For the last week, I created my own lesson as I was not able to meet with my language partner. I decided to delve into some grammar and sentence making. I’m not as familiar with adjectives as I am with verbs in Korean, so I chose 12 to study that I would use often such as wet, dry, late, early, etc. Then I created very simple sentences to tie each adjective to a noun. I watched a couple of videos on YouTube linked below that explain the two conjugations of adjectives. I found it interesting that adjectives had to be conjugated like verbs. The word ‘adjective’ in Korean is ‘형용사’ which translates better to ‘descriptive verb’. Basically, the conjugation is different if you place the adjective in front of a noun, such as ‘small cat’, or before the noun to form a sentence, like ‘the cat is small’. To describe a small cat, you take the dictionary form of small ‘작다’, take away the ‘다’ and add ‘은’ in this case to form ‘작은’. To say, ‘the cat is small’, you just put the dictionary form of the adjective after the noun to make ‘고양이는 작다’. This is a basic form and can be made honorific by changing the adjective to ‘작습니다’.
I applied both conjugations to the nouns and adjectives that I had set up previously to form sentences. I discovered a Korean translator called Naver to check over my work and see the honorific forms of the adjectives. I also wanted to learn a few phrases that I caught from a Kdrama I’m watching, Itaewon Class, such as ‘Why can’t I?’ and ‘Are you sure?’. After writing all of these down, I went through and practiced saying each sentence repetitively and quizzed myself. It was a bit difficult to remember all of the new words, but I think reviewing it over the next few days with help with my retention. During my next lesson with my language partner, I want to go over the work I did and see what she thinks in terms of the accuracy of the vocabulary. Sometimes, different words are more commonly used to say the same thing. I also want to learn more about the situations in which the different forms of these phrases would be used. Sometimes, certain forms are strictly for use among friends or people younger than you, so I want to make sure I am familiar with these terms. I also would like to ask my language partner to go over some phrases with me. I think those are the hardest to learn through a dictionary as Korean has many ways to say the same thing while only changing the formality. I want to do more exercises like these so that I am able to produce the language more than just receiving it.
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