I took CHIN 201 during the fall semester of my sophomore year, and the experience revealed how much I enjoyed learning Mandarin and how much I already know about the language. Most of the beginner students in the room were filled with confusion or frustration, but I felt at ease. Although I felt empathy towards them since Mandarin is one of the most difficult languages to learn and master, I felt lucky to be able to comprehend a sufficient chunk of vocabulary and grammar to converse with a native. Unlike the students in my CHIN 201 class, most of them probably enrolled in the class to fulfill the COM2 requirement while I enrolled because I wanted to further challenge myself and improve my fluency. Even though I only speak Cantonese at home with family, most of the TV shows we watch speak Mandarin, which is why I can read, hear, and speak conversational Mandarin adequately. I believe this different mindset and strategy is what motivated me to continue my pursuit of learning Mandarin. My goal wasn’t solely on fulfilling the COM2 requirement; instead, it was simply to learn the language and be more informed. In fact, this will be the same mindset that I will apply to learning Korean.
Korean culture has trickled into the United States in the last decade, and I find that there is a thirst for Korean music, Korean dramas, Korean food among my friends and around the globe. Therefore, finding services to learn Korean is as accessible as going to the nearest McDonald. Even though learning Korean from watching TV shows or listening to music is a great way to learn the language, only doing these two activities is not sufficient to learn the language itself. Fortunately, I am a studious human.
Often when I hear Korean phrases, I find similarities in both Mandarin and Cantonese. For an example, the word for man in Korean is nam ja and in Mandarin it is nan ren. In Cantonese, it is nam zai. Even though it is difficult to showcase the phonetic similarities through writing, the written portion is quite similar as well. Languages such as Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin all share a similar writing component where characters, which are like pictures, are used instead of spelled out words such as in English. Even with Japanese, I can read some of the characters because they look the exact same or like Mandarin characters. For an example, Japan’s capital, Tokyo, is written as 東京 in kanji (Japanese character system) and for a Mandarin speaker, they would be able to read what that means. The difference would be the pronunciation of those two characters in Mandarin compared to Japanese.
According to the surveys, I am classified as a visual learner, and I find that to be correct because graphics, videos, drawings, etc. help me comprehend the information better. For an example, when I struggle with complex biological processes or difficult organic chemistry mechanisms, my immediate urge is to head over to YouTube or Khan Academy. Those learning platforms contain useful information and explanations that some professors are not able to provide. With there being a high interest in Korean culture, I am positive that I will have no problem locating resources that will aid in my language learning journey.
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