Currently, the task that I am working on is to improve my knowledge of sociocultural aspects of Korea to supplement my language learning process. I wanted to do this in order to gain a deeper understanding of Korean spoken language such as where certain words and phrases came from, what to say in certain social situations, and how tone and emotion in speech can impact the meaning of the spoken message. I have been doing this by watching Korean news channels like KBS and NBC. These news channels feature stories on current political events, national holidays, and interviews with civilians which I find to be helpful in learning more about modern Korea and how people speak and interact with one another.
I also have been asking other native Korean speakers about modern Korean culture such as my language partner at the University of Richmond, my sister, members of my extended family who currently live in Korea, and members of the Korean church that I attend. Through this I have learned a lot about formal vs. informal speech in certain situations, mannerisms that must accompany speech such as varying levels of eye contact, bowing, and gesturing depending on who I am speaking to. I also recently got to go to a family friend’s wedding where many traditional Korean wedding customs were present. The vows and certain parts of the ceremony were spoken in Korean and contained vocabulary that I was unfamiliar with at the moment, but I later searched it up and wrote one of my cultural journals about these terms like “paebaek.”
Other resources I used were watching entertainment TV shows on Korean broadcasting channels like KBC and NBC that often feature people in ordinary life such as a grandmother living alone in the countryside or an accountant living in the heart of Seoul. Listening to these broadcasts have helped give me much more exposure to different types of Korean dialects as well, such as the Busan and Jeju dialects versus Seoul dialect. I have also been using a lot of phrases and words that I hear from these broadcasts when meeting with my language partner to see if I can use them correctly. This has helped these words and phrases to gain more permanence in my mind so I don’t forget them as soon as the show is over.
I will further build upon the cultural and current events exposure that I am gaining right now by including them in my conversations. Going forward, I hope to talk about important and relevant topics in Korea such as current events, politics, and social issues to take my conversational Korean up a notch from simply talking about how my day was. I think that by adding new conversation topics to my learning plan I am able to grow more advanced in both my understanding of Korean as well as my speech.
I still don’t feel very comfortable speaking solely Korean for a long period of time as it feels like my brain is working overtime, but I hope through more varied types of practice, I will grow more comfortable with speaking Korean.
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