One of the biggest difficulties I have had in Korean is reading and writing. This has been my target goal to be able to do both without any issues. I have tried reading various things in Korean. The previous Korean language partner, Joon Kim, provided my current language partner with an ebook which he gave his students last semester. Although it basic and probably does not go past grade-school level in the grammar and writing, it still takes me sufficient amount of time to read it.
This difficulty can be traced back to the first day of class when we all discussed the idea of learning a language. Although I do not clearly remember who stated this, but learning a new language when you already have knowledge about a language which is somewhat similar might make it more difficult for the student. For instance, if someone already knows Spanish and wants to learn Italian. Well I am in the same boat right now. I have taken and have engraved Japanese in my brain that I can not seem to pick up Korean as fast. (Shout out to the Japanese department aka Suzuki Sensei and Kadekawa Sensei. They have definitely have taught me so much since my freshmen year. Anyone reading my blog posts and wish to learn an Asian language more formally, I highly recommend Japanese.) In Japanese each letter represents a sound. While in Korean you combine letters to make a sound.
Switching between the two languages is a struggle for me. But, I might have found the solution. Well, my language partner actually did. He took my cell phone and without my permission changed the language settings from English to Korean. Now I am forced to read in Korean. Also I have picked up vocabulary words randomly as well. This is almost similar to being in a foreign country because at first I was taken back by all the new words that I have never seen before. But slowly and constantly seeing these words has eased me into learning them and remembering them. But due to the fact the semester is about to end, my goal is still simply to read more swiftly with confidence.
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