The books

Here's the one for Rad.

Well I won't reveal here what book it is, but you can google the ISBN if you want. Brand new I guarantee, net value 5 GBP. :D



Here's Owbee's prize. Slightly lower than Rad's in value but nevertheless the knowledge is priceless.

Filler post for this week. Was really busy and I will be doing some blog upgrades soon.

Meanwhile here's the lady who won the book from the KL publisher.

The answer!

(Music Monday post)

NATIONAL ANTHEMS

That's right, national anthems is the answer! Let us recap back the clues I had provided and see how you can arrive at national anthems.

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First, the English vs Korean posts was meant to highlight the differences between 2 languages. The post was about different languages.

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Second, the flowers. Actually some of our friends correctly noted that the flowers are not just some random flowers but are in fact, national flowers. These are the countries which adopted those flowers as national symbols:

Tulip - The Netherlands
Rose of Sharon - South Korea
Sampaguita - The Philippines
Maple leaf - Canada
Lavender - Portugal
Chrysanthemum - Japan. Nope the cherry blossom aka sakura is not the national flower of Japan, though popular.
Edelweiss - Switzerland. Is it any surprise when Switzerland is so mountainous and edelweiss grows on mountains?
Chinese hibiscus - Malaysia
Chamomile - Russian Federation
Arabian coffee flower - Republic of Yemen

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Then we came to the last clue which featured the video "How to Read Music". There are 2 hints in this video. Firstly, about music, and secondly, the "flags" which point to the music notes in the video.

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Combine all 3 clues:

Language + National Symbol + (Music + Flag) = National Anthem

Ok this is not maths but that's how I had originally intended it to be. :P

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In this game, ONE of our friends correctly guessed the theme of this post.

Congrats to Rad Sujanto for winning. Hey no harm guessing right? And by any luck you hit the correct keywords so there, the novel's yours!

Will post a picture of the novel in next post.

But then one of our other friends was this close to the correct answer, I could not simply just ignore her entry. She made so much effort so I'm also giving her another prize which I'll reveal in the next post.


Lol at the last remark. Well nothing counts except when you win, so it doesn't matter whether one is ok or weirdo. All it matters is daring to try =)

Congrats to owBEe too!

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Ok now to the content.

For this week's MM selection, I have selected a number of national anthems to be featured here. Before anything, please note that these are my personal observations about national anthems; no national anthem is being disparaged here, I don't give any support to the featured countries' anthems, they're here merely for the music.

Which national anthem do you like? What criteria do you use for evaluating the music in the anthems? For me I tend to regard classical aka non-choral versions of national anthems to be the best to listen to. But I also like certain choral versions. After having browsed through for several anthems these few days, here are some of the most beautiful anthems I've heard.

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Ladies and gentlemen, please stand up for the anthem of:

Republic of South Africa - Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika

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Republic of Korea - Aegukga (애국가)

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Russian Federation

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Republic of India - Jana Mana Gana

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Kingdom of Spain - Marcha Real

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - God Save The Queen

The British anthem is also the anthem for the Commonwealth of Nations. The state anthem of Johor was inspired by the British anthem, having being composed by the late Sultan of Johor Sir Sultan Abu Bakar who was a friend of Queen Victoria.

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Last but not least,

Malaysia - Negaraku

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My personal favourite anthem music, though, are not the above. It is the national anthem of

Japan - Kimigayo

君が代は
千代に八千代に
さざれ石の
いわおとなりて
こけのむすまで

Kimi gayo wa
Chiyo ni yachiyo ni
Sazareishi no
Iwao to narite
Koke no musumade

English Version

May the Emperor's rule last
Till a thousand years, then eight thousand years to come
Till sand, pebbles, and rocks
To be united as a ledge
Till moss grows on it

Source: Mikito Oki
moki@cctr.umkc.edu

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I hope that you've enjoyed this massive version of Music Monday, the guessing, and to Rad and Owbee, to be enjoying the gifts that I'll be sending your way soon.

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

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Rules of the game

Was busy during the day, could only write now.

Here's the last clue of the giveaway.



Period. :)

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The rules of the game are very easy. This coming Monday (or Tuesday midnight as it seems), I'll be posting again. What you need to do, is:

BE THE FIRST PERSON TO GUESS THE SUBJECT OF THE POST. CORRECTLY.

To help you to win are this and my previous posts, in which clues are hidden which will reveal the nature of the Monday post.

1. First of all, I posted about the differences between English vs Korean here and here. However, did I really mean to talk about the languages themselves only?
   
2. Then, I posted some flowers. However, I also included a maple leaf when in fact the title was about flowers. How about the edelweiss? The coffee flower? The rose of Sharon? The hibiscus? The sampaguita?
   
3. Now you see the above video with the corresponding clue. What topic element was in the video?

The blog post on Monday will feature elements from all above 3 posts. To figure out the elements, all you have to do is to guess the 3 elements correctly. The 3 elements above will form the theme of Monday's post.

If you're a frequent visitor to my blog, you'll also have access to another clue which I have not explicitly mentioned about. Think about it. :)

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Now, to reward you for thinking SO MUCH, the winner will take back a NOVEL which helped me a lot in mastering English. If you would want to improve your English a lot, or you have friends who would certainly want to do so, then you must try hard to win this. It's BRAND NEW - I spent a small fortune of my wages to buy it.

Because the prize is so attractive, I cannot make it too easy. :P

What's more, international friends from outside Malaysia can also join provided they have a mailing address which they can access. Proof of postage is unfortunately, not proof of receipt so you have to make sure of this on your part.

To post your answer on the subject of Monday's post, simply leave a comment below. I'll take note of your comment as participation in the game. Also, take note of the comments left by other people - you never know if you can get more ideas. :D

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Finally, stay tuned at least on Monday night coming Tuesday to see what the post is really about. By any luck, you may find yourself the winner! XD

Good luck trying. Oh and please spread the word - the more the merrier. You'll also be able to brainstorm :)

Lovely Flowers

Here's the second clue to the giveaway I'm doing. I'll post the last clue on Friday, after which I shall reveal the rules of the game. Meanwhile just feast your eyes on these natural beauties.

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Tulips

These beauties, often sold in florists, are also a cash boon to the largest tulip grower in the world aka Holland.

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Rose of Sharon

Although they don't look like the typical rose these are no pushovers. The Koreans call them Mu-gung-hwa (무궁화).

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Sampaguita

This white beauty is a species of jasmine native to the Phillippines...

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Maple leaf

Well not exactly a flower, but I thought it looked nice so I put it up as well. :P

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Lavender

Lavender is one of the sweetest flowers in my opinion. It is often used to send humans into deep sleep.

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Chrysanthemum

If you like chrysanthemum tea then you must adore this yellow wonder. Sweet but strong like the sun, so much so that the Japanese Emperor, whose bloodline is said to have continued unbroken for millenia, adopted the flower as the imperial seal.

Chrysanthemum Seal

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Edelweiss

Music lovers would probably be reminded of the classic song, but the name really belongs to this flower. It grows well on mountains especially in Europe.

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Chinese hibiscus

Looks lovely, don't they? And it's so common along the way to Parliament House too. :P

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Chamomile

One of the more popular flowers used in aromatherapy, chamomile possesses numerous healing properties. It also grows well in several countries with temperate climates.

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Arabian coffee flowers

We usually love coffee so much that we only remember the coffee beans. But we must also remember, without the flower there would be no beans from the coffee plant XD

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Great lovely ladies of nature. But remember, within them is hidden the clue that you will need to win the coming giveaway. So stay tuned once again for the real deal. :D

Meanwhile, there are some latest vids about fan tributes to the King of Pop. Check them out while Friday is coming.

Music Monday: Jon Mclaughlin - Beautiful Disaster

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Lately I've been too busy to the point of even unable to blog hop, much to my own chagrin. Work, academics, personal life, ambition. Have I worked too hard? Or too little? What really matters in life to me? Is it to work myself to s**t and neglect my blog and friends like this? Sometimes I ask myself, is it worth it?

That is why I pray to God that the burning desire of my heart may be unleashed on the platforms of life, so as to bring them to accomplishment. Let my Christmas resolutions be accomplished. I still have half a year to go. It's not too late. I can do it, I want to do it, I will do it, I have done it.

Otherwise this is just going to be a beautiful disaster.

Sorry guys, that I wasn't able to blog for the past week. I'm usually very composed, but some events in my life have made me question the worth of all that I've been doing. I will not take this lying down and accept no for an answer. I'm going to make sure I'll get what I really want. When that happens I believe I can bare it all and share the history with you. For the many times when I just went AFK, thank you for still being here.

Beautiful Disaster en Yahoo! Video

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She loves her mama's lemonade,
Hates the sound that goodbyes make.
She prays one day she'll find someone to need her.
She swears that there's no difference,
Between the lies and compliments.
It's all the same if everybody leaves her.

And every magazine tells her she's not good enough,
The pictures that she's seen make her cry.

And she would change everything, everything just ask her.
Caught in the in-between, a beautiful disaster,
And she just needs someone to take her home.

She's giving boys what they want, tries to act so nonchalant,
Afraid they'll see that she's lost her direction.
She never stays the same for long,
Assuming that she'll get it wrong.
Perfect only in her imperfections.

She's not a drama queen,
She doesn't want to feel this way, only seventeen, but tired

She would change everything for happy ever after.
Caught in the in between, a beautiful disaster,
But she just needs someone to take her home.

'Cause she's just the way she is, but no ones told her that's OK.

And she would change everything, everything just ask her.
Caught in the in-between, a beautiful disaster,

And she would change everything for happy ever after.
Caught in the in-between, a beautiful disaster,

But she just needs someone to take her home
And she just needs someone to take her home.

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This selection was inspired by Shemah's MM selection last week. Great, beautiful singer Jon Mclaughlin is. ;)

This post is NOT related to the giveaway. Next post on Wednesday will be. I gotta set myself a damn time target if not I'll go AFK again :P

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Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.


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Don't you just love to know what lovely ladies do? :P

English vs Korean 2

Follow-up post.

As I mentioned previously, I feel Korean vocabulary is also simpler than English's. Previously I was already familiar with English and Chinese, so when I started going through the vocab lists, I was pretty amazed at the number of loan words from both languages.

Most people have the impression that Japanese is very similar to Chinese due to the common use of kanji (Chinese characters). While that is very true of vocabulary (but not of grammar and pronunciation), you'll be interested to know that Korean is even more similar. It's estimated that as much as 70% of Korean vocab originated from Chinese. This is not surprising given centuries of cultural influence from ancient China.

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Here's an example of a sentence I just took from a textbook.

어제 수학 선생님의 강의를 듣다가 잤어요.

Pro: O-je Su-hak Son-saeng-nim-e Kang-i-reul Teu-tta-ga Ja-sso-yo.

English: Yesterday I fell asleep listening to the math teacher's lecture.

In Korean it is possible to write in a mix of Hanja (Chinese characters) and Hangul. If you were to place in all possible Hanja, you get:

어제 數學 先生님의 講議를 듣다가 잤어요.

You find that:

數學 = mathematics

先生 = mister (= lecturer)

講議 = lecture

Interesting? 3 vocabulary entries in this sentence are from Chinese alone! And, for those who are proficient in Chinese, they'll find that even the pronunciation of the Hanja is freakingly similar to some Chinese dialects like Cantonese!

For example, ginseng in Cantonese is pronounced as "Yan-sam".

In Korean it is "In-sam" and this vocab entry is also borrowed from Chinese.

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Another sentence:

한국에서는 소아과 의사들은 다 부자다.

Pro: Han-gu-ge-so-neun So-a-kkwa Eu-i-sa-deu-reun Ta Pu-ja-da.

English: Pediatricians in Korea are all rich.

Replace with Hanja:

韓國에서는 小兒科 醫師들은 다 富者다.

韓國 = South Korea

小兒科 = Pediatrics

醫師 = Doctor

富者 = Rich person

I rest my case. But it's so uncool to write in Chinese so I'd rather make my life simpler and stick to Hangul. :P

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Due to the super coolness of writing in Hangul, Chinese characters are almost obsolete in Korea both North and South. However unlike Chinese Korean is not tonal, therefore a single vocab entry can derive multiple meanings unless context is provided in the sentence. Where context fails, this is where Hanja steps in. Thus Hanja is used more in academic writing, official documents, and sometimes newspapers.

The wiki entry for Hanja is a case in point. The vocab 수도 (pro : su-do) can mean so many things, like:

修道 — spiritual discipline

受渡 — receipt and delivery

囚徒 — prisoner

水都 — 'city of water' (e.g. Hong Kong and Naples)

水稻 — rice

水道 — drain

隧道 — tunnel

首都 — capital (city)

手刀 — hand-knife

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However, due to increasing Americanization of life in Korea, Korean also imports more and more words from English. While this is great news for everyone who wants to learn Korean, sometimes it gets confusing because you thought that guy over there was talking some Korean stuff when he was actually enunciating an English word Korea-style! It gets funny sometimes, like:

이 커피가 진하네!

Pro: I Ko-pi-ga Chin-ha-ne!

Did you get the English in the sentence? Yes, that's right, it's coffee and the guy's saying "OMG this coffee is strong!"

라이터 좀 빌려 줘.

Pro: La-i-to Chom Pil-lyo Juo.

English: Lend me your lighter.

The influence of English in Korean is similar to Japanese except that Japanese uses katakana to write foreign words, whereas it's a one-for-all in Korean. Gets confusing sometimes @@

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Korean is also distinct from English in that it employs different speech/writing styles for different occasions. What I mean here is formal occasions like meeting with office superiors will use a certain speech style, informal occasions like talking to friends another. Shanna who is also learning Korean has a blog post about this. English does not really have such a distinction.

For example, a "Hello!" or "Good morning" greeting can be expressed in the following ways:

안녕하세요?

Pro: An-nyong-ha-se-yo?

Lit: Are you peaceful? (Do I hear you laugh a bit? :P)

-> Used in talking to superiors but in a more casual occasion, eg. to your mom.

수고하십니다.

Pro: Su-go-ha-shim-ni-da.

Lit: You are making the effort (= You're doing great!)

-> Used in greeting somebody in the office.

안녕!

Pro: An-nyong!

Lit: Peace! (and flash the peace sign as well :P)

-> You guess it, this is for talking to friends.

This system is very familiar to Japanese. I'd like to think for a while that Korean and Japanese are like blood brothers (although many people would disagree for nationalistic reasons :P).

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This sums up my rant about English vis-a-vis Korean. I don't want to bore you with too much academics, so this stops for a while. In conclusion, if:

1. You're good in English/Chinese/Japanese or some combination of all three
2. You're familiar with Chinese characters
3. You want to get business from Koreans
4. You hate the sucky subtitles in K-dramas that don't reflect what the actors really say.
5. You wanna be cool, cos to date only 4 Malaysians are certified in the language.
6. You like talking like Yoda :P

Then I suggest you consider learning Korean.

This post, and the first, are related to the giveaway I'm planning. Stay tuned for the real deal.

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OMG come look at this hot lady who enjoyed herself in Fraser's Hill!

English vs Korean

I'm a Korea fan and I do not hide it.

A few years ago, I made a determination to demystify the language behind the funny-looking ㄴ ㅇ ㄹ ㅎ ㅗ ㅓ ㅏ ㅣscript once and for all. And I did not regret my decision even though I spent over RM 600 in self-help books, hours and hours of poring over pages and surfing online, day over day of watching K-dramas, and possibly in future year over year of socializing with native Koreans. The learning process never stops and this is what I find so fun about learning a new language. ;)

During my self-help with the Korean language I compared it with English several times and found some wacky observations between the two.

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For one thing, I'm sure my readers, you know that English sentences typically have a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order. As in

"Ali buys a book."
Ali = subject
buys = verb
book = object

Sometimes the object can be in front of the sentence as in

"A book Ali buys."

in which case the order is OSV. But this kind of sentence sounds very awkward so we don't hear it very often unless you're watching Yoda in Star Wars. :P

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However, in Korean, any and all sentences MUST end in a verb. The subject and object can change positions or even be obsolete, but the sentence must have a verb. Yeah you read that right. A sentence can be grammatically complete with just one verb and nothing else, not even pronouns like "I, We, You". The whole sentence can be very beautiful but if it lacks an ending verb, it hangs and sounds stupid instead. Here's some examples.

Pro: to pronounce
Lit: literal meaning

진영이야.
Pro: Chin-yong-i-ya.
Lit: Jinyong it is.

빨리 오세요.
Pro: Ppal-li O-se-yo.
Lit: Quickly please come.

먹었다.
Pro: Mo-go-tta.
Lit: Ate.
English: (I/You/He/She/They/We) ate.

Isn't this surprising? Korean considers the above sentence to be complete even though there's absolutely no reference to the subject or object whatsoever. This sentence would definitely be given an X in English homework.

Here's something longer.

시내에 나갈 때마다, 비가 옵니다.
Pro: Shi-nae-e Na-gal Ttae-ma-da, Pi-ga Om-ni-da.
Lit: To city center go out everytime, rain comes.
English: It rains everytime I go downtown.

This very rigid restriction has produced some of the most wacky sentences I've ever heard in my life. Of course to Koreans and Korean speakers it is just a normal thing, but I can guarantee you that if or when you learn it you'll laugh a lot when you write the sentence out literally. Like

네 맘 바꿀 길은 없는 것 같아.
Pro: Ne Mam Pa-kkul Ki-reun Om-neun Go Ga-tha.
Lit: (Your mind) (to-change) (way) (does-not-exist) (thing be like)

Did you by any chance understand the literal translation of the sentence? Hehe. So next time if you meet Koreans who struggle to learn English please don't laugh at them, because their language functions very differently from English. :D

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As you can also see above, if Korean considers only the verb to be essential, English on the other hand places importance on the verb and the subject/object. Two parts have to exist in an English sentence to be complete, but only one in Korean.

Another distinction is that Korean does emphasize the tenses but not as rigidly as English. English demands every single verb to reflect the tense in the sentence, which causes a lot of difficulties to learners especially as English verbs do not have a uniform system of tense inflection. Often in Korean, the early half of the sentence can be in present tense only for the verb to end in past/future tense, in which case the tense is determined by the ending verb. Again the supreme importance placed on the verb in Korean.

밥 많이 먹고 그냥 잤어요.
Pro: Pap Ma-ni Mok-ko Keu-nyang Ja-sso-yo.
Lit: Rice many eat and just slept.
English: I ate a lot of rice and then just went to sleep

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It is interesting to know that Korean is flexible about subject-verb agreement, ie if the subject is singular/plural, the verb follows suit. In fact there is no such distinction in Korean - you could write entire paragraphs and not know whether the subjects are singular or plural. However, if there is a need to indicate plurality clearly, Korean supplies the plural particle 들 (pro: deul) which can be suffixed to almost any part of the sentence (except the ending verb).

오서 오세요.
Pro: O-so O-se-yo.
English: Welcome. (There is one or more guests)

오서들 오세요.
Pro: O-so-deul O-se-yo.
English: Welcome. (There are a number of guests)

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As a final remark, Korean unlike English is heavily inflected - verb forms can change easily according to the sentence style, tenses, modifiers, etc., all of which are too much to handle in a blog post. In this aspect English may be simpler giving less headache. However if you ask me, English is so irregular I'm not surprised why a lot of Malaysians even find it so hard to learn English. Seriously Malay and Korean have a much more organized language structure.

In Malay we have the "imbuhan" (prefixes and suffixes) that we can play around with so easily if we want a certain kind of sentence. A lot of foreigners have remarked that Malay is so easy to learn. If not for the fact that English is the international language due to centuries of political circumstances, Malay could actually take over as the lingua franca just as it did during the Malacca Sultanate era.

And in Korean there's the script (which is amazingly scientific and easy to learn), a greater flexibility in terms of subject, object, tense, plural/singular, vocabulary, etc compared to English. In the next post, I'll do another different type of comparison and you'll see that Korean vocab is even simpler than English. :P

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BTW this sentence

네 맘 바꿀 길은 없는 것 같아.
Pro: Ne Mam Pa-kkul Ki-reun Om-neun Go Ga-tha.
Lit: (Your mind) (to-change) (way) (does-not-exist) (thing be like)

Means "It seems I cannot change your mind."

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Hey, this lady gets a pretty heavy dose of Korean too! Drop by for a visit k? :D