Learning Journal #9

[Yixi Wang]

Reflect on your experiences of (trying to) read and write in your target language. Are you bilingual? If so, would you agree with the arguments made in the two readings on bilingualism?

At first it was really hard for me to memorize the formation of each word in Korean. As the Korean language adopts syllable sound, it is not hard at all to read words out by simply following the pronunciation rules. Writing, on the other hand, can be really tough for me as there isn’t a differentiated pattern or memory point for each word, comparing that to Chinese characters.

However, by practicing writing down each word over and over again, I gradually began to pick up the way of writing for most new vocabulary I learned. At this point, I would not regard myself as bilingual in Korean as bilingualism requires certain proficiency in that target language. This also reminds me of what we discussed in class: How could one person know when he/she has reached the native speaker level in his/her target language? I would agree with Dr. Marsh-Soloway that when you dream in your target language, you have probably reached the native speaker level. By comparing with my experience in Japanese, I am pretty certain that there is still a long way ahead of me before reaching the advanced / bilingual level of Korean.

 

[Johnnette Johnson]

Great techniques, Yixi! It makes sense that writing the words over and over again would help to retain memory. I will definitely adopt this strategy into my ongoing self-directed language journeys. Thanks for your input! (:

[Jessica Crouser]

I think it's so interesting that you had a tough time writing in Korean even though you're proficient in Japanese and Chinese, because for me, the idea of learning character sets over an alphabet is so daunting and I'm not sure I could do it. Obviously learning any new alphabet or writing system is difficult, but I guess I have only ever dealt with alphabets and learning Hangul writing was still hard, so I can't imagine the difference between learning this versus learning Japanese. Regardless, I'm so impressed with how many languages you know :)