Jannette You
This semester has taught me a lot about myself as a language learner and cultural explorer. Through the readings and discussions that we had this semester, I was able to figure out that I like to learn the history and culture of different languages. I think knowing more of its purpose development allows me to be more motivated and appreciate the language. Even though I am Korean and have been speaking the language for a long time, I have realized that I might not know a lot about its history and culture as much as I should. Our conversations and lessons have encouraged me to do more research on how the language was developed and start appreciating my language even more. Furthermore, just learning about language like learning how different sounds are formed (IPA) and how they are different from other countries, how grammar works in English and other languages, and different language family trees was interesting. This class has taught me that I really do not pay attention to the languages around me and that I take my bilingual abilities for granted as well. I was a little ashamed of myself when I did not even know the languages that other students were learning. However, it was fascinating to listen to other students’ learning journey and their cultural presentations as well. Especially when my classmates presented their cultural topic presentations, I really enjoyed that they all seemed passionate about the topics. It told me that even though I am not as familiar with other cultures and languages, I should be more exposed and encourage myself to step out of my comfort zone to learn about different cultures because I might find something I like. Even though I enjoyed it, I found it difficult to fully understand the grammar lesson and other discussions on some of the technical topics such as working on the IPA pronunciations. I enjoyed our break-out rooms, class discussions, and presentations. I will continue my learning by watching more YouTube videos, find some biblical examples and customs like I did for my cultural presentation and learn different phrases, find native Hebrew speakers, or watch movies in Hebrew. I definitely do want to keep learning and become more experienced. I do think it will be helpful for me as I continue to grow in faith as well. The readings and activities that I found most useful were the New York Times articles that we read and the videos we watched. I think I am now more of a visual learner, so listening and watching the videos really helped me to understand the concepts better. It was so interesting to watch the video on how people have different interpretations and understanding of color. I would like to learn more about cultural topics and how they relate to the languages. After doing my cultural presentation, I learned that the language itself had a lot of impact on the culture, and I know we covered it in class, but I thought it would be more beneficial if we all talked about it together in class using our target languages.
Comments
Hi Jannette, this is such a cool post! I also have a lot of thoughts about not knowing Korean history. But honestly, after I took a class at Yonsei, I realized that even if I had born and raised in Korea, I probably still wouldn't know very much about Korean history simply because it's so long and difficult. However, there's a lot of interesting stuff you can learn and if you want to take a class at Yonsei you totally should!
Hi Jannette, thanks for sharing! When I grew up, I was required to learn Chinese history and World history in schools. Therefore, even though I didn't like history very much, I was able to have an overall understanding of not only Chinese culture but the cultures of other countries as well. I definitely think that learning a language isn't just about the language, it is more about familiarizing yourself with the culture. I always regard languages as a tool for us to communicate with people from other cultures with different perspectives of the world. Thank again for sharing!
Hey Jannette, great post! I understand how you feel. As an American born Korean, I also find it hard at times to relate to the history and culture of South Korea, especially since I have only been there once for like two weeks. I think it is a great idea to immerse more and research more about the history and culture to get a better understanding of identity.
Hey Jannette! It makes me happy to read that you enjoyed the IPA and linguistic element of this course! As a linguistics minor, I really get into that stuff and love the way it can teach you so much about a language without speaking a word of it or being able to have a conversation. Also, as a student of Arabic, I understand there's a lot of similarities between Arabic and Hebrew, phonetically, syntactically, and otherwise and would love to talk about it!
Jannette, I'm glad that you were able to learn more about Korean culture throughout this semester. Definitely don't feel ashamed about not knowing some of the other languages- I didn't either! There are a TON of languages and the point of this course is to learn the less popular ones :) I also really enjoyed the videos on different interpretations and perceptions of color, which I thought was a brilliant illustration of how much language can influence perceptions and culture even in matters that we see as invariable (or as black and white, for a fun color pun).