During this semester, learning Korean brought me a lot of interesting and meaningful activities on both language learning and culture development, and it still has a long way to go. My learning process with Alvin went well. Combining the thing I learned last semester and this semester, I can have a 5 minutes conversation with Korean in easy and simple sentence. For speaking, it is not a problem for me, but reading and writing is still my stumbling blocks. Putting different Hangul can get different characters and meanings. I am still trying to remember this different combination, because it is the foundation for me to read and write Korean character. By the end of this semester, I almost have done the tasks on my learning plan. For color and Country topic, I only learned some vocabularies. When I want to use these vocabularies, it is still difficult for me to make sentence. There are still unknown words and complicated grammar.

After this semester, I plan to keep learning Korean. In this winter break, my family in Beijing is going to host an exchange student from Korea, and she will live in my house for a month. She will go to Peking University for learning Chinese culture. It is a good chance for me to talk with her and have more deep cultural development. 

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We learned how to say “hello”-“안녕하세요 annyeonghaseo” and “good bye annyeong” as the beginning of teaching. I also taught her how to make a brief self-introduction and something about shopping, because she wants to travel in Korea one day. Except language learning, we talked a lot about the cultural aspects, such as individualism and collectivism, Korean movies, Korean hip-pop culture and Korean economy. Teaching language to someone is different experience that I never experienced before. I need to figure out how to make my pronunciation correctly. This teaching activity is really effective, because now I can have a small conversation with my roommates about shopping and greeting.  

culturalproject-ceciliasun.pptx

After exploring the collectivism in Korea, it triggers me to explore more about the difference between individualism and collectivism. They are just two different ways of organizing society. Individualism holds that individual people are the most important thing. Collectivism holds that group is more important. Each organizing type has its own advantage:

Individualism:

• Respecting individuals right and allow people to truly be themselves.
• People are free to do what they want to do and who they are. Change can happen and society can improve.
• Producing more diverse and interesting society.

Collectivism:

• Less likely to leave people behind.
• Reduce selfishness.
• Connected each individual with society.

111 Can-do statements

My Can-Do Statement:

I can ask direction, understand how to say left, right and go straight. List at least 10 country names, several city names.

I can talk about weather.

I can list at least ten job names.

I can speak at least ten colors and different clothing. I can ask how much a cloth costs.

I can read simple Hangul

I can write simple Korean characters

In South Korea, people stress on member of group concept. Loyalty supreme and over-rides most other social rules and regulations. People there consider group success is more important and priority then individual success. The whole contry is a big group and even big families. Through communication with Korean students on campus, younger students call elder students as elder sister누나 or elder brother오빠, even they do not have blood relationship. This phenomenon is more common in South Korea, the young will call man uncle삼촌 who is like their father’s age. In western hemisphere, people will just call Mr. XX or Mrs. XX instead of uncle and aunt. When a foreigner visit in Korea, it is common that a big family with a focus on the extended family or extended relationships. Because they consider them as a big family, so the society fosters strong relationships where everyone takes responsibility for fellow members of their group. Communication is indirect, because they want to leave the idea to the listener to fill in the blanks and make out the meaning by correctly reading the contextual clues. 

During this semester, exploring Korean culture from academic journal, news and talking with students coming from Korea is a really interesting culture aspect. The Korean culture places a lot of value on interdependence. In contrast to individualistic cultures of the Western hemisphere, Koreans develop a sense of identity through relationships and tend to identify strongly with their in-group. They prefer to immerse themselves in the in-group’s activities; however, it seems that these collectivistic tendencies shift towards individualism when Koreans receive more education that is beyond high school.

Talking about collectivism, firstly people refer to people or things as ‘our’. Usually Korean will say our house, our friend, our food, etc. As we known, we get used to refer to my house, my friend in us. A major community item is food. When you went into a restaurant in Korea or ordered a Korean meal, a lot of times you will not able to order a meal for one person, but for four or five people minimum. Because of collectivism in Korea, it is not usual for Koreans to eat, drink, or live alone, they all eat collectively and together. Each person does not have their own dish and plates; all dishes are put in the middle of the table and shared together. Korean culture is about sharing and give and take.

Secondly, I realized that Koreans have little or no personal space. When I watched Korean drama or Korean movies, people in public spaces have bumped into them or cut in front of them in line without saying sorry. In American or western cultures when we bump into someone or need to closely pass the crowded, we may say ‘excuse me’ or ‘I am sorry’ to the passerby. 

Jobs

Learn how to ask what they do, where they work at, how do they like their jobs. I will learn at least ten job names. Learn what I would like to do, and where I would like to work at.

Useful Vocabularies:

Teacher: son sang nim仓桑尼

Police: kyung 菜

Cook: yo ri sa

Cashier: kae si e

Banker: bang ke

Accountant: hwae gae sa

Driver: when jeon sa文综擦

Manager: ma ni je

Doctor: e-yi sa 饿一撒

Lawyer: byun ho sa  piaoong hu sa

Job: jik up, jik jang

What is your job? Jik up (yi) mo yae yo? （qik up）

Where do you work? Jik up (yi) e di yae yo?

How to you like your jobs? Jik up cou a ha sae yo?

Jo nen jik up Cou ha (hey) yo-- I like my job

Weather

 How is the weather like today?

날씨가 어때요?

어때요: how is?: eo ddae yo

날씨: weather :Nal ssi

Nal ssi ga eo ddae yo? 那了细噶哦得哟

It is…………….

오늘 날씨는 …………..

o nuel（today） nal ssi nen…….. 哦嫩 那了细嫩＋…

sunny: 화창해요 hwa chang hae yo

rainy: 비 내려요 pi nae leo yo 皮内累哦哟

rain: 비  皮

pouring: 내려요  内李哦哟

windy: 바람 불어요. Ba lam bull eo yo.  怕狼普咯哟

바람: wind  怕狼

불어요: blow: chui

Foggy: cloudy are the same in Korean

흐려요 (he) leo yo.

Snowing

눈: snow: noon

feelings:

sad: 슬퍼요 suel po yo

happy: 행복해요 hang bok hae yo   hing

annoyed: 짜증나요 cha jeung na yo  炸京那哟

mad(angry): 화나요 hwa na yo  花那哟

Salesperson: What can I help you?

Mu et eul, do wa ,tu lil gga yo.

Customer: I want to buy --------

Jeo nen, blah blah sa go sip po yo.

S: What color do you want?

Mu sen (color) sae ggal won ha sae yo?

C: I want a white blah blah

Jeo nen ha yan saek T shirt won hae yo.

S: What is your size?

Size: size ga, e ddeo kae ,dwae sae yo?

C: I want a small size.

Jeo nen small size won hae yo. (medium, larji)

  Where is the fitting room?

(fitting room) pi ting room eo di yae yo.

S: It’s right there.

pa lu cou gi yae yo.

How do you like it?

(Yi ge) e ddae yo?

C: Good: jo a yo

( Or Bad: an jo a yo)

 How much is it?

(yi go) eul ma yae yo?

 Is there any discount?   (Discount: hal in)哈林

Hal in hae yo?

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My roommate also feels interest in Korean culture, and she wants to learn Korean, which gives me a chance to teach her some of what I learned from my learning partner. My two learning partners, Sun Yoon and Alvin Yang, are really responsible. They taught me in a structured, detailed and organized way. I come up with some learning plans and activities that I am going to teach my roommate. I divided this learning activities into three parts, preparedness, learning and appliance.

1)    Preparedness: My roommate and I like watching Korean movies, so I am going to find my favorite Korean movie for watching together with her. Interest is the motivation for learning something, and I have great amount of background knowledge about culture and language. When we watch the Korean movies, I can explain cultural aspect and easy sentence to her.

2)    Learning: I will ask her what topics she wants to learn, such as greeting, food or hobbies. And then I list at least 10 basic vocabularies and useful sentences. Using flashcard to help her memorize vocabularies.

3)    Appliance: We plan to go to Korean restaurant. In my opinion, when people get involved in environment with Korean culture, it will be easier to remember vocabularies and sentences.

Since I have already had Korean learning activities and not finish my learning plan last semester, so I have experience how to make a plan that I can effectively finish through this semester. Time management is important factor to affect the schedule. I start to learn Korean from speaking and listening, which really helps me to study reading and writing. So far I have learned basic conversation about 10 topics. Based on these topics, I try to learn the related Korean character. It is really helpful for me to meet with Alvin Yang every week, and this is the interacting process. When I meet with any questions, I can solve with learning activities easily and quickly. Watching Korean movies with my Korean friend is also really fun and fast-way to learn a lot of vocabularies, sentences and different aspects of Korean culture. In addition, exploring Korean movie is my recent culture project. Therefore, when I talked with them about the plots of Korean movies, I have better and deep understanding. An effective learning plan helps me think, allow interacting and asking questions, use my background knowledge, and build new skills of learning language. I hope to continue my original learning plan without any changes. The only thing I want to add into my learning plan is that I will  read a small and easy paragraph weekly for helping me apply vocabularies and sentences that I have learned from last semester and this semester. 

I learned the vocabularies of at least ten colors and different clothing.

I can tell others what color I like, and ask others what color they like.  

I can ask why color is their clothing. 

I can tell what clothing I am wearing and they are wearing. 

I can ask the price of a cloth. 

I can count the number from 1 to 100, tell others my phone number.

I can speak at least 10 country names and several city names, how to ask directions, understand how to say left and right and go straight.

I can speak the date and day of a week, as well as seasons and moths.

I can ask what they do, where they work at, how do they like their jobs. 

I can speak at least ten job names, what I would like to do and where I would like to work at. 

For Reading and Writing Part. 

I am learning the handguns, because I believe that it is the foundation of learning Korean. It will take a big part of time to remember each combination of different hangul. A summarizing report of learning hangul will be upload later. 

The first cultural project that I am going to explore is Korean movies culture and how Korean movies develop? Based on these Korean movies that I have watched, I think there are three main topics often involved in Korean movies, which are healing, family and social accusation and injustice. No matter what kind of Korean movies, audience will be easy to find one of these three topics.

1) Healing Topic,

Firm is closely associated with a contemporary context as a cultural content. My favorite Korean movie is “Miracle in Cell No.7,” which shocked the Asian filmdom. This movie narrates that a father and a little daughter overcome many challenges and make their life in prison happy warmed the hearts of other people. Actually, the story reveals the truth that this father who goes to jail because of a false accusation, but he still consoled people by giving faith again in the triumph of justice. Healing through a story of specific characters such as the story of the father and daughter has stronger effect than teaching in the textbook, and this is the way to govern people mind efficiently. In recent years, there are more and more heeling movies, because Korean is a rapid developing country and has been suffered by the Second War. Most Koreans feel stressful in their living and the gap between the rich and the poor. Under this situation, movies around healing topic could have big influence in society.

2) Family Topic,

The most frequently and importantly theme used in Korean drama and movie is family love. Among many kinds of love, family love is a resonant theme because it can touch people’s emotion universally. “Miracle in Cell No. 7” explain this cultural theme well. In my opinion, the main audiences of this film are children who watched together with their parents, so family culture is a high effective strategy. Collectivism and respecting to higher hierarchy is most important culture part in Korea. The Korean honorific is the grammar system in order to reflect the speaker’s relationship to the audience. Especially, when talking about someone superior in status, this person must indicate the subject’s superiority by suing special nouns or verb ending. The use of wrong speech level will be considered as insulting and unrespect. Therefore, the topic of “family” helps spread Korean etiquette.

3) Social accusation and injustice topic,

This topic is kind of controversial. The plots of some movies comes from the real stories. Among several Korean movies I have watched, social accusation has mentioned a lot. In addition, social injustice has become main topic among the world. The movie "Silenced" “Crucible” and “Broken Arrow,” it related with the issue of social accusation problems. People with higher hierarchy have the power to make decisions and commit crime. Unfortunately, people with low social status and hierarchy feel difficult to get their own justice and disclose the truth. The movie "Silences" tell a true story that "Gang In-ho, who is working to earn money for his daughter's surgery, is appointed to a school for hearing-impaired children in Gwangju. But what he discovers there is an ugly truth: the children are being physically and sexually abused by their teachers. When he decides to fight for the children's rights and expose the crimes being committed at the school, In-ho teams up with human rights activist Seo Yu-jin. But he and Yu-jin soon realize the school's principal and teachers, and even the police, prosecutors and churches in the community are actually trying to cover up the truth." In recent years, there are more and more crime movies that come from the true story; these movies are aiming to disclose truth. For the public. Korean movies are considered as a medium to spread various social phenomenon and movements, not simply as a fiction.

I will explore what kind of Korean factors and systems influenced society, and how people behave based on these cultural factors. 

Citation: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2070649/ ;

A: Where is Gottwald-> Gottwald oe di yae yo?

How do I get to Gottwald?-> Gottwald oe duk kae ga yo?

B: To go straight and then left turn ->Jik jin ha sae yo, ge da eum ae, wen jjok eo lo ga sae yo.

A: Should I take bus? beoseuleul tago?

B: You can walk there. -> dangsin i geol-eul su(ta si ni ke lu su)

A: Thank you ->Gomabseubnida

B:You are welcome -> cheonman-eyo

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How to read Hangul. 

Directions

Country Name:

US: miguk

England:young guk

Japan: yil Bon

Thailand: tae guk

China: jueng guk

Korea: han guk

Switzerland: se wis

France: pe rang se

Canda: kae na da

Australia: o-se-te-lae-li-a

City Name:

Chicago: shi ka go

New York: nue yok

Washington DC: wo shing ton dc

Seoul: seo ul

Tokyo: do kyo

Beijing: bei jing

Hong Kong: hong kong

Paris: pa li:

How to ask direction:

Oe-di: where

Where is Gottwald-> Gottwald oe di yae yo?

How do I get to Gottwald?-> Gottwald oe duk kae ga yo?

Oe duk kae: how, ga yo: to go.

To go straight: Jik jin ha sae yo.

Left turn: when jjok eo lo ga sae yo.

When jjok: left, ga sae yo: to go (for other person).

Right turn: O len jjok eo lo ga sae yo.

O len jjok: right

Eo lo: towards

Transportation:

Bus: beo se

Ta da: to take something, to ride on something

Subway: ji ha cheol

Airplane: bi hang gi

Bike: bike: ja jen geo:

Taxi: tak xi:

Useful Conjunction:

And: ge li go,

And then: ge da eum ae.

Cloth/shopping

Color

Blue: pa lang saek

Red: Bbal gan saek

Orange: ju hwuang saek

Black: gum jung saek

White: ha yan saek

Grey: huae saek

Green: cho lok saek

Yellow: no lang saek

Purple: bo la saek

Clothing

Cloth: ot

t-shirt: t she te.

Hoodie: hoo de

Skirt: se keo te

Shoes: shin bal

Dress shoses: gu du

Jeans: chung ba ji

Pants: ba ji

Hat: mo ja

Jacket: jam ba

Bag: ga bang

Umbrella: wu san

Scarf: mok do ri

Socks: yang mal

I learned several country names and city names. I can ask how to ask directions, how to guide the directions to others. In addition, I learned the vocabularies of colors and different clothing. Starting learning actual grammar, phrases and words that I can apply to daily conversation. Combined talking with Alvin Yang and learning materials on website, I learned that the sequence of Korean grammar is different than English or Chinese grammar. For example, if I want to say take taxi, I would say ‘taxi take’ in Korean. Usually, the noun will put in front of verb. Therefore, Korean can be easy to read because there are special markers that indicate what is the subject and object, and most of the time the verb is at the end of the sentence. Berbs almost always appear at the end of a sentence.

Example: Jinsoo eats rice. -> Jinsoo rice eats.

        Mi Kyong watched a movie. ->Mi kyong movie watched.

        I am Xiaoting->  I Xiaoting am.

        I am a Chinese->  I Chinese am.

To be a successful self-directed learned, my strategy is that I learned vocabularies and sentences (mostly pronunciation part) from Alvin Yang, and for grammar and Korean character I found a lot of resources online for self-learning. If I have any confusion, I will ask for help from Alvin. I really like independent study, such as finding my interesting part and learning from this. It really works on me. I can learn what I learned effectively, and this learning strategy motivates me. The really interesting part when I met with Alvin Yang is that when he talked some vocabularies, and these vocabularies are similar to me because of watching Korean drama and listening music. I will keep on listening audio resources to get familiar with some pronunciation and vocabularies. For next meeting, I will improve conversation skills with Alvin. Now I can only speak by myself. If I talked with others in Korean, the reflection time to respond is long. I try to review all materials that I learned from last semester, and structure these topics to make a big organized chart in order to find each topic relationships.

1.     Directions
   1. Lean at least 10 country names, several city names. Learn how to ask directions, understand how to say left and right and go straight.
2.     Numbers, colors, dates, birthday
   1. Learn how count from 1 to 100, tell others my phone numbers and ask their numbers. I will learn how to tell the date and day of the week, as well as months, seasons.  
   2. I will learn how to say when is my birthday, and ask others when is their birthday.
3.      Cloth/shopping
   1. I will learn the vocabularies of at least ten colors and different clothing. I will learn how to tell others what color I like, and ask others what color they like, ask what color is their clothing, tell what clothing I am wearing, and what clothing are they wearing.
   2. I will learn how to ask how much a cloth costs.
4.       Time - what time is it
   1. I will learn how to tell others the time and ask what time is it now. I will learn how to say I have class on the exact time, and ask what time others have class on.
5.       Jobs
   1. I will learn how to ask what they do, where they work at, how do they like their jobs. I will learn at least ten job names. I will also learn what I would like to do, and where I would like to work at.
6.        Weather
   1. how to tell others today’s weather, tomorrow’s forecast. I will learn words of different weather types, such as windy, sunny, raining, cloudy, and windy. I will also learn how to express my personal feeling on different weather type.

The second part（Reading and Writing）

http://www.howtostudykorean.com/unit0/

Learn to read, write and pronounce Korean.

1. Learn most basic and common letters in the Korean alphabet. Aiming to not only read these letters but also how to arrange them to make syllables on my own.
2. Go deeper into learning how to read Hangul by learning more letters. (Maybe harder) some of these letters are complicated because they are so similar in appearance and sound to letters that I already learned.
3. Basic Korean Grammar
4. Read and write basic sentence in Korean

In this semester, I am going to discover two Korean cultural topics. One is the identification, sentiment and effect about Korean TV drama and the other is related to culture, gender, and self. The perspective of second cultural topics will be going to expand from individualism-collectivism relationship in Korea. Why I am going to choose these two topics here. Since I learned a lot of Korean words and sentences from Korean TV dramas last semester, I discovered some interesting aspects on Korean TV dramas, and I knew a lot of Korean movies are from their eye-catching news in everyday life. What kind of social values are these Korean movies going to transfer? Obviously the big picture of two cultural topics that I am going to talk is social values.

I have already found several journals about Korean drama affects and Korean individualism-collectivism relationship. In addition, I plan to talk with several friends coming from Korea, and know about the real social hierarchy and value in Korea. At the end of semester, I hope to come up with the specific social values how people will behave these social values, whether or not the accelerated economies is influenced by this kind of social values.