110: Weekly Reflection with Language Partner

[Henry Trinh]

Between weeks 1-8, my language partner and I focused on the language tasks. For the first couple of weeks, we focused on introductions, greetings, classroom phrases, family words, and an introduction to numbers (how to count, time, and dates).We have been focusing on phrases rather than vocabulary. He often speaks to me in Korean and uses gestures at the same time. I usually have no clue what he is saying, but I guess until I am right. Then we take turns repeating the phrase or sentence multiple times in order to reinforce everything. We try to focus on only a handful of phrases each time because it is a lot to remember. So with every new week, we briefly bring up the old phrases and then continue learning. In order to supplement this learning, Alvin recommended that I watch "Secret Garden" which is a very famous Korean drama that he says usually pragmatic Korean. Thus, I typically watch one episode a week, since each episode lasts about one and a half hours long. I have still been finding the Korean grammar a bit confusing because I have previous knowledge of Chinese and Japanese to try to help my learning. However, this is actually hindering my progress. For example, Chinese phrases questions in the same way each time by having "ma" at the end. However, in Korean there is not a concrete pattern for this. Many questions end with "yo", however phrases and non-questions can also end in this manner. Thus, I am having a bit of trouble distinguishing that difference. Besides this, I have also noticed that problem as I am learning numbers. Korean has two number systems where one set is used for things such as telling time in hours, counting, and dates, while the other set is used for telling the time in minutes and seconds and also math-related aspects such as adding and subtracting. My previous knowledge of languages does not follow this, but it is simply going to take some practice getting used to. I learned the numbers in Japanese previously, through songs, so I am trying to incorporate that learning style as I perfect the Korean number system. Other than these challenges, I enjoy the learning method thus far and think that it is working well for me. Also, the dramas are pretty interesting!