The task I am currently working on is learning the Korean alphabet, which is called Hangul. I hope to have memorized the 19 basic consonants and the 21 basic vowels this week. In addition to memorizing the pronunciation and characters, my language partner, Kim Somyung, encouraged me to also focus on the stroke order of the letters. During the weekly session, she worked through the basic combinations of the vowels and consonants, along with their proper pronunciation. During this process, we also established some goals to frame our lessons around. My personal goal was to be able to read Hangul at a proficient level so that I can read Korean novels/webtoons and also understand some of the quirks of the Korean language when I am watching Korean entertainment and dramas. The fundamentals of Korean language is the alphabet so my initial strategy is deliberate practice and repetition of the alphabet. This strategy has been simple but effective and I am confident that I have learned most of the alphabet and should be able to pronounce words correctly with some minor guidance.
When Somyung and I were setting our goals, we also discussed the specifics of Hangul. One thing that we noticed was that the language didn't have tones, whereas my native language, Chinese, did. This was interesting since it did mean that the Korean language seemed to be similar to English in that way. I always struggled with intonation so that turned out well. But, I did learn that some Korean letters sounded quite similar. In addition to these musings of the similarities between languages, Somyung and I also went over our names in Korean and I learned that the Hangul does not have a sound associated with “v”. Therefore, my name would use the “b” sound rather than the “v” sound. I found this particularly amusing because this variation was already a nickname that I received from a friend who was not Korean. Another interesting discussion that we had revolved around the use of technology to generate Korean, specifically how Hangul worked on the computer keyboards. I learned that the Hangul keyboard was much more difficult to work with than something like Chinese pinyin. This will be an interesting direction when I have to write up paragraphs in Korean.
Looking into the future, Somyung and I also discussed having collective sessions where I could listen in on some lectures that are fully in Korean once I have reached sufficient mastery of the language. Of course this is unlikely to be anytime soon but having a complete lesson in Korean will challenge me to expand my vocabulary and concentration. In the immediate future, I received plenty of online resources to practice Hangul pronunciation and stroke order, as well as letter combinations. Once I have finished mastering basic alphabetical variations, we plan to dive into vocabulary and reading because that is my focus for the time being. I look forward to taking this dive into the Korean language and being able to read stories in their native language.
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