It was interesting to read about the two different approaches to learning languages on Aitchison’s linguistics. One way is to move from inside the circle starting at phonetics to phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The other route encourages language learners to start from semantics before diving into vocabulary, grammar, phonology, and end with phonetics. As I read about this, I thought about the different structures in my target language and what my path was to where I am with the Korean language. Because I had never learned Korean thoroughly, I never had the chance to think about the order of structures I learned first. At my level of fluency, I only know some of the different structural aspects of Korean such as phonetics, phonology, and morphology. I know the pronunciation of words, understand the different arrangements and meanings of words, and also know how the consonants and vowels of the Korean alphabet are put together. However, I learned to speak the language from a young age without grammar, specifically syntax and structure of semantics. I also cannot say I know the So I don’t really know how to explain why I structure my sentences grammatically and I don’t utilize idioms and proverbs. But I do know when to use the different subject marking particles (I didn’t even know this was a thing) and how to guess the spelling of words through my understanding of phonetics (ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅣ for example). I'm glad that I naturally obtained phonetics and phonology by speaking the language at home with my grandparents because I think this can be one of the most tedious parts of learning Korean––sort of a building block to the language. However, I think because of my experience "learning" Korean through spoken word, I have an unbalanced proficiency of the language overall. I want to focus more on actually learning the syntax for sentence grammar structures in addition to expanding my lexicon.
Learning about different language structures and disciplinary methodologies pushes me to look back on what I already know to categorize them into different structures. This is because I want to make sure I strengthen the foundations of my Korean language knowledge before I build on the different structures to make them equal. Although I do believe being able to speak the language is more of a priority than being able to know the specific reasons behind grammar and phonetics, my goal is to be able to use Korean in professional settings. This requires my language skills to be leveled out in all different aspects of the language.
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