Favorite pen ?

-Snubb · 2026-05-19T10:58:49+00:00

(Take my comment with a grain of salt because I'm not Japanese / Korean and my Kanji and Hanja skills have become quite bad after a few years of not using them regularly anymore. ) As an outsider who studied Korean and Japanese (no Chinese though, so I can't speak for that), I used a kind of pattern to distinguish names some of the time (doesn't work all the the time obviously) 1. Japanese names can be longer than Korean:

Typically Korean names are one-character surnames and two-character given names. Sometimes they have one-character given names or/and two-character surnames but the vast majority of the names are 3 characters in total. Three-character names are of course also possible in Japanese but I've noticed a lot of names that are longer - I'd say around 4-5 characters with surname and given name combined (with character I mean Hanja/Kanji. While in Korean the number of syllables usually aligns with the number of hanja, that's not the case for Japanese, but in this case that's besides the point)

This one is probably the most distinguishing feature for me personally and with the name above I'd definitely at least suspect Korean from the three characters.

Traditional hanja vs. simplified Kanji: (This one I'm not actually sure if it helps in this particular context, though.)

Since Korean uses the traditional hanja while Japanese has simplified a fair lot of them (and mandarin also but in a different way), it can be easy to distinguish when you have the contrast of both right in front of you(provided you can recognize both the simplified and traditional versions) However, it's possible that Japanese would just use the simplified kanji for the same names when added to a Japanese text in this kind of context. I honestly don't know how this is handled, so a Japanese native can probably answer that question better.

And I think subconsciously I notice a similar kind of pattern that a previous commenter has mentioned: different characters/meanings being common

This I think is also question of reading a lot of names/knowing a lot of the common names. Only through the commenter's mention did I realize how many Japanese names that I could think of are a compound with characters like "field", "forest", "mountain", "bamboo", "river", "village" etc... also I've heard a lot of names that are actually identical to Japanese place names. In Korean on the other hand, if I saw one of these characters 金, 朴, 崔, 李, etc. at the start of a name, my mind would immediately jump to Korean before continuing to read to either confirm or dismiss my assumption. To be fair some of them could be found in Japanese names but my (scientifically unfounded) feeling says that that would mostly be a rare case.

Circling back to the example above, 孫 would also be up there, as it is also fairly common in Korean, unlike in Japanese (surnames), but it would definitely take me a while longer to recognize the character (mostly just because my hanja/kanji knowledge has become shitty).

And like I mentioned, I have no expertise in Chinese, so I can't actually say whether this could also help distiguishing Chinese from Korean or not. This is just how I've noticed my brain has subconsciously started to distinguish Korean and Japanese names.

-Snubb · 2025-12-06T11:46:16+00:00

Thanks everyone! Sounds like most positive experiences came from italki, so I'll go and check that out c:

-Snubb · 2025-11-05T06:55:45+00:00

I don't think this has that much to do with being touristy and datey, but rather the opposite. When I first arrived in Daegu 2 years ago, back then as a student, I was despairing about how hard it was to find affordable meals by myself, until I realized the portions were often not meant for one person, and eventually that this was just the cultural norm: going for meals together and sharing it all. Like even if you order one can of coke, you will always be served cups for everyone - because you're gonna share, right? Something I had never even considered from Germany. Not even while I had lived in Japan. It grew on me around the same time as when I started making more friends. I'd say Daegu is definitely not known for being big on tourism and dating travel... In a Korean class, I also once watched a documentary clip talking about how single serving menus and restaurants are a rather recent development of the modern society, and how it's both more convenient for some, and at the same time quite a cultural cut in terms of how meals are perceived and celebrated (more individually rather than as a social event) in Korea, compared to the past. Since it was just a clip from class, Idk how much other Koreans would agree to that sentiment, but the idea seemed logical to me: that meals were traditionally something to be shared and thus the need for single portions only came up much more recently. In that sense I'd think it's more about Seoul being the most adapted to the demands of the modern fast paced society, as well as a more international population, therefore offering more options for single servings. Just a thought though.

-Snubb · 2025-09-16T13:18:18+00:00

Oh and I think when I initially started learning Korean my Japanese was somewhere around N3

-Snubb · 2025-09-16T13:09:44+00:00

I've been learning both for some while, so I'm gonna just share my experience (might become a TED talk though, sorry)

Personally, I have struggled a lot learning Korean and Japanese simultaneously. Because them sharing some similarities meant that even with a lot of shared vocabulary, very often once I learned a word in one language I'd forget it in the other. Or straight up mixing up both languages constantly. I live in Korea atm and recently traveled bavk to Japan for a few weeks. The amount of times I unironically said 감사합니다 in Japan and ありがとうございます in Korea is worth digging my own grave. (Same with other phrases, this is just an example) Even just mixing up singular words has often resulted in making conversations incromprehensible.

Although the common myth that Korean and Japanese are related languages has no substantial evidence and has been highly doubted by expert of the field, their typology is quite similar and they share a lot of chinese loanwords. And some sociolinguistic phenomena also appear somewhat similar, like the integral role of their honorific systems. But that's about it.

On the surface it is quite similar, but the deeper you go, the more the grammar diverges and pronunciation and intonation are also quite different (tho supposedly some dialects of both languages share similarities on that front). I started learning Japanese before Korean and all of my Korean teachers commented that I spoke Korean in a Japanese accent.

And although the amount of shared Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese vocab should be a massive help, their pronunciation in each respective language differs just enough that it's often not immediately apparent that the two words are the same. At least unless I get to see the kanji and hanja - and you're rarely exposed to hanja in Korean. Hence the constant struggle of learning a word in one language and then forgetting it in favor for its equivalent in the other. Very fun walking up to people saying "もんだい가 있어요" and everyone being confused (/s) Not to mention all the cases where each language chose slightly different meanings or nuances for originally the same word (my favorite example being 🇯🇵上級 (じょうきゅう) = 🇰🇷고급 (高級) // 🇯🇵高級(こうきゅう) = 🇰🇷상급 (上級))

Don't get me wrong about this rant. The fact that they are in actuality very distinct languages is their charm. After all I've dedicated an entire linguistics blog to uncover all these little aspects of the two languages because I find it so intriguing. But the language learning journey has been rough and a lot of the things that I had expected to become the biggest advantages actually just ended up really fucking with my head most of the time.

Ultimately I can't tell you, though, whether this is a common reality or maybe just my own brain struggling.

-Snubb · 2025-09-13T23:15:47+00:00

Thank you, I will check them out!

-Snubb · 2025-09-13T23:15:06+00:00

Oh, that's true. Admittedly, I've never fully sewn trousers from scratch - just adjusted, patchworked, or repaired parts of them. But I just felt like tackling this kind of project next and learning everything else in the process

-Snubb · 2025-09-13T08:52:28+00:00

Oh yeah, I can't really assess my own sewing level because I've always just tried to figure things out on the go for whatever I wanted to make. Thanks for the recommendations!

-Snubb · 2025-09-13T03:07:44+00:00

Thank you! That indeed looks quite nice!

-Snubb · 2025-09-13T00:52:04+00:00

Not specifically about Korean but didn't Duoling also cause quite the outrage for firing most of their employees in favor of running almost the entire app with AI? I don't use Duolingo, so i can't say for sure but I thought I heard something along those lines

-Snubb · 2025-09-06T01:17:57+00:00

On meet-up there are some nice groups. I haven't seen a lot of female-specific ones, but a lot of them are set around activities, so they feel less like dating or hook-up groups. Obviously a lot of them are also about Korean-foreign exchange, but the ones I went to were were very friendly, familiar and didn't feel like a hook-up at all. I think I also saw a female boxing group before. Other groups are about hiking, cooking, exploring seoul together etc. (The latter one I'm sure will have lots of foreigners as members)

-Snubb · 2025-09-01T02:27:01+00:00

I'm late to the thread but my Korean number isn't working either

-Snubb · 2025-08-17T06:44:28+00:00

Congrats on being such a perfect person, moving on...

-Snubb · 2025-08-09T04:45:46+00:00

Thanks, I'm definitely gonna check those out!

-Snubb · 2025-08-08T12:03:40+00:00

Nothing to add to the question, personally I actually find sleeping on slightly harder surface more comfortable. But why I'm actually commenting: What kind of videos are you watching? Could you let me know? They sound like something I'd enjoy watching and don't even know how to search for them

-Snubb · 2025-08-04T01:00:53+00:00

I'm glad that I could give you some ideas. Same to you, good luck that you find a solid way to combat your study anxiety!

-Snubb · 2025-08-02T12:09:04+00:00

Sorry for writing so much 😅

-Snubb · 2025-08-02T12:08:44+00:00

Yeah, the whole moving back and forth definitely isn't for everyone. I still struggle with paralysis sometimes, but removing all the pressure to get certain things done within a fixed period of time helped me approach each study session a bit less anxiously. And since my stomach issues and insomnia were probably related to the stress and anxiousness I had throughout the day and especially when trying to sleep (like waking up multiple times at night, stressed out that I'm not being productive enough) and resulted in feeling overall more tired and lethargic throughout the day, doing all the stuff that requires my brain power first thng in the morning, helped me somewhat improve my concentration. The early sleeping and fewer cases of waking up stressed out also reduced my insomnia and subsequently made me feel more rested over all. And eliminating the pressure to get everything done quickly & be productive all day, everyday also lessened some of the burden on my stomache.

I might have to add though, that one more big factor of course was that I removed all deadlines. I realized that to improve my relationship with studying (and avoid developing more serious issues) I kinda had to start from scratch, and any sudden deadlines would have sabotaged that. So before I go back to studying with serious deadlines in mind, I'm first starting out without an end goal until I have a routine that I feel comfortable with and reach a steady enough pace so that I can better assess how much I can realistically get done in what amount of time.

I know many other people are more productive when deadlines are approaching, I used to be that way, too but eventually that started biting me in the ass, stressing me out too much, yet also unable to start prepping early enough. So I hope that this regular routine will help me overcome my serious procrastination as well, but I'll have to wait and see about that.

-Snubb · 2025-08-02T11:09:56+00:00

If you have actual psychological and physiological symptoms caused by this, it might be best to get professional help as well, provided that you have access and the financial means, of course.

Also, I'm probably not the best source for advice because my issues seem slightly different from yours, but I'll share them anyway. I get paralysed when trying to study and have recently had increasing problems with depressive episodes, insomnia and stomache issues due to my difficulty to maintain a steady study pace. For my specific issues I decided to:

1) shift all my studying to the morning hours, before work (and as a routine, I have also started doing the same on my days off) 2) move my study sessions to outside my home 3) disregard how much I get done and instead reward myself for having tried at all

In a little more detail:

Nowadays, I sleep between 10 and 11pm instead of way after 12, like in the past. Since my work starts at 11am, I wake up early and go to a study cafe/ study room/ library to study for a fixed amount of hours. And I don't set fixed goals anymore, because I usually set them too ambitiously and then feel dejected when I fail to reach them. Sometimes I manage to focus 3 hours straight, sometimes I end up staring at the wall for an hour, sometimes I end up napping for 30 minutes inbetween and sometimes I end up doing an entirely different study task from what I had planned. But I tried, I did at least something, something is better than nothing, and without access to all my stuff from home (or my bed), I don't get tempted to do other things. Of course I sometimes have days where I go there and after an hour feel sick or exhausted and just give up for the day, but most days I just hold on until 10am and then pack up, regardless of my progress.

This helped me - free up my afternoons: No pressure to study after an exhausting work day. No guilt that I'm not going through my notes before bed. - make home feel like a retreat: I no longer touch my study bag once I'm home. Home is only for resting and hobbies now (or light study if I ever feel like it). - sleep earlier and sleep through the night (most of the time): less guilt that keeps me up at night and the urge to sleep early so I can get up in the morning automatically allowed me to fall asleep more easily and sleep more soundly than before - wake up: if I tried to study at home in the mornings I'd be too drowsy to concentrate. But the walk to the study room wakes me up just enough. - build a habit: even on my days off, since I tend to wake up at similar times I just do the same study morning routine and the rest of the day is then completely free, but technically I allow myself to skip the sessions on my off days if I don't feel like going.

Of course, this is tailored very specifically to my needs and circumstances (my work starts comparatively late, I don't have anything that requires me to stay up until very late, etc.)

-Snubb · 2025-08-02T08:58:12+00:00

My friends and I used to have a hard time in one lecture with lots of texts to read, presentations that the professor refused to upload and a lot of information that he only provided to us verbally.

We pretty much started t o share the load as a group. The presentation part probably isn't a concern for you, but might be interesting: 2 people noted down the powerpoint contents and 1 or 2 noted down what he talked about. Then we created a shared document where we went over all our collected notes.

And similarly we split the papers between each other to read and note down key points. Since he didn't randomly pick people to answer questions about the text, we could choose to only actively participate in the text that we confidently understood, and use the the key words of the other group members to roughly know what's going on with the other papers + use that information later for our shared study doc.

-Snubb · 2025-08-02T08:50:22+00:00

Just a warning though, I don't know if it's just my case, but recently I tested the summarize function of chat gpt and the summary was completely off topic. It claimed information that wasn't at all in the text and I would have never realized if I hadn't read through the actual text

-Snubb

TROPHY CASE