Language Learning Journal #2

This month we focused heavily on the cultural aspects of Korean and its use with language. We explored different types of Korean music such as K-pop and rap. Personally, it’s very difficult for me to understand Korean when its sung/rapped because of just how fast paced it is. A lot of the times the words and phrases are slurred together. I usually need the lyrics to be able to follow along and even then, some rapping parts go way too fast. Some of the artists we listened to include Blackpink, Zion T. IU, and many more. One of my favorite ones to listen to was 꺼내 먹어요 (Eat) by Zion T. because its one of the songs I can actually follow along pretty easily. I’ve realized I never really pay attention to the lyrics for even English songs. My music selection is more reliant on the beat which might be why I have trouble following along to Korean songs. For example, I listen to Jay Park but I could never sing any of his songs off the top of my head.

What’s interesting, however, is that when I’m singing or attempting to sing along, I never have trouble with my American accent popping up. It might be because I’m hearing the sound beforehand, but it feels very different from repeating after a normal phrase.

Grace and Jannette are really big K-pop fans so I got to learn a lot of slang terminology used in that field. I learned things like ‘Bias’ which means your most favorite member of a group. ‘Vizhual’ which is pretty straightforward and means the most beautiful member of a group. ‘Lida’ which means leader. ‘Netizen’ which refers to a network of users that writes comments on news and ratings. ‘Sasaeng’ is basically a crazy fan. A lot of it is intuitive.

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