My interest in Japanese has continued to wax and wane for about, oh, seven years now? But I never seriously tried learning it until I took two semesters of introductory Japanese in college last year. I didn’t hate it, but considering I was at the peak of my Korean studies and in the throes of graduate school applications, I just could not immerse myself in Japanese as easily as I could Korean.
But, at very very long last, I think I may have found the right stimulus.
I feel silly because I’d known of Flumpool for ages but never bothered to listen to them because I used to kind of have this mental block against Japanese music (not sure why; it’s a beautiful language but maybe I’ve just been listening to the wrong things till now). It’s very rare for me to stumble upon a band I like so much that I can pretty much enjoy every single one of their songs – and Flumpool is one such find. I will unabashedly admit that I have been looping the song above for the past three days.
I’m excited because this is the first time I’ve been really excited about something in Japanese entertainment and, initially at least, I’ve found that a good dose of fangirling can be quite conducive to language learning.
And good music makes me happy wheeeeeee!
But I won’t jump the gun and say I’ll start studying Japanese wholeheartedly again. I need to re-accustom myself to the language by ear first and I have no idea how long that will take. I don’t even know if this will be enough to get me to started in the first place, but it certainly is a step in the right direction.
I feel like a bad student that needs to be punished. Even though I’ve had this glorious four month summer vacation, I’ve completely forsaken serious Korean studying and have instead resorted to playing around in Daum fan cafes.
Before I get into that, I just want say that I like K-pop, but honestly I knew nothing about the whole idol… industry – shall I call it? – until a few months ago. For me, music is music; in America, music is pretty much the only thing that musicians do. The whole concept of “training” idols and “raising” them into stars and building their popularity through variety shows and CFs and such was really odd to me, but I think I understand it much better now. I’ve also come to understand the concept of “fan cafes,” which seems to be yet another way to build support and popularity for a celebrity.
Most celebrities, including idol groups, seem to have these official Daum fan cafes (fan clubs) where, if you register, you can write on various forums, make friends with other fans, write messages to your idols (and sometimes get responses back), see pictures, and sometimes get access to exclusive content. Unfortunately, many of these fan cafes also require you to have a 주민등록번호 or a Korean social security number.
I’ve joined a couple of fan cafes that don’t require you to register with a 주민등록번호 (it’s quite simple, if you’re at an intermediate level or above in Korean) and, actually, I’m learning some new words by reading all the fan cafe rules and user posts! Here are some:
가입하다 = to join, to become a member
공식 = official
정보 = information, data
공지 = announcement
게사판 = forum
등업신청 = leveling-up application (usually something you have to fill out and submit as soon as you join the cafe, so you’re able to post on the forums)
운영자 = admin
금지 = prohibition
탈퇴 = secession, withdrawal (what you have to click to leave the fan cafe)
I’m only really active on rookie group HITT’s fan cafe because I adore HITT. Adore isn’t even a sufficient word. Dare I even say that they are the only group that’s ever come even close to rivaling my love for BIGBANG? My HITT-induced fangirl spazzing is no joke because it takes a really long time for me to really get into a new group and I absolutely can’t like a group unless I’m blown away by their music. HITT’s managed to turn me into such a huge fan with just their mini album that I actually want to do my part in spreading HITT love (corny as that sounds). I’ve even gone so far as to suggest a fandom name for HITT (they were asking people to submit suggestions) and explain my reasoning in Korean as well as to write on the 친구해요 게시판, hopefully to see if I could make more Korean friends to practice Korean with. See? I’m doing all this 카페 활동 and still practicing Korean at the same time! (/Tries to justify not studying)
In addition, reading posts on the forum is giving me more insight into how young Koreans write on the internet. Personally, I enjoy writing long, essay-type entries in probably very “textbook” sounding Korean but um… I guess I’m now learning how to write shorter, but still natural-sounding sentences in Korean without sounding robotic or like a beginner.
It’s actually more complicated than it seems! Or am I just making things too hard? I think anyone learning a language will come to point where they have to learn how to write differently in different situations. Writing a blog entry versus writing an essay versus tweeting versus writing in a forum… they all have their different styles and quirks, right?
TVXQ’s 忘れないで (“Don’t Forget”) is one of my favorite songs ever by the first K-pop group I ever liked (*sob*) and now… I’ve tried to translate it into Korean!! My Japanese is deplorable so looking up every single grammar point and vocabulary word I didn’t know was time consuming, but in the end I managed to get a sense of what the song was about. Please be warned, this translation was only for practice. I still have a long way to go before my Japanese (and Korean, too, for that matter) is good enough to provide a decent translation. After I did my translation, I compared it to one I found onlineand I was surprised to see that a lot of the lines matched! That sure raised my confidence in understanding Japanese and writing Korean. Video below and lyrics after the break.^^
Tornadoes, thunderstorms, hail… what better weather to listen to 2NE1′s “Lonely” and B2ST’s “비가 오는 날엔 (On Rainy Days)”? (At least that’s what the weather is like in my part of the world.)
I’ll also be relaxing with a nice Korean drama this evening. Check out my CURRENTLY WATCHING list over there on the right. Insane, huh? I’ve never watched so many dramas at the same time in my life.
So, First Step, CNBLUE‘s first full-length album, released about a month ago and normally I wouldn’t care… but then I got sucked into watching Yonghwa & Seohyun episodes on We Got Married and, well, I started to pay a little more attention to CNB.
Hang on a sec, I need to collect myself. *hyperventilates*
So I’m a huge HUGE Big Bang fan and I adored their mini album TONIGHT (check out my review here). Obviously, I was super excited for their special edition mini-album and I was blown away (I mean BLOWN AWAY!!) by “Stupid Liar” and “Love Song.” (To be fair, I liked Daesung’s solo “Baby Don’t Cry” too except for the weird whirly sound effects randomly in the song).
And then… I saw their second comeback stage on SBS Inkigayo last night.
I have tears in my eyes. I’m not kidding. ”Awesome” can’t even begin to describe how truly awesome the performances were. It’s not even the performance itself per se; what’s incredible is how much Big Bang has grown over the years as musicians and performers. Since I’ve only been a hardcore fan for a year (the longest I’ve ever fangirled over an idol group), through YouTube, I’ve seen their past four years in a very short time span. In terms of music, they’ve gone from traditional hip hop and R&B, to electro-pop, and now to pop-rock while never losing their identity. In terms of performance, who can forget their crazy outfits, their choreography, their inexhaustible energy? Big Bang has an unmatched charisma that makes up for the fact that they sometimes slip up during their live performances.
That being said, their comeback stage last night might be the BEST live performance I have seen from them. There is a sense of maturity, both in the songs and in the choreography and vocally, all of the members did very well. Without further ado:
The first word that comes to mind is – whimsical. Everything from GD walking around like he’s drunk on stage, to the accusatory yet somehow still teasing chorus (which GD sings – how much do I love that!). This is a really fun, upbeat song. The melody seems to be at odds with the lyrics (it’s about a guy who’s been deceived by a girl?) but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable for me. Supposedly, “Tonight” won out over this song for the title track and, while I think “Stupid Liar” is the better song (in terms of composition, creativity, lyrics, AND personal enjoyment), I can understand why “Tonight” was chosen. ”Stupid Liar” and “Love Song” both have a very different sound; “Stupid Liar” would not have meshed well with the overall sound of TONIGHT. Personally I think it might have been better to package “Tonight,” “What is Right,” and “Somebody to Love” as one EP and “Cafe,” “Stupid Liar,” and “Love Song” in another, based on musical style. (And, oh yeah, excuse the fangirling but TOP is looking so adorable in this performance!! LOVE the hair.)
I adore “Stupid Liar” but I think “Love Song” wins as my favorite. There’s just something so fresh about the whole sound of this song. Soompi’s review mentioned undertones of U2 and I have to agree; I actually thought it sounded more like OneRepublic (their style is also influenced by U2). The pop-rock thing works well for them and, surprisingly none of the members, not even the rappers, got left out. (Still bitter over the fact that Daesung got 1 LINE in “Tonight”). In fact, TOP and GD’s mellow raps were probably my favorite parts of the song. In some of their older songs (take “Goodbye baby” and “I Don’t Undesrstand” for example), I felt that the rap failed to blend in with the rest of the melody and just ended up sounding forced and awkward. But in this song, the rap worked perfectly; I think it even held it together. Of course, TOP’s intro was surprising and lovely – I never knew his voice could be so soft. This performance was good (GD GD GD!!!! looked/sounded so FINE! ahem) but there were some pitch problems… and I’m not going to say who, but I was surprised. Hm. Well, it didn’t stop me from replaying the video like a million times!
I’ve never watched 우리 결혼했어요, but I remember I found out about the 용서 couple’s “반말송” (“Banmal Song”) through allkpop. So when CN Blue’s Jung Yonghwa released a digital version of the song retitled “처음 사랑하는 연인들을 위해” (“For First-time Lovers”) earlier this year, I was curious to hear it because 반말송 was so popular. It’s really one of the most adorable songs I have ever heard.
What I love about this song is that it is so distinctly Korean. It’s about something that you can’t really understand unless you know a little about Korean culture and it’s about something I love watching in a Korean drama – progression of a relationship in parallel with changes in speech levels. How do you gauge when to start speaking “comfortably” to a person you’ve met? When can you switch from 존댓말 to 반말? What’s even more interesting (what this song is about) is how to speak to a person who’s just become your lover – how do you get over the awkwardness and the shyness, not only in feeling but also in speech? Although most languages do have a “polite” speech and a “casual” speech, an issue like this is more significant in Korean because there are about seven distinct speech levels (excluding mixing the different types of speech). And it’s something that English speakers can’t really understand. I’m glad I’m at a level in Korean where I can understand both the meaning and cultural significance of a song like this.
AND IT’S SO CUTE!
Ahem. Anyway. Although it is not impossible to translate a song like this into English (the person who uploaded this video did a pretty good job), it’s best left untranslated because so much meaning is lost if you do. Besides, how on earth can you accurately translate a line like “우리 서로 반말하는 사이가 되기를” anyway? The thought makes me shudder. :)
I’m a huge proponent of learning a language through translation. In fact, most of the vocabulary and grammar structures I know now are thanks to my attempts to learn Korean by “translating” K-pop songs. Not only did I learn new things, I also figured out what the song meant! But, please note, these are all still amateur translations. A successful translation captures both the meaning and style of a work and if you use translation as a means to learn a language, you can only hope to master one aspect at the beginner level (meaning). Once you’ve mastered the language (if there is such a thing), you can learn to capture the style of the original work as well.
This post isn’t directly related to Korean learning but since other seasoned language learners have said that fangirling plays an important (and necessary) part of foreign language study, I have no qualms about dedicating this entire post to my biggest K-pop bias – Big Bang. Specifically, Big Bang’s 4th EP, which released a few days ago. I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited for ANY album release – Korean or otherwise – and let me tell you, the EP is WELL worth all the excitement.
