Post Final Reflection Paper (500 words):
Learning a completely new language has been very interesting. I found out how lucky I was to be able to be immersed in two language for me to easily learn two languages fluently. It was hard to make myself practice and really practice my Korean because I wasn't in an environment that required me to. Although many of my friends are Korean they are Korean American and would only use some Korean occasionally. Learning a new language is much harder and really requires a lot of time and practice. It would have been even harder if I were to be trying to also learn how to read and write Korean. In the beginning when I was watching the different videos about Hangul, I was really having troubles understanding and memorizing it. It showed me how really learning it when you're younger makes a huge difference.
When learning Korean, I did realize that I started to be more aware of the cultural aspect of Korea. I was more curious about the different trends and also more aware of the culture. For instance, when I was trying to think of a topic for my cultural presentation I started to notice different things that my friends would do. When my younger friends meet the older friends they use certain terms to talk to them and call them instead of what they would usually say. In addition, they would also use a more formal way to speak as compared to someone of their age or younger. It really brought attention to the importance of respect for Koreans. I also had a lot of fun learning about the funny trends like Muk Bang. It was one of the most unique things I found. It showed me the different quirks of a culture and made learning Korean even more interesting.
I found really being able to memorize the phrases difficult. I found that instead of forcing myself to memorize it, I needed to really understand the different vocab in the phrase. Also, I think having the environment to actually practice it where it is a real setting would be a lot more helpful. However, it was very helpful having a language partner that is really from Korea because it forced us to speak in Korean instead of explaining myself in English. Also what was difficult was in the beginning where we did not have the English pronunciation and being overwhelmed when it was just Korean. However, after we solved that problem and always had English pronunciation under the Korean we were learning
I thought the readings on being bilingual was very interesting. It allowed me to better understand myself. Furthermore, the mango languages helped in practicing and helping with the questions I had with pronunciation and grammar. I would like to learn more vocabulary that are related or even vocabulary similar to the ones in mandarin. It will also be very interesting to see what I could pick up if I ever go to Korea and see how far I can use my knowledge of Korean to.
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