- How many new words have you learned in your target language? How did you learn them? Do you have realistic goals for your acquisition of vocabulary?
It is hard to gauge how many new words I have learned in Korean because many of the words I have learned are part of phrases like 안녕하세요, where I know that 안녕 means hello and that the phrase overall means hello more formally, but I don't exactly know what 하세요 means. In general I have learned vocabulary relating to the following subjects: food, family, directions, introductions, greetings, farewells, professions, school, time, numbers, relationships, and basic conversational vocabulary, in addition to a foundation of Korean grammar and some random phrases. As far as learning new vocabulary I found meeting with my language partner to be the most helpful and effective. I also studied the character sheets we were given and used websites like quizlet to practice. One surprisingly effective tool for acquiring new vocabulary was watching Korean Dramas, as you pick up a lot of commonly used phrases and words. My goals are still to be able to watch part of a Korean drama and be able to understand what the people are saying, as well as to be able to hold a basic conversation with a native speaker. While I may have to re-watch the scene a couple times I think it is still a reasonable goal to have.
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