learning #9

[Yewon Son]

I learned how to write in my target language (Korean) when I was in Korean school during elementary school, and now know how to write it in it fairly well, but am really weak in terms of grammar, spelling and vocabulary. I often don't know what the translation of an English word would be, or how to word a certain phrase and get my spelling mixed up. Spelling is really difficult in Korean because there's several combinations of letters that sound exactly the same, but have completely different meanings. For example, the words 낳다, 낫다 and 낮다 all sound exactly the same out loud, but the first means to give birth or produce, the second means to recover from or to be better than, and the third is used when something is low. My knowledge of the different parts of speech, government and agreement that I learned in the past couple of classes has helped me a bit with this problem. I can now break down the word and separate the meanings of the root and then go from there. I mostly prefer to write in my target language; partially because I don't have the korean keyboard on my computer so I have to guess which key to press every time I write, but also because it gives me a chance to improve my handwriting in Korean. In my most recent class with Jimin, we had an extensive review of Korean history, which was not only useful because I was able to learn about Korean history, but it also introduced me to new vocabulary. For example, I learned about the 인천상륙작전 which was what the landing of U.S. troops was called in Korean. This phrase gave me an opportunity to see how words and clauses interacted together in this phrase. The first part of phrase, 인천 is the name of the Korean city in which the U.S. troops landed, while 상륙 translates to a landing, and 작전 means a plan or an attempt. The three meanings came together to mean the "plan to land in Incheon" but is known through historical context as the landing of U.S. troops during the Korean War.