For the Love of Trot (트로트) Music.

My first encounter with Korean trot Music~트로트 was last summer. I attended the language class at the Korean Cultural Centre in Nigeria, where I took part in the Sejong institute speech contest. At the event, my classmates and I performed Arirang and a trot song by Jang Yun-Jeong, (You might Know her from the reality show, The Return of Superman), called '어머나~Eomona' which translates to 'Oh My', an expression generally used by females kinda like 'Oh my goodness'. I remember clearly the day 샘 (short form for teacher)  played the song for the first time and told us about performing. She acted out the song for us and I thought 와우...재미있어 (Wow, it looks fun). 

The tempo was upbeat, the rhythm was nice and we were all bobbing our heads to it. We were all excited to perform it except for maybe the one male person in our class because it is perceived as a feminine song. 샘 mentioned that Koreans have a soft spot for this song and it has been a popular choice at noraebangs for years. I made it a point to ask some Koreans I met afterwards and they all agreed, with some even singing the song with me.

My Family's First taste of Korean Food.

우리 가족을 한식은 처음 먹었어다

Mini Korean lesson before we start!!

우리 ~ My/Our

가족 ~ Family

한식 which is the short form of 한국 음식 ~ Korean Food
처음 ~ First time

I have been interested in the Korean culture for about two years now. It all started when a friend recommended the drama 'Boys Over Flowers' as a sort of "break" after a long study session. It was a nice distraction and the start of my love affair with Korea. My family eventually caught on to my love for Korea, well I guess it was pretty obvious because I couldn't shut up about it. Coming from Nigeria where there isn't that much Korean presence, my family wondered at how I ended with such fascination for this country. But they eventually got used to it.

I had always told them about Korean food but they never got to try it because you can't find Korean food in Nigeria. My mum however went on a business trip to Ethiopia and was delighted to come across a Korean restaurant, she then told her colleagues about my interest in Korea and suggested they have dinner at the restaurant. Unfortunately she didn't know the name of the dishes they were served because the waiter recommended it­— well except for the BBQ which by the way was served with lettuce, but they didn't know you were supposed to wrap the meat in the leaves so they left the leaves untouched ­— but they liked it.  Most Africans like 매운 음식 (Spicy Food) so there was no complain with that. I told my mum that I will take her to a Korean restaurant when they come to London so she could try my favourite dishes ­— and maybe know what she ate this time around.

Mum was hooked, time to work on the rest of the Family. 

My birthday was a few weeks ago, my only wish was that I wanted my family to go to a Korean restaurant to celebrate my birthday. Luckily my family was in London, I knew it was a rare opportunity to have them try out all the food for themselves rather than having to hear me gush about it. I decided on Kimchee restaurant because it was reviewed as a fusion Korean restaurant. I thought it will be more suitable for their palate and help to ease them into the Hansik flavour.

The first thing we noticed when we walked into the restaurant was this spectacular wall covered in Hangul

Have you heard of 사투리~Satoori?

As you learn a language, one of the things you come across especially with a language that is being spoken throughout a country is 'dialect'. We even see this with the English language where British English differs in a way from American English both in tonation and vocabulary. This is also the case with 한국어~ Hangugeo ~Korean Language.  

Dialect in Korean is referred to as 사투리 ~ Satoori. The standard South Korean dialect and the most widely used is 서울말~ Seoulmal ~ Seoul speach. The chart below shows the different classification of the Korean dialect according to regions

Korean	Continental Northeastern Hamgyŏng Ryukchin Northwestern P'yŏng'an Central Hwanghae Gyeonggi ~ Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi Yeongdong Chungcheong ~ Chungcheong, Daejon Southeastern Gyeongsang ~ Busan, Daegu, Ulsan, Jinju, Pohang,Changwon Southwestern Jeolla ~ Jeollabuk-do, Gwangju, Jeollanam-do Insular Jeju

 Source: Wikepedia. A chart showing the classification of dialect in the Korean Peninsula

The northeastern and Northwestern as well as Yeongdong dialects are used in parts of North Korea and Northeastern China. The rest are all part of the South Korean dialect and is widely spread between the eight regions. Just like the English language, the most noticeable difference between these dialects is tonation. There is also a major distinction in some of the vocabulary where some words are completely different. The Korean grammar has what is referred to as word endings, this can be used to identify the distinctions in these dialects. An example