Podcast.m4a

This week, my language partner and I went over a couple of grammar points to address some more complex sentences.  We covered two endings ‘고 들었다’ and ‘지만’.  The first refers to what someone has said previously in the conversation or something you heard someone else say a while ago.  For example, in the conversation we practiced about the semester and classes, the sentence ‘I heard accounting classes are difficult’ came up.  In Korean, this is ‘회계수업은 어렵다고 들었어요’.  I was confused when we first read it because I thought the particle ‘고’ meant ‘as well’ and I didn’t see anything additional being added in the sentence.  When I asked Jenna about it, she said that the ‘고’ in this context is referring to what someone has previously said.  That’s how the ‘as well’ factors in by adding what someone has said to what you’re currently saying.   

The particle ‘지만’ means ‘even though’ when added to the first part of a sentence making the second part contradictory.  For example, if I was hungry even though I ate, I would say ‘밥을 먹었지만 배고파요’.  ‘지만’ can also be used for ‘but’ in a sentence with the same placement as before.  The translation to English switches the phrases, so this can be a bit confusing at first.  If I wanted to read a book, but I didn’t have time, I would say ‘첵을 읽고 싶지만 시간이 없어요.’  This directly translates to, ‘I want to read a book, even though I don’t have time', but it can be understood in the same format as the first sentence. 

After practicing some sentences using these two particles/endings, I decided to watch a video from Talk To Me In Korean about some conversational phrases that I thought would be helpful to know.  In this video (linked below), viewers sent in questions about grammar, phrases, or anything else related to Korean for the teachers to answer.  For the section I focused on, the question was how to say ‘let me think’ when someone asks you a question.  There are a couple of answers to this depending on the use of self-speech (I wrote about this in my last post).  If you look away from the other person and direct the phrase ‘let me see’ to yourself, you would say ‘어디보자...’.  Before this video, I’d only known the word ‘어디’ to mean ‘where’.  It was interesting to see the same word carry a different meaning when used in another context.  Another phrase that can be used similarly is ‘글세요’ which is ‘let me see’ or ‘I’m not sure’.  If you want to speak directly to the person who asked you the question, you can say ‘생각 점 해볼게요’ which literally means ‘I will think a little more’.

My language partner and I have covered a lot this semester, and I think I’ve been progressing with my understanding of the language.  My weakest link is keeping up practice when I’m not actively receiving formal instruction.  As I am graduating this semester, I will continue studying Korean on my own through the online resources I’ve utilized thus far.  Patience is really important when learning a language, especially one that’s so different from your native one.  I’ve learned a lot about how I retain vocabulary and remember grammar structures through this program, so I can use that knowledge in my further studies.   

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phy0n8CB9Vc 

For my last cultural post, I interviewed my language partner, Jenna, about dating culture and relationships in South Korea.  I covered several topics with her to confirm what I found in my research and to add some new information to the subject.  She says that overall, the country is still relatively conservative, so certain things are taboo that are more accepted in other cultures.  For example, the LGBTQ+ subculture is typically ignored by South Korean society.  Jenna thinks this is because people are ignorant about how sexual orientation and gender identity work.  There are many wrong assumptions due to a lack of education about this community.  For the most part, her comments correspond with my post about the LGBTQ+ community.

Traditional values continue to stand even for heterosexual couples when they get married. It is less a bond between two individuals and more of marrying between two families. The paternalistic nature of marriage has the wife join the husband’s family. According to Jenna, it is very common for the newlyweds to move in and live with the husband’s family. For this reason, the parents on both sides of the family are very involved in the relationship. Sometimes parents will set up their kids on blind dates with kids of families that they approve of. Although group blind dates were more popular in the 90s, they are still used today.  However, there is a trend of more people meeting through dating apps as they become more popular.  

The standard age for getting married is between the late 20s and early 30s. While it is discouraged for teens to date in high school, university students are encouraged to start looking for a partner. When people visit their families during the holidays, their relatives will often ask very personal questions about their lives. For example, if they are single and in their 30s or 40s, relatives will have a lot of inquiries and make, sometimes unwelcome, suggestions about how to improve their lives. This can be very stressful if you do not have a stable relationship, job, or financial position. This can persuade some people to not visit their families during the holidays. This begins to address my research about single parents that I wrote about in my last post. I brought up to Jenna how some single mothers have been banned from joining their family because they are seen as a failure. Therefore, they do not have a place to go during the holidays. She had a hard time believing that was true and suggested more of the above reasons why people would choose to stay away from their families. Korean families tend to be very involved in the lives of their younger relatives and will ask many personal questions regarding school job or relationship status.  

Lastly, I asked Jenna about dating outside of your own race. She responded that the older generations hold a stigma against marrying someone who is not Korean because they have not been exposed to different races and cultures. South Korea is one of the most homogeneous countries which would lead many people to be unfamiliar with other races. Anything that is unfamiliar will be judged. Even if you are just a foreigner visiting, you will get a lot of stares and be asked seemingly rude and intrusive questions. Even in the United States, some Korean parents prefer that their kids marry a Korean, but there are many families that are becoming more welcoming to mixed racial marriages. 

             For this cultural post, I decided to focus on the stigma around single parents in South Korea.  A 2018 survey of 2,500 single parents revealed that 51% were single mothers, around 21% were single fathers, and the remaining number were kids raised by other family members (Kim 2019).  A shocking 80% expressed financial distress, the cause of which is said to be the South Korean government’s financial aid system.  There are strict requirements in terms of age and income, including the income of the parent’s family, which dictates the small monthly assistance payment of around 115 USD.  Additionally, around half of the 84% of single parents who are employed work 10-hour days, and 16.7% don’t have regular days off.   Asian Boss did a dual episode focus on single mothers and single fathers and the hardships they face on a day to day basis (2020).  They interviewed a woman, Moon Jung, who told her story about how she became a single mother.  In her instance, her boyfriend was physically and emotionally abusive, even after realizing she was pregnant.  She decided to leave him but was very unsure of how she was going to support herself and her son financially.  Unfortunately, she didn’t receive any aid from her ex-boyfriend or friends/family.  When her son was old enough to start daycare, she was able to work full-time, but had to take a few days off in a row whenever her son got sick.  The company would soon force her to quit.  Despite her desperate situation, it was very difficult to receive aid from the government.  After her third application, she was eventually approved.  She says that although many single mothers have supportive families who can help them, there is a considerable number who have nowhere to turn. 

              After watching the video about single fathers by Asian Boss, I realized one critical difference between them and single mothers (2019).  Single fathers have to file a lawsuit to legally obtain a birth certificate with a Social Security Number for their child so they can receive health insurance and be registered for childcare.  This is a very long process, so during this time, the child lives without the same benefits as children with both parents.  Before Kim Ji-Hwan had registered his daughter’s birth, she got sick and had to receive a two-week hospital treatment amounting to around 7,000 USD.  He was unable to work so he could stay by his child’s side and ended up selling his possessions and took out a private loan to pay for the hospital bills.  Now that his daughter is six years old and can be in school, Ji-Hwan works part-time as a driver and does some freelance work as well.  He makes just enough for him and his daughter to get by comfortably and contributes any remaining money to the organization he started.  It was originally for single fathers, but many single mothers have joined as well.  The organization aims to create a community for single parents, so they know they have the support of others and do not deserve to be discriminated against.  Within the community, some parents can offer to watch over other kids so their parents can go to work.  Parents can donate clothes their children have outgrown and provide some basic food for other parents using any extra money they make. 

              There is a similar organization that has a broader base with the aim of supporting single mothers called KUMFA (Korean Unwed Mothers Support Network).  They create a community for single mothers, so they have an emotional support group (Babe 2018).  They also provide essentials and fund short trips for parent-child bonding.  These are especially appreciated during national holidays when most people visit their families (married couples visit the husband’s family).  Most of the women who are a part of KUMFA have been rejected by their families and don’t have anywhere to go during this time.  Korean society is still quite conservative and although people are becoming more progressive, there is an underlying stigma around single parents.  Some grandparents refuse to help support their grandchildren and push for them to be put up for adoption.  Organizations such as KUMFA and Ji-Hwan’s smaller-scale support group are not only helping out single parents financially but are beginning to change how the Korean society treats them. 

Citations

Babe, Ann. “The Stigma of Being a Single Mother in South Korea.” Women's Rights | Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, March 1, 2018. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/stigma-single-mother-south-korea-180226144516720.html.

Being a Single Father in Korea. Asian Boss, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=486bxVeDpIo.

Being a Single Mother in Korea. Asian Boss, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZh_eTRWCMs.

Kim, Jae-heun. “Single-Parent Families Suffer Financial Difficulties.” TheKoreaTimes, April 11, 2019. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2019/04/119_267020.html.

Recently, my language partner and I have been focusing on endings that express emotion in phrases such as surprise or realization.  The two that we chose are very similar but have nuanced differences. Adding ‘네요’ after a verb stem expresses surprise or admiration while adding ‘구나, 군 or 군요’ after a verb stem expresses realization of new information.  The endings are differentiated by levels of 'self-speech'.  The ‘군요’ ending implies that the person speaking is talking to themselves or directing the speech at the situation instead of the other person.  These phrases do not prompt a response as much as those that end in '네요’.  While phrases with this ending are still considered self-speech, they more directed at another person, making it more likely to get a response. 

For example, let’s say your friend tells you they go to sleep at 9 pm every night.  One response to that would be ‘아,일찍 자는구나’ - ‘ah, you sleep early’ as you are realizing this new information.  Another response would be ‘와! 일찍 자네요!’ - ‘wow! You sleep early!’ which might prompt a confirming response like ‘네, 그래요’ – ‘yes, that’s right’.  What’s helpful about learning the meaning presented by these endings is that the emotion in the nuanced phrases is easily translated into English, making it easier to understand the implications and differences.  My homework is to write a couple of example sentences for each ending to practice getting the feel for the phrases and the situations that would warrant them. 

This week, I furthered my learning of Korean phrases by completing two lessons by Talk To Me In Korean that covered the difference between the particles ‘에’ and ‘에서’ and the different ways to use the word ‘언제’ - ‘when’.  Although I’ve had a general idea about the grammar presented in the lessons, there were some nuances that I hadn’t picked up on before.  There were also several useful examples of common phrases using ‘에’, ‘에서’, and ‘언제’ that I can see myself using in daily conversation.  Many of the phrases incorporate the past tense, and I realized I don’t have that much practice using it in daily phrases.  I’ve made it a point to review the past tense recently, so I was able to understand the example phrases quite well.  Some basic ones include ‘I went to school’ – ‘학교에 갔어요‘ and ‘When did you arrive?’ – ‘언제 도착했어요?’.  The lessons also provided some vocabulary to practice using in the phrases to get a better feel of the structure.  I find this resource very useful and I will utilize it in the future. 

For the last week, I created my own lesson as I was not able to meet with my language partner.  I decided to delve into some grammar and sentence making.  I’m not as familiar with adjectives as I am with verbs in Korean, so I chose 12 to study that I would use often such as wet, dry, late, early, etc.  Then I created very simple sentences to tie each adjective to a noun.  I watched a couple of videos on YouTube linked below that explain the two conjugations of adjectives.  I found it interesting that adjectives had to be conjugated like verbs.  The word ‘adjective’ in Korean is ‘형용사’ which translates better to ‘descriptive verb’.  Basically, the conjugation is different if you place the adjective in front of a noun, such as ‘small cat’, or before the noun to form a sentence, like ‘the cat is small’.  To describe a small cat, you take the dictionary form of small ‘작다’, take away the ‘다’ and add ‘은’ in this case to form ‘작은’.  To say, ‘the cat is small’, you just put the dictionary form of the adjective after the noun to make ‘고양이는 작다’.  This is a basic form and can be made honorific by changing the adjective to ‘작습니다’. 

I applied both conjugations to the nouns and adjectives that I had set up previously to form sentences.  I discovered a Korean translator called Naver to check over my work and see the honorific forms of the adjectives.  I also wanted to learn a few phrases that I caught from a Kdrama I’m watching, Itaewon Class, such as ‘Why can’t I?’ and ‘Are you sure?’.  After writing all of these down, I went through and practiced saying each sentence repetitively and quizzed myself.  It was a bit difficult to remember all of the new words, but I think reviewing it over the next few days with help with my retention.  During my next lesson with my language partner, I want to go over the work I did and see what she thinks in terms of the accuracy of the vocabulary.  Sometimes, different words are more commonly used to say the same thing.  I also want to learn more about the situations in which the different forms of these phrases would be used.  Sometimes, certain forms are strictly for use among friends or people younger than you, so I want to make sure I am familiar with these terms.  I also would like to ask my language partner to go over some phrases with me.  I think those are the hardest to learn through a dictionary as Korean has many ways to say the same thing while only changing the formality.  I want to do more exercises like these so that I am able to produce the language more than just receiving it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbKVdf2qcAA&t=395s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFsfjuMrCSk&t=439s

This past couple of weeks have not been very eventful on the front of Korean language learning with my partner due to midterm week and the extended break.  However, I would like to write about some of my personal excursions to participate in some local Korean-American culture.  I have a few Korean-American friends on campus who go to the Richmond Korean Presbyterian Church each Sunday for a youth service.  They invited me to come to a service, so I decided to venture out and I went for two weeks.  There’s a bus that comes by THC to pick us up around 10:30am with the service starting at 11.  I really enjoyed getting to know more people in the Korean-American community on campus.  They were all very nice and were happy that I decided to partake in something they do every week.  Once we got to the church, there is the main hall where the senior service takes place, and we went to a trailer beside it for the youth service.  I believe that some renovations are being done, but I thought it was interesting how the services were separate.  Little did I know that, by chance, I would get to experience both types of services in those two weeks.  The first week was the youth service performed in English, half of which was spent singing songs with the youth band.  It was very fun because even though I didn’t know any of the songs, I was able to quickly learn the melodies and the lyrics were portrayed on a screen for us to follow.  Afterwards, we went to a section of the main church where a group of older women had prepared food for all of us to enjoy.  It was very delicious, and I was excited to have homemade kimchi.  Even though the service was not in Korean, most of the people there were bilingual, so I got to practice listening to and speaking some phrases.   

The second week was actually a joint service that only happens three or four times a year between the youth and parents/seniors.  It was held in the main chapel and was delivered in both Korean and English.  There was a guest priest who only spoke English, but there were translations of his sermon in Korean on screens to the side of the room.  With this, I was able to practice my reading and identify words I understood from the speech.  The main focus and reason for the joint service was the South Korean holiday on March 1^st, National Independence Movement Day, or 삼일 운동.  This public holiday commemorates the earliest social movement for independence against the Japanese colonial rule in the year 1919.  A part of the service was used to take a moment to acknowledge the suffering endured by South Koreans during the Japanese occupation and to pray for the country and China who at the time were some of the worst affected areas by the COVID-19.  We then sang songs that had the sheet music and Korean lyrics on a screen for us to follow along with the choir and youth band.  Overall, it was a lot of fun and I’m very glad that I was able to go and share some experiences with my Korean-American friends. 

During our lessons for the past two weeks, we decided to focus on some modern cultural developments.  The first week, we watched a web-drama that has become very popular in South Korea called XX.  Web-dramas are different from regular TV dramas because they are easily accessible on mobile devices and are very short, about 20 minutes.  Regular TV dramas can be an hour to an hour and have plot developments more similar to movies.  Web-dramas serve as a quick break from school, work, or running errands as they can be watched while stopping to eat or taking the bus.  In XX, the plot is fast-moving enough to have some development in only 20 minutes yet is still intriguing to keep watchers engaged throughout the series.  Even though new episodes are still coming out, the earlier ones are available on YouTube with English subtitles.  Something I realized while I was reading the subtitles is that I understood the meaning of the words and the flow of the conversation deeper than what was being portrayed at the bottom of the screen.  My understanding of cultural practices and observations of conversational interactions between people in Korean for so many years has allowed me to understand something more than just a translation.  The subtleties and hints at social cues and contextual meanings of the dialog are obvious to me even if the subtitles don’t capture it quite right.  I’m glad to notice a change like this that isn’t explicit knowledge of grammar or vocabulary, but an understanding of cultural application.  This is encouraging because this realization reveals that I will know how to execute the language once I become fluent. 

I mentioned in a past journal that the spoken Korean language is filled with assumptions of small details that are given by circumstances or the speaker's allusions.  I was saying how I found it frustrating how so many implications could be in one sentence because it made it difficult to understand.  My reaction was in response to a conversation that we were reading in class to one another.  Because I was one of the speakers, I had a hard time understanding some implied components of the conversation.  However, when we watched the web-drama, XX, I realized that I could grasp more than what the subtitles were telling me.  When I realized it was the implications I was beginning to understand, it gave me some relief that it wasn’t quite as difficult as I had previously believed.  I’m glad that the time that I have spent listening to conversations not only has allowed me to better familiarize myself with how the language sounds in terms of cadences and intonations but also the more detailed meaning of what is being said.  Something I would like to do as an exercise is to watch another episode of XX and choose a conversation between two characters to dissect.  I can take what the subtitles say and compare it to my understanding of the dialog and then run it by my language partner to see how accurate the translations really are and if I understood the implications properly.   

During the last couple of lessons with my language partner, we learned about a few different topics including the pronunciation of the last consonant in a syllable, drinking culture, and school life.  The last consonant is called the ‘받침’ which can have one or two consonants on the bottom of the syllable.  We went over the rules and exceptions that explain how to pronounce the 받침 in combination with the beginning of the following syllable.  For example, the word ‘같이’ meaning ‘together’ is pronounced like katchi.  But when you separate the syllables, it’s ‘kat’ and ‘i’.  This concept was mostly a review because I had come across vocabulary words such as these before and knew the pronunciation.  But I had never gone over the rules, so I learned some new patterns as well. 

To bring in some culture and vocabulary, we studied the drinking culture as well.  It is interesting because there are so many detailed customs that are a part of ‘drinking’.  People don’t drink alone, it’s always in a group.  Someone else pours your drink and you offer to pour others’ drinks.  There is specific food that accompanies the drinks that everyone enjoys.  I am fascinated by the group dynamic and how connected everyone is in the process of either going out or going to someone’s house to drink.  If a superior is present, there are several other rules the younger people must follow.  You offer your superior a drink first and there are certain hand positions for giving and receiving the drink.  When clinking glasses, make sure your glass hits lower than your superiors and then turn away from them as you drink.  Next, place your glass on the table after your superior has done so.  These are all rules to show respect for elders and are especially important when drinking with someone of a higher position than you at work or with older family members.  It was very interesting to learn about this as it is very different from the American drinking culture and is useful to know for whenever we visit. 

In the next lesson, we practiced a conversation about school and classes.  I was familiar with some words and sentence structures, but many of the sentences had more complex grammar structures.  It was difficult for me to understand these, so I asked my language partner if we could go over the grammar in the conversation next lesson and practice producing sentences to better our fluency.  I don’t want to only focus on receiving the language because producing takes a lot more practice to master.  I think I am getting better at understanding the general meaning of sentences when presented with them, but there are several particles that add nuances that are difficult to pick up on.  We will go over these in our next lesson, so I am hoping this will clear up the parts of the sentences I could not understand. 

This past couple of weeks, I have been focusing on my reading and vocabulary skills.  My language partner printed out a couple of news articles about practical and current issues including weather reports and a story on the Coronavirus outbreak.  We then read it together out loud and go over all the vocabulary words in the sentence before we translate each sentence.  It is interesting because these are complex and compound sentences in which the order of the phrases and figuring out the subject relationships are difficult to understand, even after translating most of the words on their own.  This is a good practice for learning the structure of a specific but widely used part of the Korean language.  The news articles are written in a very formal and official manner that almost sounds like a different language from conversational Korean when listening to it. 

My language partner included a list of important vocabulary words related to each article for us to study on our own and practice with.  Reading the sentences takes quite a long time because our reading rate is rather slow at the moment.  I hope that the more we read, the faster we will be able to go through the articles and the better we will understand them.  After we focus on reading for a while, we will then switch to conversation skill development.  Although the difference between the extreme ends of Korean (formal and informal) I think that going from more complicated to simpler terms is one effective strategy in learning Korean.  It allows us to understand the grander structures of words and phrases and focus on being diligent with our grammar.  Then, when we learn more about how to converse, we can note the grammar points that change and the particles that are no longer existent.  It’s easier to see what is missing than what should be there. 

Although learning Korean through reading the articles is difficult and there is a lot I don’t know in terms of vocabulary, I am happy with this setup of learning.  I think that fully immersing myself in something that is practical will lead me to be able to understand more in the long run.  Additionally, my language partner stated that the vocabulary and sentence structure in these news articles are fairly repetitive.  Although it is a bit difficult to grasp at the beginning, once we get a hang of it, we will be able to understand similar articles a lot more easily.  The repetition of the vocabulary is also helpful when trying to remember the terms.  I think that I am taking full advantage of my time with my language partner and I look forward to seeing progress as the weeks go on. 

For this culture post, I will be analyzing a video of an interviewer from the Asian Boss YouTube channel asking South Koreans about their opinions on dating statistics.  They interviewed three men and three women separately, and it was interesting to see what they agreed and disagreed on.  The interviewer stated to them that, according to the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, the majority of South Koreans ages 20-44 are single.  Additionally, only a little over a quarter of the single population are in relationships.  The interviewees responded with some surprise, but each person could see the truth of the statistics from their daily experiences.  It was said across the board that one of the main reasons for not seeking a partner was the lack of time and energy due to work or school.  They explained that the job market is highly competitive, and it is difficult for young people to establish a career for themselves.  This is why most students entering college ask about future job opportunities and internships available instead of college life.  A top priority is resume building and gaining experience in the workforce.  This process of constantly trying to be the best, or at least better than the majority, is stressful.  The increased anxiety also contributes to not feeling as though they can dedicate themselves to a relationship.

One man stated that because he will be starting his military service soon, he would rather wait to start a relationship.  South Korea has a requirement that all men must complete two years of service.  Because the optimal age to do this is when you are younger and more fit, this could easily drive a wrench in the dating sphere.  The women responded with how they spend the little free time they have with themselves just to relax and unwind.  From what they were saying, I was able to hypothesize that they were implying if you don’t have enough time to give to yourself, you don’t have time to commit to someone else. 

              Something I found interesting about this video was when the interviewer mentioned the theory that CNN presented about the increased danger and risk of sexual assault when dating.  The women responded with either complete agreement or understanding that it could very well be true.  The men, however, did not think it was true at all and that the low dating rates were better explained by little time and too high of standards.  It is interesting to see the difference in perspective depending on gender.  My impression is that while the conversation about sexual assault is fairly open and common in the United States, it is not as widely talked about in South Korea.  It could be that women might talk about it more frequently with each other but not to men.  Therefore, the women in the video agreed with the previous CNN statement while the men did not.  This is just speculation, but it is what I think could be a possible explanation for the difference of opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=harDGAucqBQ

This semester, I'm going to research dating culture and relationships in South Korea with subtopics including the role of parents, age ranges for dating and marriage, arranged marriage, and members of the LGBTQ+ community, gender roles, and foreigners.  For this post, I will talk about the social and legal acceptance (or lack thereof) of the LGBTQ+ community.  

Currently in South Korea, being homosexual is not illegal and the South Korean constitution deems unlawful the discrimination based on sex, religion, or social status, which apparently includes sexual orientation without explicitly saying so.  Although this law is in place, the enforcement is lacking in discrimination cases against members of the LGBTQ+ community.  Companies such as Samsung and Google even went as far as to ban popular dating apps for homosexuals in 2013.  Unfortunately, same-sex marriage is still illegal in South Korea.  The current view on the matter does not suggest any change as a 2017 poll found that 58% of the population opposed same-sex marriage while only 34% supported it.  The remaining 8% left their response as undecided.  Homosexual couples are denied many rights that heterosexual couples have such as pensions and adopting children.  Same-sex couples cannot adopt children due to the legal requirements of being married.  Courts are allowed to grant gender changes, but only at the expense of other civil liberties.  I wish the article had gone more in-depth about which civil liberties transgender individuals would have to sacrifice to be legally recognized for who they are.   As for some progress, back in 2003, homosexuality stopped being considered obscene or harmful.  In 2015, South Korea supported the UN’s efforts to fight discrimination against sexual and gender minorities.  Finally, in 2017, the Gallop poll revealed that 90% of the South Korean population supported equal employment options for sexual minorities. 

One article written within the last two months highlights the discrimination that the LGBTQ+ community faces. The blame is mostly placed on the government for reversing anti-discrimination laws to limit or rid of legal protection against those who believe being gay is immoral and seen as a mental illness.  Surveys clearly show the stance of the South Korean population on the matter and the repercussions that the minorities face as a result.  According to The Korea Social Integration Survey, a little under 50% don’t want any association with a gay person.  The article relates this idea to the 20% of the population that is affiliated with conservative churches.  Additionally, a poll led by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea revealed that 92% of those who identify as LGBTQ+ are afraid of being a target of hate crimes.   An emergency hotline was created in response to the results of a national survey of members of the LGBTQ+ community under 18.  About 45% have attempted suicide and more than half have attempted self-harm.  The article brought to light a personal story to exemplify the severity of this issue.  A 20-year-old was fired from his office when his boss found out he was gay.  On the same day, his mother kicked him out of their house and has since attempted to find him and force him to go to conversion camp.  There several protests for gay rights and many counter-protests by conservative groups.  It is hard to say whether there will be progress anytime soon, but I hope that members of the LGBTQ+ community at least feel safer.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49751410

https://www.nqapia.org/wpp/lgbtq-rights-in-south-korea/

This week, I met with my instructor, Jenna, to discuss my learning goals for the semester and what materials we want to incorporate in our lessons.  We are thinking of pairing me up with Maggie to have a partner on a similar level to practice with.  Personally, I prefer small group learning as opposed to a large group or one on one instruction because I believe having another brain working and learning at the same time is helpful.  That way, their perspective brings about questions I may not have thought of and offer different ideas and ways of learning that are supplemental to my own learning. 

My main focus for this semester is to work on my reading speed, conversation skills, and vocabulary.  The topics do not concern me as I would like to eventually be able to talk about almost anything.  I am starting to realize one of the hardest parts of learning Korean as an English speaker, which is that much of what you are saying is implied when speaking Korean.  English is a very specific language in which the subject and particles are included in every sentence, even when speaking.  In Korean, many of these grammar specificities are implied and left out when conversing.  This makes it very confusing for me sometimes to understand the translation of what is being said.  This part of language learning goes beyond vocabulary and sentence structure and steps into thinking like a "Korean".  To native Korean speakers, this type of speech is normal and the constant repetition of context specificities one would say in English seems unnecessary.  I hope that practicing conversation skills will help to bridge this gap in my understanding of the language. 

During my lessons, I will be given a conversation to practice with my partner and together we will go over the meaning and practice the fluidity of our reading and speaking this way.  There will also be a list of vocabulary words related to each conversation for us to study.   I will also build up my reading speed by practicing reading mini blurbs of varying subjects starting at a basic level and gradually increasing in difficulty as the semester continues.  I am aware that my learning partner would like to incorporate cultural aspects of South Korea into our lessons, so I believe that the combination of these topics with our conversations and reading practice will give a well-rounded structure to our lessons.

End of Semester Podcast

I recorded my podcast with Maggie and Kate with Jenna as our instructor. 

Learning%20Journal%2010112%20.docx

To get a modern perspective on the aging population in South Korea, I looked at a Telegraph news article and some statistics that illustrate the conditions in which the elderly exist.  It seems that South Korean society is becoming more individualistic as more seniors live outside of family homes.  Because South Korean society has had a history of elders relying on their children for providing housing, food, etc., the state does not have a very strong pension system.  This system is underdeveloped as it has not been a high priority.  Seniors living solely off of pensions receive about the equivalent of $600 per month.  This is hardly enough to provide comfortable housing, so the standard of living for the elderly is fairly low.  Many experience “nursing problems, economic anxiety, psychological anxiety or loneliness” from the pressures of self-dependency (Smith, 2018). 

One of my main questions while reading this was why are so many elders living on their own and why are their families no longer providing for them? One answer is that the seniors do not wish to be an economic burden on their children who have their own kids to provide for.  Additionally, the birth rate in South Korea is concerningly low which has made the country considered an “aged society” (Smith, 2018).  This label is given to any country with more than 14% of its population over the age of 65.  There isn’t a large enough working class to pay for the pension system in place.  The president is undecided as to how best to solve this issue.  He does not wish to pull funds from other sectors yet taxing the already overwhelmed working population would lead to a possible increase in poverty and unrest in the younger generations.  Because of this, many elders are forced to continue working to support themselves. 

I looked at a second article, written in 2014, that provided statistics for the elder society in South Korea expressing that “28.1 percent of all suicide victims in South Korea are over the age of 65.  And about two-thirds of the elderly suicide victims endure extreme poverty before deciding to end their lives,” (Koo, 2014).  Koo (2014) attributes this development as to the weakening of filial piety that stemmed from Confucianism thousands of years ago.  This idea is portrayed by the image of the elderly picking up pieces of trash on the side of the street in hopes to sell them to recycling.  The fact that some have to rely on this method for supplemental income supports the theory of the deteriorating Confucius ideologies of utmost respect for elders and filial piety. 

Reading these articles and statistics was very saddening because there is a very obvious downward trend for the elders in South Korean society.  The ideals that were analyzed in the first journal article I read about the importance of filial piety have been completely shattered as an overarching belief across the nation.  Suicide is a prominent issue in South Korea with rates that ranks 10^th worst in the world.  Finding that a large portion of suicide victims are part of the elderly community represents a potential worsening of the issue as time goes on and the population ages.  There’s not much hope for the betterment of this issue besides the president finding a way to improve the lives of seniors by increasing the funding of the pension system or through other means of public spending.

Koo, Se-Woong. “No Country for Old People: South Korea's Dire Problem of Elderly Poverty.” KOREA EXPOSE, 24 Sept. 2014, http://koreaexpose.com/no-country-for-old-people/.

Smith, Nicola. “Old People Struggle to Survive as South Korea Becomes 'Aged Society'.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 7 Oct. 2018, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/07/old-people-struggle-survive-south-korea-becomes-aged-society/.

I have been working with my language partner more on conversation skills that incorporate what we have learned throughout the semester.  It has been very helpful to practice when we meet as a group with two other students.  My language partner created a scenario of three conversations that would occur on the same night between two friends and the employee of a restaurant and a movie theater.  The first conversation was just between the two friends as they determined where they were going later that evening and when.  It included a portion where one friend expressed why one time wouldn't work and suggested another.  I found this helpful because it is very realistic.  The second conversation was between the two friends and a server at a restaurant which I found more as a review of what I have learned in previous semesters.  Finally, we read the third conversation between the two friends and the employees at the movie theater which included some helpful vocabulary for me that I wasn't familiar with.  I was a bit confused at first because I expected to know more about what was in the dialog than I did when we read it through the first time.  But after we read through a couple of lines, we discussed what each part meant, and I was able to understand the missing links fairly quickly.  It was mostly a couple of vocabulary words and some grammar nuances specific to conversations that I did not recognize.  But the majority of the conversation, especially after going over it a couple of times, I could understand.  I think it is very useful to have the script so we can practice on our own and be able to see and identify all the parts.   I found this an effective strategy in practicing speech.  At this point, I had hoped to be able to have a basic conversation about meeting up at a certain place and time to do ‘x’.  Especially after our last session, I can say that I have accomplished that.  In our next session, I would like to go over the conversation again and test our speed of speaking and our recollection of what we are saying.  I think this would be a good ending point for the semester. 

I have been working with my language partner recently on conversation skills, listening practice, and the number systems.  We combined the conversation and listening skills by recording two conversations of my language partner for me to listen to and pick out what I can understand.  We then go over what I was unable to hear, or words/grammar points I didn't know.  I then listen back to the conversations and practicing hearing the new phrases and making sense of the conversation.  This has been an effective strategy in assessing how much I know and identifying things I need to work on.  I hope that in the next couple of weeks, I will be able to have an informal polite and a casual conversation with someone about when and where to meet to do something such as studying or seeing a movie.  Eventually, I want to try to have an impromptu conversation like this with one of my Korean friends.  Next time, we will practice conversing in our group meeting with a written script and go through the same process of working through anything we don't know.  It is helpful to have a session one on one with my language partner and one with a group so we may practice together and also get individual help.   

We have also been working on the two Korean number systems.  At first, I thought I knew Korean numbers fairly well, so I expected it to be more of a review.  But I soon realized that the application of the numbers is much more complicated than I thought.  One version is derived from Hangul and only goes up to 99.  It is used when referring to the number of minutes, people, and years of age.  Then there is Sino-Korean which is derived from Chinese and used for dates, money, hours, addresses and any number over 100.  The months are also named by counting them.  Sometimes I get very confused when I have to remember which way to say 23 for example.  If I were to say that I am 23 years old, I would use the Korean derived numbers, but if I were to say the 23rd of March, I would use Sino-Korean.  I have been practicing by coming up with a list of random dates and times and practicing writing them out and then saying them out loud.  I feel that this strategy is helpful, yet to further my understanding, I will start to write out the date every day along with whatever time it is at that moment.  While learning the numbers is a bit frustrating, I think that repetition is really going to help solidify it, so instead of spending time trying to remember what number system I should use, it will already be memorized.    

In this post, I would like to honor University of Richmond’s International Week that is highlighting East Asia this year! I am participating in the event by hosting a K-pop station that will share Korean pop culture with all those who participate.  In preparation for this event, I have been researching trivia and noting related vocabulary, and I have noticed some aspects of traditional Korean culture that are still prevalent in this modern industry.  

One of these cultural aspects relates to my overall topic of the elder culture and attitudes around the aging population in Korea. In each K-pop group there is a leader who usually is the oldest member and there is a label for the youngest member called the maknae or 막내. Each of the younger members are expected to follow their leader by respecting their decisions and valuing their opinions and input over others. In turn the leader is expected to look out for the other members while always having the interest of the group in mind when making decisions. Each group acts as a family which reflects the idea of valuing community in Korean society. I have talked about this in my previous cultural posts as the family being of the highest importance. I find it interesting how those values maintain a striking presence in such a modern pop culture sensation that is now sweeping across the world and sharing its uniqueness with other societies.

Another traditional cultural aspect that it’s still prevalent in modern day culture, and can be seen in the K-pop industry today, is the hard work that is required to maintain a high status of honor and pride among the K-pop groups. Most trainees go through a period of 7 to 9 years of dance and voice instruction that prepares them for their later career.  In many speeches by K-pop groups after their concerts, the members are always one to point out their own flaws and promise that they will work even harder to please their fans and create quality performances and products. This dedication is partially why the K-pop industry is so appealing to countries such as the US because of the seemingly perfect display of human creation. While artists in the United States also work hard, it is a critical part of Korean culture that one is always learning and always improving until, perhaps, they reach their elderly stage. 

It was a bit eye-opening for me to make these connections between the aspects of K-pop culture and traditional culture.  I have been following K-pop and learning about the functioning of the groups and the overall industry for several years now.  But I have not realized until recently how their values are so closely intertwined with the values of previous generations. 

Below I put a link to a video made about BTS, one of the most popular and successful boy K-pop groups world wide, that shows their struggles and highlights some of the down sides of the industry that holds such high standards.  I would just like to note that BTS has confronted a lot of these issues since their debut in 2013, yet they continue to work hard while learning more about how to take care of themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuQ_O9aMXMg  

These past two weeks, I transferred to two sessions per week with my language learning partner to cater more towards my language goals. We have gone over several things including three main types of the future tense, spacing between words, and vocabulary relating to school and travel. Additionally, we have continued to build off of the sentence structures, “I want to…” and “I have to…” by gradually adding more factors to complicate each phrase. For example, when I started off learning these structures, I could say “I want to dance” or “저는 춤 추고 싶어요”. Now, I can say “I want to meet with you at the gym on Saturday to dance” or “토요일에 체육관에서 만나서 춤 추고 싶어요”. To get to this point, I write up around 5 sentences between lessons every week using the material we covered in the previous session to review and practice the material. This gives me the opportunity to realize any points that I do not understand and helps me see where I would like to continue. This is a system that I enjoy using because it is easy to follow and effectively produces results. One of the best ways to learn a language, in my opinion, is to start with a small unit and use it as a building block to increase your abilities.

I have also been able to apply the grammatical concepts I have learned previously to writing sentences using the future tense. The main thing we are focusing on now is building up some vocabulary to expand the words I can use in these sentence structures.

In future lessons, I would like to focus some more on conversation skills. I think that I have built up enough knowledge at this point to start practicing putting those phrases into a casual conversation between friends. This is also a great opportunity to learn how to put the general sentence structures I have learned into questions. I hope to be able to use what I learn in real conversations with my language partner when we determine where to meet for lessons. I also have friends who speak Korean in my dance group with whom I can practice in real life.