is this shirt too much?
hello my friends it's nina and welcome to another not really studying with nina
it has been 2 years since i've done my last one
just kidding it's only been like 5-6 months
but we're back and better than ever
so i do also have a tiny little announcement for you guys
which is a secret that i've been keeping for quite a while
i don't really know why i kept it a secret
i didn't have to
but now it's time to tell you that i
am going to korea :)
i did not buy this shirt for the video
i had it for a couple years now
my mom got it for me as a souvenir when she went to korea 2 years ago
but now i'm going to the motherland, i'm going to korea
these glasses are hurting my nose
so the reason i'm making this announcement in a not really studying with nina video
is because as a korean american i'm not fluent in korean
right now i'm kinda conversational
but this korea trip is sooner than i thought
i thought i was going in at least 2020
i didn't expect it to be this year
but because this trip is so soon
i have to cram in as much korean as is humanly possible
so that's what we're doing in this video and i'm going to study with you guys
so go and get your refreshments
i have a nice iced americano right here
i also have a couple snacks right here
y'all snacks during studying is an absolute must
snacks are one of my favorite things about studying
if i don't have snacks while i'm studying it's a sad time
today's snacks consist of nuts and grapes
these are my ultimate go-to snacks when i'm studying
i haven't studied properly in like-
months
back when i was in college though, studying was fun
"sTuDyInG wAs fUn"
i don't know how long i'm going to have my leg here
this is just so comfy for some reason
i also do have water
we're also going to stay hydrated
but anywho let's get into this
guys i feel like my korean has actually gotten worse
i haven't properly studied korean since i was in school
recently i've had a few days where i've been studying
but i don't have much time left anymore
so i'm currently filming this video on the 10th of october
and i'm going to korea in late october
i don't have much time left, i have about a week
i don't even really know what i need to study
i don't know what i don't know
i don't know where to start
so back to the korea trip i'm going late october
and i'm going to stay there for two weeks
and i'm coming back in early november
i will be going with my mom
i am very happy and fortunate that i get to be taking my mom to korea
but i am thankful to be going with my mom
because she actually knows korea
this the first time in a while that i'm going to a place
where i literally don't know anything
i don't know any of the neighborhoods
i don't know places to go to
i have a list of places i want to go
but i've never seen them irl obviously
it's just going to be really new and i'm kind of nervous
but i'm excited as well
like for me, i go to places that i'm familiar with
i always go to LA, i go to chicago
i go to places in the US that i'm comfortable with
and i know my way around those cities
but this is also the first time i'm leaving the US
if you guys follow me on social media you would know i got my passport recently
and some people thought i was going to korea so
i guess people kinda saw this coming
now i have a passport, i can literally go anywhere now
but my first destination is korea
i will vlog it obviously
because i want to have this in my memory as well
and then i do have some youtube related things going on there
but it's going to be just a good time i hope
i don't want to embarrass my mom with my lack of knowledge in korean
so i'm going to try my best to just
study up on things that i want to know
and kinda just fill in the gaps of my knowledge in korean
i know a good amount but i also don't know a lot
my main problem is i know a lot of grammatical structures
but i don't know a lot of vocabulary
i will fill in most of my sentences with english words
just because i don't know the korean word for it
i still need to study a lot of verbs, nouns,
basically every single vocabulary
the only thing i'm pretty confident about is ordering in korean
lately in my life i've been going to more korean restaurants and stores
and i've been able to communicate in korean just because
ordering in korean's pretty easy
and so i've been doing a lot of that
so i'm pretty confident about that
but i don't know yall there's just
a lot that i still need to study
omg these nuts are so good
i really love cashews
just a wonderful food
i also love almonds they are full of nutrients
and they're tasty
nuts are a good brain food
and they keep you kinda full
because they have a lot of healthy fats
recently i went with my friend to a jajangmyeon place
jajangmyeon is a korean chinese dish
it is just noodles in a nice black bean sauce
it's one of my childhood dishes that i can't eat anymore bc i don't eat meat
but my friend wanted to have jajangmyeon so we went
and i was kinda nervous about it secretly
because the whole korean american thing about wanting to speak korean
but you're shy about your accent and all that
so i was like
i didn't really want to go
just because i felt like i should've ordered in korean
it's just like no one really has to think about this
but in my brain i was like oh
it would be nice if i order in korean
especially since i'm studying it
i wanted to break out of my comfort zone
and try to speak in korean
my friend by the way is not korean, she's german
she's actually in germany right now for school
so before she left she wanted to have jajangmyeon
and so i was like
ok i have to take her
and so we went
and the people who work there, they speak korean
and whenever i go to that restaurant with my family
they always greet us in korean and i'm just like
so we went to the restaurant and he greeted us in english
which is expected
and in my brain i was like
ok maybe i should just order in english
it's probably easier
and then when the waiter came to take our order
i was like panicking in my brain
i was like sHoUld i speak in english
or should i try to speak korean
even though he spoke to us in english already
it's like nina you don't have to go and make things complicated
you might get the order wrong
but at the last second my brain was like
HECK
i'll speak korean
so i went and ordered in korean
and my brain was just going for it
but ordering in korean's really not that hard
and i was able to ask if i could get things to go
and after i ordered he spoke to me in korean
and would speak english to my friend
and i just felt a little validated
it's the most trivial thing
but personally for me and my history of rejecting my culture
and being afraid to even learn about my culture
or speak my language
that little experience was nice
i haven't studied at all
i don't even know where to begin
so as i've mentioned in past videos i use howtostudykorean.com
this is a very bad habit
but i kind of skip lessons
i just jump around
because i kinda wanna study what i want to know
recently i took a break from korean dramas and i was watching
the great british bake off
and i was watching so much of it
that i would start to speak in a broken british accent
and at that point i was like
oh shoot i should probably get back into korean dramas
i honestly feel like i got worse in korean
like whenever i'm speaking with my mom
i find myself saying
"what??"
a lot
like lately for some reason
it's been harder to understand
what people are saying in korean
so i've been trying to get back into watching korean dramas
and watching korean content on youtube
it definitely does help to be consuming
korean media while you're studying
because you literally hear all these words and it's just in your subconscious
a lot of korean for me is in my subconscious
and so when i'm on a lesson
and i learn something, i'm like
hmm
i've heard this before!
then it clicks
and i'm like OH so that's what this meant the entire time
so that's just kinda how my brain works
but i know that korean is a literal foreign language for a lot of people
they don't know a lot of korean
they haven't heard a lot of it
so i definitely recommend watching a lot of korean television
listening to a lot of music and just
having more experience and exposure to korean
and this doesn't have to be just for korean
this can be for literally any language
in fact i might just listen to some music right now in korean
is it playing
oh my foot got numb ugh
ahh music is so distracting
so this is my notebook for korean right now
i think i'm just going to go for one of those really big notebooks in the future
because there's just a lot of notes that i need to take
and this is not enough
it's a cute notebook but i'm already at the end
and i haven't really done a lot of studying
i only have 3 pages left
the latest lesson i studied is asking questions
see i tend to skip on the most important lessons
just because i'm so eager to learn something else
so i found myself struggling to ask questions in korean
which is such an important part, i don't know why i would skip that
i think i'm going to listen to my study music playlist
i do have a study music playlist on youtube if you want to check it out
it was a playlist that i listened to all the time when i was in college
and now i left it for you guys
but i actually still use it if i'm working
or if i just need to be in a calm mood
highly recommend
look at my handwriting you guys
i really tried back then
i want a grape
oh that is a delicious grape
if y'all have recommendations for what i should do in korea
let me know
i probably already wrote down a lot of recommendations y'all probably have but
let me know anyway
i think it's also almost midterms season for a couple of you guys
if i remember correctly
i remember back when i was in college
october/november was kind of midterms season
i'm glad that's over
by the way if you don't know, i graduated from college
i didn't drop out
i graduated
omg
by the way
do you guys wanna see my degree
so my degree finally came in the mail
after all this time
here's my degree
i worked all my life for this piece of paper
i'm gonna frame it
i haven't planned at all for this trip
i got the plane tickets back in september
so that's how long i've been keep this a secret
i didn't have to keep it a secret
but it just didn't feel confirmed yet
so i just wanted to kind of take care of stuff
before i announce it
so it just feels a bit more confirmed
so we got our plane tickets
we got our hotel
we know what cities we're going to
i'm going to seoul and busan
i said that in the most american accent
and before you come at me about the bts concert
i tried getting tickets ok
but unfortunately and as i expected i didn't get tickets
so i'm going to be in the same country as them but i won't see them
which is just kinda funny in my opinion but
oh well
maybe i'll just stand outside of the stadium with my army bomb and just be like
if you watched the video of me going outside everyday for a week
on one of the days i didn't go outside because i slept way too late the night before
that's what i was doing until 6 am
i was trying to get tickets
i lost so much sleep
but lesson learned
it's hard being an international army
but anywho going to korea around this time is a good time to go
so that's what i care about more
i want to explore korea
but it would've been a cherry on top if i was able to see them but
oh well
i'm ok about it though
these are really good nuts
even outside of college i'm still distracted
i'm not actually listening to anything by the way
how many grapes can i fit into my mouth
that's too much
i don't like competitively eating
and then this becomes
wow that makes it so much shorter
OH MY GOD I FORGOT TO WRITE THE FRICKIN KOREAN ENGLISH CAPTION I'M GONNA SCREAM AAHHHH
it's ok let's pretend i did that on purpose ahahhahagjskglksf
i don't know how much korean i'm going to be speaking when i'm there
it would be funny if in my vlog i just started speaking in korean the entire time
i highly doubt that's gonna happen but that'd be cool if i did
i'm just gonna write a bunch of examples
my notes are so messy
this is what my notes look like at the end of the semester
i like to write examples
it helps me practice my handwriting
and it's just helpful to know
to see how to use certain things in certain sentences
i need my glasses
oh much better
you can't really see my eyes
tastes like water
so how are your studies coming along
what a mood
i am always sending my energy to you guys
and hoping that you guys are doing well
if you guys have tips for dealing with really long flights
and jet lag, please let me know because
flying is not my favorite thing in the world
i don't particularly like flying in airplanes for a long period of time
even 4 hour flights is really long for me
so i don't know how 14 hours is going to go
please let me know any tips
jeez you guys can't see my eyes
let me know if it's better to stay awake for most of the hours
or to just sleep
anything just let me know
i'm new to international traveling
oMg tHoSe aRe DeLiCiOuS GrApEs
if you guys remember, i got this a while ago
it is a mang travel pillow with a hoodie
isn't it cute
anyway i got this a while ago
and if you follow me on instagram you would know
that this was on my story one time
i got this specifically for traveling
i shouldn't be using this while i'm studying
for reference if you are actually studying with me
this is unit 5 lesson 102
i think with studying it's important to be consistent
so that you don't forget things
and so that it sticks better in your brain
and that you're just comfortable with the language
these are my notes so far
we've got one nice page
ok well that is done
yes
we have finished one lesson
here are the final notes
and i think that is all i can do for this video
just because i've been studying for a very long time now
it was nice to get back into this studying series that i have
i may not be in college anymore but
learning is a lifelong process
i hope you guys enjoyed this time and this video
and got something done
or just had a good time
i will update you guys about korea and all that
on my story, i'm always active on social media
my story is probably going to be very very long when i'm in korea
but i am excited and i'm very thankful
that i have this opportunity
years ago i didn't even know when i'd be able to go to korea
and now i get to go in 2019
it is so soon
i'm not really ready
i haven't packed at all i don't know what i'm going to wear
or anything like that but
it's going to be fun
thank you guys for everything
i will update you guys on social media always
and i will see you in my next video, goodbye my friends :)