This semester has actually been a real eye-opening experience for me in terms of learning about myself as a language learner and cultural explorer. My overall goal was to be able to gain a sense of fluency but more realistically become more comfortable and confident in my Korean. I think the most important thing I learned was that I was approaching my language learning incorrectly. One of the most helpful things I learned was that not every sound can be imitated from one language to another. This has helped improve my pronunciations tremendously. I had a tendency to translate or sound out new Korean words that I didn’t know while reading through an English phonetic inventory. Even with the Korean alphabet, I would attempt to match words/letters that sounded the same in the English alphabet. Culturally I was able to translate some of the experiences I had abroad into my language learning which was very interesting. I’ve never viewed culture from an angle like that. I’ve realized how big of an impact culture has had on me, especially as a Korean American.
The most difficult part about my language learning experience this semester was probably trying to get rid of the English translation in my head whenever I heard Korean. This is probably my biggest hurdle in gaining fluency as I’m unable to switch my internal monologue automatically. I attempted to learn how to type in Korean this semester but ultimately failed to do so due to just how difficult it was to learn that kind of muscle memory in such a short time.
I will likely continue my learning journey by keeping in contact with my language partner and maybe visiting Korea in the near future.
I think the section on bilinguals was helpful to me. It sort of helped me figure out where I placed in terms of the 3 different classifications. I moved from the US to Korea back to the US at a very early age so my situation is a bit different. My parents also did not know English so they prioritized me and my brothers learning English over Korean.
I’d love to get to learn more about the historical development of the Korean language and the significant changes it had.
Comments
Ben,
I completely relate with you in terms of trying to switch from one language to another in our heads. Typing is also definitely difficult, but I learned that it is just pure practice and sometimes playing small typing games on the internet tends to help too. Anyways, best of luck to you on your language journey!
Hey Benjamin, this was very well written and thanks for sharing. I hope you do find a way to visit Korea as that sounds awesome! As for your learning of fluency, that does sound like a big challenge and any new language is hard to tackle just on a basic or conversational level. I wish you luck as you continue towards learning Korean better!