In this biweekly reflection I will write about some more 맞춤법 or Korean grammar that we did not get to touch on in class, 훈민정음 the correct and proper sounds of the Korean language, and 한글날 or Korea Day.In order to keep with tradition, I now watch a little bit of 예능, a korean variety show, with the title kang’s restaurant (강식당) season 2 myself on my own time to just make sure I am continuously watching something in Korean and having my brain constantly comprehend and make use of my Korean language skills. On this trend of watching more Korean entertainment, I have started watching shows like 나 혼자 산다 (I live alone), 아는 형님 (Knowing Bros), and some dramas like 이태원 클라쓰 (Itaewon Class). So my ten goals from the beginning to be able to improve my writing and speaking, learn more about the history of Korea, watch a full movie in Korean (영화), learn and better understand korean slang to be able to identify it, korean idioms (관용구), korean proverbs (속담), going to GrandMart in order to learn more about Korean food and culture, watching korean variety shows (예능) and understanding it without subtitles, increasing my korean vocabulary, and learning language in the workplace. Overall, despite coronavirus and making a few changes here and there I think I was able to make this learning plan a success. I was able to increase my vocabulary through all the lessons we had which focused on numerous topics like 관용구, 속담, 맞춤법, watching a Korean movie, and watching 예능 more consistently alone. The only thing that I wasn’t really able to do was going to GrandMart to actively learn more about Korean food and culture in a lesson form. In this week’s 맞춤법 we learned about the difference in using 데/대 the first ~데 is used for when talking about one’s own experience and 대 is used for talking about someone else’s experiences. 든/던 is another one where ~든 is used for listing two things and saying like you can either do this or that. In a sentence it would be 피자 든 치킨 which means I don’t mind chicken or pizza. The second one ~던 is used when your describing something you did. We also learned commonly-made mistakes in spelling in Korean. One such example is 몇일 vs 며칠. The correct spelling is 며칠 for the word meaning how many days because although the first one sounds right it does not make sense although it has the same sound as the correct spelling. That is what the first portion of our lesson focused on. The second portion focused on 훈민정음 which is the origins of the Korean language. I coincidentally had done this for one of my culture posts because this is one of the most important things in Korea and Koreans value this document highly. The background is that King Sejong the Great wanted to increase the literacy of all the people in Korea during the Joseon dynasty in 1446 because at this time Korean didn’t exist and the language spoken by all was Chinese. But only the wealthy and upper class could speak Chinese because it required lots of time to study which the working class and poor did not have the time to do. As a result, in order to increase the literacy rate King Sejong the Great made an alphabet with 24 characters made up of 14 consonants and 10 vowels to make a language that is much easier for all people to learn because he wanted to raise the literacy rate. By making this much easier language, he effectively made Korea one of the most literate nations in the world. Today, Korea has a literacy rate of 98% which is very high and many now go to universities and King Sejong the Great was able to help Korea grow as a nation. The last thing we learned was about 한글날 or in other words Korea day. To celebrate King Sejong’s accomplishment of language Korea day is celebrated everyday on October 9th. This is the day that celebrates the day that Korean was founded. To celebrate this day as a way to commemorate and remember the birth of the language 공휴일 occurs. 공휴일 is a day that everyone gets off of work and school because it is considered a 국경일 or a day very important to the nation. By looking back and reflecting at this lesson, I am proud of my growth and also find that I am motivated to continue learning and to continue this growth in my acquisition of the Korean language. My goal this summer is to finish making flashcards for all these lessons, practice writing them down to improve my korean writing, and using these words in conversations that I have with friends in Korean in order to keep learning the language and grow as a learner of Korean. I will say it is always hard at first to spell the words correctly just relying on how I hear the word as I learned in the 맞춤법 lesson because I still make mistakes in spelling based on trying to spell it by how I hear the words in Korean. But with more practice that I will go through this summer, I am excited to grow and make less and less of these mistakes as a whole. Thank you Dr. Marsh-Soloway, Jimin my tutor, and all involved in the SDLC/SDLP program for supporting this program and allowing me to take my Korean language skills to new levels with this opportunity
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