As a language learner, I learned that I learn languages by repetition and practice by putting phrases and concepts into context. In my first reflection paper, I mention that I am a visual learner, followed by tactile and auditory learning. Knowing my strengths has helped me improve my language learning throughout the semester. For example, when I learned a personality word such as stubborn, I connected an association with the Korean word with someone who embodies this personality term, which in this case is my father. When I learned the term for stationary store, I vividly remember and imagine the stationary stores in Korea (since there are nothing quite exactly like the ones in Korea). I believe grammar to be the most confusing, particularly with honorifics. There was a lesson when I learned how to say something as simple as “to give”, but there are four different ways to say the phrase depending on the position of respect of both the subject and the receiver. I also have had a difficult time answering questions with a yes or no, since Koreans have flipped the way they answer questions compared to the American way. For example, depending on how you say the phrase “Isn’t it hot?” in Korean, one can answer by agreeing with the content by saying “yes, it is hot” or by agreeing with the overall statement by saying “No, it is hot”. I have learned only this example, but I’m sure there are more ways to agree or disagree with phrases.
I have started to genuinely enjoy learning about Korean culture. When I grew up learning Korean in America, I was never invested in learning the culture associated with the language. However, my view changed when I learned about the Whorf hypothesis and how culture shapes cognition, particularly in the video that we watched in class about how people couldn’t tell the difference between green and blue because a single word was used for the two colors. I realized this was applicable particularly when I learned idioms for my cultural presentation about rice cakes. For example, “Another man’s rice cake is always bigger” is the Korean equivalent to the American idiom “the grass is greener on the other side”. I also enjoyed the culture presentation the most because it allowed me to dig through one aspect of Korea’s history and I learned the significance of the food that has been present nearly my whole life. I will continue my learning by diving into more Korean variety shows and invest in a Korean language workbook after college to continue improving.
I also found that Brown reading on “Communicative Competence” was the most useful, particularly the seven functions of language and the categories of language competence because it broke down and laid out all the reasons to learn a new language and the necessary components required to be competent on all facets of a language. I wish I learned more about current, ongoing language projects and research. I learned that language shapes how one describes time and that there’s a website that keeps track of current dead languages, but I wish I learned more current research that is being done. Also, I wonder if there is a way to categorize the most and least efficient language? For example, in English, the homonym “tire” has two meanings with the same spelling, and other words have silent letters like “know” and “knife”. I find that to be a waste of letters and a poorly designed way to navigate a language, but I wonder if there is a way to rank the efficiency of languages.
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