Korean Test
Monday is the final day of class for my Intermediate II Korean language course, which meant we were given our take-home exams on Friday morning. I began working on mine earlier this evening - falling asleep as soon as I come home from work yesterday meant I didn't have the chance to work on it then - but the test appears to be way beyond my abilities. I've only been able to answer 7 of the 30 questions so far.
Before starting work on Friday I shared it with my academy director so he could see what I'd be tested on and he said that he could only answer two of the six questions on the first page. (The 30 questions on the test take up five pages in total.) While this should probably make me feel better about having problems it really only adds to my sense of hopelessness. The categories include: picking the word that doesn't belong from a group of terms, picking which sentence sounds most awkward from a series of four (note: not which one is wrong but which one is awkward), choosing the correct adverb for a fill-in-the-blank section, supplying the correct word that can be used in each of three sentences (i.e., the same word has to work in three different sentences), identifying the incorrect section of sentences and making the appropriate corrections, picking the correct response for a series of dialogue questions, and some reading comprehension questions. Ouch.
On the other hand, I've had a few conversations with my student's parents recently and a couple of days ago a taxi driver complimented me on my Korean accent of all things. It's also a bit easier to understand what's happening in the teacher's office when my co-teachers chat in Korean. Still, none of that is helping me with my test at the moment ...
Update: Just wanted to add that I had a somewhat odd dream a couple weeks back, in which I was telling someone that it's very easy to make past tense conjugations in French because all one needs to do is add ~았/었/였다 to the end. Huh.