I am Korean American, but I do not know how to speak Korean. Growing up, I was always hearing Korean being spoken, as I attended a large Korean American church. However, my parents did not speak Korean at home, so I was not forced to learn it. This semester, I hope to become conversational in Korean. My main motivation for learning Korean is to be able to converse with my grandmother, who speaks only Korean. My other motivations include being able to talk with members of my church, as well as my international friends from Korea. By the end of the semester, I hope to be able to have short conversations in Korean.
To begin, I want to learn general greetings and farewells in Korean. I also want to be able to introduce myself, so I hope to learn how to describe my school, my fields of study, my interests, hobbies, schedule, and daily activities. I hope that learning the terms to describe my life will help me recognize them when I hear other people describe themselves. I think that learning religious terms is also important because the setting I find myself surrounded by Korean speakers the most is church. Finally, I want to become more comfortable with ordering food at a restaurant and describing food, because food is an essential part of Korean culture.
Last semester, I listened to the Talk To Me In Korean podcasts infrequently. I think these lessons are good to listen to while I am doing something else, but I did not retain much information from them. Over the summer, I started learning Korean using a cell phone app called Eggbun. I thought it was very helpful because it simplified concepts into small, easy-to-understand bits of information. What I focused on was learning borrowed words: Korean terms that are basically English words but pronounced differently. I was able to learn a few Korean letters through this exercise, because I knew what the sounds were supposed to be. I also started watching Sky Castle, which is a Korean drama about the Korean education system. This is a topic that I am very interested in, as I may possibly want to work in it in the future. I think that watching dramas and videos in Korean helps me become more familiar with recognizing the sounds that are unique to the Korean language. I hope to be able to watch and understand more Korean content without having to rely solely on subtitles.
The place I am most excited to travel to one day is Korea, as I have never been there. The main reason is that I want to learn more about Korean culture. I know very little about the current events, politics, and popular culture of Korea. I want to explore the identity that has always been a part of me, but I have never delved into before.
This semester, I expect to feel embarrassment as I learn Korean. I am very unfamiliar with the sounds that are unique to Korean. It is also challenging because people may assume that I understand the language because of my ethnicity. When I am in a setting where the majority of the people are Korean, people assume that I understand Korean. It is awkward when I do not know what to say when someone is speaking Korean to me. It also makes me feel different when people are shocked to hear that I do not speak any Korean, and that my parents are more comfortable speaking English than Korean.
What I am most looking forward to this semester is the community engagement opportunity through the SDLAP. I believe that immersion is the most effective way to learn and practice a new language. I studied Spanish in the classroom for eight years, but I also traveled to Peru in the summers of 2016, 2017, and 2018, each for a week. Each week I spent in Peru taught me about a year’s worth of classroom instruction. It is a completely different experience speaking with native speakers. I hope that routine interaction with native Korean speakers will force me to break out of my comfort zone and give me many opportunities to practice Korean.
Comments
Excellent post, Eden!
Hey Eden! I really enjoyed reading your post! I definitely related to you when you talked about growing up always hearing another language being spoken and not understanding anything. In my case, it was Chinese. Similar to you, many of the reasons why you're learning Korean, such as communicating with my grandma, was what motivated me to study Chinese for the past three years. I think it's definitely a great motivation and learning another language was worth all the time spent studying. When I was looking online for ways to learn Korean, I came across Talk To Me In Korean as well and heard good things about it. I tried it out and listened to it while doing other activities, and like you said, it didn't really stick. I think it could be a great resource if you listen to it without distractions, so maybe you could try it again this semester. Good luck with your studies!
Great to know that you are implementing several techniques to learn Korean. I too used to watch K-dramas to see how much Korean I could understand. I also understand that it'll be difficult and awkward at first to learn Korean, but with enough practice, I think you should be able to order dishes at restaurants and relating to members of your church. Thanks for sharing!