My relationship with the Korean language has been a love-hate relationship ever since I was a child. Initially, I grew up speaking French and English. However, family friends began trying to force the Korean language onto me and my siblings, emphasizing the importance of embracing our roots. Because I had no interest in Korean culture or the language as a child, I dreaded the “home-school” type of Korean classes. It wasn’t long after that I quit and was back to being distant with my Korean roots. While I could speak some basic Korean to my parents and siblings, I did not begin speaking Korean to other students until my freshman year of college. At UC Irvine, I was surrounded with many Korean students who lived in the same dorm as me. My desire to properly learn Korean stemmed around this time when I kept failing to express myself or even fully understand the Koreans around me.
Up until this semester, I had no such learning plan or schedule to improve my Korean. I would just watch a few Korean shows or movies every once in a while and pick up some words. It wasn’t until going through SDLC that I realized how slow my learning process up to this point. I decided to take SDLC because I figured if I combined my desire to learn with Korean school work, I would be forced to progress faster. Creating a learning plan gave me goals to chase, and I believe that was the biggest factor in my fast learning progress this semester.
I enjoyed meeting with language partners because it gave me a chance to speak Korean in a natural way and practice expressing myself. I realized that practicing and consistently speaking the target language was truly the only way to improve. I began texting in Korean as well as reading in Korean. Reflecting back to September, my reading and writing has improved dramatically as well- consistency was key.
I found myself relating my Korean learning process to lifting weights at the gym. In order to get bigger and stronger, one needs to set realistic goals and stay consistent. The same method applies to learning a new language- set visible goals and keep at it. Sooner or later, one looks back and realizes how far they’ve come.
I’ve discussed a lot of cultural differences and history with my language partner, making me realize the fact that I lack quite the knowledge on Korean history. We have discussed the general ideas and barely cracked the surface, always running out of time. Therefore, for the next few semesters I hope to go more in depth on Korean history and culture, preparing myself for a possible study abroad trip to Yonsei University.
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