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As Mrs. Im and I made the short drive from Chang's to my condo, I was quite nervous. According to my diary:
I was really uptight when we left Chang's to take the short drive to the condo. It was quite awkward not being able to say anything that the other would understand. When we got to South Church, a Korean word finally surfaced in my mind. I pointed at the church and said, "kyo-heh" (church).
How would we ever be able to communicate? It was one thing to pass our thoughts back and forth when we had Chang around to translate; but Soon E spoke no English and, in spite of a lot of self-study, there was no way I could speak or understand Korean. It's one thing to read simple sentences from a book using a homemade pronunciation but quite another to produce Korean sentences for a living, breathing Korean.
Once we left Chang's, we were on our own. I wracked my brain trying to remember even one of the Korean phrases I had studied but could only come up with one word "kyo-heh", as i pointed to the church we were passing. In light of my attempts over the next 18 years to say Korean words and phrases to Soon E, I'm sure she had no idea what I was saying.
I was reminded of my final exam in first-year high school French, a really simple exam given to us verbally by one of my most beloved teachers, Miss Caviness, who spoke French with a decidedly Southern accent. She asked us to write ten French words that we had learned during the year. I had to struggle to come up with one but, mercifully, Miss Caviness gave me a passing grade for the year.
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