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Post Learning Journal Entry # 5:

How many new words have you learned? Do you have realistic goals?

I have learned about 30 words fairly well, I would say. This list also includes common phrases.

Here are some of the words/phrases I have learned thus far and have memorized.

1)      Hello=an nyong ha sae yo (formal) &anyoung (informal)

2)      Goodbye=an nyong hee gah sae yo (formal) & anyoung (informal)

3)      Nice to meet you=Man na seo ban gab seub ni da

4)      Good morning (informal)=Joh ohn ah chim

5)      Older brother (for guy, to older guy)=hyung

6)      Older sister (for guy, to older girl)=nuna

7)      Older brother (for girl, to older guy)=oppa

8)      Older sister (for girl, to older girl)=unni

9)      Younger person= dongseng

10)   I am sorry=Jwai song hap nee da

I have also learned the basics of how to order food with my language partner. I would like to create an artifact on how to order food with another peer who is learning Korean. I believe that my goals are realistic. My goals relate to common situations that a tourist would be in when going to another country: greeting others, getting directions, ordering food, etc. My vocabulary preferences will relate to these kinds of situations. Therefore I am not necessarily looking for a specific number to learn by the end of semester. I would just like to know the words necessary for specific occasions. 

This week's reading was interesting because it gave me a stronger understanding for the difficulty a language may be to learn. There are so many layers in a language to learn, and this week, rather than learning the physical parts of a language -- the grammar and vocabulary -- I learned about how the brain is involved.

In "How the Brain Handles Language," I learned about different parts of the brain and its role in helping the individual learn a language. I do not completely agree with the idea of localization, as I think learning something involves the entire brain as a whole. From a biological standpoint, the human body is not a simple prokaryote with simple structures and simple function. The human body is a eukaryote with complex structures that all work together to make a complete functioning being. So my opinion is that there is a whole range of factors that affect our speech and language learning. I agree when the article talks about how three parts working together: 1) for speech production, thought is generated in the Wenicke's area and sent to the Broca's area for encoding, 2) for speech comprehension, the signals arrive in the auditory cortex from the ear and the signal is transferred to the Wernicke's area, and 3) for reading aloud, the written form is received by the visual cortex and sent to the Wernicke's area. If the brain worked with the theory of localization, then anyone who is handicapped at the slightest would not be able to learn a language. However, this is not true.

"In "How We Mean," the concept of "collocation" was interesting. Collocation is the consistent juxtaposition of one word with another word. Sayings we have in our own language can be seen as lexemes and will differ from language to language. Because of lexemes, it may often be difficult to learn a language, as not everything should be taken literally. One single word such as "mean" in the English language can be used in so many different ways. In addition, a single sentence can pack in so much information that, to a learner, it may feel impossible to dissect a sentence. In order to mitigate some confusion, the article "How to investigate language structure" was helpful in introducing a four-level model of language: phonetics, phonology, grammar, and semantics. With a division of language into organized gameplans, it may be easier to learn Korean, my target language. I know that many languages love to use metaphors to describe feelings and situations encountered, so hopefully with a gameplan of dividing everything into simpler parts will help me grasp the Korean language with less difficulty.

I feel like I have good grasp on language learning. I speak another language called Kannada (it's a language spoken mainly in the state of Karnataka in Southern India). Actually, this was the very first language I spoke before I started speaking English. I learned this language when I was a child by listening and communicating with my parents who would only speak to me in Kannada. I also studied Japanese for three years in high school, but I had forgotten most of it by the time I signed up for a semester of it at the University of Richmond. In total, I've studied Japanese for three years + a semester. I have some understanding of the Korean language which I am starting to study through SDLAP. I taught myself how to read and write, but I still need a lot of practice to become proficient. I understand certain Korean words and phrases. 

I think I'm the type of language learner that learns by listening and repeating to communicate. It's how I learned Kannada and how I've been teaching myself Korean. The things you learn in textbooks might not always help in real life. Practicing speech and pronunciation is best for me. If I want to explore a language, I will start by watching movies and dramas or listening to music in that language because it gives me a better sense of the language than learning solely from a textbook. I think I should expand my learning activities through more listening and speaking exercises. 

My first meeting with Brigid, my language partner, was kind of just an introduction meeting. We mostly talked about what I already knew. We practiced a bit of reading since I knew how to read Korean already and we discussed what I wanted to accomplish by the end of the semester. I thought it was nice for us to actually discuss what I wanted to learn and how we would proceed with our coming classes.