Back during the first presentation I said that I would focus on the improvement of my speaking, writing, and reading skills for Korean. Although that hasn’t changed, the way I approached it has changed slightly. I said that I would focus on speaking or texting Korean as often as possible with my Korean friends and parents. I also said that I would read a lot of children’s fables since they teach valuable lessons but also contain a lot of beginner vocabulary and grammar. Surprisingly though, the amount of Korean that I knew was much greater than I expected. Although it takes approximately an entire lifetime to text, write, or read, I can still make full sentences and read properly although I may not understand all the words.
What I didn’t include was that I would listen to Korean songs as well. Although I did this passively before I never looked up lyrics or made an attempt to understand them. But now i find myself getting curious by default as to what the lyrics are for many of these songs. This helps me learn a lot of new words quickly since following the lyrics out loud or in my head is a good way to practice by myself and retain new information.
I also intend to learn the history and evolution of the Korean language throughout history. Everything from its origins, creation of the written language, and up to the modern world’s uses of slang and whatnot. What would help with this is the etymology of Korean, which seems very interesting with some very brief research (a lot of conflicting information about its origin saying Altaic or Japonic).
So far from what I’ve learned about Korean and its culture is that the language essentially evolved along side its culture. Of course traditional aspects such as food, holidays, history haven’t changed much. But as Korea became more open to the rest of the world (specifically western world), a lot of the language also began to change. Many words are essentially extracted directly from English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, etc. Also much of the words became “contractions”. Not in the sense in English such as cannot becoming can’t, but as in words becoming just shorter versions of themselves. Sort of like AC coming from air conditioner and TV from television. There are many instances of this in modern Korean speaking, and learning this should come passively as I interact with other Korean speakers to increase communication skills.
Comments