This week I worked on my language learning plan. I filled out my assessment checklist and listed out my goals. I’m interested in Korean tv shows, dramas, as well as K-pop songs, so I want to use them as parts of my learning resources. I want to be able to recognize short sentences or phrases posted on Instagram by Korean celebs. I also want to be able to understand the major part of a Korean tv show. In the end, if it is possible, I want to learn a Korean song. These are my ultimate goals in the future. For this semester, I want to be able to communicate some basic information about my daily life as well as my interests. I also want to learn more about words around food, animals, colors, and time. I’ll go through my tasks in the descending order of confidence.
According to the reading this week, the most important parts for speech production and comprehension are Wernicke’s area, Broca’s area, and auditory cortex. However, there are many other areas of our brain that work in the communication process. Just like the hemispheres with the over-generalized functions, the areas of the brain work collaboratively to handle complicated activities. From my perspective, language is not a purely biological phenomenon. Each language has its own culture behind it, which affects the way people think, behave, and of course, communicate.
The reading also points out that a word can convey many different meanings. Based on my experience, constant exposure to the language you are learning would help. When I encounter a word with quite a few meanings, I will first guess its meaning by context, and then learn its meaning by looking at the dictionary for a more precise explanation. I'll also find some example sentences online to help me memorize it. Words refer to different things in different contexts, so I believe getting more familiar with the contexts will help.
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I agree that constant exposure is very important to language learning. I went 10 months without access to my target language having studied it for the equivalent of an academic year. As a result, when I went to study it again, I was placed into a beginner group. There were other factors, such as the desire to show my progress in the program (I could go on a rant).
The point is that you need to keep up the language exposure as long as the language is relevant to you. What are your plans to continue your language studies?