This is my last journal reflection of the semester, and I am sad that it is coming to an end. I know that I have learned so much, but I am excited for what is to come in the future.
In the last couple of meetings, we still focused on similar things within grammar. One of the main things was learning how to make words/sentences formal. When reviewing my goals, I knew that this was one of them. I know how important it is to the culture to respect your elders and know when and where to be more formal. When Emily was teaching me, she said that in most cases, I can just add 요 to the end of a verb to make it formal and present tense. This is used for most situations when needing to be more formal. So, for example, talking to your teacher or possibly your grandparents, depending on your relationship with them. To take it further, there is an extra formal version that can be used when you are talking in a very formal manner, like to a government official, for example. If the verb ends in a consonant, you add 습니다. If it ends in a vowel, you add ㅂ니다. This is another easy pattern to follow for formality.
During one of our last lessons, we went over Korean particles to expand sentences. The first one I learned was 에, which means at/to for a place or time. You add it right after the location you are naming, and you use it when you are moving to a place. Another is 에서, which is used when an action is happening at a location or if you are saying someone or something is from a place. Like, “Emma is from Iowa”. Then there is 도, which means also/too, and it's added directly to the end of nouns. Lastly, we went over 그리고, which means and/and then, which is used to connect sentences. These are all really helpful and will aid me in creating simple sentences and more complex sentences over time. Another interesting thing I learned during this lesson was that in Korean, they can begin sentences with “And,” but in English, we are told to never do that because it is not grammatical.
During this past month, Emily and I also recorded our podcast. I outlined it and used it to recount everything that we did together during this semester, which was really helpful in aiding our conversation. I got to truly reflect with her and see how much I have learned over time. The conversation was very casual and honestly just felt like a conversation between one another.
Overall, this course was definitely a success, and I am so excited to continue it next semester as well. I plan to continue learning and practicing the language over the summer, so hopefully when I come back, I will be a level or two higher than what I am at right now. I was able to learn a lot about grammar and sentence structure, but I am excited to start focusing on speaking over the summer. This is a language that I want to become proficient in because I really enjoy the culture, but I also know how many opportunities it will open for me in the future.
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