There are 14 of us in the class - 4 Americans, 7 Japanese, 1 from Singapore, 1 from Hong Kong and 1 from Indonesia. About half are young college-age "kids," about half are young (late 20's to mid-30's) career professionals - and then there's me. A couple shots in class and out:
So far ---- it's been great! Every single classmate is friendly. I've had lunch with classmates, gone sightseeing with classmates, and been included in various activities with them. I had been fearful that my age might make it hard for me to develop relationships with classmates, but such seems not to be the case. We all have different reasons for studying Korean, but at this stage we're all in the same boat, struggling with basic communication and taking our baby steps into Korean life; age seems not to make much difference...
Nice photos! I'm glad to hear that you have a nice group of folks to study with. Do you speak with them in Korean, or do some of them know English and want to practice with you?
ReplyDeleteAll speak English except for a few of the Japanese students, and yes, I think some are glad for the chance to practice English. And probably that is a reason it's been easy to make friends, but if so, right now I'll take it! With the non-English speaking ones I do use Korean, but our conversation is pretty limited, so there usually ends up being a flow of English, Korean and Japanese all going on. We enjoy trying out Korean with each other, we periodically tell ourselves we'll only use Korean and last for about 5 minutes, and when we're out, we push each other to talk to folks, ask for directions, etc. It's fun, and I have faith (!) that as our ability to use Korean improves, we'll use it more even with each other.
ReplyDeleteI like the photos. How nice that you are all able to spend time together outside of class too.
ReplyDelete