I prefer writing free hand over typing to practice my target language, because I can remember things easier if written out in comparison to typing them out. During my classes, Brenda, my language partner, will write out things on the board or show us typed out sentences on a projector, and I will practice writing these sentences down for a few times. Writing freehand also allows me to make notes or draw diagrams around the text more easily, allows me to underline specific phrases which might be more difficult or harder to illustrate when typing.
One difficulty that I have encountered while trying to write down Korean sentences was world spacing. Without fully understanding the language it is difficult for language learners to know where the spacings are. For instance: the correct saying should be 작은 고추가 더 맵다 and not 작은고추가더맵다. Through individual study and research I have learnt that :
- There is no space between a name and 씨 such as: 유팅씨
- Words are separated by spaces. This still may be difficult for language learners because we would not know where one word starts and the other one ends.
- Spaces between parts of speech:
- Noun + verb (one space) as in:
- 김치 먹어요 (eating kimchi)
- Noun + Adverb + Verb (two spaces) as in:
- 선생님 일찍 왔어요 (teacher came early).
- Noun + verb (one space) as in:
- There is no space between particles (이, 는, 를, 을, 은) and verb endings (어미) such as 나는 or 너는. Other examples includes:
- 공을 치다 (to strike a ball)
- 공을 차다 (to kick a ball)
These rules are not easy for me to grasp onto right away, but I will try to incorporate the analysis of sentence structures with my knowledge of word spacing. This could be a meaningful exercise to analyze sentences that I have written down from watching Korean Reality TV shows and dramas, and studying the word spacing will also help me to learn new vocabs as I will know where one start and one ends from transcripts.
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