Okay, maybe this is a bad idea.
Every weekday I try to watch at least one hour of Korean-language television. It’s part of my ongoing quest to learn Korean that’s going on its fifth year. I’ve long surpassed the stage of book study, and now must rely on Korean shows to keep my mind fresh of the language. In my day-to-day life, there’s obviously very little exposure to Korean, outside of music.
The television shows I tend to watch are variety shows, because the words spoken between people are more natural and “everyday”, matching what you’d hear if you were dropped in the middle of Seoul (I can confirm). In contrast, the dialogue in scripted drama series always sounded a bit contrived to my ears, which is why I seldom watch them for my studying. Besides, I’m afraid that a series would be so good, I wouldn’t be able to stop and move on to other tasks.
Today I made the mistake of choosing a travel program to watch. Its’ a show about Kpop group ITZY’s adventures in Paris, France. Not to say there’s anything wrong with the program, it’s just that seeing people traveling to foreign countries and enjoying life threw up a massive mirror back to our current coronavirus predicament - none of us are taking a trip anywhere via airplane anytime soon. It’s a bit sad that I wouldn’t be visiting somewhere far in 2020, a would-be continuation of a binge of foreign trips in the past five years.
This would have been the year I finally make it to Europe, or go back to my beloved South Korea; you know, to use my improved Korean skills. But, as we can all see on social media, there are far bigger things going on right now.
Piano man.