As a language learner I have learned that it is not as easy as I thought it would be to learn a language, especially a language that is absolutely not related to the language I speak. I found it most difficult to understand the sentence structure in Korean and understand how words come together to make a sentence because words are not in the order I am used to. I also found pronunciation very hard because Koreans pronounce words not as they look.
Although pronunciation was hard for me, I still really enjoyed trying to pronounce words. I enjoyed it as much as learning how to say new things in Korean. I loved watching K-pop videos on Youtube and being able to record myself on vocaroo as a way to practice my pronunciation. I also really liked BYKI app because it had a lot of good resources for beginners like me. It broke things down simply enough that I could understand it and be able to learn the language. The mango languages app was very useful in the beginning, but it only had so much free Korean stuff, that towards the rest of my learning process, I was not able to use the app unless I paid for it, but I think that what I learned from that app was very useful.
I also really enjoyed the cultural presentations, especially the ones that were also about Korea because I was able to learn more things about the culture that I had not learned before. For example, I had no idea that Korean’s were very into plastic surgery and looking more like Americans. It shocks me that a culture could want to be like another culture in that physical aspect. I was wondering, why isn’t it that they embrace their physical features, as much as other aspects of their culture? I also liked the presentations we had on the origin of the language because it gave me a good sense of how Koreans speak and how they think of language. Some words in the Korean language are said various ways according to who it is being said to. I think it is fascinating that to there are different ways of saying the most basic word “hello” in various ways because of the fact that they highly respect their elders, and they believe their elders deserve a much more respectful word than “hello.”
Furthermore, I will continue my language learning by making another learning plan with different learning goals. I plan on doing this in the summer so I can continue with my Korean learning, and someday be able to go to Korea and be able to get around easily. The activities I found most interesting were, like I mentioned before, the cultural projects. The readings I liked the most was one how the brain processes languages because I think that it’s fascinating to know how so much information can be processed in different sections of the brain. I also like the reading about bilinguals because I am a bilingual myself, but I don’t know if being bilingual actually means you are smarter, I just think it makes you process things differently.
Finally, I would like to learn more about the how to read and write in Korean, and I think that could be possible once I learn a few more basic words and especially once I begin to learn the Korean alphabet. Overall, I had an amazing experience learning this language, and I plan to one day become somewhat fluent.
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