Lately, in our meetings, Jason and I have been exploring auxiliary verbs and the nuances between them. Although I’ve had previous exposure and a solid grasp on most of them, there are several that are novel to me/I haven’t used as much in my own speaking. Additionally, the challenge comes from the fact that Korean’s auxiliary verbs surpass English’s in terms of volume, so keeping all of them in order for myself has been difficult. Regarding our in class activities, we have continued to look at new words/phrases/grammatical structures and have made sentences using them––I find this to be a tremendous help in actually incorporating what I’ve learned immediately––so I try to continue to use them throughout the week when I’m studying. The main goal of learning these things is to sound more natural and increase my level of Korean beyond the intermediate level to communicate more complex thoughts. We’ve primarily focused on speaking, so we continue to primarily communicate in Korean for the full two (or more) hours per week rather than explicitly looking into reading/writing. The logic behind this is that, because of my current level and what I hope to accomplish, reading and writing should eventually become natural especially since I already have previous experience albeit at a more rudimentary level. So for the short term, I would say the purpose of our meetings and my studying is to add nuance to my sentences and, of course, verbs since auxiliary verbs are extremely colloquial.
Additionally, we have focused on prepositions and time expressions more recently. I was recently apprised of native Korean expressions (not Hanja) for time, and this has been a bit of a learning curve for me since this is akin to English ways of telling the time, such as, “a quarter till noon” if you will. It has been challenging keeping this in my mind as they rely on the different number systems in Korean, and also have a different sentence structure. This has been a slow progression, so I suppose just incorporating them into my own speaking while having Jason ensure that I am using them correctly would be a worthy ~30 minutes to spend each meeting.
Personally, I have found these meetings to be quite enjoyable, and although Korean has been frustrating at times due to, and this may be conjecture, the fact that I have a solid understanding of what “proper” Korean should sound like at the level of thought that I’m hoping to convey, but I am not always able to reach that level. In essence, my input is greater than my aptitude for my output. However, speaking more and more with a completely native speaker in Jason has been thoroughly beneficial, and overall I feel positive about my language learning journey and am just working on creating more confidence in my speaking abilities. This has included speaking to my parents in Korean much more often than I already do, or texting some friends in Korea more openly and freely rather than relying on already known expressions. It’s also been salubrious to connect with modern slang and trends, since I will be likely attending Yonsei in the fall, being able to connect with other college-aged students colloquially is something I am eager to dive into.
Comments
I am so happy for you for planning to go to Yonsei next semester. Such a nice opportunity to immerse oneself in Korean culture and develop friendships with Korean-speaking students. I am also planning to visit Korea in the near future. While you enjoy your time in Korea, please don't forget to bring some Yonsei souvenirs back for us!