Studying Korean has been a great experience so far. I had a great group to work with and an amazing and very helpful language partner. We started off with learning the Korean alphabet, or the Hangul. The Hangul is character based where there are several letters with different sounds, and a letter on its own does not have a meaning. Letters have to be combined to form meaningful words. Therefore learning the Hangul helped me a lot with pronunciation because if I know the sound of every letter in the word, I am able to connect the sounds and know how to pronounce the word as a whole.
Sun taught us the alphabet and their pronunciation by making us re-read the script she printed out for us in bright colors.
Our language partner taught us how to introduce ourselves and greet people next. She also taught us about the family tree and the use of honorifics in the Korea language. Next, we practiced introducing and greeting each other. We practiced two more conversations (how to ask a guy out, and order food at a restaurant). I was studying vocabulary and grammar on the side, and would ask her doubts and questions during every meeting session.
Sun's way of teaching us basic conversations involved making a dialogue that we would all participate in in turns.
With my language partner's guidance and my learning plan goals, I developed a structured plan to learn the Korean language. I am quite pleased with my progress so far, and believe I have developed a stable base which I can build on over the summer to better develop my Korean skills.
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