Entry 2 - Language and its difficulties

[Abigail Sohkhlet]

The readings were helpful to read especially one of the readings about the brain because they were a reminder of what I learned in my neuroscience class I had to take for my Psychology major. As mentioned in my first blog post, I lack good memory and so this was a good way of reinforcing my knowledge. Chapter 29 and 30 of the articles were a bit discouraging because it discussed the idea of semantics, word meanings and how arbitrary they are. Even the idea of collocations was discouraging because it reminded me that learning vocabulary was not the only important part of learning a new language, I also have to learn placement as well. The readings were a window into how tough this course is going to be. I will be learning Korean as a complete beginner. I have to first master the writing and reading hangul and then learn vocabulary and making sentences. Thinking about word references and how gender plays a part in it is also quite daunting. Despite that, I am still very excited to learn Korean. I have friends who are Korean and I watch a bit of Korean drama television as well so it would be very helpful for me. I am looking forward to mastering the Hangul.