Classes have started to move online, so interacting with my language partner has gotten more difficult. However, Jenna and I decided to meet up through a kakaotalk video call and discuss our learning plan for the rest of the semester. During this time of isolation and weariness, Jenna and I thought it would be the best to continue to watch Korean dramas to improve my hangul. Before, we studied and discussed articles about the coronavirus and other news information, however, I really did not desire to do that anymore. I simply wanted to improve my Korean, but in a relaxed and stress-free manner.
As a result, I decided to start another Korean drama called Kingdom with Jenna. It is a South Korean political horror thriller web television series starring Ju Jihoon, Rye Seungryong, Bae Doona, Kim Sangho, Kim Sungkyu, and Kim Hyejun. This drama is set during Korea's Joseon period a few years after the Japanese invasions of Korea all the while investigating a mysterious plague that is spreading across the entire peninsula. Furthermore, it is a plague that appears to bring the dead back to life as blood-thirsty monsters. Personally, I never really liked gruesome and bloody dramas, so I was very reluctant to start this series. However, Kingdom received such high ratings and everyone I spoke to recommended me to start this drama. So, I was convinced to begin.
At first, the series was very slow as it was slowly building the main plot line, however, once it started to pick up, I was easily hooked and I could not stop watching. Therefore, I finished 2 seasons in less than 2 days (although it only had 6 episodes per season). I thought it was such an interesting concept of combining zombies with imperial Korea. It was such a unique idea and it personally, it had a way better and more developed plot line than The Walking Dead. Kingdom was set in a time where the people of Korea were starving and living under intense poverty while the royalty ruled cruelly yet lived lavishly. And now, ironically, the people turned into a literal hungry monster, searching for human blood and they will always be hungry for more, never satisfied.
In addition to the stellar plot, I was very intrigued by the language used in this series. Netflix actually gives its audience the opportunity to have subtitles and also English dubbing, however, I decided to not use dubbing because then, I would not learn anything. Even if they are Korean dramas, I usually do not even use English subtitles, however, for Kingdom, since the language was so different to modern Korean, I needed the subtitles to help me along. Many of the vocabulary used were definitely foreign. For example, there’s a phrase that was said quite often from the ministers to the king. That phrase was “통촉하여 주시옵소서.” I had no idea what this meant, but when I searched it up, it basically means to “please be considerate” in thinking about a certain proposed policy. Phrases like these were something I never knew about, but after watching this drama, I think my knowledge about imperial Korea and its language grew a little more.
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