What is your interest in 'your' language and what do you hope to accomplish this semester?
My interest in my language resorts from the fact that I am not able to speak it to complete fluency at a competent level where I can interact in a corporate setting. In addition, when I speak to my relatives from Korea, there are always some language barriers that make it difficult to fully communicate with them. My desire to learn more Korean stems from my Korean heritage and how I hope to be able to work in Korea for a period of time in my life. By taking SDLC and continuing to improve my Korean learning, I hope to be able to become more fluent in it.
Hopefully this semester I can accomplish learning more vocabulary, expanding my grammar skills, and be able to spell the words that I am writing correctly.
Replies
It seems that you've identified several important aspects of your study of Korean that could feature prominently in your learning plan. What kind of 'corporate setting' do you have in mind? I've started saving these resources to the group Diigo, but be sure to check out the following titles:
Boye Lafayette De Mente, Korean Business Etiquette: The Cultural Values and Attitudes that Make Up the Korean Business Personality (2004): https://books.google.com/books?id=YiXRAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontco...
Jasper Kim, Korean Business Law: The Legal Landscape and Beyond (2010): https://books.google.com/books?id=6otRAQAAIAAJ&q=Korean+for+Bus...
Sungmi Kwon, Essential Korean for Business Use (2011): https://books.google.com/books?id=kPuGZwEACAAJ&dq=Korean+for+Bu...
You can definitely focus your inquiry on related texts to a specific field, business model, or discipline.
Regarding language barriers with relatives from Korea, how would qualify these difficulties? Do you have any strategies for working around communication problems?
By corporate setting, I mean specifically in the workforce of Korea. Although I don't envision myself working for a Korean company, I think being able to translate between English and Korean between companies could be a valuable asset to have in my repertoire.
Most of the language barriers I have with relatives from Korea stems from my lack of knowledge on vocabulary. For example, when identifying certain objects or certain emotions, I remain oblivious to the words that my relatives use. I have to constantly ask what certain words mean, and they attempt to "dumb it down" so that I could understand the meaning of these words. However, with infrequent use, I constantly forget these words, so I hope to be able to gain even more knowledge through the SDLC.
My main strategy for working around this problem is to simply expand and retain my vocabulary, by constantly using them and keep them in my long term memory.