At the very first of this semester, I took learning style tests to determine my personal learning styles, and I found that I need to memorize vocabularies by writing them down again and again. During this semester, I wrote down new words on cards. From repeating and saying words, I was able to memorize and say them correctly. This is what I usually do to acquire English vocabularies. From multiple Intelligence test, I realized that I more math and logical person, but I need to do more interpersonal communication. So, I tried to aim my learning goal on Korean oral and daily communication. My language partner and I focuses on role playing activities and conducted several dialogues to learn vocabularies and phrases. This worked pretty well.  

Another learning strategy that I used was to watch Korean dramas to memorize new words and phrases and also practice my Korean listening skill. Though my learning goal did not aim to learn phrases to express emotions,  I found it was more interesting to learn that. The daily conversation in  Korean drama would be fine to practice the listening part. My language parter and I began one Korean drama-It's okay, that's love, but after several weeks, we ignored the drama section. Since this drama was talking about one neropathist who did not believe love's  existence met one crazy love writer. The neropathology and fancy writing words appeared largely in their conversation, we decided to give up watching this drama and shift the goal to daily conversation during our meetings. For my own interest, I watched a TV show called Running man once a week with English subtitles to both enhance my vocabularies in English and Korean. For example, one TV show called Running man always had one phrases "siro" to express that they didn't like the game punishment. After listened several times, I was able to identify this words and got the meaning and application when to use it. This was an effective way of building Korean vocabularies.

I found it was difficult for me to understand Korean k-pop music which fused with raps. It was too fast to identify words and sentences. The words I learned from songs sometimes overlapped with my learning goal. For example, my goal is to learn shopping and food vocabularies. One song called often Cafe incorporated all Korean terms for coffee. After listening this song, you would get some sense how to order expresso, cappuccino or macho in Korean. 

Comparing my original learning plan with what I actually learned, I failed to meet the goal of writing in Korean, such as written vowel and consonants. It took longer time than I thought to study counting numbers. I spent two weeks to learn two different number systems in Korean. Maybe because in Chinese syllable doesn't have to distinguish the sound between il, yi, and I can not tell any difference when my partner say one and two in Korean. 

The most useful tool is Mango. Mango divides courses into 10 chapters. I learned 5 chapters: 1. greeting, gratitude and goodbyes 2.names and introduction 3. drinks and dining 4.number and currency 5.what does it mean from Mango Language. I like how Mango structures lessons. First, it shows the conversational goals. Next, the grammar goals. Follow that, it teaches you a word or a sentence. For example, which country are you from? Mango explains this question in Korean-onul nara satameeyeyo? After that, it gives out the possible answers with the same phrases  I am (

eeyeo). You can practice this I am phrases by simply adding country names before eeyeo. Mango repeatedly show what you learned before without answers and you can check pronunciation after you did self-assessment. This is a most interesting app that I've ever seen. 

From my cultural project of Korean language history, I learned the history of Korean language and the the reason why Korean was created for. At the same time, I learned the rule of reading Korean from left to right and top to bottom. Although linguists were not sure the family root of Korean, I learned that Korean language had some influence from Japanese and Chinese. 

From my cultural project of K-pop culture, I learned the origin of K-pop and the reasons why K-pop are popular around the world. The icon phenomenon started in 1992 since the debut of SeoTaiji and Boys. This is the first generation of K-pop bands. K-pop music has strong economic influence on Korean. Especially for the three top entertainment companies, they signed 7-15 years contracts with idols and tried to make profits from selling CDs, albums and other related products. From classmates' presentations on Korean fashion style and Korean music, I also learned the traditional Korean clothing Hanbok and current Korean issue of plastic surgery. This cultural project helped me to relate how Korean people view beauty and how much they emphasize dressing up. 

I would like to continue study Korean by watching more Korean TV shows and listening more Korean songs. I think setting a specific and achievable goal for language learning is essential. In the future, I would like to follow my current learning plan to learn written system in Korean. Reading Korean words is my next step going forward. 

Reflect on your experiences of (trying to) read and write in your target language.

At very beginning of this semester, I tried to learn Korean alphabet and the Korean writing system. I originally thought it would be easy for a Chinese to learn graphical language. However, I found the Korean alphabet was more complex than I thought. As for vowels, the written one looks similar but sounds different. I also found romanizaiton helped me a lot in understanding Korean words. If I cannot recognize the complicated written Korean word, I can follow the latin alphabet and read the words. 

My Can-Do Statements:

I can greet others.

I can introduce myself, my major and my hobbies.

I can ask others about themselves.

I can introduce my family members. 

I can use "survival" Korean in class.

I can ask for direction or words meaning. 

I can count numbers one to ten.

Week 9:

This week I am still doing review on counting numbers and introduce my family members.

-(gajokyi myut myong yiyeyo?) how many family members do you have?

-Saemyong yipnida. Apa, omma, jo. Hajiman (but), oppa unni yitgo sipoyo. (I want older

brother and sister.)

 Since number in Korean is complicated than I thought, so I took 2 weeks to finish my learning goals.

Week 10: 

Order food in Korean

안녕하세요 반갑습니다.
안녕하세요 어서오세요. 몇명이세요?
dumyeong yiyo.
여기에 앉으세요
 Gamsahapnida
 물 드릴까요?
boricha jusaeyo.
Kimchi bokumbab gurigo ddeokbokyijusaeyo
알겠습니다
Jeo giyo. yimo,kimchi chom tall jusaeyo
Ulmayeyo? (how much is it?)
 $$$ yipnida (it is)

This week, I learned a lot of Korean food names and were able to conduct food ordering conversation with my language partner. 

Week 11-12:

In order to prepare for the cultural presentation, language partner and I discussed the song "Love Song" made by Bigbang. Moreover, we discussed the K-pop in Korean and the most famous bands or singers in Korean. 

Love Song Vocabs:

한 여자가 (one woman) han yeojaga

남자는 (the guy is) namjanun

노래 (song) norae

부르지만 (singing) burujiman

사랑 노래 (love song) salang norae

싫어 (I don’t like) siro

지금 (now) jigum

우린 아름다웠는데 (we were good together) oorin alum dawotnundae

마지막 (last) majimak

멈춰 (stop) momchuo

외롭지 않게 (not feeling lonely) welopji ankae

웃으며 부르리 (singing while smiling) ousemyo buruli

Why bilinguals are smarter?

I found the study conducted by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin Rhee to ask bilingual and monolingual preschoolers to short circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle. The result that the bilinguals were quicker at performing the second task is surprising. The bilinguals are better trained for the executive function in brain, which directs the attention processes for planning, solving problems and performing mentally demanding tasks.  

Another article" Are bilinguals really smarter?" illustrated a good example for bilinguals to be more beneficial. When the monolingual look at the dog, they say dog. However, a bilingual have two alternative present themselves. The tiny decision making process for choose the correct dog word makes them smarter.  

How many new words have you learned in your target language?  How did you learn them?  Do you have realistic goals for your acquisition of vocabulary? 

So far, I have learned vocabularies for introducing family members, asking questions, directions, counting numbers. My main goal is to conduct a conversation and can understand the most meaning. From watching Korean drama, listening to Korean songs, I began familiar to the words expressing self emotions or love, because these words appeared really often in k-pop lyrics and drama scripts. Another way for me to learn Korean words is Mango. Mango is really useful tool to learn Korean words. I strongly recommends everyone to use Mango for self-learning. It puts vocabularies into different contexts and you learn and memorize words better in this case. 

Though I did not have the specific goals for my acquisition of Korean vocabulary, I tried to mimic the sound of high frequency vocabularies and asked my language partner for their meanings. In this way, I am able to motivate myself to learn Korean. 

In the reading Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction, it has a really interesting idea. In order to save American Indian language with only five speakers left, a tribe member recorded audio and putting the online. It was sad to see how soon tribe language died due to globalization and technology development. I believe it is beneficial to keep the originality of tribal languages, which can be studied for anthropology, zoology and archaeology purposes.

In the reading, it mentioned another causes for language extinction. Government boarding schools, where generations of Indian children were sent, aimed to stamp out native ways and tongues. Now, the language is taught through the sixth grade at the public charter school in Siletz. If young children cannot speak this kind of language, definitely as time passes, the language would die. 

Korean language history

Although Korean is classified as an isolate language, many theories have been proposed to explain the origin of Korean. Many linguists believe that Korean belongs  to the Altaic languages of central Asia, a family that includes Turkish, Mongolian, and the Tungusic languages of Siberia. because of similarities in most grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, some argues that Korean might be related to Uralic and Japanese due to some overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features. Korean and Japanese can be related due to sprachbund, that is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact.    

The creation of the Hunminjeongeum, the original name of Hangul, was begun in 1443, and promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great, the 4th king of the Joseon Dynasty.

Originally, the language consisted of 17 consonants and 11 vowels, and the established consonants and 1 vowel have fallen into disuse bringing the total number of characters to 24. Syllables are formed by the selective combination of vowels and consonants to create words. Now Hangeul consists of ten vowels and fourteen consonants.

In Korean, a combination of vowels and consonants makes up a syllable, and it is written in the left to right and up to down directional style.

The Romanization of Korean is a system for representing the Korean language using the Latin script. Romanization is based on standard Korean pronunciation. Symbols other than Roman letters are avoided to the greatest extent possible.

a ----u simple vowels in Hanguk long vowels are not reflected in Romanization.

consonant g,k- The sounds  and  are transcribed respectively as g, d, and b when they appear a vowel; they are transcribed as k, t, and p when followed by another consonant or form the final sound of a word. 

Knowing the creation of Hangul can help me to know the purpose of syllables and how I can correctly say a word by applying systematic rules: from left to right and from top to bottom. The romanization of korean is more like pinin in Chinese that as a tool for beginner to speak the word even if don't know how to write it. 

Culture shock is precipitated by the frustration that results from losing all familiar clues. When an individual enters a totally different culture, she or he loses the comfort zone. As for almost all of international student study abroad, inadequate knowledge before opening the way to a new culture causes an individual inadaptable. Language difficulties, building friendship, distinctive dining habits, and nostalgia are all obstacles that international students have to overcome.

Coming from other parts of the world, international students are hard to change the way of learning, and experience the overwhelmed academic life. As for me, I got used to the passive lecturing style, which professors stood in front and just talk. All students needed to do is to take notes, but never expected to ask questions.  This passive way of learning is totally opposite to the liberal art college learning style. At University of Richmond, students have to actively participate in the class discussion and have to show their personal ideas. Even some classes would have participation grade to encourage students to share ideas in classes. At my first year of college life, I was so worried about speaking poor English during the class. Moreover, writing a college paper is the most demanding task for international students who have never learnt writing a paper in my entire high school. Like me, I suffered a lot during my first year seminars. Since I did not write any papers in high school, it was a great challenge to write an English paper, which requires the proper MLA or Chicago citation style. To address those academic problems, when they are facing a new academic environment, I would advise them to talk with their professors and to get help from the Writing center. Professors can understand what students who English as their second language are going through. Getting help from your professors and writing consultants, international students will do better in class as well as writing papers.

Nuannuan-Cultural Presentation

My cultural presentation focuses on the Korean K-pop culture and its evolution. I talked about the term Hallyu and introduced the most popular bands and signers in Korean. Follow that, I introduced major theme of K-pop music and its economic influences.

Hallyu is the word for Korean wave. It refers to the flow and spread of Korean. Korean wave as the growing popularity of all things Korean from popular music, Korean dramas, Korean language, Korean technology, Korean film and Korean cuisine.

Most popular bands and singers

1. Bigbang
2. Psy
3. 2ne1
4. Winner
5. TVXQ
6. Rain

The idol phenomenon came about after the 1992 debut of Seo Taiji and Boys who fused American pop music with Korean lyrics. After Seo Taiji and boys came a renaissance period in which a first generation of idol groups, such as boy bands H. O. T became incredibly popular and amassed large, passionate and extremely competitive fandoms. Today, idols have gone international, performing concerts worldwide.

Economic Impact

Entertainment companies have taken over the basement with a pop-up store selling everything from bags, clothing, folders and postcards to collectors’ edition CDs.

For SM Entertainment company, it earned $260 million profits in 2013. Meanwhile, YG made 110 million dollars which was a 49% increase from 2011. 

K-pop industry generates a large proportion of income for the Korean nation. 

Week 5:

First Artifact Evaluation

For my first artifact on Korean greeting, I think I did pretty good job on the accent linguistic accuracy. I recorded how language partner speak those greeting sentences. After comparing two audios, I need to improve my fluency a little bit. 

For week 3-4, I pretty much met the goal that I set for myself. I need to do more self-learning via Mango and other resources.

Week 6:

Goal: asking questions and answering questions

Uh ddok kae jinesaeyo? (How are you doing?)

Joayo. (I’m good) gujjokunyo? (What about yourself?)

Uhdiaeseo watseoyo? (Where are you from?)

jungguk (China) aeso (in) watseoyo (came). (I’m from China) gujjogunyo? (What about yourself?)

Hanguk aeseo watseoyo (I’m from Korea). Myutsal (how old) eyeyo (are you)?

Sumusal (20 years old) ipnida (am).  Myutsal eyeyo (how old are you)?

Junun (I am) sumulsaesal (23 years old) ipnida (am).

Week 7:

Goal: counting numbers

1 - il, hana

2 - yi, dul

3 - sam, set

4 - sa, net

5 - ou, dasut

6 - yook, yehsut

7 - qil, ilgop

8 - pal, yodul

9 - gu, ah hop

10 - xip, yeol--yuhl

Week 8

Goal: Introduce yourself and your family

• Mom Umma

• Dad Appa

• Sister (older) Unni  

• Sister (younger) Yeodongsang

• Brother (older) Oppa

• Brother (younger) Namdongsang

• Cousin - general Sachon

• Aunt (mom side/dad side) Imo/gomo

• Uncle (mom side/dad side) Yimobu/gomobu

• Grandma (mom side/dad side) Wehalmoni/chinhalmoni

• Grandpa (mom side/dad side) Wehalabuji/chinhalabuji

• Daughter Ddal

• Son Adul

• Husband Nampyun

• Wife Ane

• Boyfriend Namja chingu

• Girlfriend Yeoja chingu

Though I made some switches of learning material between weeks, I finished my learning tasks. With every new week, we bring up the old phrases. After reviewing, we continue learning. I really enjoy watching the Korean drama "it's okay, that's love". The daily dialogue in the drama repeatedly appear in each episode that helps me a lot in Korean listening part. The Korean two different number system puzzles me a lot.  The ten that is used to tell time and the three that is used to counting numbers have similar pronunciation. It is better to differentiate those two in the context. 

Week 3-4

This two weeks, I met with my language partner Sun and finally decided my personal learning plan. During this two weeks, I learned some oral vocabularies from the Korean Drama "It's Okay, that's Love".

a.     Hajima – 하지마

b.     Nae – 네 

c.     Guenchanahyo – 괜찮아요

d.     Jin jeong haeyo – 진정해요 

e.     Mannatseoyo – 만났어요 

f.      Muoya – 뭐야 

g.     Ah si jyo? – 아시죠 

h.     Gyui yup da – 귀엽다 

i.      Uh din guh ya? – 어딘거야 

j.      Hul – 헐 (

k.     Sillyehamnida – 실례합니다 

 We started greeting dialogue:

Ahnnyonghasaeyo – 안녕하세요

Ban gap sup nida – 반갑습니다

Nae, juhdoyo – 네, 저도요

Uh ddok kae jinaesaeyo? – 어떻게 how 지내세요 are you?

Joayo – 좋아요 好， Joah hae – 좋아해 

Dang si nunyo? – 당신은요? 

Gam sa hap nida! – 감사합니다!

Mianhapnida – 미안합니다

Annyeong hi gasaeyo – 안녕히 가(go)세요

I found it's really hard to pronouce n and m inside a word. For example, the pronunciation for n in  sup nida is different from the n in si nunyo. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwmc9YoHeAY&feature=youtu.be

I learned how to cook Korean food with my language partner. 

Bookmarks:

http://world.kbs.co.kr/learn_korean/lessons/e_index.htm

http://www.learn-korean.net/

http://www.howtostudykorean.com/

http://livemocha.com/pages/languages/learn-korean/

http://www.talktomeinkorean.com/

 I used this websites as additional tools to enhance my vocabulary learning. 

From SDLC 105 class, I understand that language relates to the culture products, practices and perspective of a culture. So far, I have studied the greeting  and got know more the structure of Korean language. In the class, we talked about the communicative competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts.  

In order to achieve communicative competence in Korean, I want to do more conversational based classes with my language partner Sun. Right now, I can introduce myself if someone asks me my name. I can respond to them with my major, my home country and my hobbies. I also noticed patterns in their speech that ends with hamida or simida to show your respect. 

One thing I want to focus on improving my learning is to follow my learning goal. Sometimes, I just randomly picked the drama and learned some words, but actually those words were not used quite often in daily life conversation. Though it was good to know more Korean words, at the beginning level, I need to aim for what I set for myself. 

Besides memorizing constabularies, I will try to conduct a dialogue with my Korean friends and to see if they can recognize what I am saying.  

Artifact #2.m4a

SN: What is your major?

NN: My major is accounting. 

SN: What do you do after graduation? 

NN: I want to get married.  

SN: What is your ideal type?

NN: My ideal type is family type, handsome and trustworthy. 

For this culture presentation, I did some research on brushing teeth in Korean. I found it was really interesting that Korean people brush their teeth after every single meal. At school, it's common to see girls brushing their teeth in the toilets and no one will say anything at all. Girls would even ask friends to join and to brush teeth together. And then I linked this cultural phenomenon to the serious topic-plastic surgery in Korea.

A staggering one in five Korean women has had cosmetic work done. Plastic surgery is a normal thing in Korean. Many girls have had plastic surgery after graduating from high school as a parent's gift. The obsession with cosmetic surgery is really a problem in Korean.  

Korean shopping presentation was fascinating. Seoul has plenty of shopping places but what surprises me most is that Korean stores all accept credit cards. In China, many small stores only accept cash and no discount if you pay in cash. However, Korean shopping center would give 5% to 10% discount if you pay by visa or mastercard. 

Hangeul is the name of the Korean language. It was created by King Sejong, the 4th ruler of the Joseon Dynasty in the year 1441. Korean language consists ten vowels and fourteen consonants. A combination of vowels and consonants makes up a syllable, and it is written in the left to right. 

From the reading, I learn that to understand a sentence, I have to determine which character is doing what. Hangeul has similar language structure as Chinese. So I want to learn Korean sentences by sentences. I want to translate each character to English and Chinese. So that I can tell which part of this sentence is doing what. For example, jungguk (China) aeso (in) watseoyo (came). (I’m from China) 

I want to learn more about Korean grammar by using Mango and online KBS Korean courses. I think after this semester, I can more focus on Korean grammar learning. Reference grammar helps me to better understand the meaning of this sentence and its applications. 

After reading the article Figuring Foreigners Out and doing some research, I believe Korean culture is more collectivist and polychronic driven. One’s identity is in large part a function of one’s membership and role in a group.

The reading defines collectivist as the survival and success of the group ensures the well-being of the individual, so that by considering the needs and feelings of others. Harmony and the interdependence of group members are stressed and valued. In Korean, people place family relationship as the top one important thing. In Korean drama, you can see a big family including grandparents will have family meal together. They have low emotional distance between family members. My friend told me that she had to call home every day. By doing this, the family members connect more and care more about others. Korean culture has a lot of non-verbal languages. For example, when you meet older and superior people, you have to bow to show your respect.