I remember wanting to learn Korean during my first semester at Richmond, but as a transfer student, it was not yet feasible to take classes that did not fulfill either general education or major requirements. I am really glad that I was finally able to fit it into my schedule because I really enjoyed returning to formal language learning. It was obviously not ideal since we had to complete the second half of the semester remotely and I regret that I was unable to complete my lessons with Jimin. Regardless, it was an interesting experience and I think that I was still able to continue learning at home, albeit in a limited capacity.

One of the main things that I learned this semester is that language learning is a continuous process. Even if one becomes fluent in their target language, there is always something new to learn to keep adding to their knowledge. Even though I consider myself fluent in English, I realize that I am always improving and learning new things. I am going to be completely honest and say that I was unable to fully accomplish any of my goals but I was definitely able to make progress towards all of them. And surprisingly, I was able to achieve better understanding in some other areas that were not originally part of my focus.

Partially related to that point, I also realized that there are a variety of ways to effectively learn a language. I initially thought that the best way to learn a language is by the traditional textbook. After being forced to improvise my language learning at home, I realize that I can continue to learn even though I did not have complete access to my language learning partner. In fact, the best way to build knowledge of a language is to learn by different methods because of the different things you can learn by each. For example, being immersed into a primarily Korean-speaking environment at home has allowed me to actually implement what I had learned in my structured lessons.

In SDLC 105, the lessons that I enjoyed the most were those that talked about the origin of languages. I really liked learning about language trees and seeing how all languages are connected to each other in one way or another. It was especially interesting to learn about Korean specifically because its language family is still being contended, even though there is some consensus. I also enjoyed what we learned in the first few weeks of class, about the different characteristics of each language. This really put into perspective the cultural aspect of language, which I did not realize had such a significant impact on language.

During the summer, I plan on continuing my language learning the best I can. I will be able to keep practicing speaking with my family and also keep learning more about Korean culture. I know that there are also countless free and readily accessible resources for learning a language like YouTube videos, so I plan on relying on the Internet heavily to aid me. In general, I am excited to continue the lifelong process of learning a language.

As the semester draws to a close, I have been reflecting a lot on my language learning journey thus far. It has been a very interesting and challenging semester to say the least, but I am pretty satisfied with the progress that I made. While I wish that I could have completed my SDLC 105 classes and lessons with Jimin on campus, I was also able to supplement my learning in more unconventional ways at home. I was unable to meet all my goals but considering the circumstances, I think that what I was able to accomplish is acceptable. Although my future self-directed learning in Korean is not yet determined at this point in time due to the uncertainty surrounding the fall semester, I definitely know that I want to continue my language learning in some capacity. Since my summer is currently empty due to cancelled internships and jobs, I plan on spending most of it self-studying Korean to pass the time, as well as to improve my skills. I decided to devote my last journal to outlining what that might look like.

Since high school, I knew that learning from textbooks and workbooks is most ideal when studying language; I did really well when learning French for three years and my one year of Korean at my old university. I also know that it will be difficult to obtain those resources during this time, so I have been trying to think of alternative ways to improve my Korean. I first plan on finishing my old workbook that I found at home since it was incomplete anyways. This will also help me review some easier concepts before moving to more free learning. Another thing I plan on doing is immersing myself into Korean entertainment. In high school, I had a lot of Korean friends, so I would watch a lot of K-dramas and listen to K-pop because we shared similar interests. At Richmond, I actually know very few Koreans so I rarely indulge in those things during the school year. Since I will have so much free time on my hands, I think it would be a good time to become more cultured with Korean media. Not only will it be fun, but I personally believe that there is merit in participating in a variety of different aspects of a culture to better understand the language. I can learn new vocabulary and phrases from watching dramas as well as listening to music. The last and probably most effective thing that I plan on doing is trying to transition into speaking full Korean at home. I currently speak Konglish, a mix of Korean and English, with my family, which means that I use whatever Korean words I know and then use English as a shortcut when I have no idea how to say something in Korean. My mom and grandma are both immigrants from South Korea, so Korean is their first language and they definitely are much better at it than I am. If I am unable to think of certain English words in Korean, I can either just ask them or look it up. This might be burdensome at first but it will eventually become more fluid as I expand my knowledge. Although this summer will be unique and unprecedented, this will be a great opportunity to continue my language learning in a new capacity, and I am really excited to start once I complete my last final!

I decided to devote this past week to preparing for my final presentation. For a while I was unsure of what I was going to present on. In class two weeks ago, we broke up into Zoom breakout rooms to brainstorm some ideas. My classmates had some good ideas but I debated between various ideas, with the main topic I was leaning towards being something related to health, in light of COVID-19. One of my majors is Healthcare Studies, and I thought it would be interesting to learn more about South Korea’s healthcare system and the cultural effects of the outbreak. I ultimately decided not to because my vocabulary is still not that advanced and I wanted to invest my time in something that would be somewhat challenging but still manageable. After considering a few more ideas, I ended up selecting something that meant a lot to me personally, the Korean flag.

To me, flags are a great way to represent one’s culture, especially because of the symbolism that flags often hold. Even though I was born and raised in the United States, I personally identify strongly with my Korean background whether it be through my music or food or personality. The flag means a lot to me, so much that I have one hanging in my dorm back in Richmond and a symbolic tattoo on my back. I had done some research on the Korean flag before, but I thought this would be a great opportunity to learn even more about its history as well as become familiar with the associated terms.

For starters, the Korean flag is called taegeukgi 태극기. Its design is minimal but the meaning behind it is very philosophical. The foundation is a clean white background, which represents peace and purity. For this reason, many Koreans in the past have fondly worn the color white. In each corner, there is a black trigram– starting from the top left corner and going clockwise, they are geon 건, ri 리, gon 곤, and gam 감. They are derived from Chinese characters and each represents multiple different things. Some examples are seasons, celestial bodies, cardinal direction, virtues, natural elements, and members of a family. In the center lies a red and blue yin-yang symbol, which is known as taeguek 태극. The red is on top and called yang 양, representing positive cosmic forces. The blue is called eum 음 and represents negative cosmic forces. Similar to Chinese culture, the taegeuk is supposed to represent balance in the universe. The taegeukgi has a lot of meaning and is inspiring to me, especially with the values of justice, vitality, wisdom, and fruition behind the trigrams. When I reflect back to one of our earlier lessons in culturals, a lot of what I learned back then is clearly shown in the flag and physically manifested in the Korean people. While I am grateful to be an American citizen and for my Western upbringing, I am also extremely proud to embrace my Korean-American identity. I am glad that I chose to research something that made me feel more connected to my culture while also being very educational.

Outside of my regular language learning, I spent this past week preparing for my second presentation for SDLC 105. The purpose of this short presentation was to teach something new to my classmates about my target language. I decided to focus on something that had been a goal of a mine for some time now. For some reason, I have never been able to remember my days of the week, which is probably partially due to the fact that I never received a formal lesson about it. I thought it would be interesting to create a lesson based on this because of how the words were originally derived from Chinese. I was able to find a few websites that also shared some historical information about the origin of these words.

Similar to English, all days of the week in Korean share the same suffix in each word– this would be -day in English. In Korean, -day translates to -yo-il -요일. To work on memorizing them, I decided to memorize the prefixes in a sequence, kind of like a mini chant to remember the proper order of the days. From Sunday to Saturday, the order of the sequence is il-wol-hwa-su-mok-geum-to, which in hangul looks like 일-월-화-수-목-금-토. So, Sunday is 일요일, Monday is 월요일, Tuesday is 화요일, Wednesday is 수요일, Thursday is 목요일, Friday is 금요일, and Saturday is 토요일. By repeating the sequence multiple times, I have been able to recall the order of the days of the week much easier. I also use Siri to tell me what day it is, so that I can get verbal reinforcement.

I also learned some of the history behind the days of the week. Like a lot of Korean words, it has been derived from Chinese characters, specifically the five Chinese elements of nature, as well as the moon and the sun. I also found out that Japanese days of the week are based on the same characters, so it sounds pretty similar to Korean. Starting with Sunday 일요일, 일 means sun or day; Monday 월요일, 월 means moon; Tuesday 화요일, 화 means fire; Wednesday 수요일, 수, means water; Thursday 목요일, 목 means wood or tree; Friday 금요일, 금 means gold; and Saturday 토요일, 토 means earth. Something to note is that these prefixes are usually not used by themselves in native Korean, they are simply derived from Sino-Korean, or Chinese Korean words.

In addition to learning days of the week, I decided to add the months of the year, which I already knew and are much easier to learn. If you know how to count from one to twelve in the sino counting system, then you are basically halfway there. Similar to the days of the week, all the months share a common suffix, -wol -월, which just translates to -month. Once you know that, all you have to do is add the corresponding number of the month as the prefix. So, January is 일월, February is 이월, March is 삼월, April is 사월, May is 오월, June is 유월, July is 칠월, August is 팔월, September is 구월, October is 시월, November is 십일월, and December is 십이월. I also found an infographic with this information, as well as important Korean holidays for each month, which I discuss in my lesson.

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Since my last journal post, I have been trying to supplement my language learning by implementing more Korean into my daily life. In general, I have been extremely busy with other assignments for other classes so I have been trying to integrate things more casually. It has been pretty easy to do so since I am at home now and can speak my language daily with my family. I tend to use Konglish with my mom since she is also pretty fluent in English, but with my grandma, I have to use more formal Korean.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I recently changed my Siri to speak in Korean. Even though I go outside much less than I used to, I still ask her the weather every morning. It has been raining on and off for the past couple of weeks, so this provided the opportunity to learn more new vocabulary of the weather. My mom has still been working so when I need to contact her during the day, I usually ask Siri to call her for me. This might just be me, but sometimes when I get bored, I randomly ask Siri questions because she has a variety of responses and it’s interesting to see what she has to say. I have been doing this more since I changed her to Korean and I have been able to practice speaking a variety of phrases as a result. She also uses some new terminology sometimes so after going back and forth for a bit, I look up any unknown words or phrases.

I was also cleaning a few weeks ago and came across some Korean workbooks from when I took Korean at my old university. The books we used were actually published by the school I went to and I personally really enjoy the lessons that they provide. The layout is simple but it allows me to learn a variety of new material. I have been doing a chapter per week and I decided to start from the beginning of the book to refresh my memory on some of the lessons that I had already completed. Each chapter begins with some sort of story or scenario using a set of vocabulary terms as well as new grammar. I usually begin by translating the story and then moving onto a new grammar lesson each day since there are multiple in one chapter. The textbook also comes with a workbook so I have been completing the corresponding exercises, although some of them are missing since I used to study from it.

Learning Korean has been a little difficult since I have not had access to my language partner, but this has just really emphasized the self-directed part of the program. I can usually get through the lessons by myself without looking anything up, but I also ask my mom any questions if any arise. Because I have always been an independent person, I almost prefer learning Korean this way but I also really enjoyed my time with Jimin. 

Due to COVID-19, I have been spending a lot of time at home eating and cooking, so I thought it would be appropriate to explore the history of kimchi 김치 for my last cultural post. Kimchi today is a staple in Korean cuisine and is made from salted and fermented vegetables, usually cabbage or radish. There are countless versions of it, but most will include chili powder or gochugaru 고춧가루, green onions, garlic, ginger and salted seafood. It is undoubtedly one of my favorite foods, although I guess it is really more of a side dish. When I am at school, I never get to have it, which is really different from when I am at home and I get to eat it everyday. I looked up a few articles highlighting the origin of kimchi and I was able to learn some new things!

The earliest dated record of kimchi goes back to the early period of the Three Kingdoms, which existed prior to the unification of the Korean peninsula. During this time, fermented foods were widely available, ranging from fish to wine to soybean paste. Because refrigerators were not available yet, it was also common to pickle vegetables and store a variety of foods with longer lifespans than if kept fresh. This was especially useful during the winter when it was difficult to find other sources of nourishment. The kimchi would be packed into traditional brown ceramic pots and buried underground to preserve it. I was really intrigued to learn that historical versions were not spicy, even though most kimchi today is. Chili peppers were apparently introduced to Korea in the early 17th century, but did not appear in kimchi recipes until the 19th century. Since kimchi existed before the split of the Korean peninsula, it is a food that is enjoyed by both North and South Koreans, although I am unable to comment on what kimchi is like in North Korea.

I also looked up a few recipes because my family members are always telling me that kimchi is actually really easy to make and that I should give it a shot. There are various different vegetables that you use to make the dish, but I decided to focus on the most popular version, which uses napa cabbage. First, chop up the cabbage into bite sized pieces. Next, soak the cabbage pieces in cold salt water for about 1.5 hours. Rinse and drain the cabbage and set aside. Now for the kimchi paste. This varies depending on how salty or spicy you like your kimchi but most recipes include the same seasoning. Mix together crushed garlic, minced onion, minced ginger, chili pepper flakes, and fish sauce or salted seafood. Then, mix in sliced green onions, chopped leeks, and julienned radish. The last step is to add in the cabbage and to put everything in an air-sealed container. You can enjoy it fresh or wait until it ferments. I personally like my kimchi really fresh but it always tastes good either way. Once it gets really sour, my family likes to either fry it or cook it in kimchi stew, or kimchi jjigae 김치찌개.

I grew up watching my family make kimchi and it is definitely something I want to try out soon since the recipe is pretty simple.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been at home for about three weeks now. Since everyone has been attempting to adjust to their new reality as the University has moved online, I have not been engaging in Korean lessons with my language learning partner. But I recently got in touch with her a few days ago and we have made our plans to meet weekly for the rest of the semester. Regardless of the situation, there have been a few ways I have been attempting to practice my language learning while at home. Although not as great as face-to-face instruction, I have tried to make the most of what I have available and in some ways, I have been able to uniquely supplement my studies.

For starters, I have been able to practice my speaking on a daily basis since I am now home with my family. This was one of the goals that I had established in the beginning of the semester and since it was not easy for me to speak outside of my lessons with Jimin, it has been great to practice my speaking. I speak some Korean with my sister but mostly with my mom. She speaks to me almost entirely in Korean, and will just translate afterwards if she happens to use any words that I do not know. 

Another thing that has been helpful is watching Korean dramas. My mom loves to watch a few episodes every night after dinner and I started joining her out of boredom. The three dramas that we have been into are Itaewon Class 이태원 클라쓰, Memorist 메모리스트, and Eccentric! Chef Moon 유별나! 문셰프. Outside of serving as pure entertainment, watching K-dramas has helped me witness language use in reality-like situations and I have also learned some new vocabulary.

The last thing that I have implemented is switching my iPhone Siri from American English to Korean. I initially wanted to change the entire system in my phone to Korean, but it ended up being really difficult to use my phone. However, that is something I want to do in the future so I am hoping to become better at my target language soon. When I first changed my Siri, I had forgotten I had done it until I tried to use the Maps app on my phone. I was so shocked when the GPS started speaking in Korean to me and I honestly could not understand a lot of what she was saying. Luckily, my mom was in the car with me and she was able to translate everything. I never really used Siri but after that experience, I decided to make more use of it so that I could practice speaking and listening to Korean. I now use her to send texts, make phone calls, and check the weather. These are definitely tasks that I could complete with my own hands but I think that it has helped with my articulation and in general, has provided a way for me to continue speaking.

Due to my state’s recent stay-at-home order as well as the COVID-19 outbreak in general, I have been spending a lot more time on social media, especially Instagram. I recently saw this trend going around called “whipped coffee”, which seems to have originated on TikTok. After seeing multiple posts of people making the coffee, I also noticed that it was being called “dalgona coffee”, and I knew that dalgona was a Korean candy. As far as I knew, dalgona did not contain any coffee products so I decided to do more research to look into this trend.

Dalgona coffee is basically the opposite of a latte, meaning that instead of frothing the milk, you froth the coffee component. The recipe is pretty simple– all you have to do is mix equal parts of instant coffee, sugar, and water. The goal is to whip all three ingredients together until you achieve a light and airy texture, like in whipped cream. Most people pour the whipped coffee over ice and milk, but I have also seen some people pour it over steamed milk for a warm drink. I personally dislike the taste of coffee but a lot of my friends have been enjoying the trend so I wanted to try something similar. Instead of using instant coffee powder, I decided to try it with matcha powder. I poured my whipped mixture over iced soymilk; it ended up being pretty good and not too sweet! I don’t own a mixer so I wouldn’t make this drink on a daily basis since I would have to hand whip it every time, but I can see myself making it as a special treat. It was really aesthetically pleasing as well as tasty so I can see why it was trending.

As for dalgona itself, I also did some research on its history. It is a popular traditional Korean street food that became popular in the 70s. It only requires two ingredients and is pretty easy to make. In South Korea, they typically heat sugar in a large metal spoon over a flame. You continuously mix it and when it becomes completely melted, you quickly add a bit of baking powder. This causes a chemical reaction and the mixture becomes foamy and increases in size. After mixing for a few seconds, you quickly pour the mixture onto parchment paper and put a skewer in it while it hardens. In Korea, the street vendors usually flatten it with a metal press and use small metal cookie cutters to make cute shapes in it. Once it has completely hardened, you can put it off and eat it like a lollipop!

I recently watched an episode of “The Return of the Superman”– a popular South Korean reality-variety show that features celebrity fathers who are left alone to care for their young children– and one of the dads tried to make dalgona for his child. He attempted multiple times and continuously failed because he kept burning the sugar mixture. He eventually had to ask someone on the film crew to make it for his son and she was able to do so successfully on her first try. I am planning on trying to make this tomorrow with my sister and hopefully it will go smoothly since I know what not to do.

Although an unfortunate situation, the current COVID-19 pandemic has supplemented my language learning experience in a way that would not have occurred if we were still on campus. I came back home to Hawaii about two weeks ago, which was the Friday of our original spring break. Coronavirus had started to slowly appear in the United States a few weeks before that but until mid-February, most people had not paid any attention to it since it was not as prevalent in our own communities. However, my mother and grandmother frequently keep up with Korean news broadcasts, so I initially knew a great deal more about the situation in South Korea rather than in the United States. Even though I was not reading the news articles or watching the news for myself, I was able to learn a lot simply from hearing my family talk about it. Since I did not hear or read the information myself, I did not learn about any of the medical terminology, but rather gained a better understanding of Korean culture.

I am a Healthcare Studies and Philosophy double-major and my specific interest is in bioethics. Witnessing the past few weeks has been a very surreal yet educational experience in terms of healthcare systems around the world. It was interesting to see how South Korea responded to the pandemic and the public health measures that they took to ensure the safety of their citizens. Their main methods consist of aggressive testing and contact tracing, which were swiftly implemented. Korean citizens were also extremely compliant with their government to avoid widespread infection. This made me think of when we learned about different characteristics of cultures in the beginning of the semester. The way in which Korea reacted to the outbreak is truly reflective of how Dr. Hofstede characterized the county, especially as low in individualism and high in uncertainty avoidance. Citizens were quick to adjust to governmental restrictions and rules in order to combat the virus. This is especially demonstrated in how the Korean government is strictly observing those who have the virus and conducting surveillance to find new patients. People have gladly given up their privacy because they know it is a necessary trade-off. Many healthy individuals have also been volunteering as needed to further support the government’s efforts. Social trust is clearly very high and Koreans are very adaptable, which has prevented a great number of deaths, even with the country’s proximity to China.

What I learned through observing Korea’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been useful in enhancing my language learning. The qualities that Koreans exhibit are also reflected in their language, which I also pointed out in some of my past posts. My new knowledge has not only taught me more about the culture, but will prove especially useful when applied to actual communication with other Koreans. This explains why honorifics are an important aspect of the language and why communal terms– like ‘us’ and ‘we’ rather than ‘me’ and ‘I’– are heavily used. 

If I received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of Korean, I would use this opportunity to study the influence of other languages on the Korean language. As I learned earlier this semester, Korean is traditionally believed to be a part of one of two language families, the Koreanic family and the Altaic family. However, I know that as a part of Northeastern Asia, Korea is also influenced by languages that are not necessarily in either of the two families, like Chinese. I find it really interesting that Korean has a variety of outside influences but still manages to maintain its own uniqueness. The alphabet is easy to learn to read and write and is also extremely simple in comparison to other Asian languages. Korean also borrows a lot of vocabulary from English and Chinese, even if those two languages do not contribute to its phonetics.

After obtaining the above information, I would also try to compare and contrast the different Korean dialects. I am interested in figuring out if certain historic and geographic factors affect how a dialect is developed. For example, if an area had been dominated by the Japanese or if it is located closer to Japan, is the dialect in that region more influenced by the Japanese language in comparison to traditional Korean? Learning about the dialects would also further supplement the initial study and explain how the Korean language developed in the first place. In general, I am interested in exploring how the Korean language came to be and what external factors were greatly impactful. 

Due to the sudden COVID-19 outbreak, I had to fly home for the extended spring break and a week of school, which eventually turned into the rest of the semester. I typically take two to three flights to and from school since the Richmond airport does not offer any direct flights to Hawaii. Because it was still spring break, I did not have a great deal of work to complete while traveling, so I tried to think of ideas to help pass the time to prevent boredom. Depending on how tired I am when I board my flights, I will usually end up sleeping for a majority of the time, but I was pretty well rested since I had been on spring break for the past week. I decided to browse through the films offered on my first plane and I came across Parasite, or 기생충 in Korean.

Parasite recently won four Academy Awards– Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best International Feature Film– and made history for being the first South Korean film to receive an Academy Award, as well as the first foreign film to win Best Picture. It has also been recognized for a number of other awards but especially made history at the 92nd Academy Awards in February. I personally have heard nothing but positive reviews about the film and had been meaning to watch it for some time now. I was supposed to watch it with Jimin and a few of her other language learning partners but it ended up not working out.

This post is going to be a bit of a spoiler but I’ll try to only discuss the gist of the story. It was basically about the low-income Kim family, who have worked a variety of temporary failing jobs in the past. In the beginning, the son’s good friend gifts him a rock which is supposed to bring him wealth and urges him to take over his tutoring job as he leaves to study abroad. His friend tutors English for the eldest daughter in the wealthy Park family and the Kim son is successfully able to get the job. The rest of the Kims slowly infiltrate the life of the Park family, with the daughter, father, and mother slyly posing as unrelated and highly qualified workers. The Kim daughter poses as an art therapist for the younger son, the father replaces the family driver, and the mother replaces the housekeeper. One day when the Parks leave for a camping trip, the Kims indulge in the luxuries of the Park’s home and celebrate their increasing wealth resulting from their new jobs. Suddenly, the old housekeeper appears and requests to retrieve something that she left in the house. She reveals an underground bunker, where her husband had been living for years to avoid loan sharks. She eventually finds out about the Kim family’s scam but her and her husband are wounded and forced into the bunker when the Park family arrives home early. The next day, the Park family hosts a birthday party for the son and the Kim family members are all invited. The Kim son brings the rock to face the couple in the bunker, but he is attacked by the husband who is enraged by his wife’s death. The husband runs out and stabs the Kim daughter with a kitchen knife to avenge his wife. Her mother kills him and the father ends up killing the Park father after seeing his disgusted reaction to who he thought was a dirty, smelly homeless man. The story ends with the daughter dying, the father retreating to the basement to avoid criminal charges, and the mother and son facing convictions of fraud. The son vows to make enough money so that he can purchase the house, which is occupied by a new family, and eventually free his father.

I began my language learning experience with already knowing the Korean alphabet and how to generally write in Korean. However, writing is definitely one of my weaker points and it is something that I knew I wanted to improve on this semester. I am not very comfortable with writing and because I don't really have much practice with it, my handwriting is crude and looks quite awkward. I strongly prefer to type and am somewhat familiar with where the hangul characters are located on the keyboard, but it is also definitely something that I could also work on. I try to type in Korean when I communicate with my mother or grandmother as often as possible so that I can gain some practice.

Most of my knowledge in Korean comes from speaking informally with my family and I have difficulty translating what I read, hear, or speak into written words. Since I also do not have a strong foundation in formal Korean language, sometimes my sentences are improper or incoherent. I am definitely able to understand a lot more through reading or listening than putting forth those words myself. A writing exercise that I have done was to write a short biography on myself. I don’t currently have access to what I actually wrote since I left my notebook at school but it basically consisted of a simple introduction, what my interests are, how I was that day, etc. I think it was an effective exercise because it broadly demonstrated my level of writing and also any relevant vocabulary that I knew.

Languages go extinct when humans cease to utilize them, whether it be through speaking, reading, or writing. When a language dies, it is no longer used as a form of communication between individuals. The reading and the interview made me think of how people say that Latin is a dead language. I always found that claim interesting, considering the fact that there are still many scholars who study and use Latin, although perhaps not on a daily basis. It seems to me that the life of a language depends heavily on its utilization by native speakers, and I think this is partially due to the relationship that culture has with language. Anyone can learn another language, but to truly understand it, one must be able to connect with its cultural aspects. 

The best way to preserve a language would be for elders to teach it to younger generations. However, this option is obviously not always feasible and is probably the most difficult way to preserve a language. Linguists can help by using the Internet and technology, which has already been done countless times to preserve multiple languages. Not only can they create written documents, but also record podcasts for further interaction. I am unsure of whether a language that dies can ever truly be brought back to life, because if it has died, it means that there are no longer any native speakers. However, I think that there are many efforts that can be taken to ensure that a language is never forgotten, because languages are a significant part of cultural history.

So far I think that my language learning has been progressing well. Although I have not had that many lessons yet, I have learned a great deal and have been accomplishing things to help achieve my goals. Jimin has been really helpful at tailoring the lessons to my aims and interests, which is not only beneficial for my learning but also keeps me engaged in the materials. I also enjoy how we touch on a variety of topics throughout the lesson so that I have more things to work on before the next time we meet, instead of just focusing on one area. 

Since I already have experience with Korean, I really have not been able to apply what we discuss in class. My lessons are more focused on fine-tuning my skills thus far since I have a pretty strong foundation in the language. I think that culture has an important role in learning a language, since it helps make the material more relatable. I also have a strong relationship with Korean culture and learning Korean has helped me further develop that. To improve my communicative competence, I should work on applying what I learn from Jimin to real-life scenarios. Since I talk to my family almost everyday, I have already been able to incorporate some of what I learn into my conversations with them. I would say that my plan mostly emphasizes discourse competence and sociolinguistic competence. The former because I am trying to expand my vocabulary to develop the ability to read more difficult texts, and the latter because I want to work on becoming a better speaker.

On February 28th, I had my first official Korean lesson with Jimin at 815. We began by going over a list of terms that she had prepared for me in advance, so that she could gauge my level of Korean. I was able to read all the terms but did not understand a number of them. However, when she read them out loud and used them in the context of a sentence, I was able to identify all the terms. I explained to Jimin that although I had been taught Korean in formal settings in the past, these were brief and did not account for a majority of my skills in Korean. I grew up speaking Korean at home, so I best understand the language when it is spoken out loud to me. I thought this was really interesting because in English, I prefer visually reading words over auditory comprehension. Actually, when I have to listen to podcasts or other types of verbal lessons, I find it extremely difficult to retain the information that is being relayed, and I often have to listen to the material several times before I understand everything that I am hearing. This is probably due to the fact that I grew up as an avid reader, so I have a stronger connection with written rather than spoken words. But with Korean, I can say or understand words better when they are spoken, and even though I am mentally aware of the words, I usually do not know how to properly spell or write them. It does not help that my mother uses informal language with me, also known as banmal 반말. I remember when I had my first Korean class in college, I was so surprised to see the proper forms of words and their different tenses. After discussing this with Jimin, we decided that we would make it a goal to focus on formal language since I do not have a good foundation in that area.

After going through the list, we then moved onto learning about some Korean history. Jimin told me that there was a national holiday coming up on March 1st, which celebrates the Samil Movement 삼일 운동, translating literally to the March 1st Movement. This event was one of the earliest public displays of resistance against Japanese colonial rule of Korea in the early 1900s. It also served as a catalyst for Korea’s eventual independence. To teach me about this event, we looked at a comic which described its importance. Although I could read everything and generally understand the pictures, there were a lot of terms that were more advanced than my level of reading comprehension, so Jimin explained the story as we went through the pages. One of the prominent organizers of the movement was Yu Gwan Sun 유관순. She was recognized for her peaceful demonstrations of protest, starkly contrasting against the extremely violent forces imposed by Japanese military personnel. She is commonly acknowledged as Korea’s “Joan of Arc,” and she devoted her entire life to fighting for Korea’s independence, dying in jail at the age of 17. I do not know much about Korean history and this event was really interesting to learn about, especially since it is relevant to the upcoming date. 

To close our lesson, Jimin went over a few slang terms that Koreans use when texting. I thought that a lot of them were pretty clever, although some were really silly and made me laugh. All in all, I thought that this was a very successful lesson. I learned a lot and a variety of different topics, all of which were really interesting.

After doing some research on the internet, I was surprised to discover that the language family of Korean seems to be highly contested. Most sources claim that Korean belongs to the Koreanic language family, and consider to be a language isolate. This term is used to describe a language that does not demonstrate any sort of genealogical relationship with other languages, one that does not share a common ancestor with other languages. However, there is some support for the notion that Korean belongs in the hypothesized Altaic family, which mostly has speakers from parts of Asia and some parts of Europe. The Koreanic language family includes Korean languages spoken in both North and South Korea, spanning from the ancient languages spoken from 57 BC to the present-day.

I thought this was really interesting to read about because I had always thought that Korean was a descendant of Chinese languages, but after reading further about its history, I learned that Classical Chinese was not introduced to Korea until a couple of centuries later. It amazes me that Korean has managed to maintain its individuality, even with Chinese and Japanese influences in Korea.

Languages transform through genetic or genealogical classification, which describes the process in which languages develop new traits and characteristics while maintaining its ancestral roots. Language families are formed when proto-languages produce daughter languages, which become parental languages to their own daughter languages. In order to understand the relationships and connections between different languages, these 145+ families are organized into language family trees. However, the extent of our understanding of languages is limited by the availability of recorded history, so it’s possible that there are more language families or the ones we acknowledge now are not accurate.

This semester, I am taking a class called “Philosophical Problems in Law and Society,” in which we discuss the philosophy of contemporary Anglo-American law. As we have been debating many moral and legal issues, it has made me more curious about law in South Korea. Corruption is a common theme in many K-dramas, so many shows will have some legal aspect to it, which I have always been interested in. After doing some preliminary research about South Korea’s legal system, it appears to be very similar to that of the United States, as a civil law system that is based on a national Constitution. Last semester, I took “Introduction to American Government,” and something that we consistently discussed was how the Constitution was outdated and contained vague language that should be rewritten to be more applicable to today’s society. Although I have never read the Korean constitution, this made me wonder whether the Korean legal system was dealing with the same issue. Language is clearly not static and evolves over time, not only in the words it uses but the meanings of words as well. 

To pursue this topic, I would definitely have to learn Korean legal terms and expand on my knowledge of Korean history, with a focus in government. Although those objectives are not explicitly stated in my learning plan, I am planning on learning about Korean history. Since this is my first semester going back to my Korean language learning, I wanted to use this time to get refamiliarized with the language before pursuing any specialized interests. However, since I am interested in pursuing a future career in health policy and incorporating my Korean into that, it will most likely become a future learning goal.