Im new here and just wanted to stop by and say hi

[...] watching/scanning this episode reminded me of something from Dramabeans last Friday Open Thread (http://www.dramabeans.com/2009/08/open-thread-96/). There was a discussion about how sometimes the two male leads have more chemistry with each other [...]

Thanks for the info. I’ll check out the pilot on Youtube.

Lol on the adult content of True Blood.
I haven’t read the books, but I agree with you about Erik. How can Sookie end up with him? O_O
Did you know Stephen Moyer and Anna Paquin are dating?

Oh, and good news for all Joss Whedon fans –
Dollhouse has been picked up for a second season, and this time, the studio execs won’t be interfering with the show like they did in the first season. Woohoo!

I hope you will read this as I am away this weekend and will return on Sunday evening. Probably will not have a chance to drop by the next Open Thread before then. Just leave me a short note so I will know I won’t have to post this again on Sunday:

Being Human is easily found on YouTube managed to come up with both the pilot and all episodes typing in the title.

My problem with True Blood is that I like the books a lot more than the TV drama. The books have humour while the drama tends a bit more to sex and gore. I had to smile a bit when people were discussing Plum Blossom with Kim Rae Won stating that it had adult content. I could see what they meant when watching it but compared to True Blood???

MAJOR TRUE BLOOD SPOILER:
The other problem I have got with True Blood is that Sookie does split up with Bill in the books. I liked the character Erik which is her major love interest afterwards but the actor playing Erik in the drama does nothing for me. He is so far removed from everything I imagined Erik to look like.

So I am off for an experimental firing of pottery we have prepared this weekend. We will not work with regular glazing but with herbs, straw, manure (uugh, I will pack gloves), lavender, copper, salt and all other kinds of natural materials AND do the firing outside with real wood in an oven. And all of this will take place at a restored castle! The weather forecast is good (sunny and warm, but not to hot – we will have to work quite a bit), the group is really nice and I am 95 % decided to leave my laptop at home…

Did I mention that our group is preparing a pottery exhibition at a car dealership in a little town nearby? Well, the next steps are probably Paris, Rome and New York… Just wait for us art world!!!

Bye and have a nice weekend !

I missed OT this weekend, since I was visiting the in-laws in the hot, humid mid-west…ugh…at least, the thunderstorms kept the mosquitos at bay.

But, yes, NY-LON screamed for a second season…but, alas, we just have to be contented with watching Stephen Moyer on True Blood.

How did you watch the pilot of Being Human? It would be interesting to see the different actors.

@ Samsooki

I bet if you were immersed in Korean 24/7 for an extended period of time, you’re speaking ability would skyrocket. Come to think of it…I could use some of that.

Even though I can think in Korean (mostly in banmal/informal speech), when I try to speak it (especially jondaemal/formal speech), something gets interrupted between my brain and my tongue, and I just can’t speak the way I used to….and most of that has to do with practice. Since I don’t speak Korean on a daily basis, I’ve gained the horrible American accent and find myself mumbling to cover the embarrassment.

Even worse, on the way back from the airport this past weekend, hubby got cravings for Korean food, so we stopped for dinner. For some strange reason, whenever the wait-staff interacted with us, it was in English (okay, hubby sticks out like a sore thumb, but usually, they at least speak to me in Korean). This is the first time that’s happened. So, even after I’m sitting there looking at the local news/advertisements magazine-thingy, they still only spoke to me in English, even though I would answer in Korean (I admit, they were usually one or two-word answers, but still o_O)
[--> Tangent: I showed hubby the picture of the Hyun Bin-Song Hye Gyo article, and his only response was - "Man, she's really short."
hahaha]
Back to the story…
To top it all off, at the end of dinner, they brought us green tea ice cream instead of shik-hye. WTF? The green tea ice cream is usually for the non-Koreans. When there’s a mixed group, sometimes, they’ll give you a choice. But it’s ALWAYS shik-hye (sweet rice drink) for the Koreans.
Am I missing something???
Sorry for the long rant…

that is what i suffer from when i speak Thai.. for the most part, i can understand what is being said, but i can’t translate fast enough in my head to speak.. it actually becomes more complicated for me, cuz i think in English, then translate it to my language, then from my language to Thai.. for some reason, i can’t translate english to thai..

yet, when i’m speaking my native language, it just rolls off tongue.. i can think in English and my language.. tho there are some words that don’t exist in either.. but when i have to actually translate, i’m sweating bullets, even tho i’m fluent in both.. which makes no sense to me at all.. but the brain is weird.

My problem is that what I know from one part of my brain that listens, has not been readily transferable to the part of my brain where speech is located. There are only a few neural pathways connecting them.

So, to speak Korean that my listening brain already knows, I have to physically translate first, rather than just say it.

How to engage the listening parts and speaking parts of my brain, to link them together, that’s what I gotta get my brain to do, but who knows how to do that….

do you think in Korean? cuz i find the most times i have trouble speaking another language is when i am thinking in english and have to translate in my head to speak the other language.. yet, when i’m thinking in the other language, my speaking ability flows better.. i haven’t figured out how to turn the switch on and off yet.. it just happens when it happens.. i don’t know if this even makes any sense to anyone other than myself.. it sounds rite in my head.

” you mentioned how you are having difficulty with spoken korean. i was wondering how often you speak korean in a typical week. for instance, do you speak korean with your wife, your parents, at church etc. what hang-ups are you having with speaking korean? is it just the accent or something more?

i’m just curious because i know your korean is way better than mine, and i found your post somewhat discouraging. i try to study korean when i have time here and there, but if you’re having problems becoming fluent in korean, then i have a long road ahead of me in terms of getting this language down.

Everything is relative, not only against other people, but contextually and against expectations. My own struggle is unique to me, and I am not sure how much any of this is relatable to you or anyone else.

For example, a few years ago, when my sister got married, there was going to be a ton of Korean people at the wedding, and I was asked to read Bible passages in both Korean and in English. So, I did. It wasn’t that hard to do, because I was reading directly from a sheet I typed up that had the Korean right there. All I had to do was practice a few times to make sure I got the cadence and the words right. Most people who knew me were really surprised at my “ability” to speak Korean. But they didn’t understand that I was just reading like a robot. Speaking when you are reading off of a sheet is pretty easy for me.

However, I would not have been able to discuss any part of the passage that I read, in Korean. I can’t “speak” Korean. I can speak in English, but I can’t speak in Korean.

Now, I can watch an episode of Style or Dream, for example, and get almost 80-90% of the dialogue without need for translation. The words I don’t know, I just look up, and voila, I can translate it. That’s how I do my translations. I listen to the dialogue, then I just type it in English what it means, and then words I don’t know, I just look up.

And this is similar to when my parents or anyone else speaks to me in Korean. I understand what they are saying, and I don’t need to translate anything, I just understand it. The words i don’t know, I’ll ask, and say, “what does that mean” but generally speaking, I don’t have a problem.

But other than simple and singular sentences that just flow out of my head like, “Samsooki is very hungry” (“삼숙이가 아주 배고프다”) or “I think KJH is pretty dang cool” (“강지환 너무 멋있다고 생각해요”), I can’t really talk. The words don’t form in Korean in my head, and so if I wanted to get the words, I would have to LISTEN to someone else say it or I would have to READ it in Korean. THEN I can speak it.

Why is that? I don’t know, really. But I’m not really improving much, even my vocab expands daily and I watch a lot of k-dramas. I try to speak with my parents, but they get impatient with me and just tell me to say it in English, and the same thing goes when I try to speak with Korean people I know. Once we had a dinner with a bunch of Korean peeps our age that we are friends with, and we tried to go the entire dinner just talking in Korean, and I think I said all of 3 words – “this food is tasty,” “I’m going to go to the bathroom, ” and “well, its time for us to go home.” LOL! It was so stupid, we never did it again.

Is it unusual? I don’t know. All I know is that I know people who can just pick up languages, and I am jealous of them. If I could re-wire my brain to be able to speak the words I know from other parts of my brain, I would do that in a heartbeat….

But, good luck to you! People say, practice really helps. If I figure out a way to improve, I’ll share it here.