강미 | learning koreanHow to learn Korean (even if you live in Korea): Part 2 in an occasional series
Someone once asked the Spartan king Leonidas to identify the supreme warrior virtue from which all others flowed. He replied: “Contempt for death.”
For us artists, read “failure.” Contempt for failure is our cardinal virtue. By confining our attention territorially to our own thoughts and actions—in other words, to the work and its demands—we cut the earth from beneath the blue-painted, shield-banging, spear-brandishing foe.
Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle
, page 160
Expats have a thousand reasons for not learning Korean. The first post in this series listed just the first twenty, not counting any of the minor stressors listed in the subsequent paragraph or in the comments.
On the record, more than one Korea blogger has recounted their difficulties in learning the language, difficulties that have nothing to do with the language itself. Off the record, there have been perhaps thousands of conversations over the years covering the same territory. They’re all interesting, in their own way.
Far more interesting, however, are your answers to this question: What are you going to do about it?
Is work getting in the way of learning Korean? What are you going to do about it?
Is your social life preventing you from learning Korean? What are you going to do about it?
Koreans won’t speak Korean to you? What are you going to do about it?
Life is stressful? What are you going to do about it?
Those are some answers I’d like to hear.
Posted by kangmi on November 12, 2006 at 10:06 AM8 comments
