At this point in the semester, I had hoped to accomplish being able to hold a 1 hour conversation without using any english. I still have not been able to keep english entirely out of the conversation for such a long time but I have seen major improvements in my pronunciation, sentence creation, and vocabulary. There are a lot less pauses in the conversation as I am starting to memorize the words and phrases I have been learning with my language partner. Apart from speaking, I am also learning a lot of phrases and relevant vocabulary by listening to Korean news on youtube and current events podcasts.
Now that I am meeting my language partner more often and I am also calling family members and trying to communicate entirely in Korean, I’ve seen a big jump in growth in my speech fluency. Since I have been studying the IPA phonetics of Korean and been listening to more native speakers, my pronunciation has also improved a lot since I started.
I am also interested in learning more about Korean culture. I have been asking my language partner and family about things like Korean social culture, university life, holidays, and history which has spurred my curiosity. Going forward, I hope to learn Korean language and culture in tandem and supplement my knowledge of one domain with the other. I may do this by watching Korean history documentaries in Korean and trying to improve my real-time mental translation.
One thing I am struggling to do is thinking like a fluent speaker or like a bilingual speaker would. I find that Korean does not come naturally into my head and it feels more like I am translating english thoughts before I say them in Korean instead of just thinking then speaking Korean. I believe continued exposure will help me with this and I will continue to find more opportunities to speak Korean in my daily life like meeting with my language partner, visiting Korean friends, and calling my sister (who is fluent in Korean and has lived there for a couple of years).
Something that I want to incorporate into my learning plan is things that I do for fun and my personal hobbies like listening to music, reading, and art. To incorporate these, I have made additions to my learning plan. I am also taking Class Voice at U of R and for our final project, we must learn and perform a song of our choosing. For this project, I want to choose a Korean song so that I can read and learn Korean lyrics from scratch and translate the song’s meaning as well. I think this activity will also help me with more intricate details of Korean like detecting and injecting emotion and tone into my speech.
I am looking forward to experimenting with these new strategies and also delving deeper into the cultural aspect of Korean as well, which will be a new short-term goal. My long-term goal of being able to speak fluently enough to go to Korea and live on my own is still intact and I can already see my progression towards this goal.
Comments
Your progress in learning Korean is commendable, and it's clear that your dedication is yielding significant improvements. The way you've incorporated various methods, from regular conversations with your language partner to listening to Korean news and podcasts, reflects a well-rounded approach. Exploring aspects of Korean culture, including social norms, university life, holidays, and history, demonstrates your commitment to a holistic understanding.