I had my first Korean lesson with Ms. Sumi Kim this week. We first started by discussing what sparked our interest in Korean and what would be the goals for us this semester. Personally I want to be able to converse in basic Korean by the end of the semester. The first class included learning self-introduction, which had us introducing our name, hometown and majors. For example, I’m a double major in business administration and journalism. Then I should use “경영학” for business, “방송” for journalism, and “학과” for major. We also learned the word “중국”, meaning “China”, for introducing our hometown. Ms. Kim also reminded us that the word order in Korean is different from English. It should follow the “subject - object - verb” instead of “subject - verb - object.” So when I introduce myself, it should be “I Haley am” (제 이름은 Haley 입니다), instead of “I am Haley.”
Ms. Kim also taught us how we should refer to ourselves. Because Korean has a system of honorifics, we need to differentiate between formal and informal speech based on age and the level of familiarity when talking with others. In a formal setting, we should use “저는” when making the introduction. Last semester I found the honorifics system to be complex but interesting when I was studying Korean culture. Hopefully, I will be able to identify and speak in both ways through this semester’s class. We also covered the Korean alphabet (한글 Hangul) in class. We went through writing and pronouncing each letter together. Modern Hangul consists of a total of 24 letters with 14 consonant letters and 10 vowel letters. Ms. Kim told us that we would eventually be able to write in Hangul from listening to the sound made from the letters. As we practiced the pronunciation, we were able to differentiate the places where the sounds were made. The exercise reminded me of the mouth diagram we used last semester when learning phonetics. Before our next meeting, I would practice writing and pronouncing Hangul, and practicing self-introduction.
Moving forward, Ms. Kim planned to teach through watching Korean dramas and learning Korean song lyrics together. We were able to choose the songs and dramas we want to learn from. I chose Zico’s 사람 (Human) as the song lyrics I would like to understand and learn. And next class we would start by discussing episode one of 사랑의 불시착 (“Crash Landing on You”). The drama was about a South Korean woman who accidentally crash-lands in North Korea. My friend had also been recommending this K-drama for me, so I’m excited to start watching and learn from it.
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