During the final weeks, I felt like I really had developed my Korean skills and improved a lot. My goals at the beginning of this class was to expand my vocabulary, improve my grammar in terms of using the correct subject marker and verb conjugations, and speak in daily conversation. I was really surprised at how much I could learn specifically for vocabulary, I was actually able to accumulate when I used them and practiced on the daily. Unlike my class in Korea, I just had to memorize them for the week and then would most likely forget about them. But with Vivan, we went through all the vocabulary we practiced every week and reviewed the words from the week before. Same thing with grammar, reviewing the previous concepts helped me grasp the new concepts. And in the long term, helps me actually learn the language better.
Also, during this time I was able to reflect on my learning styles and find out what kind works best for me. I was always a visual learner, but I realized that my learning styles may be different from the way I learn in my business classes vs. Korean classes. I also found out that I learn best through repetition, as many others may, with languages. I found out about an app called Drops, which is a vocabulary builder game. Everyday, you can play matching games but the special thing about Drops is how repetitive it is. Unlike Quizlet, everytime you click on a word or match a word, it says it. Hearing it along with thinking about it really helps it stick in my brain. I still remember the first word I learned from that app because it stuck with me.
We were also able to get some cultural immersion experience by going to get Korean BBQ at Korea Garden in Richmond. During this experience, I could use my Korean skills to order in a restaurant. I remember being in Korea I was a bit uncomfortable speaking the language because I didn’t have anyone there to check or correct me. But getting to go to Korean BBQ with Vivian was as helpful as she was in our classes. If I used a wrong measure word, she would correct me right away on the spot, which I feel is the most useful way to learn something.
This week was also the preparation stage of my final presentation for the class, so I decided to explore the topic of Hanja, which I was specifically interested in because of my background in Chinese. Hanja are Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation. Korean has many Sino-Korean words because they had adopted the Chinese character, Hanja, which allowed for both an acceptance of Chinese culture and for the expression of the Korean spoken language. What first sparked my interest in this idea was after seeing a video of people speaking Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Japanese. They spoke specific words that all somehow sounded the same throughout the four languages. I was really intrigued because in class, we learned about language trees, language families, and how different languages actually stem from the same parent language. I actually didn’t know that Korea used Chinese characters in their language before, so this gave me the opportunity to explore more of the history and cultural significance of Hanja.
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