Podcast with Prof. Sumi Kim, Gavin Foo, Haley Zhao, and Yanran Li

https://richmond.box.com/s/ju7trxszzf82h8l33hpijbl23f2ogzjq

I was able to meet Prof. Sumi Kim and we went over a lot of new vocabulary and lots of new particles and how/when to use them. She also gave me some reading practice which was really nice because that is what I have been focussing on lately. I kept up my speaking practice that I mentioned in my last journal, and reviewed what I have learned so far with Prof. Sumi Kim by asking and answering questions as usual. I also realised that it has been a long time since I have reviewed Korean numbers and Sino-Korean numbers, so obviously I did some sudokus with different types of numbers to review them in a way that I find fun. I also started watching a new Korean drama called Itaewon Class on Netflix and so far it has been really interesting.

This is going to be my last journal entry, and I will not be taking Korean next semester at least, so I want to take some time to reflect on my language learning journey. 

I first started learning Korean because of my interest in BTS. Eventually, my interest in BTS has kept reducing as my priorities changed but I started really enjoying simply learning Korean. I find Korean culture fascinating and I am really grateful to have had the opportunity to dive into it and see new traditions and perspectives. I have come a long way from when I first started. Going from basically knowing nothing to being able to reading, write, and speak basic Korean feels amazing. I was able to really acknowledge how much I have grown when I was telling my family about learning Korean and they asked me whether I could do certain things and my response to most of them was ‘yes’. My grandfather randomly came up to me and said, “ask me what I ate in Korean,” and I was able to use the word for grandfather, use the right honorifics, and had good enough vocabulary to respond to his request on the spot and it made him and me really happy.

Simply learning Korean with Prof. Sumi Kim and Gavin has been extremely fun. They made it a very comfortable space to learn where I made a lot of mistakes, and did not always get the right answer, while also learning a lot, and getting a lot of things right. Them along with my friends who supported me through this journey by helping me practice and making sure I understand are people I am grateful for. As I reflect right now, I see that a lot of why I appreciate Korean as a language and a culture is because of the people I have met through it and the memories that I have made. So, I will make sure to carry forward what I have learned and keep making more memories with different people. I hope to definitely dive deeper into Korean. For now, as this semester comes to an end, there is one thing I can say for sure: I definitely need to eat more Korean food!

Korean architecture is characterized by naturalistic tendencies, simplicity, economy of shape, and the avoidance of extremes. I’m going to dive into it and how it evolved over time based on the time periods.

Prehistoric Period

There were three types of prehistoric dwellings in Korea: pit houses, log houses, and elevated houses. Pit houses consisted of a deep pit and a frame of grass and clay supported by timber. Log houses were made by laying logs horizontally one on top of one another like bricks with clay being used as cement. Elevated houses were constructed in two stories to keep food away from animals.

Three Kingdoms Period

The three kingdoms were Koguryo, Paekche, and Shilla. Koguryo was influenced by Chinese culture which can clearly be seen in Koguryo’s palaces, temples, and tombs. It was characterized by powerful lines and sturdy construction. Paekche was also influenced by Koguryo and China. A characteristic of Paekche architecture is its use of curvilinear designs. Shilla’s temple was separated from China by Koguryo or Paekche, so China's cultural influence was much diluted. 

The Unified Shilla Period

Architectural ornamentation, such as roof tiles decorated with floral and animal designs, was seen more often. The ‘two pagodas’ style, was prevalent at the time. Note: a pagoda is considered the grave of Buddha and is a structure commonly found at Buddhist temples.

Koryo Dynasty

The architecture during this time was very similar to Tang architecture in China. 

Toward the end of the Koryo dynasty, building pagodas essentially stopped. The adaptation of the Tang architecture is called the chusimp’o style which is the ‘column-head bracket system’. The picture shows how it looks. 

Choson Dynasty

The chusimp’o i.e. the column-head bracket style of the Koryo period, continued during the early part of this period. But, a new architectural style was introduced from Song China. This became the dominant architectural style of the Choson period and was called the tap’o, or the inter-columnar bracket style. The new tap’o buildings are much more decorative than those in the chusimp’o style because the intercolumnar brackets fill up the otherwise empty spaces between columns. The picture shows how it looks.

Modern Period

Western art began to influence Korean art in the later part of the 19th century. Until the 1970s the trend in Korean architecture was to adopt the western style. In the 1980s, the variety of architectural projects expanded, leading to the adoption of postmodernism which included the reinterpretation of traditional Korean architecture. The picture below is of the Seoul City Hall.

With the shift to remote learning, and lesser meeting with Prof. Sumi Kim, I have been able to explore more resources and get creative with existing ones to make sure that I am on track in my language learning journey. This shift has finally pushed me to find a good way of practicing speaking and bettering my pronunciations.

I first started with rewatching the Korean drama that I enjoyed, Cheese in the Trap. This time when I saw it, I wasn’t as involved in the story as the first time because I knew what is going to happen now. So, this time I put all my focus on picking up the words that they were using. After every dialogue, almost every word, I tried to repeat the sentences that the actors were saying out loud and tried to make sure that I’m making it sound like they are. I paused frequently and made sure to try and grasp every sound and repeat it as is. Once I started getting the hang of just saying the words, I also tried putting my focus replicating the emotion that was behind it because there are a lot of context clues hidden in the way a sentence is said. A Korean drama was a good resource for doing this because the dialogues are very clear and easy to grasp and often have good grammar and well-formed sentences unlike everyday conversations that people have with each other. 

After I got a good grasp of this, I wanted to make sure that the sounds that I’m am listening to and saying are actually correct. So, I turned to another source of entertaining for me: VLive. I absolutely love watching BTS’s VLive videos, so I turned on the Korean subtitle option, and started repeating after them by using the subtitles. I still had to pause frequently because I can’t read very fast, but this definitely helped improve my reading and speaking. BTS members’ conversations with each other are more casual, which is good for improving my conversational Korean. This was actually surprisingly really helpful while being super fun at the same time.

The biggest challenge to overcome with this was not needing to know what everything I’m hearing and saying means. At first, I wasted a lot of time pausing and looking up the meanings of every word, and eventually I realised how time consuming this was, and how this was really not helping at all because I often forgot all the words I looked up because I was just taking in so much information without repetition. I eventually stopped doing this and simply started speaking without knowing what I was saying, but this helped a lot! While I was doing this, I was actually even able to pick up some words that were being frequently used in the show/video and their meanings registered well too.

To take this a step further, I also started using voicenotebook. I read the subtitles to the videos out loud and voicenotebook would record what I am saying and based on what it would record which was fairly accurate, I could see which pronunciations I’m getting right and which ones I’m getting wrong. Some days when I didn’t feel like watching videos, I would just open random Korean websites and read the contents into voicenotebook. I am really glad that I started using this strategy and I can clearly see an improvement in my pronunciation, reading, and confidence.

Hanbok (한복) is a collective term for traditional Korean clothing. Though there have been slight changes in hanbok over time in terms of material, colors, and the length of the skirt or jacket, the hanbok's basic format has more or less remained the same for the past 1,600 years. The general design of hanbok aims to create a delicate flow of lines and angles. The top part is called a jeogori (저고리) and is blouse-like and well-fitted with long sleeves with the men's version being longer, stretching down to the waist. Women wear loose skirts (chima 치마) while men wear baggy pants (paji 파지). The colors of a hanbok are decided according to the “five colors theory” known as obangsaek 오방색. This refers to the theory of yin and yang and the five elements metal (white), fire (red), wood (blue), water (black) and earth (yellow). Most hanbok are made of naturally obtainable colors.

Hanbok can be classified into ceremonial and everyday dress, and then further categorized by gender, age and season. The colors and material of a hanbok used to specify social status and marital status. The material that the hanbok was made of could be telling of one’s social status. The upper class wore closely woven ramie cloth or plain and patterned silks while the commoners wore cotton. The color could also be telling of this: the commoners usually wore white except for on special occasions when they would wear pale pink, light green, gray, and charcoal, while the upper classes wore bright colored hanboks with beautiful embroidery. Eventually, when more people started wearing colored hanboks, bright colors were generally worn by children and girls, and muted hues by middle aged men and women. Unmarried women often wore yellow jeogori and red chima while married women wore green jeogori and red chima.

About a century ago, people use to wear hanbok everyday, but with globalization, all cultures have changed over time. For modern Koreans, hanbok is the formal clothing worn during Korean holidays or on special occasions. Children wear hanbok on their first birthday and adults wear it for their wedding ceremony or for other such major events within the family. But as cultures keep evolving, getting back in touch with traditions in our own way is also a big part of evolving. The runways at Seoul Fashion Week are constantly filled with new ideas for modernizing and incorporating hanbok in everyday clothes today. Many people have started wearing stylish hanbok modified into a suit as an everyday item of clothing, and many people also enjoy outings and taking pictures in hanbok by renting one from hanbok rental shops.

Traditional Hanbok-

Modern hanbok suit-

These past two weeks have been really rough weeks for everyone I am guessing. During spring break I was just relaxing and watching a Korean variety show called running man which I have started finding extremely entertaining, and then all of a sudden I had to put all my things in storage and fly back home within 24 hours. This has been a big shift for everyone and I wasn’t really able to find a good time to meet with Prof. Sumi Kim either. So, I was not able to learn a lot of new things these two weeks, but I did do something that I found really fun and useful. I tried to simulate random conversations in Korean in different settings with different people and see how to structure sentence and what kinds of words to use. A lot of Korean culture is based on your reputation and how you present yourself. So, with the different levels of politeness and respect and different words that convey them, it is very important to know how to communicate with different types of people, so this was a fun activity to do. It felt kind of like a matching game which also served as a great review of everything I have learned so far. These are some vague English translations of some of the hypothetical conversations that I came up with-

Conversation 1-

Setting: In a cafe alone

Waiter: Hello how are you?

Me: Hello, I’m good. How are you?

Waiter: I’m good. What can I get for you?

Me: Could I have 1 cup of oolong tea please, thank you.

Conversation 2-

Setting: Working on a group project

Older group mate 1: Which part of the project do you want to do?

Group mate 2: I think I would like to do <this>.

Me: I am pretty good with this, so I think I can work on this.

Older group mate 1: I think we should do it this way. 

Me: That sounds like a good idea. What if we also added <this> perspective?

Group mate 2: Yeah we can look into that too.

Conversation 3- 

Setting: Making plans to hangout with friends

Me: Hey guys! Do you have any plans for Thursday night?

Friend 1: No, have not come up with anything.

Me: We should do something together.

Friend 2: How about seeing the new movie that came out.

Friend 3: I was planning on checking out the new sushi place that opened downtown.

Friend 1: I already watched that movie and it wasn’t that great. I do like sushi though.

Friend 2: Let’s get sushi then.

Me: Sounds good what time should we meet?

Friend 3: How about 6pm?

Everyone: *agree*

Conversation 4-

Setting: Job interview

Me: Good afternoon, sir. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.

Interviewer: It is good to have you. Why do you want this position?

Me: *praises the company and the interviewer and mentioned how I want to be a part of it*

Along with having fun with all these conversations and getting a few good laughs out of them too, another thing that made me really happy was an email I wrote to Prof. Kim Sumi. I asked how she has been, told her how I have been, and also mentioned a few good times to schedule a call. The part that made me super happy was that the entire email was only in Korean. I was really glad to see myself using the material that we covered about dates, days, and time.

At the beginning of every class, Prof. Sumi Kim always asks us a bunch of questions such as ‘how have you been’, ‘what did you do yesterday’, ‘what did you do last week’, ‘what day is it today’, ‘what are your plans for this week’, et cetera. All the questions that she ask always draw on the materials that we covered in the previous classes and make me work on giving proper responses. At first I wasn’t very good at it, but after she did this for a few classes, I actually got a pretty good sense of how to structure the responses. Plus, I find these questions especially helpful because they make sure that I’m using words related to the activities that I’m often participating in which really helps me remember the vocabulary that I am most likely to use and betters my conversational Korean. Words and phrases like ‘study’, ‘sleep’, ‘dorm’, ‘project’, ‘meeting friends’, ‘dancing’, et cetera. are well registered in my head because of the consistent repetition. I can clearly see that the conversations that I have with my friends for practice have been getting a lot better thanks to a better vocabulary suited to my needs which I’ve developed because of Prof. Sumi Kim and the K-drama Cheese in the Trap.

In class these past two week we started learning Korean adjectives like good, bad, big, small, et cetera and the appropriate particles to be used with them along with new vocabulary . We also learned that based on what noun you are counting, the counting unit used can vary. I mean that saying 5 people, and saying 5 books is basically the same in English but in Korean after you say the number you attach a ‘counting unit’ to it and then mention the object, and the counting unit varies from object to object. This is an extremely new concept to me, and honestly it is a little hard to remember which counting unit relates to which noun, but Prof. Sumi Kim asked us a lot of questions to help us get used to using the correct counting unit. It is still hard to remember all of them because there are so many, so I am going to focus on the ones that are more commonly used like the one for cup/glass/bottle, the one for people, the one for book, et cetera.

So far I think my language learning journey is going pretty well and I am able to grasp things faster than when I first started, and though there always seem to be new things that seem really hard, we have been able to learn them. I am definitely retaining information much better too because of the new approach that Prof. Sumi Kim came up with which involves asking and answering a lot of questions. Plus, I think laying the groundwork was the toughest part, but adding to it has been getting better and better as I keep learning new things. I am still trying to figure out a good way to practice my pronunciations and speaking more.

In the past two weeks we first learned about words for different professions, and how to say what we are aiming to become, and to express this to out peers we learned how to ask for someone’s major and how to tell them our own. I’m currently planning on becoming a computer scientist (컴퓨터 과학자). 전 컴퓨터 과학을 전공하고 있습니다 (I am majoring in computer science). Then, we learned about how to say what the date is. 김수미 교수님 (Prof. Sumi Kim) helped us practice this by asking us what the current day’s date is, what the past day’s date was, what tomorrow’s date would be, and when our birthday is. Along with the saying the date, we also learned how to say which day of the week it is: 월요일 (Monday), 화요일 (Tuesday), 수요일 (Wednesday), 목요일 (Thursday), 금요일 (Friday), 토요일 (Saturday), and also how to say this week (이번 주), last week (지난주), and next week (다음주) which is really useful in my everyday conversations with friends about projects (계획) or exams (시험). 김수미 교수님 (Prof. Sumi Kim) helped us practice these by asking us what we did the previous week, or what our plans are for this week or the next. Almost every time Prof. Kim asked us any question about what we did the previous day, or the past week, or over the weekend, my answer was always 춤 (dance). This was because I spent a lot of time practicing dance for Block Crew. This actually helped my language learning because a lot of my friends in Block Crew speak Korean, so whenever they spoke to each other I could practice my listening skill, started picking up new vocabulary, and even spoke a bit of Korean whenever I could. For example, whenever we’re learning new steps, someone would repeat the step and ask the person teaching “이처럼?” which means “like this?” Other times when someone dances really well someone would say “대박” which can be used to express that something was really good. And in general I got more used to saying and listening to the words 뭐 (what), 언제 (when), 어디 (where), 왜 (why), 어떻게 (how) to the level where they started popping up in my head naturally when I think of saying any of those words to anyone. So, sometimes when my friends call my name I respond with “뭐?” (what?) or “네?” (yeah?). Some of the credit for this habit of mine goes to the k-drama Cheese in the Trap. I’ve been learning a lot of useful words and phrases and getting a good idea of how interactions in colleges in Korea look through this k-drama. I’m currently working on accumulating a list of words and phrases that were used in the show which I thought were really useful. 

One of the best parts of these two weeks was a moment when I received a V Live notification (picture attached at the end) on my phone which said that 방탄 소년단 (BTS) is holding a live stream because it was Suga’s birthday. I picked up my phone to see the notification, saw that it meant “Surprise Live! BTS: Min Suga’s birthday was 2 days ago,” and I put my phone down. It was only after a second that I realised that the notification was in Korean, and I was able to read it comfortably and understand what it said without a second thought. Objectively, this isn’t extremely big because there weren’t any diphthongs in the words which would make it harder for me to read it, and there wasn’t any complicated vocabulary used, but to me it definitely served as a testament to the progress that I have made in my language learning journey.

Note: V Live is a South Korean live video streaming service that allows celebrities based in the country to broadcast live videos on the internet and live chat with fans.

Amber Liu is a singer, rapper, and songwriter. She initially started her music career as a member of a female Koren pop (K-pop) group named f(x). She stayed with f(x) for 10 years and over those year she occasionally released multiple singles and she finally decided to end her contract with SM entertainment and leave f(x) to become her own brand which started with her releasing album X in 2020. Amber released a music video for her song Other People in which she gives an official update to the world about her current boyfriend by including a scene in which she is kissing him in the video. I found this very interesting.

In general, a lot of musicians have scenes of them being intimate with other people and it’s considered completely normal and as something that was done for the video just like how professional actors will be intimate with their co-stars for the scenes in a movie. When I first saw the music video this is exactly what I thought. I didn’t think of it as Amber officially declaring that she is seeing someone. I only realised that this was her intention when I saw a video on her youtube channel which has her friends reacting to the kiss scene in her music video. In the video all her friends, a lot of whom have Korean background, have really intense reactions that really surprised me. It was very clear that this scene in her music video was a very big deal. All of this got me thinking about the differences in our ideologies and about the dating culture in Korea.

From what I read, dating is a huge thing in Korean culture. The work culture in Korea is very intense and people barely get any free time, so there’s not much time for people to spend with their significant other(s). However, to make up for this, people in relationships show their affection for each other by constantly staying in touch through social media not by sending any long texts but by sending simple good morning/afternoon/evening/night texts and sending cute emoticons to each other. There are also multiple milestones and holidays that couple celebrate to make sure that they’re spending time together. Unlike American culture where couples celebrate Valentine’s day and their anniversary, in Korea, couples celebrate their first month, second month, 100th day, 200th day etc. and there are also small holidays almost every month meant to be spent with their significant other(s)–holidays like, White Day (March 14th), Rose Day (May 14th), Yellow Day, Kiss Day (June 14th), Silver Day (July 14th), Wine Day (October 14th), Hug/Sock Day (December 14th). Couple also show their affection for one another by wearing couple themed clothes or matching clothes to tell the world that they’re together. Publicly showing that a couple is together is a huge thing in Korea. This is also why people in relationships upload a lot of pictures with their partner(s) onto social media to show their affection for each other on social media. While publicly showcasing your relationship is a big thing in Korean culture, funnily enough, beyond holding hand, public display of affection is a big no in Korea. Kissing or lingering hugs are though of as things that should be shared with your partner(s) in a private setting and are considered extremely inappropriate in public. After learning about all this, it makes sense why Amber releasing a music video in which she is kissing her partner is a big deal for her and her friends.

Side note: I got to go to Amber’s concert last week and I got to meet her and it was absolutely phenomenal–both her and her performance (attached ticket and picture with Amber)!

As I mentioned earlier, I really want to get better at conversational Korean. My biggest challenge with improving my conversational skills in Korean is that I am too nervous to speak in improper Korean with other people. This goes to the extent that sometimes when I am having a conversation with someone in Korean, if I’m trying to say a word whose pronunciation I am not too sure about, I just say it really fast in the hopes that the other people will just get what I am trying to say. I realised that this does more harm than good. Knowing when saying each unit of the word clearly and more distinctly is more important than clubbing the various units together, and when not letting each unit sound too distinct and let them flow into each other is very important to how other people hear and understand what you’re trying to say. It is as Brenda mentioned, saying “안녕하세요” as “an-nyeong- ha-se-yeo” is better than clubbing these units together and saying “안녕하세요” as “anyonghasaeyo” or anything else that isn’t exactly how it is supposed to be pronounced; while, on the other hand, saying “ 잘했어” as “jal-haesseo” by letting ‘했’ and ’어’ flow together is more appropriate than saying “잘했어” as “jal-haed-sau” by showing clear distinction between the different units of the word.

So far, the way I have recorded what I learned was predominantly in written Korean. However, because the words do not always sound the way they are written and nuances in how it is pronounced are important. I recently realised that this is counter productive to learning how to speak Korean well. So, from now on, I am going to start documenting what I learn in ways that aren’t just writing; for example, by using audio recordings. This way, when I am doubtful about how a word should be pronounced, I can listen to audio files which would help me out a lot in practicing speaking and listening. 

Lately to practice pronunciations, I have been trying to memorise various Korean song lyrics and their meaning, and I have been trying to sing along with the artist at a slower speed. This has been extremely fun to do and immensely helpful, because it lets me practice listening and reading when I’m trying to hear and memorise the lyrics, it helps me expand my vocabulary by learning new words and their different tenses from the lyrics, it helps me get more comfortable with speaking because singing helps me get more comfortable with making the sounds that are used in the Korean language. I sometimes even record myself to see how I sound. Even small changes in how a word in the lyrics of a song is pronounced can effect the rhythm of the song. So, when I’m listening to my recordings, it’s easy to recognise when my pronunciations are a little off from what they should be.

Another thing I’ve recently started doing to better my conversational skills is watching a K-drama called Cheese in the Trap. It’s set in a college environment so I think that for my current situation, as a college student, I can get more out of this than other K-dramas. The last K-drama I watched (Boys Over Flowers) also helped me learn a lot fo new vocabulary and see various interactions but it was a high-school setting so it wasn’t as apt as this one. I’ll evaluate how watching this effects my language learning journey after I make significant progress in the show.

(Spoiler Alert for the Korean movie Parasite) 

Over break I saw the recently released Korean horror  movie 기생충 (Parasite) directed by 봉준호 (Bong Joon-Ho) an internationally acclaimed director. It was a really interesting movie which focused on two families: one rich and one poor. It focuses on the huge difference in their lifestyle and thought processes, and shows how the poor family slowly starts feeding off of the rich family just like a helminth (a parasitic worm). The two big themes explored in the film are freedom and the fact that at the end of the day, all we have to fear is just other humans. I personally think that the movie is more of a thriller than horror. 

From the trailer and a clip of 기생충 (Parasite), Prof. Kim collected a few words from 기생충 (Parasite) that we can learn to expand our vocabulary. I’ve added list of the words at the end of this post. I personally like this method a lot because I have seen the scenes in which the words are used so I have a good understanding of the context. Also, I’m a visual learner, so being able to connect a word and its meaning to a scene in the movie which I can visualise in my head makes it a lot easier for me to learn and remember new words. 

Word List:

1. 공짜 (free) (N)
2. 와이파이 (WiFi) (N)
3. 부모님 (parents) (N)
4. 대학생 (college) (N)
5. 미대 (art college) (N)
6. 위조/ 범죄 (forgery/ crime) (N)
7. 부자 (rich people) (N)
8. 사모님 (madam) (N)
9. 예술가 (artist) (N)
10. 자화상 (self-portrait) (N)
11. 역시 (really) (Adverb)
12. 미술 선생님 (art teacher)  (N)
13. 잠깐 (stop for a moment/ wait)  (V)
14. 과선배 (senior in same field)  (N)
15. 착하다 (affable) (V/A)
16. 반지하 (half basement)  (N)
17. 암호 (secret number/ PIN/ password)  (N)
18. 누르다 (press) (V)
19. 핸드폰 (cellphone)  (N)
20. 구석구석 (every corner)  (N)

These first two weeks I mainly spent my time revising everything that I learned last semester. I didn’t go over any Korean over winter break and one month is a long enough time to forget everything that you learn. Unsurprisingly enough, the things that I initially found difficult to learn were still difficult to relearn. Big ideas that I revised were:

• The Sino-Korean numbers and Korean numbers.
• Changing a verb from present to past tense. 
• If we take a verb in its standard form and either add suffix -아요 to it if it ends with vowels ㅗ or ㅏ, or add suffix -어요 to it if it doesn’t end with these vowels, it results in a conjugation of the verb that can be used in polite informal speech.
• If we take a verb in its standard form and either add suffix -습니다 to it if it ends in a vowel, or add suffix -읍니다 to it if it ends in a consonant, it results in a conjugation of the verb that can be used in polite formal speech to formally declare the topic of the sentence to the listener.
• If we take a verb in its standard form and either add infix - 으시- it if it ends in a vowel, or add infix -시- to it if it ends in a consonant, it results in a conjugation of the verb that can be used in polite formal speech to place emphasis respect for the subject of the sentence.
• -은 and -는 are topic marking particles used with words ending with a final consonant and words ending with a vowel respectively, and -이 and -가 are subject marking particles used with words ending with a final consonant and words ending with a vowel respectively.
• A LOT of vocabulary including vocabulary for relatives, polite vocabulary, and more vocabulary from Korean songs, movies, dramas.
• Sentences that can be used by college students 
• 뭐 (what), 언제 (when), 어디 (where), 왜 (why), 누구 (who), 어떻게 (how)

Revising all of this was good to get me used to Korean again and get me up to speed with my reading and writing skills. However, I do think that I didn’t practice speaking as much as I would’ve liked. I didn’t do it much at all actually. This semester I’m going to prioritize speaking Korean more and learning more conversational Korean alongside grammar, and writing. I’ll make better use of resources like iTalki to practice talking to people. I’ll also try to record more video of myself speaking Korean every week/ every other week to make sure that I’m actually practicing speaking Korean. 

My overall goals for this semester are to become more comfortable speaking Korean, learn more conversational Korean alongside formal Korean learning, and dive deeper into Korean culture. 

I looked into festivities in South Korea. There are many traditional festivals celebrated in Korea which have large cultural roots and are tied to agriculture and harvest season. When I was reading about the festivals, it was really fun to read about the different traditions that people cary out, but the thing that fascinated me most was the important role that food played in these festivals. Along with certain traditional acts associated with the festival and its meaning, most of these festivals have a certain dish or drink that is consumed during the festival. Here is a list of Korean traditional festivals accompanied by their significance, what people do, and what people eat and drink:

• 설날 (seolnal) - This is the Lunar New Year. It is one of the biggest holidays in Korea. People wear 한복 (Korean traditional clothing), and demonstrate their respect for their elders through 세배 (a new year’s bow) and their deceased ancestor by performing 차례 (an ancestral ritual).
• 정월 대보름 (jeong-wol daeboleum) - This is a day to celebrate the first full moon of the new year. This is also a day when farmers prep their fields using fire and charcoal to do away with whatever is there and fertilize the ground for the year’s farming. They traditionally do this by playing 쥐불놀이 (jwibulnori). Other people (non-farmers) go up a mountain and make their wishes to the moon. People drink an alcoholic beverage named 귀밝이술 which is known to brighten their ears and make good things happen during the year.
• 머슴날 (meoseumnal) - This is a festival for servants. The masters allow their servants to celebrate the day by having extra foos, singing, and dancing. This was invented to encourage the servants to work better on the year’s farming. The servants usually had 송편 (traditional rice cake).
• 영등제 (yongdeungje) - This is the Wind God festival. People usually prepare a special meal with 섬밥 (special rice) and pray to 영등 for an abundant harvest for the year.
• 삼짇날 (samjinnal) - This is a festival to celebrate the coming of Spring. People eat 화전 (rice pancakes with flower toppings) and 국수 (noodles), and drink 두견주 (azalea petal wine).
• 한식 (hansik) - This is a festival that notifies the start of the farming season. People perform 제사 an ancestral ritual, and eat 쑥떡 (mugwort cake), 쑥단자 (mugwort dumplings), and 쑥탕 (mugwort soup).
• 초파일 (chopail) - This is a festival to celebrate the birthday of Shakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism. People celebrate by making and hanging lanterns. They eat a variety of 떡 (rice cakes), 만두 (dumplings), and special dishes made from fish. 
• 단오 (dano) - This is a festival in celebration of spring and farming. People play folk games like 씨름. They eat a variety of 떡 (rice cakes) and herb cakes. 
• 유두 (yudu) - This is a festival celebrated in hopes of getting rid of ghosts and bad spirits. People perform rituals to the farming god with newly harvested fruits hoping for a fruitful harvest. People also eat 국수 (noodles) as it is believed that this leads to them living a prosperous and long life.
• 삼복 (sambok) - This is the hottest day of the year.  In order to get through the hottest day of the year, people eat 삼계탕 (a dish made with chicken and 인삼). 
• 칠석 (chilseok) - This is a festival for women’s weaving activities. They pay their respects to 직녀, a talented weaver in Korean folklore, in hopes of weaving better. People eat 밀전병 (wheat pancakes) and 밀국수 (wheat noodles).
• 백중 (chuseok) - This is Korean Thanksgiving. People play lots of games like 씨름, and perform rituals like 차례 for their ancestors. They eat traditional foods like 송편 (traditional rice cake), 토란탕 (taro soup), and 소주 (liquor made from newly harvested fruits and vegetables).
• 중양절 (jungyangjeol) - This is a festival to enjoy autumn. People enjoy the 단풍놀이 (autumn leaves) while eating 국화전 (chrysanthemum pancakes) and 어란 (roe), and drinking 유자청 (honey citron tea).
• 동지 (dongji) - This is a day with the longest night and shortest day. This day marks the beginning of spring. People eat 팥죽 (porridge made of red beans) which is believed to ward off evil spirits. 
• 섣달그믐 (seotdalgeumeum) - This is to celebrate the last day of the year and drive away evils spirits to welcome a prosperous new year. Most of the day is spent in preparation for 설날 (the new year).

As I progressed through this semester, I learned a lot. The freedom to learn Korean in whatever way I saw most fitting gave me a lot of room for experimentation. After a lot of experimentation I’ve really grown as a language learner and cultural explorer, and have been able to identify what works best for me. 

One thing that I learned was that I’m usually very excited to learn about the music, dance, food, and games of a culture. This is why I really love playing the 뽀숑 game in class to learn the Sino Korean numbers. I also loved learning a Korean traditional dance that goes with 아리랑 (Arirang, a Korean traditional folk song). I find it very easy to learn new words and expand my vocabulary by listening to K-pop. Also, learning about Korean food was extremely fun and I was even able to make 비빔밥. 

Another big thing that I understood is that I learn best when I’m learning directly from another person who is present by my side, and I retain information best when I’m able to use what I learned to interact with someone by my side. So, having someone as approachable as Professor Sumi Kim teach me Korean and knowing that she will answer any of my questions to the best of her ability without any judgement really helped. Also, at the start of every class she would ask us how we had been and what we had done during the week, and we had to try to use what we had previously covered in class to figure out what she was asking and reply appropriately in Korean. This simple activity at the beginning of every class really helped with my vocabulary retention. I also observed that I would be most enthusiastic about learning something that I can put into use immediately. This was because every time I learned something I could immediately use it with my friends, my friends would praise me, and then I’d want to go and learn more, and come back and impress them more. While this was really motivating, it sometimes drew my attention away from learning the fundamentals of the Korean language like particles or grammar. This would be fine if I solely intended to learn conversational Korean, but a part of the reason why I’m learning Korean is so that I can lay the path for possibly having a job in Korea in the future. So, just learning sentences that I can use with my friends is not enough. I need to be able to have formal interactions with professionals and that would most likely require a good understanding of grammar. Therefore, while receiving instant gratification was amazing, moving forward I need to reorient myself towards my career goal and keep learning Korean with it in mind.

Reflecting on my language learning journey so far, I still feel like I struggle with strategic competence in Korean. I personally think that developing strategic competence very important for one to be able to comfortably and effectively communicate in a language. Every time I don’t know the specific word for something, I get stuck and become unable to form a sentence instead of trying to find other words within the range of my current vocabulary that can be used to communicate the same idea. Therefore, going forward in my Korean language learning journey, I will develop a plan with a good balance of goals that are dedicated to furthering my strategic competence, satisfy my willingness to immediately communicate with my friends, and properly prepare me for possibly having a career in Korean.

All in all, I’ve come a long way since I first started learning Korean and I really loved learning. I hope that I’ll be able to continue making a lot of progress towards achieving my goals.

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In class we learned about a very important and confusing part of Korean grammar: particles. In the English language, just the sentence structure and the rules of agreement alone are enough to help one understand what the subject, object, and verb of a sentence are. In Korean, particles are added to the end of words to emphasize what the subject of the sentence is and what the topic of the sentence is.

We learned that -은 and -는 are topic marking particles used with words ending with a final consonant and words ending with a vowel respectively, and that -이 and -가 are subject marking particles used with words ending with a final consonant and words ending with a vowel respectively. In the moment, this was a pretty simple idea that I could easily wrap my head around. Little did I know that it was going to get extremely complicated in just a few moments. Other than simply being used to mark the subject and the topic of a sentence,  -은/는 and -이/가, when used in a sentence by themselves and not as a pair, have very subtly different meanings that Professor Sumi Kim told us even advanced Korean language learners struggle with. So obviously we struggled with understanding the nuances. 

I did, however, really like the way Professor Sum Kim approached the concept. She first let us create our own scenarios and ask her various questions related to the scenario and its contextual clues. Then she replied using the appropriate particle and she explained why she chose that particle. So, by examining the situation and the implications of using a certain particle, I was able to slowly start understanding what situation each particle suits. After an hour (or more) of going through about a dozen different scenarios and way too many questions, I think I somewhat finally understood the subtle difference between using -은/는 and -이/가.

I think it is that -이/가 is used when you want to emphasize uniqueness in a specific thing, and -은/는 is used when you want to say something about a specific thing. For example, assume someone comes up to you with a couple of books and ask you which one you think is good. If you point to a book and say:

이 책이 좋아요, it means that there is no other book as good as this one, and

이 책은 좋아요, it means that I know for sure that this is a good book, but I don’t know about the others.

Another example, assume someone asked you what devices were present in a room that you entered, you’d say 컴퓨터가 있다 if there was a computer present in the room, and if someone asked you whether there was a scanner present in the room, you’d say 컴퓨터는 있다 if you only saw a computer but didn’t see a scanner.

I’m still not sure if this is the full depth of usage of these particles. Honestly, I’m not even sure about whether what I say above is accurate or whether I’m possibly completely off-base here, but after a lot of hard work this is what I gathered. I hope that as I keep learning more and more Korean and reaching more advanced levels which dive deeper into Korean grammar, I’ll be able to fully understand the concept of particles and their usage, and be confident about it.

 한류 (Hanryu) i.e. The Korean Wave refers to the increase in global popularity of the South Korean culture. This phenomenon first started with spread of interest in Korean pop culture (K-pop), Korean dramas (K-dramas), and Korean reality shows and is currently peaking due to the Korean beauty (K-beauty) industry. People all around the world are purchasing and using K-beauty products, and are inculcating K-beauty regimens into their everyday lives. The K-beauty industry is very well known for their wide variety of products for literally anything you can think of, and is also very well know for their long beauty regimens which involve at least 10 steps and take at least 2 hrs to complete. Why is the K-beauty industry so extensive? The answer to this question lies within the Korean beauty standards. Out of everything that South Korea is known for, it is most infamous for its beauty standards. “I am a Korean American and if there’s anything about Korean culture that I am most familiar with, it’s the beauty standard,” wrote Karin Cho in her Medium article about South Korean beauty standards.

In South Korea, looking put-together is highly prioritised, and for women in South Korea, ‘looking put together’ means having pale flawless youthful skin,  double eyelids, large eyes, straight eyebrows, a slim pointed nose, a sharp v-shape jawline, perfectly aligned white teeth, a small face, long hair, a thin waist, wide pelvis, skinny legs and arms, and more. A year ago in November of 2018, a branch of the coffee shop franchise Yogerpresso fired a woman on her first day after she showed up with short hair and no makeup. This is the beauty standard that women in South Korea are held to at all times, and in a conformist and patriarchal society like South Korea, it’s hard to live without giving into them. It is also hard to live up to these ridiculously high standards for beauty so many Korean women resort to undergoing risky and expensive cosmetic surgeries and using beauty products that can supposedly help them attain these standards. 

South Korean has the highest rate of plastic surgeries per capita in the world. One in three South Korean women have undergone some sort of cosmetic surgery between the ages of 19 and 29. The most popular cosmetic surgery is a blepharoplasty, or double-eyelid surgery, where they insert a crease in the eyelid to make the eye look bigger and to make a monolid look like a double eyelid. The two other popular procedure are rhinoplasty, where they modify the nasal cartilage and bones to make the nose look more appealing (in this case “appealing” means slimmer and pointed), and glutathione injections, which slows pigmentation in the skin, thus giving a fairer skin tone. These surgeries, like any other surgeries, are expensive. So, the K-beauty industry–which is dedicated to providing all women with everything they need to look the way they’re expected to–have come up with a wide variety of products to be used by women who cannot afford cosmetic surgeries. These products include, but are not limited to, double eyelid tape that helps create the illusion of a crease in the eyelid, V-line masks that promise to slim puffy cheeks or angular jawlines, hair markers created to hide high hairlines and widow’s peaks, body tints for rouging ashy knees, elbows, and nipples, and DIY home facelifts that come in small vials of serum containing micro needles. Although the motivation behind the extensiveness of K-beauty products is deeply rooted in painfully high standards of beauty set for South Korean women, the quality and effectiveness of these products is irrefutable, and hence K-beauty has been such a big hit worldwide. 

This time I learned a lot! I mainly worked on expanding my vocabulary so I learned important verbs that should be used in formal settings, some words from the song love scenario by ikon, a lot of basic verbs, important words for expressing the relationship between me and another person, and the native Korean number system and when to use it instead of the Sino Korean number system. There are too many Korean words for me to type out so I attached scans below.

This time we focussed on understanding the Korean honorifics system. 

I learned that if we take a verb in its standard form and either add suffix -아요 to it if it ends with vowels ㅗ or ㅏ, or add suffix -어요 to it if it doesn’t end with these vowels, it results in a conjugation of the verb that can be used in polite informal speech. For example, the verb 보다 (bhoda, meaning to see) would be 보다 + -아요 = 봐요 in informal polite speech. 

If we take a verb in its standard form and either add suffix -습니다 to it if it ends in a vowel, or add suffix -읍니다 to it if it ends in a consonant, it results in a conjugation of the verb that can be used in polite formal speech to formally declare the topic of the sentence to the listener. For example, the verb 보다 would become 보다 + -습니다 = 보십니다. 

If we take a verb in its standard form and either add infix - 으시- it if it ends in a vowel, or add infix -시- to it if it ends in a consonant, it results in a conjugation of the verb that can be used in polite formal speech to emphasize on respect for the subject of the sentence. For example, the verb 보다 would become 보다 + -시- = 보시다.

If we take a verb in its standard form and add various combinations of the above endings to it to form another conjugation, it can increase the degree of respect and/or politeness implied by using that conjugation in speech. For example, the verb 보다 can become 보다 + -시- + 어요 = 보세요 which implies a higher degree of respect than 봐요 and 보시다. 

I also learned that if I want to refer to someone respectfully then I can either add the prefix 씨- or add the suffix -님. 

Korea has a very complicated honorifics system. This system has a lot of different terms for addressing someone respectfully, and there also exist multi-tiered speech levels which communicate different degrees of respect. This was relatively a little easier for me to wrap my head around because both Telugu and Hindi have honorific systems similar to that of Korean; however, Korean’s honorifics system is a lot broader so learning it and remembering it is much tougher. I am aware that it is extremely important to learn this though because in Korean culture there is a clear hierarchy where people older than oneself, people holding a higher social rank than oneself, and people working in more reputable professions than oneself are clearly meant to be held in higher honor than oneself. This hierarchy is held in very high regard and it is frowned upon when people don’t follow it while interacting with others. Hence, to make sure that I fully embrace Korean culture and definitely do not offend anyone I will dedicate my time and energy to learning this.

Just for fun: I watch a lot of BTS videos so when we started talking about honorifics in class I remembered a scene (shots included below) from one of their videos when one of the members addresses one of the older members without using honorifics.

Korea has a very complicated honorifics system. In the English language, if you want to show respect to the person you’re interacting with or to the person you’re referring to in your sentence, you’d show respect by adding a Ms./Mr./Dr. or sir/madam before their name, or you’d refer to them by using their full name. This is probably the most complicated that the English honorifics system can get. However, in Korean culture people never really use full names while conversing, instead the Korean language has a complicated honorifics system. This system not only a lot of different terms for addressing someone respectfully, but there also exist multi-tiered speech levels which communicate different degrees of respect; for example different conjugations of a verb can imply different levels of respect.The thing that further complicates this is that in Korean culture there is a clear hierarchy where people older than oneself, people holding a higher social rank than oneself, and people working in more reputable professions than oneself are clearly meant to be held in higher honor than oneself. This hierarchy is held in very high regard and it is frowned upon when people don’t follow it while interacting with others. This is the reason why when people who are unfamiliar with the Korean culture want to learn Korean, they should learn the conjugations of words that imply high respect and politeness in order to make sure that they don’t offend anyone who embraces the Korean culture.

If I were to simplify the Korean honorifics system, I’d say that it has three main levels informal, standard, and formal. These can further be divided into multiple levels of respect and politeness, but this is the big umbrella. The formal is to show respect, the standard is for everyday speech, and the informal is for close relationships. For example, a student would talk to their upperclassman using formal speech because the upperclassman is older and more knowledgeable than the student; a person would talk to their classmates using standard speech; a daughter could talk to her mother using informal speech because even though the mother is older and definitely held with higher regard than the daughter, they probably share a close relationship so they can use informal speech with each other. This helps people who aren’t familiar with the Korean culture get a good broader picture of the situation. For me, understanding the Korean honorifics system was pretty simple because both Telugu and Hindi (Telugu more so than Hindi) also have similar honorifics systems where different terms can be used for addressing people politely and imply higher regard and different conjugations of verbs can imply different levels of politeness and respect. However, unlike Korean which has multi-tiered levels of speech, Telugu only has three main ones. Here’s an example that offers a glimpse into the levels of speech in Korean:

The standard form of a verb meaning ‘to see’ is 보다 and the words given below are all conjugations of the same word but they’re in ascending order of formality and politeness.

봐요, 보다, 보시다, 보세요, 보십니다

The words above don’t include many conjugations for informal speech (like the one used between close friends) because for a beginner, such as myself, Prof. Sumi Kim made sure to focus on formal speech. Yet there’s already 3 levels of formal speech which can give you an idea of how complicated the Korean honorifics system can get.