Yanran Li
Bi-weekly journal 1
During these two weeks, I met my language partner Vivian and we made a general plan for Korean learning for this semester. Since the last time I learned Korean was in 2020, and I have not learned and applied Korean for a long time, we start with reviewing the alphabet, trying to master the writing and reading of 40 phonetic symbols. Because Korean is made up of phonetic symbols, you can read any Korean you see as long as you master the pronunciation and writing of phonetic symbols, even if you don't know the specific meaning. Writing Korean is more complicated than reading Korean because some words sound similar and beginners can easily confuse some words. Therefore, my primary goal is to be able to accurately read out the Korean I see, and accurately identify and write down the Korean I hear. At the same time, pronunciation is also very important. Korean has something in common with Chinese and English and Japanese, which is convenient for learners to learn, but it still needs a lot of practice to speak authentic Korean. Korean has a special pronunciation structure, and the position of the tongue is very important in pronunciation. While we reviewing the alphabet, I found out that although I have already learned those alphabets once, I still make some wrong pronounce. All wrong pronounced alphabets are related to the double alphabet, and the pronunciation of these characters is an important part of learning Korean. Take ㄱandㄲfor example, the previous one is “giyeok” and the last one is “ssang giyeok”. “Ssang” means double, so “ssang giyeok” pronounced higher than “giyeok”, and there are 5 pairs of alphabets like “giyeok” and “ssang giyeok”. Therefore, it is necessary to explore each pronunciation slowly during practice, which will be of great help in the future.
The second part of our meeting is to try to list all vocabulary I know and write it out. Words are very important when learning a language, and they are the basis of future learning. My learning goal this week is to get familiar with all the sounds of the alphabet, watch an episode of a Korean TV series, and learn how to express a sentence in Korean. When learning a language, it is not good to only master the theory, using it in real life is important. You can learn a lot from real communication. It is important to find problems in time and correct them. I also like watching Korean TV series, and variety shows and listening to Korean songs. After I’m able to accurately read out the Korean I see, and accurately identify and write down the Korean I hear, I would start watching some clearly spoken Korean TV series or news and turn off the subtitles. Local news in South Korea may be spoken very fast. If I cannot understand it, I will try to gradually increase the speed from slow to normal. I will try my best to achieve the learning goals and expand more cultural knowledge.
Comments