September 22 Bi-Weekly Journal
This week, I met with Jenna on Thursday. This was the first real student-teacher experience. In this class, Jenna taught me the basic Korean alphabet. We went over exactly how to say each character in Korean. We practiced how to write each character and I also learned the different double character words in Korean. These characters are basically the prefixes or the base character of Korean words. Next, we learned the suffix characters in Korean words. In Korean, one prefix and one suffix is added together to create on full word. For this class, we only went over how to pronounce each character for both the suffix and prefix characters.
I was pretty satisfied on what we accomplished that class. I was hoping to learn the alphabet and review the pronunciations the first week of tutoring. Furthermore, we watched a compilation of scenes from a popular Korean TV show. As we watched, I learned new words and asked Jenna what exactly was happening in parts that I was confused by. For homework, Jenna assigned me to practice writing the suffix and prefix characters until I memorized each one in order. In class, we also practiced reading a Korean news article on the weather. We went word for word, and she would correct me if I pronounced a word wrong. I think this study session was really helpful in learning the basic characters of Korean.
Personally, I have been watching Korean TV shows on YouTube with captions to understand how different words are spelled and how they are pronounced. We haven’t learned any complicated words yet in Korean, even though I know some of them, so I omitted from learning them yet. For the upcoming weeks, I will become incorporating listening to music and radio broadcasts in Korean to become accustomed to the language. Furthermore, I will begin reading lyrics to songs and watching shows with subtitles. I will slow down the videos so I can have more time to read it properly. From a cultural standpoint, I think I will try going to Korean church on Sundays. One of my fraternity brothers go to a Korean church and they provide lunch after service. I think this is a great opportunity, not only to learn the speaking of religion in Korean, but also to try true Korean food at the church.
So far, I think my effectiveness of learning Korean is going pretty well. Jenna helped me understand the Korean alphabet again and refreshed my memory on pronunciations. In the future, I will keep reviewing the suffix/prefix characters and soon learn more complicated characters in the future. Also, I will soon begin reading Korean articles about sports and news.
I have had a fun time learning the basics of the Korean alphabet. Since I already know how to speak it fluently, it was really interesting to see how the words I say all the time is spelled and written. So far this week, I have spent some time rewriting the different characters in Korean as neatly as possible, until it is second-hand. I think just rewriting the characters over and over is very helpful in learning the language.
Comments