My learning experience as a self-directed language learner has been great during this semester. Learning a new language has always been exciting since studying a new language could help me gain insight in both linguistic side and cultural side.
I found myself as an active cultural explorer. In my learning experience, I constantly raise questions about the similarities and differences between Korean and Chinese. Then, I would look up the Korean linguistic history after class and found out more about the link between these two languages. The modern Korean writing system, Hangul, was devised in 1443 during the reign of King Sejong, perhaps the greatest monarch of the Yi Dynasty. Before hangul, other Korean scripts used a complex system of Chinese characters to represent the sounds of Korean. However, the differences between Chinese and Korean make it hard for Chinese characters to adequately denote Korean speech. At that time, only the elite could afford the time and money to study Chinese. Therefore, King Sejong invented the Korean language for writing in order to educate more people.
I enjoy learning the history behind my target language and find it fascinating to understand the development of my target language. However, writing has been the biggest challenge for me. The writing system of Korean has little connection with the Chinese, so I have to learn a new system and grammars. In order to develop my writing skills, I will continue to study vocabulary and grammar rules on a weekly base.
I found learning the Hangul introduction textbook useful. The textbook is very well structured. The book starts from the vowels and consonants and has quizzes in every chapter. I found the material very easy to understand since the chapter is divided into reading, listening and writing parts clearly, which is easy to follow and refer to after class. The textbook has a brief vocabulary flashcard in the end of each chapter. I could use them to review the material and write down in my notebook as a vocabulary list. My tutor and I have weekly quizzes, which help me strengthen my language ability and keep up with my study plan. Also, I found it very helpful to learn from YouTube channels. There are videos on YouTube that teach language in different ways. For example, since I am interested in K-pop, there are channels that explain K-pop lyrics by analyzing vocabulary usage and sentence composition. Learning from the subject I am interested in fosters my language study and also raises my passion in my target language.
According to my study plan, I learned basic daily communication during this semester. I would like to learn more complex sentence composition, as well as cultural-related subjects. I am interested in the similarity and differences between Korean culture and Chinese culture in aspects of etiquette. Therefore, I would like to learn more about the Korean linguistic history and also the formal usage of Korean language.
Comments
Interesting post, Claire! What areas of linguistic history and formal usage do you next plan to investigate? Keep up the good work, and I hope you continue learning Korean!