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This past two weeks in Korean class, my learning partner and I mainly discussed the Korean news. Being able to watch the news in Korean has been a long-time goal for me since much of the words used in the news is formal language. The news anchors also talk extremely quick and it was always hard to understand what the news was talking about. To practice understanding the news a little better, my partner and I looked through several current news stories on YouTube. Most times, there were no subtitles, so it was difficult to understand certain phrases and words. However, I realized that some topics were easier to comprehend than others. For example, news about politics were particularly hard to understand. A lot of the news about this topic was filled with technical words and names. An example of this type of news would be the one about the current trade war going on between South Korea and Japan. There were a lot of vocab words I had to look up to understand the full context of the story. Something that helped me a lot was being able to pause and resume the video and get feedback from my language partner when I was unsure of the meaning of a phrase or a word. Some words in this story that I didn’t know at first were things like, “경제 전쟁” which literally translates to “ economic war”. Another difficult word was “속죄” which meant “atonement”. Because the trade war started because South Korea felt that Japan has yet to atone for past crime, this word came up. The story was about how Japan and Korea stopped trading goods with each other because of past relations being brought up again. Japan is withholding goods like semiconductors. Korea’s response was very dramatic as citizens refused to buy anything of Japanese origin and were smashing Japanese goods on live television. Many citizens took to the streets with signs that read, “노 아베” which meant “No Abe”. In end however, the anchors admit that a trade war will be harmful for both economies. Another current news that we watched was a very recent event. It was about pop culture and was therefore easier to understand. It was about the recent death of the Korean celebrity named Sulli. The cause of her death was determined to be from suicide. Because the topic was about pop culture, I had a little bit of an easier time understanding the news. However, because the topic was about death of a person there were still many former words since the news wanted to be formal and respectful of her death. A word that came up often was “무공개” which meant “private” or “non-disclosure”. Another hard word that came up often was “조문”, which meant “condolences”. Many believed that Sulli was driven to suicide from toxic fandom. It was known that Sulli was constantly bullied for her unconventional persona and was depressed.
Over the last few weeks, I learned a lot about new strategies on how to better understand the news in Korean. I found being able to pause and replay the news was very helpful. I also took time on my own to watch more news online and read more news stories.
The last two weeks, I worked on several things individually as well as with my language partner. The first week, I finished up studying about Korean history. Because the history of Korea was much more lengthy than I thought it was, I took much longer than anticipated to cover all the topics I wanted on this subject. Last week, I read over the graphic novels that the Global Studio called 설민석의 학국사 대모험 which roughly translates to Seol Min Seok’s Korean Adventure. Different volumes covered something different and illustrated different historical events. Because the graphic novels had a visual aid in addition to the text, the book was very readable, and I understood a lot more than I did when I read textbooks. One of the historical figures I read about Admiral Yi Sun Shin. Admiral Yi was a naval commander during the first instances of Japanese invasion of the Korean peninsula. During the Joseon Dynasty, Admiral Yi fought the Japanese army several times but never lost a battle. In the 23 instances of fighting in the sea, Admiral Yi maintained a perfected win record. Admiral Yi has since become a national hero and is featured in many aspects of Korean culture. Many movies, books, and documentaries are written about Admiral Yi and his accomplishments. There are even statues dedicated to the admiral for his achievements fighting for the country. I think this unit about Korean history was a very fruitful because I had many good refreshers about the rich history of Korea and went more in depth about the history I learned about when I was younger. I was able to take time on my own to study more in depth which I enjoyed as well. I also learned about the history that are not frequently brought up or taught in schools which was also helpful. In addition, I learned more about the language by reading the texts and speaking about it with my language partner. Often times, I found myself struggling with the texts because a lot of historical terms in Korea have difficult root words. These were words that had hanja in them, so it was hard to decipher what the word meant at times.
The following week after finishing up Korean history, I took a break from the formality of history and learned more about slang in Korean. With the help of my language partner and some online resources, I learned about how culture of slang has changed over time. Much like how the slang language changes over time in America, it took changes in Korea as well. Many of the slang in Korean are used in text messages and on TV shows. Usually, most slang used in Korea aren’t metaphorical but shortened versions of the meaning. For example, “갑분싸” is just shortened version of “갑자기 준위기 싸해짐” which means the mood suddenly turned cold or uncomfortable. I also noticed several slang words were just Korean pronunciations of English words such as “티엠아이” which literally reads “TMI” in English. Learning about more informal language after learning about history was very refreshing because I am used to informal speech more. In addition, since I use it more often, I get more practice as well.
그림의 떡이다
길러 준 개 주인 문다
누워 떡 먹기
하나를 보면 열을 안다
This week’s cultural post was a collection of idioms that are frequently used in Korea. These idioms usually have an equivalent idiom across different cultures and languages as well. I found these to be interesting because I have always heard them when I was growing up in Korea. I also chose this list of idioms since many of these idioms have an American equivalent and should be recognizable for most Americans as well. The first idiom on my list is “그림의 떡이다”. This is pronounced as “geulim ui tteog ida” and the literal translation just means “rice cake in a picture”. However, the actual metaphorical meaning of the idiom refers to something that is desirable, but you cannot have it. The “rice cake” in the picture is referring to what is desired but since it is in a picture, it is not attainable. The American equivalent of this idiom would be something like “a pie in the sky”, since it also refers to something that is desired, but it is not attainable because it is in the sky. The next idiom on my list is “길러준 개 주인 문다”. This idiom is pronounced, “gilleojun gae ju in munda”. The idiom literally means a “dog biting the owner”. The true meaning of the idiom refers to someone who antagonizes the person he or she is indebted to. The American equivalent of this idiom is also something similar which is close to “bite the hand that feeds you”, which also refers to the act of forgetting who you are indebted to. Another idiom on my list is, “누워서 떡 먹기” and is pronounced, “nuwoseo tteog meoggi”. In literal translation, this idiom means, “eating rice cakes while laying down,”. Because one can assume that eating rice cakes laying down is an easy task, you can assume that this idiom refers to a task so easy that it is similar to eating while laying around. The American equivalent of this idiom would be “a piece of cake” and is used very frequently. The last idiom I learned about was, “하나를 보면 열을 안다” and is pronounced, “hana leul bomyeon yeol eul anda”. This literally means you learn ten things from observing one. This one is pretty easy one to decipher since it is fairly literal. This idiom refers to someone who is very perceptive or intelligent since he or she can see one thing and learn ten more things from it. For this idiom, I could not think of an American equivalent idiom since it was literal enough for most people to know what they are talking about. While the majority of the idioms I picked had a popular American equivalent, it was interesting to find one that seemed unique to Koreans. Another cultural aspect I noticed was the frequent usage of a rice cake to represent something that is desired. Since rice is a staple food in East Asian cultures, it made sense that they would use rice cake in the idioms. In the American idioms however, rice cakes were replaced with things like pie or cake. It was interesting to observe cultural differences even in idioms despite having similar meanings.
This week, I worked on learning about history in South Korea. Because Korean history was never taught in American schools, I was never knowledgeable about the history of my heritage and wanted to learn more about it. In one of the videos I saw, I learned about four significant historical figures. These historical figures all played an important part for the independence of South Korean from Japanese colonialism. The first figure was Kim Gu. Kim was a politician and a leader of the Korean Independence Movement against Japan. Kim was a major player during the Korean Independence movement and a major proponent of education for all Koreans. He was eventually forced to flee due to the Japanese government silencing all opponents through violent means. The next person I learned about was Ahn Jung Geun. Ahn was responsible for assassinating Prince Ito Hirobumi who was a proponent of Japanese expansion in the Korean territory. Ito was known to be responsible for the assassination of the Korean Empress Myeong Seong and also forced several unfair treaties onto Korea. Another was Yu Gwan Sun. Yu was educated in a women’s university at a time when it was very uncommon for women to be educated in Korea. She was heavily involved in peaceful protests against Japanese presence in Korea. At one of the demonstrations she organized, Japanese forces opened fire into the crowd of peaceful protestors and killed 19 people including both of Yu’s parents. Yu was arrested and tortured. Despite being imprisoned, she never gave up her demonstrations and was actively protesting with the other inmates. Yu eventually died due to the tortures she endured for a long time.
Learning about these Korean figures made me very proud of my heritage since their independence was hard fought. I think learning about important historical figures was a very good strategy to learn about the Korean history because learning about the heroism of these figures sparks my interest further. I eventually did more research on my own time to look into the historical background behind these protests and assassinations. There was also a long list of movies that were based on historical events that I was encouraged to watch by my Korean language partner.
Lastly, I think learning about the history between Korea and Japan is also important in the context of current events. South Korean and Japan always had a less pleasant diplomatic relationship because of the many years of colonialism. Very recently, the South Korean government declared a trade war against Japanese goods due to tension between the two countries. Since much of Korean citizens agree with the government being against trading with Japan, most of the nation has been taking strides against buying goods from Japan. Watching a news clip in Korea, I saw that Japanese merchandise are labelled as such and were left on the shelves in supermarkets. However, the news speculated that this would also harm the Korean economy due to the many Korean companies’ dependence on Japanese electrical machinery. To build on what I learned in this week’s class, I will continue to do more research on my own time about the Korean-Japanese history.
Reflecting on my first few weeks of school, I was very eager to start improving my Korean once more. Before my first meeting with my learning partner, I wanted to brainstorm different ideas about what I want to work on this semester and how I can approach these goals. After some thought, I narrowed down what my current language skills lack the most. Some of these were writing, vocabulary, and reading. Writing seems to be one of the more problematic skill since I rarely get a chance to practice writing. I often get to speak and listen to other Korean speakers, but writing is something I do not get to do very often. Because of this, writing at a higher level and spelling can often be an issue for me. To practice learning, I wanted to start with diary entries. Since it is for a diary, the content should be very informal and easy to write about. I then want to move onto writing letters to others. Since letters should be more formal depending on the recipient, it should help me practice more formal writing. To work on vocabulary, I think the best way to practice is just memorization. I hope to utilize flash cards and other memorization methods to start memorizing harder vocabulary that are not used often enough for me to know well. In addition, I want to practice vocabulary so I can read the Bible in Korean more proficiently. I have recently started a Bible study with other Korean speakers. Since we all read and discuss in Korean, I run into a lot of vocabularies that are unfamiliar to me and have to look up the definitions. I want to take these words and memorize them as well so that my reading comprehension will improve. Bible reading will also help with my reading skills. Since much of the Bible is in more formal text, it can help me improve my vocabulary as well as my reading speed and comprehension. I found myself to be struggling to read at a quick pace and was misreading words quite often. I want to get more practice reading Korean so that I can read more difficult texts such as the Bible, newspaper, or technical writing.
On my first meeting with my language partner, we discussed went over some goals I had brainstormed in advance. We agreed that these goals were reasonable and within my skill level. In addition to the skills mentioned previously. I discussed that I wanted to learn more about culture. Unlike my previous self directed learning experiences, I wanted to devote some lesson times to learning more about Korean culture. Since culture is a very broad topic, I would think about an aspect of Korean culture I wanted to learn more about and discuss with my language partner in advance. My language partner and I can research about the topic and take time during the meetings to discuss the topic. Doing more research on culture in advance can also be helpful for the cultural presentation at the end the semester.
