One thing I really appreciate about SDLC program is the flexibility of the curriculum. While at first it seemed daunting and a bit intimidating, I think I have really grown to enjoy this freedom. I have enjoyed language classes in the past but didn’t necessarily like all of the topics or how inorganic the very structured classroom environment made the language feel. With this in mind I have been thinking a lot about what I want to learn. While I had time to document this in my learning plan I am excited to go over this in my meeting with Jannette tonight. Our initial meeting was great as we mostly just spoke about what I wanted to do but now that I have my learning plan and specific topics and tasks in mind I think we can make an even better game plan.
This week I am working on ordering my Korean book that I found on amazon called “Korean from Zero.” The main goal of the past week was learning Hangul. Jannette sent along some great resources to assist me in learning how to read and write the characters. For listening and speaking the sounds of Hangul I have relied on YouTube videos which have been a great help. I also have started Duolingo for Korean and have found it really helpful for practicing and assessing my progress. The more and more I redo the activities on Duolingo the easier they become and the better my comprehension of Hangul becomes. I also have been using Quizlet to aid me in recognizing the characters.
While there are many great resources that can help me learn Hangul it is quite difficult to learn an entirely new alphabet. Most of the languages I have taken in the past (Spanish, French, Danish, and German) share a lot of the same letters at English with the exception of some new letters with special symbols or accents. This is an entirely new challenge for me and it is hard but I think repetition will really help solidify Hangul in my mind.
I am also extremely grateful for Jannette since I can meet with her in-person and because she is so great to work with. I also appreciate her dual understanding of Korean and US culture as she has lived in both places. During our upcoming meeting I want to talk about more culture with Jannette. Especially after completing our most recent discussion post, I want to share the topics of differences between cultures and get her input on her own experiences. On top of that I want to learn a bit more about the Korean education system. I believe Jannette said she moved from Korea when she was 10 to the US so it may be harder for her to discuss the entire education system but I am still curious to see what she has to say.
I also hope to start learning greetings/farewells and maybe even introductions in our upcoming meeting. With these phrases Jannette with show us how to write them and then help us pronounce them. I also asked her if I could take a recording of her speaking all of the new vocabulary or phrases we learn each lesson. These would include saying hello, good morning/afternoon/night, goodbye, and how to say my name and ask someone else’s name. I am confident we can work through those and maybe even more. I also want to ask Jannette about any slang related to those topics that Korean people may use or just more casual phrases like “What’s up?” or “See you!” compared to the more formal “How are you?” or “Goodbye.”
I am very excited for my next meeting with Jannette and to keep exploring Korean which may spark more interests for me. I have also been in contact with my friend from home who is majoring in Linguistics at his university and has taken Korean for almost four years now. Since he has taken Korean classes at his university he’s been a great help in giving me more resources and teaching me better pronunciation.
I also wanted to share this great resource. One website that I love is called forvo.com (https://forvo.com/) which is an auditory dictionary. Forvo is great for helping with pronunciation and for specific words or even popular phrases. Native speakers record themselves saying the word or phrase and there is even an accents and languages map at the bottom of the page so viewers can see what part of the country the speakers are from. Please feel free to check it out!
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