I met with my Korean teacher 雅子老师 for one hour each week, and we practiced speaking common phrases such as greetings and introductions. This week I learned how to sing the “Three Little Bears” in Korean! I was surprised by how well I could pronounce the words because some vowels still give me some trouble, but my teacher said I did wonderful. The song is simple and fitting for beginners because the lyrics are composed of phrases and pronouns such as Father bear, Mother bear, and Baby bear. After a few practices runs, I wondered whether I truly knew what I was saying, or I am simply remembering how to say the words/lyrics.
This week I learned a few verbs such as the “is” and “to go” that are commonly used in sentences. Depending on the situation (formal vs. informal), there are also characters that are added at the end of the sentence that contain no meaning but is just there for the sake of it. For an example, “임니다” or “습니다” are often put at the end of the sentence in a formal setting. While for some it may be difficult to understand the reasoning behind this, I compare it to Cantonese where there are words or sounds at the end of the phrase or sentence that contain no actual meaning. However, in formal writing such as in books or essays those filler words would not be included.
My Korean teacher gave me a short introduction to Korean grammar, and I will admit was somewhat overwhelming. There are a lot of changes in the pronunciation of some words when they are next to a vowel or consonant. I am not too concerned with grammar now, but my priorities are to quickly recognize the characters and string together the sounds that make up the character. For an example, I can read the words “boy” and “girl” with ease because I have been exposed to them through Duolingo countless times, but new words take a lot longer. My concern isn’t about learning a new word, practicing it over and over, and the next time I can recognize it quicker. I hope to see a word I don’t know and sound out the vowels/consonants faster. It’s amazing to me how crucial an alphabet system is to learn a new language because it is the building blocks to words and a system to use when I come across new words. For an example, Duolingo gave me a new word to learn “아이스크림” (ae-seu-keu-lim) and I may not recognize what it is. However, once I sound out each character, I realized it was “ice cream”. Knowing English allowed me to learn words in Korean even though I don’t know how it is written in Korean.
My goals for the upcoming week is to complete and master Basic 1 and Vocab 1 levels on Duolingo and start learning basic sentence structure. Duolingo has been one of my favorite study tools to use because the lessons are quick and entertaining. Additionally, from this whole language learning journey, Duolingo has been the best service I used to learn new vocabulary words.
Comments
I love the 3 bears song! I also like the Baby Shark Korean version. You should also listen to 머리 어깨 무릎 발 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHBo6QTr2u4). Duolingo is also pretty good! You should also try Drops. This one is an app that helps you with vocabulary for 5 minutes a day. It is a study routine and it gives you all different kinds of vocabulary. I am using it for almost 2 years now.