- This word is (speaking Korean), it means coffee.
This one is (speaking Korean).
It means nosebleed.
People are gonna think that I'm ordering nosebleed at cafes.
(speaking Korean)
Ah, what?
Ah!
(Inga speaking Korean)
- Hey guys, this is Inga and this video,
I will be trying to learn a new language in only 60 days.
As some of you know,
You know I am half Taiwanese and half Hong-Kong Chinese,
I grew up basically speaking,
all three languages, Mandarin, English and Cantonese.
Even as a kid, I've always been fascinated by languages,
one of the things that have always been on my bucket list
is to pick up another language.
Korean for me has always been on top of the list
of languages that I wanted to learn,
I think, partially, because I used to be based in East Asia,
and I had this goal of mastering
all the East Asian languages.
Korea is also a country
that is so rich in culture and history,
if I could get a good grasp of this language,
I'd be able to go there and actually talk to people
and get to know all of it better.
Also, because for right now,
I produce a lot of the K-pop video content,
here at BuzzFeed.
If I'm able to understand or communicate better in Korean,
it could help our talent feel more comfortable too.
All of these reasons are why I've decided
to take up this challenge
of learning a new language in 60 days.
For full disclosure, I have learned Korean,
a little bit before, but I have forgotten,
pretty much most of it,
because I haven't been using it at all.
Now my goal is that at the end of these two months,
I should at least be able to form my own sentences.
I am hoping to understand what people are saying.
I am very hopeful and I am very excited about this.
I just hope I don't disappoint myself, and you guys.
Also just to clarify,
I shot all of this before the quarantine,
so promise, I am staying safe,
and I hope you guys are staying safe too.
(upbeat music)
So to start it off,
I actually started to pull out some of the old notes
I still had from my study abroad program,
and I also downloaded an app
to help me with like pronunciations
and like kind of have a refresher of sorts,
I'm actually really surprised
that I still have these notes,
they remind me of just how much I've forgotten.
Looking at the notes I've written before though,
the way I spelt it out, up here,
when I pronounced it, it just seems so similar,
I feel like I just need somebody to be here,
somebody to talk to, to make sure
that like I'm pronouncing things right.
If I get this first step wrong
I feel like I'm just gonna get everything else wrong too.
So to stay on track and to make sure
that I would actually see some improvement
within these 60 days,
I decided to look up where I'd be able
to learn Korean in the city.
And that's when I found KCC,
and that's when I was introduced to Eun,
who would become my tutor.
- We will do some refreshers.
I hope she gets to the level where she could conjugate,
it will depend on her as much as it depends on me.
- [Inga] This first lesson was intense.
Eun basically told me
that I've been pronouncing everything wrong.
- I want to make sure that she has the right pronunciation.
So, this is our first week,
we definitely have more ways to go.
Are you ready?
- I'm ready, I'm ready.
- All right.
(Eun speaking Korean)
(upbeat music)
- So, Eun and I set up a schedule
where we would meet twice a week for two hours each time
and I would be starting from the very basics.
(Eun speaking Korean) (Inga speaking Korean)
So it involved a lot of reading
and repeating after her, making sure
that I was making the right sounds,
- [Eun] Okay, let's do that again.
(Eun speaking Korean)
(Inga speaking Korean)
(both speaking Korean)
(Inga speaking Korean)
(Eun speaking Korean) (Inga speaking Korean)
And once I got home I would go over the materials again.
I'm just going through some of my notes, rewriting them.
(speaking Korean)
(gentle music)
What did make it more difficult though,
was that I wasn't just learning common phrases and words,
but I was learning how sentences were structured,
so that kind of tripped me up.
I also started trying to speak in Korean
to my Korean friends, with key emphasis on trying.
(Inga speaking Korean)
- Is that right? - Yeah,
wow that's pretty good.
- Ah!
(friend speaking Korean)
(Inga speaking Korean)
(friend speaking Korean)
(Inga speaking Korean)
- That's what's important to you.
(Inga laughs)
(upbeat music)
- For this week, I'm actually gonna be in Tokyo, Japan
for work, which means I won't be able
to go in for my lessons,
and because my schedule's kind of crazy,
tt also means that I don't actually have
that much time to practice,
so I'm really hoping this doesn't set me back.
I think being in Japan,
also kind of confuses me a little bit,
where, in Japan, because I'm learning a lot of new phrases
in order to try to get around.
I feel like sometimes
I also mix up Japanese and Korean phrases
which is not a good thing
and I'm trying not to do that, it's hard.
It's really hard to stay on track.
I hope that Eun won't be too disappointed in me.
(upbeat music)
Can you say that one more time?
(Eun speaking Korean)
(laughs)
(speaking Korean)
The third week definitely set me back
so I had a lot of catching up to do,
a lot of revising, a lot of studying
and I had to refer to the internet
to make sure my pronunciation was okay.
I also changed the language on my phone
from English to Korean
since I figured that would force me to use Korean
a lot more in my daily life.
Rushing to class now, with my sandwich.
Because my phone is now in Korean,
it takes me like three times the amount of time
I normally take to read anything.
This is proving to be a lot harder, unexpected.
In some of my conversations with Eun,
even though it took me a while to process
what was being said,
I could actually understand what she was saying
and that got me really excited.
(Eun speaking Korean)
(speaking Korean)
Right now what are you doing?
(Eun speaking Korean)
- What? (speaking Korean)
Who are you eating with.
(speaking Korean)
(gloomy music)
- So, it's pretty much the end of day right now
had a shoot this morning,
then I went to Korean class,
then I had to rush back for another shoot.
Today during class we try to put like sentences together,
but the same time I was also so exhausted
and my brain literally just stopped working.
And then when we started,
we said to aim for like 30 minutes every day,
but a lot of times I have shoots or events
that go on until really late in the evening.
And the biggest thing is also,
because I know we're trying to do so much within two months.
It is not as easy as it sounds.
I'm trying to read directions,
to see where I'm supposed to go,
but everything in Google Maps right now is in Korean,
so I'm very confused.
And not just Google Maps,
but because all of my notifications were now in Korean,
it was kind of overwhelming,
and I feel like my workflow just became slower,
I was less efficient, because of how much time
it took to process everything.
It is now 10 p.m at night right now,
and I literally just got back from work,
and I am trying to do my Korean homework.
I've been reading the same page for like,
I don't know how many times,
but the information just isn't going in.
I can't, like my brain, honestly, I just need sleep.
So, I don't know.
I want this to work, but it's also just like,
I don't know what to do.
(upbeat music)
It is week seven.
We're almost at the end here,
and I feel like now,
I'm like finally able to understand sentences.
Eun and I, we're having conversations.
Granted that she does try to speak a little slower for me.
I understand most of it,
or maybe not most.
I get the meaning, the general meaning
of what she's trying to ask,
so super, super excited about that.
Being able to put sentences together in Korean
was one of the most incredible feelings.
Learning about, have to say, want to...
(speaking Korean)
But even though I could read better now
and I could understand more things,
this is when I started learning about Korean grammar,
and this is the part when things got extremely difficult.
Tenses
(speaking Korean)
(Eun speaking Korean)
(speaking Korean)
- [Eun] Now you should be able to say,
can you come to my home to eat tonight?
- Took me like five minutes.
- High five? - Hive five.
(speaking Korean) (Eun laughs)
- So I'm on my way to meet Brandon, and his family,
so I am hoping to use this chance to practice a little bit
of my new, new-learned Korean.
I've been task to order.
(speaking Korean)
- [Mama Choi] One person (speaking Korean)
(speaking Korean)
(upbeat music)
(speaking Korean)
Okay, (speaking Korean)
(waiter speaking Korean)
(Inga speaking Korean)
(waiter speaking Korean)
- Ah, medium.
- Medium (speaking Korean)? - Yeah.
(Mama Choi speaking Korean)
(Inga speaking Korean)
(Mama Choi speaking Korean)
(waiter speaking Korean) (Inga speaking Korean)
(Mama Choi speaking Korean)
(waiter speaking Korean)
(Mama Choi speaking Korean)
- Okay, ramen?
(speaking Korean)
- When my brain was like, help me!
(group laughs)
- What is this?
(Inga speaking Korean) (Brandon speaking Korean)
(Mama Choi speaking Korean)
(Inga speaking Korean)
- [Brandon] What is this?
(Inga speaking Korean)
- Oh. - Okay.
- How do you say water bottle?
(Inga speaking Korean)
- Yeah!
(Inga speaking Korean)
(indistinct)
(Inga speaking Korean)
(speaking Korean)
(Inga speaking Korean)
(group cheering)
(upbeat music)
I'm on my way to my last Korean class,
really sad, but this is it.
I really hope I've come, a longer way
than I think I have.
- I worked with Inga for 60 days.
She started with pronunciation.
Now she's generating sentences.
And I think that's a very good improvement.
Definitely, keep studying.
Yeah, you should be really,
really, really proud of yourself.
- And for the final challenge,
I tried to converse in Korean
with one of my favorite K-pop stars, Amber.
- All right, Korean lesson thingamabob.
- I don't need this, okay.
- You don't need it, you don't the book, yeah.
(speaking Korean)
- Yeah!
Thank you!
(speaking Korean)
- Hey yo, that's a lot.
Crazy thing with like Mandarin and English
is that Chinese also has a really, really weird grammar.
- Yeah - With English too.
And then you're flipping that into Korean.
I empathize with your struggle and you did amazing.
- Thank you, thank you. (Amber speaking Korean)
- So yeah, that concludes my 60 days of learning Korean,
but as you guys can probably tell,
this is also really just the beginning.
Learning a new language really is an ongoing process
and I really don't wanna lose any of the progress
I've made so far.
I also really wanna know
if you guys have been trying to learn a new language,
I think it would be really fun for us
to just share our experiences
and any tips we have in the comments below,
But as for now, this is my promise to myself,
I am going to keep practicing.
I hope to only get better from here.
See you guys soon.
Bye.
(upbeat music)