Learning the history of a language gives you an interesting aspect on language in general. Language is always changing and being influenced by other languages. I think a language's history can show us how one language is similar to others and how it is different. This ability to make a connection between languages broadens our learning experience in a very unique way. It gives us a chance to explore even more than we thought by looking at how our target language originated. Over the years, Korean has been influenced by Chinese and Japanese. I can see that there are many similar words. Just from the similarity of words, I am encouraged to explore if the words mean the same in the other language, whether it is used the same way. In this way, language learning offers variety and an opportunity to explore other languages in the context of your target language.
I think that learning about a language's history also puts things in perspective. Seeing how, over time, the Korean language has transformed helps me to get a better understanding of the language, it's grammar and vocabulary. Culture can heavily influence language. The more modern Korean used today is a good example. Times change and there are many phrases and words used by the Korean youth that weren't used before.
There is also the influence of English. Since English is a language that has, in a way, crept into many other languages, Korean is no exception. There are many English words that have been adjusted to fit the Korean language. Such as
컴퓨터, which is computer in Korean. In romanized letters, 컴퓨터 is keom-pyu-teo. It's a Korean take on an English word.
I'd also like to reflect upon my progress so far. I think I've done a good job keeping up with my learning goals and activities. I've been practicing reading by reading newspapers and that's helped me to increase my speed which I'm happy about because I used to be extremely slow at reading. I think I need to work more on memorizing voabulary, so that's what I will be doing more of in the second half of the semester. Other than that, I think I've been progressing at a good pace.
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