English Blog

In our class, we discussed about the essay: Mother tongue. The essay was very skillfully written to make the readers angry about the truth of ignorance towards the non-native English speakers. It first talks about funny and light experience of getting ignored due to poor English- in a very sarcastic way- and then, Tang directly talks about a really intrusive happening. When the readers are put into a situation of contrast, they are more likely to feel more emotion. For this tactfully written anecdote, I got interested in the subject of “stereotypes of non-native English speaker”. This topic was very interesting for me as I, myself, is not a native English speaker. Luckily, I studied in the States for a long time which made me possible to speak English as my second “native” language. However, for my mom she cannot speak English fluently. The “Mother Tongue” written by Tang, was actually very gripping for me. Tang’s mother and my mom are very similar. Both do not kno...

Meaning of Seo yeon Koreans usually name using ancient Chinese letters My name was named by my grandfather before I was born The Seo is 聖 ( 성 ) meaning sacred. The sound it self is “seong” but for sake of pronunciation, our family decided to go by Seo ( 서 ). The Yeon is 娟 ( 연 ) meaning beautiful. The sound is just “yeon”. My name shows my grandparents’ and my parent’s wish for me to grow up sacred- our family is Christian- and beautiful- outside and inside.   My name is the most common name for Korean girls born in my year. So in school I found ATLEAST 2 students in my class with the name Seo yeon of Seo hyeon. Every time I go pass through the hallway in Korea and someone calls “Seo yeon” four or five people turned around.   Having a common name also caused some funny situation. Once, I received a wrong mail but I did not realize it until I saw the address since the receiver had the same name as me! Also, once my teachers got mixed up with me and Seo...

Hello :) In today's posting, I am going to explain about the Korean culture 1. Do not write names in Red ink In ancient Korea, people wrote dead people's name with red ink on their family tree. So, writing names with red is the same meaning as writing names of dead people. If one writes someone's name with red in Korea, it is the same thing as saying that one wants someone to be dead. Of course, Koreans don't believe that writing in red will actually mean that writing in red will cause death, but we now think that writing names with red ink is very rude. Many travelers visiting Korea gets in "troubles" for writing one's name in red by mistake :). 2. Number 4 is unlucky This is very awkward but Koreans believe that number 4 is the symbol for death. It is because the ancient letter of Korea for death (死) and the number 4 (四) has the same sound. 3. Be polite and respect people that is older than you Koreans count the ages by the year that you...

About me Hello :) My name is Cathy Jung (Seo  yeon) It is my first year at Raha, and lived in Abu dhabi for 2 and a half year. My hobby is drawing and I want to be a graphic designer in the movies. My goal is to get in to my "dream" institute with a scholarship.  About Language I decided to be in Lang&Lit because I believe that language has great significance in my life and that it will affect greatly in my future careers as well. In 21st century, everyone is becoming international. The first step of becoming a successful "international" person is to know the "international language"-English. Without knowing the language, one would not be able to communicate one's own thoughts and feelings. For instance, when I was 3, I went to United States. Obviously, I did not have any kind of knowledge with English. At preschool I always felt left out since I could not communicate- it took me years of studying. Thank you for reading and I inc...