After reviewing my language plan I think that my original structure was not specific enough in delegating the work I had to do to learn Korean. Despite this, my current learning style has evolved and adapted naturally to be more specific without going back to my learning plan that often. One of the main things that I missed in my initial learning plan was the concept of themes for vocabulary. I was too focused on the grammatical types of certain words that I had learned when I should have been focused on what types of words do I want to convey and what words are commonly used and are useful in understanding. One thing that I did plan out well was the learning process for the Korean alphabet because by the time I had written up the learning plan, I had already practiced the Korean alphabet significantly. This isn’t to say that I have mastered the Korean alphabet like my learning plan suggests because mastery is something quite difficult to achieve even for native Korean speakers. There are nuances that a novice learner would overlook like I did that really differentiates the fluency of the Korean language; this is especially true for the fundamental building blocks of Hangul, the alphabet.
One thing that did become quite frequent was the use of YouTube as a studying platform for learning Korean. When I first wrote up my learning plan, I had some idea of what YouTube offered but I did not internalize the depth to which the video platform could be used for learning. Many native speakers offer their knowledge and experience to viewers for free and it is a resource that is always available on campus. Jumping into grammar was an essential part of learning any language and I think that I did not have sufficient information to break down the process of learning grammar at the time of writing the learning plan. Now that I have been studying Korean grammar for some time now, I understand that there are some complexities that I did not consider. Some examples of these are particles and batchims, which have been a major focus of mine for the past few weeks. These rules are necessary for constructing sentences and original ideas, which I did bring up in my presentation of my learning plan.
Regarding how I have incorporated what I learned in SDLC 105 into my Korean learning, I have expanded my understanding of linguistic proficiency as stated earlier. Additionally, we have recently delved into the concept of language families, a topic that I haven’t considered when looking at the language and culture of Korea. I initially thought that only the close neighbors of an area would affect the language but the distance and expanse that the language families covered surprised me.
In this next stretch of learning, I need to focus on reaching competency with the grammar and reading of Korean. I believe that my initial expectation of learning speed was a bit of an overestimation and I would like to reframe my learning experience as being more natural. Learn what topics are useful and simple and build up step by step as a native Korean speaker would. It may take a long time to become sufficiently skilled at reading and writing and speaking Korean but with consistent practice, it should be possible to become as skilled as a grade schooler in Korean language haha.
Comments
Hi Victor, thank you for your thoughtful reflections on your Korean learning plan. I'm happy that you've been able to adapt your plan to use YouTube as an important resource. I hope that your focus on reaching competency with the grammar and reading will push you to be an advanced grade schooler in your Korean language learning.