I learned that being able to set my own learning curriculum and focus on the topics I want to focus on made language a much more fun and rewarding experience than any language class I’ve taken before.
I found that the most difficult part of Korean was being able to hold a full dialogue in Korean with no reliance in English. This came as no surprise, it is what I have always struggled with the most, despite having decent oral comprehension skills. Another part of learning that I struggled was with retaining vocabulary terms and phrases that I learned for the first time. I found that I had to revisit my notes throughout the semester multiple times in order to truly internalize new vocabulary.
One aspect of learning that I enjoyed very much was improving my reading and writing. After just a few sessions I could tell that I was picking up on some common Korean grammatical elements that I would have completely missed had I only been practicing my speaking and listening skills. I have noticed that in everyday life, I am able to read text messages, Instagram post captions, and other short texts more quickly. I hope to soon be more comfortable reading longer passages, perhaps by practicing with news articles and such.
Another part of learning that I thoroughly enjoyed was learning more about Korean culture and history. Learning about the history behind Hanboks and how it was deeply rooted in Korean social hierarchy and its colonial past with Japan was fascinating. Facts such as this along with what I learned about archery, martial arts, and Hangul were the highlights of my learning. I would go more in depth with Korean culture, especially with Korean history since the Three Kingdom Period. This is a shift from my initial goal to have my cultural learning focus on present day activities, hobbies, and culture in Korea for young Koreans my age. This being said I would still like to learn more about what life is like for Koreans in their 20s.
Next semester I hope that I will continue expanding my vocabulary though online resources and by practicing with my language partner. I hope that I will be more fluent in reading, writing, and especially speaking. I will make sure to have more full Korean conversations as my language learning journey continues.
My favorite in-class content from the semester was learning about the history of language families, how they evolved, and the geographic makeup of different languages. I find it very interesting how the study of language history can be closely tied to the history of how and where people moved.
Another part of class material that I thoroughly enjoyed was our study of phonetics. I think it’s very interesting how a universal set of symbols and sounds can be used to codify any language into something that anyone can read.
Comments
Hi Henry! I'm glad you're noticing more grammatical elements that will help you with your speaking and listening skills. I think it's a great idea to continue practicing speaking only in Korean with your language partner and your friend. Personally, I found that I improved my speaking skills by continuously having conversations only in Korean, even if I made mistakes. Maybe it's also a good idea to write sentences with the new vocabulary terms you learn!