Due by 5pm on Sunday, March 29: Discussion Post #9 on the Ning
How have you started writing in the target language? Do you prefer to type or write free hand? Have you started to see patterns emerge in the structures between words, clauses, and sentences? What is the relationship between simple and complex sentences? How does your knowledge of parts of speech, government, and agreement affect your ability to communicate in written contexts? Provide a sample of several short meaningful writing exercises from your target language.
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I love the look of languages. Most languages are really beautiful in their own way and include such unique characters. The languages I’ve studied in the past use an alphabet fairly similar to the English alphabet with some new characters added in like an ñ or å. Korean, as most Asian languages, uses a completely different alphabet. Even before starting to learn Korean, I thought it looked so cool and I was so excited to start making sense of the foreign characters. Since I began learning Korean by learning Hangul I have been attempting to write in Korean since the start of this semester. I would write the Hangul characters over and over again along with their names and sounds. I would then try and write all of the characters out at least every few days to help ingrain them into my memory. I also learned very early on how to properly connect the different characters to build syllables and then words. Learning the Korean alphabet and how to write and build words is relatively simple because of the logical nature of Hangul as intended by Hangul’s creator, King Sejong. Words in Korean are built into blocks that make up one syllable by combining vowels and consonants in a specific way. Here is a diagram that shows how characters may be combined:
I have started to observe some patterns, especially when building blocks of words. There are some simple rules and patterns that I can follow to write in Korean. For example, a Korean syllable must always start with a consonant (the consonant ieung - ㅇ is used as the consonant before a vowel but is soundless itself and is used as a placeholder if no other consonant is placed in front of the vowel). The second character in the syllable is always a vowel. The third character may be empty or a consonant. All syllables only contain two or three characters and each spot may be filled with a single character or a double character. Moreover, a vertical vowel (ex.ㅑ) is always written to the right of a consonant and a horizontal vowel (ex. ㅗ) is always written under a consonant. If there is a consonant present in the third spot of the syllable it is always placed on the bottom (ex. 각). Another pattern we learned is the Subject-Object-Verb sentence structure.
During my lessons with Jannette, I always take notes in my notebook because I actually prefer to handwrite my notes and I think I retain information better when I write my notes down versus type them. That being said, I do really like typing in Korean too but it takes me a long time (almost as long as it takes my dad to type a text...). I added the Korean keyboard to my phone and have been trying to text words in my phone to my friend from high school who is majoring in linguistics and is very proficient in Korean.
To be honest, all sentences in Korean seem complex to me right now. Korean sentences use topic particles to mark who or what the topic of the sentence is about. This is not something we do in English so this complicates learning how to form sentences. These topic particles may specify a subject using 이/가, an object using 을/를, or the topic, in general, using 은/는. These topic particles are inflectional morphemes. Choosing the correct particle depends on if the preceding syllable ends in a consonant or a vowel. It is also essential for me to learn the different parts of speech so that I may understand the elements of the grammar I read about when trying to learn Korean sentence structure. Agreement also becomes important when trying to choose the right topic particle and when conjugating. Conjugation can change based on the level of politeness too which affects how I will write sentences. To help me practice writing in Korean I started by writing out all of the characters of Hangul out repetitively on worksheets. I printed out and used worksheets that can be found here: https://pathwaytokorean.osu.edu/unit-3/stage-1/graphing-consonants-and-vowels/writing-exercises. I also used the videos at the bottom of this lesson page to help me practice choosing the correct topic particle in a sentence and to help understand sentence structure (https://www.howtostudykorean.com/unit1/unit-1-lessons-1-8/unit-1-lesson-2/). For now, I will keep practicing and hopefully, I will also be able to increase my typing speed.
These Hangul practice worksheets look like this:
Korean is such a beautiful language. I have always been memorized by the way it sounds through exposure to it in the past from tv and Youtube. While learning Korean, I first started learning Hangul which was very hard. In addition, each character had its order of writing which also intimated me. However, I would handwrite them over and over again to better learn and remember them. I think this was important for me personally since I am more of a tactile learner. I started with apps that you could learn Hangul that let you trace you the different letters. These were helpful because there is an order in which Hangul is written so it taught me the proper way to write it as I learned it. I have been writing on paper more often whenever I am taking notes when I’m with my language partner or taking notes from Youtube videos I use to learn basics like pronouns, particles, or question words. By then, most of what I was writing was words and small phrases by learning to combine the different vowels and consonants. Not only where their orders for writing each vowel and consonant, but also order for putting the words together in their respective blocks. Further, there are patterns from where a vowel and where a consonant is placed. With this the ㅇ(ieung) letter of the alphabet is extremely important since most words begin with consonants so in order to retain the structure of the blocks, it if often used as a placeholder even though it doesn’t have any sound. During and after spring break, I installed the Korean alphabet onto my phone and personally, I like typing Korean more now. First, it is easier to just grab my phone and practice over handwriting where more effort it required. However, it takes away from having to think about where each character goes in the block since naturally makes the blocks as you type. Further, my handwriting is not the nicest in Hangul so I should write more on paper to write neater but for now, it’s given me a quick outlet to practice.
In sentences in Korean, they are very different from English due to the word order of Subject-Object-Verb rather than Subject-Verb-Object. This wasn’t that confusing since in Hindi it is also like this. Although, I don’t speak Hindi, I can understand a lot of it since my parents speak it every now and then. Therefore, I had a lot of hearing this structure of sentences.
Further, in Korean, there are many particles such as 은/는 (eun/neun) which are topic particle, 이/가 which are subject particles to mark the subject of the sentence, and object particles 을/를 to mark the object which are both inflectional morphemes. There are 20 different particles that all have to do with expressing the role of words in sentences. I haven’t yet learned more complex sentences, but I imagine the particles are key points. This doesn’t exist in English, so this is something I am having a tough time remembering to place these in sentences. For example, formally, to say “My name is Priyanka” it is written “내 이름은 프리 얀카입니다” (nae I reum eun peu ri yan ka ibnida). After name (이름), you can see the topic particle 은 placed to mark the topic of the sentence. Another example is “나는 음식을 요리하고있다” which means “I am cooking food.” So “나는” means “I” and the 는 marks the topic of the sentence. “음식을” is food where 을 is the object particle since food is the object of the sentence and it comes before the verb. The choice of which object particle form simply comes down to if the word ends in a consonant or vowel. Further there are also derivational morphemes. For example, 요리 (yori) is a noun meaning cooking, while 하다 (ha da) means to do, and 요리하다(yo ri ha da) means to cook. Then if we take 요리 (yori) again and attach it with 실(sil) which means room, we get 요리실(yo ri sil) which means kitchen. Lastly, if we take 요리 (yori) again and attach it with 사 which is the affix for person, we get 요리사(yo sil sa) which means chef. In addition to the confusion with the many particles, I find it so interesting that Korean doesn't have articles. It feels as though my grammar is wrong and I am missing something. This is especially prevalent in a written context because I think about every part of speech with where I am in my language learning. I wonder how hard it must be going the other way around and learning English after learning Korean and now having to place articles in most English sentences.
An interesting component of American Sign Language (ASL) is that there is no designated written language. The signs themselves are affiliated with English terms and meanings, and as a result, ASL users are often able to read English texts. However, ASL is not English and does not use BE verbs, such as “am, is, are, was, were” or anything to indicate the state of “being.” Nor does ASL use articles (a, an, the). In addition, affix are not stated but expressed in ASL. The way that such meanings are expressed is accomplished is through the speed and intensity a sign is signed, the facial expression of a sign, and, in some instances the incorporation of time-based signs. Let us go over a few examples. For the sentence “He was fast. But I was faster” (He fast, but I faster), an ASL user would signify that “I was faster” (I faster) by expressing said signs in a quicker and greater intensity than the signs of “He was fast” (He fast). For a sentence that induced past tense, such as “I have run a marathon before,” the signer will signify that the run has occurred in the past by signifying at the beginning of the sentence that sentence was in the past.
For the most part, the ASL language is similarly constructed as English. However, one of the greatest difficulties I have is to remove the BE words from my speech. When signing, I often find myself trying to remember a word, such as “an”, to then realize that that word does not exist. Because these types of words do not exist within ASL, I was curious about how deaf ASL students learn about these types of words for English readings and writing. Prior to learning to read, how do you teach a student words that they will never use when physically communicating with someone else. When my language partner’s friend, Kay, came into our meetings, she was able to answer this question. Kay knows ASL and she has a job teaching at a deaf elementary school. She described English writing classes similar to the format of a foreign language class, which I was surprised about. However, it does make me wonder. If a whole other language can function without BE words, couldn't English also function without those words?