Since my last journal post, I have been trying to supplement my language learning by implementing more Korean into my daily life. In general, I have been extremely busy with other assignments for other classes so I have been trying to integrate things more casually. It has been pretty easy to do so since I am at home now and can speak my language daily with my family. I tend to use Konglish with my mom since she is also pretty fluent in English, but with my grandma, I have to use more formal Korean.
Like I mentioned in my last post, I recently changed my Siri to speak in Korean. Even though I go outside much less than I used to, I still ask her the weather every morning. It has been raining on and off for the past couple of weeks, so this provided the opportunity to learn more new vocabulary of the weather. My mom has still been working so when I need to contact her during the day, I usually ask Siri to call her for me. This might just be me, but sometimes when I get bored, I randomly ask Siri questions because she has a variety of responses and it’s interesting to see what she has to say. I have been doing this more since I changed her to Korean and I have been able to practice speaking a variety of phrases as a result. She also uses some new terminology sometimes so after going back and forth for a bit, I look up any unknown words or phrases.
I was also cleaning a few weeks ago and came across some Korean workbooks from when I took Korean at my old university. The books we used were actually published by the school I went to and I personally really enjoy the lessons that they provide. The layout is simple but it allows me to learn a variety of new material. I have been doing a chapter per week and I decided to start from the beginning of the book to refresh my memory on some of the lessons that I had already completed. Each chapter begins with some sort of story or scenario using a set of vocabulary terms as well as new grammar. I usually begin by translating the story and then moving onto a new grammar lesson each day since there are multiple in one chapter. The textbook also comes with a workbook so I have been completing the corresponding exercises, although some of them are missing since I used to study from it.
Learning Korean has been a little difficult since I have not had access to my language partner, but this has just really emphasized the self-directed part of the program. I can usually get through the lessons by myself without looking anything up, but I also ask my mom any questions if any arise. Because I have always been an independent person, I almost prefer learning Korean this way but I also really enjoyed my time with Jimin.
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