One of the many Korean flags seen along Nonhyeon Rd in Seocho-gu, Seoul.
This weekend, flags were placed along the trunk streets of Seoul in honor of the March, 1 1919 Korean Independence Movement and Park Geun-Hye’s Inauguration Ceremony. Taegukgi (태극기) is the name of the Korean flag.
The holiday commemorates the quintessential non-violent demonstration of Koreans against Japanese colonial rule via a Declaration of Independence. Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910-1945.
The recently re-designed $256 million Seoul City Hall opened on August 27,2012 after three years of construction. The winning team of designers, iArc Architects, were selected from a competition. There’s an interesting contrast between the colonial Japanese era building, built in 1926, and the newly constructed glass building.
Interesting fact: The expansion consists of 7,000 glass panes that were later found to break city codes written for energy efficiency.
I like the contrast, but there were local TV reports claiming that many people felt that the new design didn’t have the proper harmony with the area or the existing structure.
Here’s a question from reader L. Coimbra:
Hi, 안녕하세요? ^^
Thank you for the great job you’ve being doing spreading the Korean Language/Culture worldwide via internet. Could you explain to me what is the role of 있기 없기 in this grammatic structure: “verb stem+기 있기/없기”? I can understand the “verb stem+기” portion.
The is a popular phrase that comes from a comedic skit on the Korean TV show Gag Concert that airs on KBS2 on Sunday nights. The show has been running since 1999.
Use
This expression is used prior to revealing something surprising, shocking, or secret. The phrase is not standard Korean and is only used by young girls (not men) to be funny or sound cute. If an adult uses this expression it must be used in a joking manner else the speaker will look childish.
Example 1 [Revealing a secret]: 말하다 to speak
Standard form 말하지 마세요. “Don’t say it.”
TV show form 말하기 있기 없기? “If I tell you (something), will you tell someone else or will you not tell someone else?”
Example 2 [Preventing anger]: 화내다 to be angry
Standard form 화내지 마세요. “Don’t be angry.”
TV show form 화내기 있긔 없기? “If I say it to you, will you be angry or not angry?”
Note: The Korean language doesn’t explicitly require the word ‘or’ and so putting 있기 없기 together is like asking, “which one (있기 or 없기) (I will or I won’t)?”
If the person’s answer is 없기 (I won’t …), you can procede to tell them the shocking information.
This expression is supposed to be fun and take some of the shock away from what you’re about to reveal.
Expect an article on this!
Practice speaking Korean and punctuation!
Apple’s Voice dictation is a fun way to practice speaking Korean. Korean is available on your iPhone or iPad; enable it from the menu: Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Choose Add New Keyboard.
To Use:
Open Notes, Email, Messages or any program that supports voice dictation. Press the globe icon in the lower left to toggle languages to enable Korean. Next, press the microphone icon (next to the spacebar) and start speaking in Korean.
-Voice dictation recognizes spoken punctuation too. Try using the terms in this article and see if it can understand your pronounciation.
-You can also enable Siri to recognize spoken Korean for voice control. Settings > General > Siri > Language > Korean* (This is a bit more advanced, so practice simple dictation first.)
-Mac computers also have Voice Dictation built-in. Once enabled, press the (fn) key twice to begin and once to stop.
Support:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5176
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5449
*Ensure that you have an internet connection for both of these features.
Korean Presidents are elected for a single 5-year term and Park Geun-Hye (박근혜) will take office as President on February 25, 2013. She is replacing exiting President Lee Myung-Bak (이명박). As do other world leaders, Korean Presidents frequently handout pardons before the leaving the Blue House.
