During the first meeting with my language partner, Lena, we were assessed on our skills of the language basics since we are paired at a beginner level. Using a variety of worksheets about Korean consonants, vowels, and combinations of the two, Lena figured that we are both pretty far ahead in the novice level. We breezed through the other activities she had for us in a short amount of time, so we were able to progress into more advanced concepts. During our meeting, I was hoping to figure out the organization and structure of our time together and assess where we each stand in the language which is exactly what happened.
The current task I am working on is going through Chapter 1 and 2 of the Korean for Children book to grasp sentence structure. I am also practicing a self-introduction and some vocabulary words. Because I am an auditory learner, I read all my materials out loud and note the grammatical differences and similarities in the sentence structures. This will prepare me for learning grammar later on with explanations by familiarizing myself with the different formats.
For the vocabulary, I'm making flash cards and posting them around my room so that every time I come across one during my daily activities, I can test myself. The words are food themed, so they will prepare me for when I get to the section about restaurants later in the semester.
The best way for me to learn the self-introduction is to read it out loud repetitively sentence by sentence and slowly compound them until I finish the small paragraph. After I finish memorizing how to say it, I will proceed to write it. In the next meeting with Lena, we will practice introducing ourselves with her. This will be incredibly useful when I reach my ultimate goal to go to South Korea and be able to communicate with the natives. Something I found interesting when learning the introduction is that some of the phrases don't translate into things we say in English when meeting someone. For example, in Korean, they make the statement, "We are meeting each other for the first time," and, "Please have a fond opinion of me". These seem strange to us, but it's very common to use those phrases in Korea. I enjoyed learning a bit about their culture.
I'm really excited to continue with this semester learning Korean because I have been wanting to come up with an organized structure for learning the language for years and never really got the opportunity. I am currently keeping up with my task goals and hopefully will continue to do so as the weeks progress.
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