I organized my language learning plan by first trying to figure out exactly what I want to learn considering I will be visiting South Korea over the summer. Therefore I wanted to learn how to get around by walking around by myself. The first step I took in order to learn Korean was to learn the Korean alphabet. The past few sessions, we have gone over the different characters and recently learned the double consonants. I have been reviewing them whenever I have time to make sure I do not forget them.
My language learning partner, Gajin, had also found various beginner grammar books which have proven to be super useful during our sessions. The first is the Basic Hangul Learning for Foreigners. I use this book to practice and revise my hangul. The second book that has proven to be useful is the Yonsei Korean 1-1. In this book, there are sections with different topics that I luckily wanted to learn which happens to be my second part of my language journey. The first section was how to introduce myself and learn various greetings. Gajin explained to me how walking into a store or greeting someone you are not familiar with, it is important to bow. She explains that it is a polite way of greeting and showing respect to the other person. Not only is learning the language important, but we also have to take into consideration that we need to learn the cultural context too as seen with greeting with a bow.
Alongside the nonverbal communication, she taught various phrases such as hello, my name is Denisse. I learned the formal version of hello, sorry, excuse me, thank you, and goodbye. This will be super useful to know if I happen to go to a restaurant or a store by myself and need to speak to the workers. She also proceeded to teach me how certain endings in a word can turn it from being polite to being informal. That was another cultural context I learned. There are different ways to talk to a stranger and to a friend that I need to make sure to take into consideration so I do not offend anybody.
I recently also started to use these simple everyday phrases to text my korean roommate in order to practice and retain certain phrases. She was shocked that we were able to have a short conversation in korean. I also began to use the phrases Gajin taught to do small talk in Korean. For example, I learned how to say “where are you going?” I use this phrase whenever my roommate leaves the room. Another fun word I learned was sure, so whenever my roommate asks me to do something I would always 그래. I feel that I am learning a lot and cannot wait to put all this to use when I leave for Seoul over the summer.
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