Posts Categorized: Speaking Korean with babies

에보니의 하루 A Newborn’s Daily Routine

ebonys day WMA young baby doesn’t do very much for herself, so maybe this post would be more accurately titled as ‘A New Mother’s Daily Routine’

Here are two sets of vocabulary for the daily activities of a newborn. Above the pencil line on each caption is the causative version of the verb. You would use this form to describe what you are doing for the baby, or what someone else does for the baby (엄마가.. ) and you can also conjugate these using -아/어주다 (This has already been done in the case of “수건으로 몸을 닦아주다”) and add an ending such as -ㄹ래?, -ㄹ까?, -ㄹ게, to talk to your baby about what you are going to do for them or to offer to do something for them. For example “기저귀 갈아줄까?”

You can see the plain form of the verb (assuming the baby could do it for herself) below each pencil line. Parents often use the plain form of the verb with an ending such as -자 or -할래? or -할까? when speaking directly to the baby about what they are going to do, even if they are doing it for the baby, rather than the baby doing it independently or actively together with the parent. For Example “옷입자!” “목욕할래?”

 

Notes on some of the vocabulary:

At the top I’ve included “깨우다” (to wake <someone> up) I’m definitely not one to wake up Alice except on very urgent occasions, but 깨우다 can also be useful to warn other people when your baby is asleep, for example “애기를 깨우지 마세요”

“눈을 뜨다” is simply to open one’s eyes.

“낮잠” is a nap

“엎드려놓다” specifically refers to placing someone on their stomach. This selection of verbs is specifically for ‘tummy time’ which is a recommended activity for newborn and small babies to strengthen their neck and shoulder muscles before they start crawling and walking. To talk about this to baby, you might prefer something simple like “터미타임하자!” or “놀자!”

“입히다” is to dress someone, “갈아입히다” is to change someone’s clothes.

“갈다” is to change, “채우다” means to fasten or attach, and is the causative of “차다”

 

 

Alice is usually the model for my illustrations on this blog, but since she had already grown too much when I started working on this illustration, I have instead drawn another beautiful Korean-Australian baby, Ebony. I want to say a big thanks to Ebony and her mum, Jez, for their assistance with this post. If you would like to see more of Ebony and Jez’s story, you can follow them on Instagram

If you would like further clarification or example sentences to go with this post, please let me know, I am more than happy to revise and expand it.

 

Home made resources

homemaderesourcesWMThis year we made the decision to move to one of the suburbs of Sydney which has a well established Korean community. It’s an important element of my bilingual strategy for Alice, and has already proven to be worthwhile, with Alice and I building positive relationships with local shops and cafes that can serve us using Korean language, reinforcing it as a useful and meaningful language to Alice. There are some things we still wish for, like a Korean preschool or primary school (there is such a school for the local Japanese community, but not Korean, as it seems that most Korean people here are more concerned about their children’s English skills) Our new neighbourhood is very different from our last, which was predominantly Caucasian. I am aware that not everyone will have the desire to move, the luxury of access to a Korean community, to inlaws or the ability to travel readily. Still, I’d encourage you to rethink what you have around you to work with, and here I’m going to discuss some simple ways you can create some of your own Korean language resources to use at home.

Board Books:
Toddlers love books, but those bulky first board books are heavy and usually don’t have a huge amount of content per book, so it is not really economical to spend too much money on buying them in Korean language. If your local library stocks books in Korean, borrow what you can. You can buy some board books in your own language and simply write the Korean translations in with a permanent marker, or stick in label stickers. You might even want to put in some post-its with prompts for questions you can ask your child as you read, or appropriate comments or sound effects, to make your reading time that bit more special and personal, even if you aren’t confident ad-libbing. Once your child reaches a certain age however, these labels are likely to be pulled out, so use them as prompts to get you up to speed as soon as possible, then take them out once you are confident.

한글 놀이:
Type out the 한글 characters on your computer, increase the font size, print and use them as templates to cut out felt or cardboard characters in bright colours. You can use these with a felt board, or some adhesive magnets on the fridge or blu-tak to teach a slightly older child early literacy skills. Alice is already starting to recognise the appearance of her name at age 2, so pointing at words as you read, and reading aloud as you write things out is never a waste of your time.

Flash Cards and Posters:
Make some personalised flash cards with photos, simple drawings or pictures from magazines. Start with words and objects that your child is familiar with, as there is much excitement and reward in being able to recognise something and name it easily. You can add in new pictures and words after or ahead of special events or new experiences, or simply as your child’s world expands and they see new things. This also reinforces your own memory, if you are learning new vocabulary with your child.
You could also label or relabel posters or large pictures with things like parts of the body or members of the family and display these in the child’s room or wherever you play together.
Another idea might be to make flash cards of things you regularly buy at the grocery store. You could punch a hole in each card, then, when you go shopping, put the cards that represent your shopping list on a ring together, and your child can help you find all the items on the ‘list’

Share Songs with Family:
Transliterate favourite songs for family members so they can also share things that are dear to your child. My mum made a big poster with a transliteration of the Birthday song to take to our big family lunch in Sydney for Alice’s 2nd birthday. Anyone who follows me on Instagram might remember how obsessed she has been with this song and the idea of birthdays since our trip to Korea earlier this year. When we held up the poster, the whole family was instantly able to sing Happy Birthday to Alice, in her language. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement. Your transliterations do not need to be written using the RR or McCune-Reischauer systems. Use whatever spelling will help the people close to you use as accurate pronounciation as possible. (I’ve found people not familiar with Korean tend to be confused by written sounds like ‘eo’ for ‘어,’ but if you say the word or sing the song aloud and just write it as you hear it, it should be close enough.

Please feel free to share your own ideas in the comments section of this post.

Basic expressions

I’ve previously talked a bit about how I started off using Korean with Alice. One of the most helpful things I had when starting was a small piece of brown cardboard on which Han had written a bunch of basic expressions for me to use. I could already use Korean quite comfortably with adults, but was daunted by the task of using it with Alice, so we brainstormed the list together, and with that as a base, I started introducing expressions. From there, I added more and more ..and then left English behind.

So here, for those who are equally unsure where to start, I have compiled a similar list.

This list very roughly covers the daily activities of a small baby, has some playful expressions, instructions, admonitions and reassurances. My next few posts will be focusing on grammar and speaking style, and I will provide many more detailed expressions in the coming weeks.

I think this list is easy and brief enough that you could start using it straight away. There is obviously more than one way to say many of the things on the list, you can adapt it to your level of confidence. I have typed the way the expressions might be spoken to a child, so the spelling is not necessarily dictionary accurate and there are a few baby words in the mix.

Translations:

1.

Hi

Did you sleep well?

Good job!

I love you

Sorry

Please give me (that)

Thank you

 

2.

My, what a pretty baby!

Oh.. Is that so? (a response to use for early conversations with baby when she uses babbling baby talk)

Tickle tickle

Let’s play!

 

3.

Stand up/get up please

Sit down please

Come here

Time to go

Let’s eat

Yum Yum! (to encourage baby to eat, or when pretending to share baby’s food)

Let’s have a bath

Let’s get dressed

Let’s change your nappy

 

4.

No (you mustn’t do that)

That’ dirty!

That’s hot! (to touch or taste)

You’re okay/are you okay?

Little fingers, little hands

gold ring

October is fast slipping through my fingers. This month Han and I celebrated the second anniversary of our wedding ceremony, but unfortunately we also had to farewell my dearly beloved grandmother, which has always been so unimaginable for me that it still doesn’t feel real. Alice is now 18 months and has started jumping on the bed and is simply thriving. Singing, dancing, chatting with anyone who will smile back at her. I will be discussing her progress in Korean language in an upcoming post.

I thought I might provide some more detailed vocabulary relating to hands. If there is one major difference between learning Korean to make friends, and learning Korean to use with a baby, it’s that for speaking with a baby you need a name for EVERYTHING. If you can see it, if you can hear it, smell it, taste it, feel it, experience it, if you can hurt it, it needs a name, and babies are particularly curious, exploring everywhere, always looking back to you to explain the interesting and new.

hands 1

There are several different sets of names for the fingers. I’ve included two (so those in cream and pink are each a set, not left or right specific)

hands 2

 

Talking about animal sounds

animal sounds

The Korean language has a LOT of onomatopoeia (의성어) and mimetic words* (의태어) to learn. In my experience they are difficult to memorise as an adult, but children aquire them easily and they play a major part in children’s speech (even in English, where a child might say “choo choo” instead of “train,” or use a sound word instead of a verb)

It’s beyond the scope of my ability and capacity to teach Alice all of the 의성어 and 의태어, but I still try to regularly choose a few, based on current situations or places or things we encounter a lot, then use them as much as possible to absorb them into our every day dialogue.

I started with animal sounds. As long as you can keep your mind open as you say the sounds (since some of them may not sound convincing to you at first) they are easy to memorise.

At first I would make up a question and answer monologue, for example “돼지가 어떻게 우는지 알아? 꿀꿀! 꿀꿀하고 울어요! 고야이는 어떻게 우는지 알아? …”

Obviously it is best if you can point the animals out in a board book or when you are at a park or zoo.

The baby will slowly learn to copy the sounds and will also begin answering the questions enthusiastically, however I should note, Alice answers “멍!멍!” no matter what animal I ask about, even though she can make “꿀꿀” and “꽥꽥” I think she simply associates the general sound of the question with this answer. When she sees a furry animal, be it dog, cat, tiger or bear, she calls out “멍 멍!” but when she sees any type of bird she will say “꽥꽥”

What I find really interesting in teaching this to Alice, is that the choice of sound word seems to influence the way she hears the sound. I was brought up ‘knowing’ that dogs say “woof woof,” and I hear this very clearly when a dog barks. When I heard that Koreans interpret a dog’s bark as “멍멍” I really couldn’t match the two sounds. Still, I dutifully taught Alice “멍멍” and after a while noticed that beyond just responding to the appearance of a dog with that sound, she also echoes “멍! 멍!” in a loud, drawn out voice imitating a dog that she can only hear and not see. When she does it, it sounds like a dog’s bark.. A particularly cute dog’s bark!

*Where onomatopoeia are words that represent sounds, mimetic words represent physical movements, motions and attributes

Teaching manners pt. 2: 배꼽인사

baeggobinsaSince Alice is competent at bowing her head to greet and thank people, I recently taught her to “배꼽인사” (belly button bow)

I taught this in two stages. First I would gently hold her two hands together at her tummy, as I said “두 손을 모으세요” or “두 손을 모아” However you choose to say this, it becomes a cue for the action of placing one hand over the other at the waist. Then I would give her a familiar cue, which is “안녕하세요~” When she hears this, she already associates it with nodding her head once as a bow.

The second step was to increase the depth of the bow and preferably lengthen its duration. You can add an additional cue, “고개를 숙여요” or an appropriate greeting, such as “감사합니다” or “안녕히가세요.” We used “인사~” and as I said the cue I would gently use my hand to push her body forward just above her bottom. Do not push too far or too fast, as this will throw the child off balance. Your hand should be really light and you should allow the baby to make whatever stability compensations he needs.

배꼽인사2

If you’ve never seen a toddler perform 배꼽인사 before, you may not know what sort of form to expect. Toddlers are very good at keeping their centre of balance slightly forward so they are more likely to fall forward, but if you push them too far forward, they stabilise themselves by bending their knees.

A toddler’s correct 배꼽인사 “form” will most likely include deeply bent knees, wide parted feet and often an exaggerated depth of the bow itself (Alice’s head almost touches the floor)

We practise this bow once or twice a day, very casually. Often when Han arrives home or leaves, so she can experience it in context. If you always start the practise with “배꼽인사 하자!” baby will become used to this as an overall cue and you will ultimately be able to drop the step by step cues quite quickly.

The most important thing is to be patient and realistic, a toddler should not be expected to always have perfect manners or to always 배꼽인사 on command. Give plenty of positive encouragement and feedback, but avoid pushing the issue when she refuses.

A game to teach the facial features- 코 코 코 놀이!

kokoko

Here’s a very easy game to practice the names and locations of the facial features. This is a good drill for a parent who needs to memorise these words, too!!

( If you want to review vocabulary for this game, Click here! )

To play, simply start gently tapping the nose, “코, 코, 코, 코, 코~”

Then you pick another facial feature, name it and tap on it. eg. “..눈!”

“코, 코, 코, 코, 코~ 입!”

“코, 코, 코, 코~ 코!”

“코, 코, 코, 코, 코, 코~ 볼!”

This game has a similar feeling to the English “Simon Says,” in that the second facial feature you name ought to be suddenly and unexpectedly picked, seeing if the child can quickly recognise and point to it.

This game can be played with babies of any age, adapted to suit their ability. For a small baby, you might tap their face or your own face to show them, as they get a little bigger, you might hold their hand with index finger extended and help them tap their own face or yours. Now Alice is learning to point with her own finger and she likes to practice by herself “코, 코, 코, 코, 코~”

 

Teaching manners pt. 1: 주세요~

pleaseI’ve always felt that good manners are basically essential to getting along well with others in Korea. If I want my daughter to feel comfortable in Korean society as she grows up, teaching appropriate etiquette and manners is really important.

Obviously teaching manners begins with modeling the behaviour you wish to see. Among other things, this has meant making simple polite transactions in front of her with my husband, Han and ensuring we always demonstrate polite greetings.

Around 12 months of age, Alice travelled to Korea with me to prepare for her birthday party. My Mother in Law started encouraging Alice to place one hand on the other, palms upwards to ask when she wanted something. When Alice showed signs that she wanted something (at the time she was crazy about 귤 and 한라봉,) 어머님 would demonstrate this hand gesture and clearly say “주세요” then pause before giving the item to Alice. Once Alice had received it, 어머님 would bow her head and say “고맙습니다,” although Han and I have been using “감사합니다” with her instead. (In Australia, we usually say “Ta” when we give something to a baby, “Ta” being a sort of baby version of “Thankyou,” so it is obviously the same lesson, but the Korean way involves gestures and perhaps expects a little more of the baby)

By somewhere around 14 months, I started gently putting Alice’s hands into this position and saying “주세요” and she quite quickly learnt to use this gesture to say please. We also would use a hand to gently nudge her head forward in a nod for  “감사합니다” which she picked up with even greater ease.

For a few months now she has also been adding “니다~” or “은다~” to her “주세요” hand gesture when she wants something.. and the more she wants it the higher and sweeter the pitch, haha! It seems to be an attempt at saying “감사합니다”

So even though she does not yet have a huge vocabulary, Alice is already learning and using basic manners.

 

 

 

아기 데리고 가자! Let’s take baby out!

 

transportforbabies

애기 탈 것
Prams and strollers, though becoming more popular in recent years, are still not commonly used in Korea. Most buses and subway stations are difficult to access with a pram and in my experience, many streets have narrow or congested pathways, sometimes uneven paving. Most parents bring baby along in a carrier, sling, or the traditional Korean blanket wrap, called 포대기. One big difference between Australia and Korea is that Australians tend to let their children ride in strollers til a much greater age than Korean parents.

You’ll notice the name for the infant capsule/seat is taken straight from English. There still doesn’t seem to be any regulation, standard or law about safely restraining infants in the car and often babies are carried on their parents’ laps.

Some related verbs (with example sentences):

데리다 bring along (note: this verb is very seldom used alone, it is usually accompanied by 가다/오다 or similar)

아기를 데리고 공원에 가요

밀다 push

유모차를 밀고 가요

매다 tie/fasten

안전 벨트를 매세요

아기띠/포대기를 매었어요

타다 ride/board

유모차를 타면서 우유를 마셔요

태우다 ride/board – causative form (to cause someone to ride, to put someone aboard something)

아기를 유모차에 태워 주세요

업다 to carry something on one’s back, to piggyback someone

아기가 울어서 업어 주었어요

업히다 to be carried on someone’s back

엄마에게 업혀서 잠이 들었어요

 

a newborn’s first tiny world

newborntinyworldNotes:
배냇저고리 is a Korean newborn outfit. It’s a loose jacket that crosses over at the front with two ties and has pockets at the end of the sleeves which can fold over the hands to keep baby’s hands warm and stop accidental scratching. We were given some as presents before Alice was born and it  was interesting for me because Australian babies often wear a ‘wondersuit’ which is an all-in-one towelling suit, covering everything except the hands and face. Wondersuits are usually designed to be close fitting, so the newborn sized suits I had were much smaller than the 배냇저고리. Alice sprouted through 3 or 4 sizes of wondersuit before ever outgrowing her 배냇저고리.

가제손수건 is a little gauzey cotton square that you can use for many purposes like washing baby’s face, wiping her nose, or you can fold it on the diagonal and tie it round his neck as a dribble bib or tie wet to cool down on a hot day. They come in hundreds of cute prints and designs. A really simple yet great idea, we use them a lot.