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These few days I am getting a bit nostalgic. Probably because my Korean language lesson is coming to an end soon. I kept thinking about those interesting things I did during my level one language lessons. We played many games, ate candies and cookies given away as prizes by our teacher. We even learnt and sang "my memory" in Korean.

Among the game that we played, one of it was the Korean version of the "scissor paper stone" game. In Korean, it is called "가위 바위 보" (pronounced ga-wee ba-wee bo). It was a simple game but we had a lot of fun repeating "가위 바위 보" and competing against one another until a final winner was found.

The next game I remember is perhaps called "삼 육 구"(Three Six Nine). At the start of the game, everyone is supposed to flap their elbows like a chicken and sing to a tune of "삼.....육구, 삼육구". The first player will start calling out 일(one) and the next player in line will call out 이(two). The third player is not supposed to call out 삼(three). Instead they should only clap their hands. The game is called 삼, 육, 구(three, six, nine) simply because these numbers are "banned" from being called out. Whoever is supposed to call a number that has 삼, 육 or 구 in it, must clap their hands. A player is considered to have lost the game if they call out a "banned" number. Once a number with 삼, 육 or 구 in it is called, the responsible player is dropped and the game restarted. The remaining players are supposed to flap their elbows like a chicken again and sing out "삼.....육구, 삼육구" before continuing with the game.

The "삼 육 구" game sounds simple but is not that simple when played in a foreign language. In fact up to now, I still experience problem differentiating the sound for Sino-Korean numbers like 일 and 이(one and two), 삼 and 사(three and four), 오 and 구(five and nine).

The most difficult pair to differentiate is 일 and 이. Firstly, in Chinese, the number "one" is pronounced as "yee" which is the same pronounciation as "이"(two in Korean). Over the years, the sound "yee" has been so strongly associated with the number "one" that I keep making the mistake of interpreting 이 to be one when it should be two in Korean. Secondly, the sound of 일 and 이 are very similar in pronounciation too. For example, I can only differentiate 일년(one year) and 이년(two year) if I listen carefully to the pronounciation for "년". For 일년, the 년 is pronounced as 련. Missing out on that, I will mistake 일년 for 이년.

The next difficult pair is 삼 and 사. Pronounced independently, it is not too difficult for me to tell them apart. However, when these numbers are combined with some words, I start to get confuse. For example, 삼월(March) and 사월(April). 삼월 is pronounced like 사뭘 and 사월 is just 사월. So the only way to differentiate them is to listen to the pronounciation of the second word. Sadly, somehow my brain usually take in the first sound and instantly make an interpretation. 삼월 to me, always sounds like 사월.

Finally, I only have problem differentiating 오 and 구 when they are pronounced very fast within a string of number like telephone number. Other than that, they are not that difficult to differentiate.

Learning a language, it seems, is not just about learning new grammar, sentence structure and vocabulary. There is also a need to "re-wire" the way the brain thinks. The only way to re-wire the brain is to keep practising. Practice makes perfect as they said it. For certainty, I need more practices.