Describing weather in Korean URL: http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12685914&width=575&height=323&chsm=e4364df5128063e8f39a435d174685de

   One of my learning goal is being able to order food in Korean restaurant, so I made the artifact about some common food names and requesting sentences in Korean as following. Also, I made two Voki for pronunciations and the URL links are attached below: 

Pronounce food names: http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12667196&width=575&height=323&chsm=319564abded917fccf3f28b86f0abd21

Order food in restaurant: http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12667229&width=575&height=323&chsm=3e1aa6156a5ff8ede582db8f28c17cd7

Food names:

Rice is BAP (밥): 

1. Five grains rice: 오곡밥 OGOKBAP
   
2. Seaweed rice: 김밥 GIMBAP
3. Mixed rice: 비빔밥 BIBIMBAP  

Stew is 찌개 (JJIGAE): 

1. Kimchi stew: KIMCHI JJIGAE (김치 찌개) 
2. Soft tofu stew: SOONDUBU JJIGAE (순두부 찌개)  

(1) Soup is 탕 (TANG):

1. Ox bone soup: SEOLLUNGTANG (설렁탕) 
2. Ginseng chicken soup: SAMGYETANG (삼계탕) 

(2) Soup is 국 (GOOK)

1. Rice cake soup: DDUKGOOK (떡국)
2. Seaweed soup: MIYEOKGOOK (미역국) 
3. Soybean sprout soup: KONGNAMULGOOK (콩나물국)

(1) Noodle is 면(MYUN) 

1. Blackbean noodle: JJAJANGMYUN (짜장면) 
2. Cold noodle: NENGMYUN (냉면)
3. Instant noodle: RAMYUN (라면)

(2) Noodle is 국수(GOOKSU) 

1. Soymilk noodle: KONGGOOKSU (콩국수)
2. Buckwheat noodle: MAKGOOKSU (막국수) 

Some common requests in Korean restaurant: 

1. Please give it to me: 주세요.
2. Please give me the menu: 메뉴 주세요.
3. Please give me water: 뭍 주세요.
4. Please give me the bill (Check, please): 계산서 주세요.

If you want to say more something, add 더 in front of  주세요:

1. Please give me more side dishes: 반찬 더 주세요.
2. Please give me more kimchi: 김치 더 주세요. 

Some flavor requests: 

1. Please don't make it salty: 짜지 않게 해주세요.
2. Please don't make it spicy: 안맵게 해주세요. 
   

Some other common sentences: 

1. What is delicious? 뭐가 맛있어요?
2. It is delicious: 맛있어요.
3. Where is the restroom? 화장실 어디 있어요?
4. It is on me: 제가 낼게요.
5. Goodbye (to waiter/waitress): 안녕히 계세요. (formal)
   

      During the study of Korean, I had the experience to learn more about Korean language and Korean culture. In summary, I've learnt the general greetings, self-introduction, introduction to family members, ordering food in the restaurant and describing weather in Korean. I focus on speaking and listening instead of reading and writing. The major method for my study was to watch teaching lectures from Youtube. There was teacher teaching Korean language for some specific topics. Sometimes if I had questions about sentence structures or pronunciation, then I asked my Korean friends for corrections. Time flies and I hope the semester could be longer so that I had more time to study Korean. So far, I mastered some useful conversations that could communicate with other people for ask and answering questions.

     In the progress, I encountered some difficulties such as pronunciation, vocabularies and grammar. At the beginning, it was hard to pronounce those Korean alphabets and the words.  I tried to memorize those pronunciations but sometimes it was just hard to memorize all of them. Also, there are too many new vocabularies to learn. So I think vocabularies are always the hardest part for studying a new language. 

   My goal in this week is to prepare for the culture project presentation and to study the weather in Korean. For preparing the culture project presentation, I'm going to do some research online for my presentation topic and talk to Korean native speaker for learning some conversational blessings in a wedding. Then, for studying weather in Korean, I will keep watching the teaching lectures on Youtube and do some research online, as a result, I learnt how to ask and describe weather in Korean as followed:

1. How's the weather these days? 요즘 날씨 어때요?

2. It is good. 좋아요.

3. It is cold. 추워요.

4. It is warm. 따뜻해요.

5. It is hot. 더워요.

6. It is humid. 습해요.

7. The weather is good. 날씨 좋아요. 

8. It is raining. 비 와요.

      For this week, I'm going to study the Korean conversations in the restaurant which is one of my learning goals. I will learn how to order food and how to request in a restaurant such as following: 

1. Please give it to me. 주세요.
2. Please give me/us the bill. 계산서 주세요.
3. Please give me/us more side dishes. 반찬 더 주세요.
   
4. Please don’t make it spicy. 안맵게 해주세요.
5. What’s delicious? 뭐가 맛있어요?
6. It's delicious. 맛있어요.

7. Where’s the restroom? 화장실 어디 있어요?

8. Goodbye. 안녕히 계세요. (formal)
   *Use if you’re the one leaving and receiver is staying.

     There is a teaching lecture on Youtube that teaches you how to pronounce these sentences which is very useful to correct my pronunciations. 

Learning plan: Yi%20Shen_SDLAP_learningplan213.docx

Using the levels of competence document and the checklists to assess my current abilities in Korean, I define myself as level of Novice low in listening, reading, speaking and writing. Therefore, I set my goals more specific 

1. Be able to greet people such as hello, sorry, goodbye and how are you 
2. Be able to describe family members and describe them to people 
3. Learn how to order food and ask questions in Korean restaurant 
4. Know more about Korean cultures 
5. Understand Korean alphabet system and sentence structures 
6. Learn the normal way of answering general questions 

URL: http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12651754&width=575&height=323&chsm=01126f05b3fc197d8cf3313aa3c28f10

URL:http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12651563&width=575&height=323&chsm=c0995b897ecba1a95a527d5d3fd266ce

URL: http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12393513&width=575&height=323&chsm=dab9dd86f7e8a3628d29b8606252eb96

   Studying Korean in this semester is a very interesting and challenging experience since it is an autonomous self-directed language learning process. I set up the language-learning goal and planned the learning process by myself. At the beginning, it was hard to start since I didn’t know how to learn a new language by myself so that I began with watching Korean TV shows and dramas to get the language sense of Korean. After one class in the Studio Center, we know there is a lot of resources could be used for studying such as Korean textbooks, Voki radio, Youtube teaching lectures and so forth. They are very useful and helpful for the future study. So I utilized those resources for practicing speaking and listening and gradually improved my Korean.

  The experience is not only limited in the study of Korean language. It also provides a good chance to learn other cultures. I did develop my skills as an observer of other cultures, especially from preparing the presentations in the semester. Researching the history and background information about the language is beneficial to understand the development of the language and how it shaped until today. I enjoyed the culture presentation. My culture presentation is about the Korean traditional wedding. From research, I know the main idea of the traditional wedding was derived from traditional Confucian values. But nowadays, western modern wedding are more popular for young people. I find this is interesting that the Confucian values encountered the western Christian values. It is actually a culture development and collision. So my culture presentation is like a bridge connecting the previous traditional culture and the new values in Korea.

  It is also interesting to know the language families and language structures in the world. We talked about it in the class for Indo-European language tree that showed those languages are highly related to each other. For Korean, it was hard to find a language tree for it but we know from several students’ presentation, the formation of Korean is related to traditional Chinese and also some influences from Japanese. The countries that most of people speak Korean should be definitely South Korea and North Korea. And some of Chinese speak Korean as their mother tongue in China since they are a special minority. Therefore, it is hard to have a language tree for Korean language since the history of Korean is that long and involved some other countries.

  As a language learner and culture explorer, I gain the ability to study a new language while understanding its culture at the same time. I enjoyed this process and it helps to build my ability of understanding, analysis and imagination. In the whole process, I think the most difficult part is to read and write. Because we don’t have instructors who really teaches the language, sometimes it is hard to ask native speakers about questions when I did reading. It is challenging but interesting. In the future, I will keep studying Korean and travel to South Korea sometimes and have a further expression about the culture. 

   Reading and writing in Korean is more difficult than speaking.  I organized four simple strategies for reading in a foreign language including Korean. First of all, carefully choosing what to read. Since I'd like to learn more daily conversations, most of time I read non-academic writings such as fashion and fitment magazines. Although there still have a lot of new vocabularies, I can get a sense of how the sentences form and the way that native speakers describe the goods. The second method is to read before I read, sometimes the article has both English and Korean versions. I will read the English version first and then go over the Korean version. For both reading and writing, vocabulary is always the learner's arch nemesis but it is unavoidable. So the third method is to underline the unfamiliar vocabularies and look them up later. The last one I think is the most useful that combining speaking and reading together. Trying reading aloud will help ingrain proper pronunciation and build confidence in both reading and speaking. Also, I will benefit from using some tools to record myself as I read aloud that helps me to pay attention on the pronunciation and the sentence structure. 

  After reading two articles, I still believe there are several advantages of being bilingual. Nowadays, more and more children have capacity and facility to learn more than one language, and more and more parents want their kids to speak more languages other than their native languages. Sometimes the parents expect their kids to speak more than one language not for improving the intelligences, but for mastering another ability so that their kids would get more opportunity in the world communicating with different people. To be global. 

   Personally, I prefer to be multilingual and from my personal experience. I think being a bilingual is helpful for me to learn new words easily, to use information in new ways, to put words in categories, to come up with solutions to problems, to have a good listening skills and become easier to connect with others. I agree with the sentence in the article that the key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. Therefore, I think being bilingual is "smarter" . 

   In week 11, I will prepare for my culture project presentation. Since the topic is about the Korean traditional wedding, I would like to learn the background information and details about Korean traditional wedding. Also, I want to learn some vocabularies of traditional Korean dressing for both groom and bride. Then, I will talk to my Korean friends and learn the wedding blessings in Korean language. 

  For accomplishing these goals, I will do some research online researching Korean traditional wedding ceremony for the background information. Also, I will talk to Korean native speakers in campus for studying some blessings in Korean. 

   For week 10, the learning goal for this week is to know how to order dishes and purchase goods in the restaurant. As far, I've learnt how to ask request in the restaurant such as "Could you please give me xxx?" or "Please give me xxx". Also, I've learnt the way to ask for more, such as "I want to have more water" or "I'd like to order two more pork belly". Since in the restaurant, sometimes the waiter will ask how spicy the dish you would like to have. So there are several ways to describe your taste, such as "Please don't make it too spicy" and "Please don't make it salty". Another interesting thing is that I learnt how to ask where is the restroom. 

   I watched teaching lectures from Youtube which was very conversational and commonly used in the restaurant. I tried to order dishes in the Korean restaurant and it is very useful. 

The major learning topic for this week is about numbers and dates. I’d like to learn how Korean asks about time and dates in both formal and informal forms, especially in the conversations with friends and classmates. Also, understanding the expression of weekdays such as Monday, Tuesday and so forth.

In order to complete my learning goals, I will watch the teaching lectures form Youtube. Also, the study group would definitely be helpful to memorize those expressions. 

  My learning goal for this week will focus on telling time and asking about time. 

  I borrowed a Korean teaching book from my friend and there is a chapter teaching beginners about asking time and answering questions about time. So I will work with the book in formal expressions. 

  Also, in Korean dramas, there are more daily dialogues about time between friends or same-aged people, and this is another way to know the informal expressions of time in Korean. 

  And I'd like to work with my friend such as Becky Chen, since we need to create a learning activity to teach someone else something we have learned in Korean. It is a great time to practice in Korean. We can have a dialogue in Korean and pretend we are asking time and something else. It will be fun! 

   So far, I've learnt the vocabulary from two artifacts. I know some descriptive words to introduce someone's genders, ages, and some common job positions. Also, I'm able to talk about family members and introduce parents and siblings, and all of those sentences involve the vocabularies. Now, I'm working on the vocabularies to describe specific time and time period. For example, 1 am and 1 hour are different and they have different expressions, so I'd like to distinguish them and be able to talk more about time and time period better. 

  Besides that, when I watch Korean dramas and listen to learning lectures from Youtube, I can learn new vocabularies in daily life such as milk, cinema, movie, star, celebrity and so forth. I didn't count how many new words I learnt, but every time watching lectures, there will be less than ten words for beginners to remember. 

  Therefore, as a beginner, I set my goal to review the words I already seen and also continue know more new words. But I find that sometimes one vocabulary needs several times to memorize and I need to keep seeing it in order to have a deeper impression. So my progress of learning new words is not fast. 

  Respond to the readings, reflecting on what is lost when languages die. 

   A language contains words and sounds that represents a particular group. The particular group uses the language interacting with the world, and the language helps the world to identify the specific group. If the language dies, the identity of the group disappears and as a result, no one will know or remember there was a particular group existed many years later. 

   Also, language guides people's thoughts. It is a bridge to share our experience and knowledge. Lost of a language is the lost of knowledge, creativity and imagination. Every language may have its unique way of expressing emotions, ideas, logics and myth. It is a medium of expressing human soul and different languages portray various pictures. When a language dies, the cultural picture lost a color overall. So the richness and diversity of human linguistic lost when a language dies. 

  Furthermore, I think language is a gift from the elders. Language allows new generation to receive benefits from the knowledge by the elders. It is tool and a gift from adults to children. Therefore, children should cherish the treasures from their parents. 

Reflect upon your progress to date, consider the effectiveness of your learning plan and activities, and discuss what changes -- if any -- you will make to finish the semester 

   So far, the learning progress is good and I follow the schedules I made earlier. I keep listening Korean conversations, studying vocabularies and trying to order and ask questions in Korean restaurant. Spending some time every day reviewing and continue study the new materials. I think the learning plan is very useful to keep the learning progress. 

  If there is any changes need to be made, I will pay more attention on Korean conversations. Vocabulary is important as well, but for now, I'd like to learn as many daily conversations as I can. I want to understand and be able to answer when Korean people greet me, ask questions and request my answers. Therefore, in later on study, I will change my focus on daily conversations such as ask directions, order food, greetings, and identify somethings. 

  My learning goals in this week is to speak Korean with following topics: 

1. Able to ask about identity ( Questions like: how are you/ where are you from/ what is your job/ what is your major/ what do you like, etc/ I will watch Korean lectures online and also learn from Korean dramas) 
2. Able to answer identity questions (I'm from.../ I'm a .../ I'm good/ My hobbies are ... etc/ For some specific answers or words, I will google and use the online sources to find out)
3. Review Korean alphabets  (review what I learnt before) 
4. Try to memorize more Korean words (from watching Korean dramas and Korean lectures from Youtube)