders to learn "KP" in late 1975, which was before the Internet as we know it. I think it is interesting that KR is the Internet country code for South Korea, and KP is the code for North Korea. COUNTRY CODES

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  2. Hi Matt,

    No, I do not know a lot about the North Korean dialect, but it is interesting to compare the language spoken in the North with the language spoken in the South, where there has been a lot of words borrowed from the West.

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  3. I'm also from the Korean wiki project. I hope you will join our project someday, it would benefit all learners of Korean for us all to collaborate and add on to each others work.

    The thing I like most about this blog is you breaking down the differences in meanings or similar expressions. I'd like to also make those kinds of pages on the wiki for indepth grammar break down.

    Some ideas for sections I want to make:
    -the difference in usage of future tense and all the rules.
    -difference between A/V + 았/었 + 던 and just useing (으)ㄴ .. i.e. 산 책 and 샀던 책
    -difference between:
    -V + 아/어 + 야 하다
    -V + 아/어 + 야 되다
    -V + 아/어 + 야 지
    -V + 아/어 + 야겠다
    Most books tell us it's the same, when in fact they are not. Similar but not the same.

    -Subject marker vs contract marker
    -Past tense + 더니 vs present tense + 더니
    -etc

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