SDLC 110 Learning Journal #14:
Learning Journal 14: Summarize your work this semester, the progress you made and the difficulties you encountered.
Overall, this semester was eye-opening. I learned new phrases in Korean that I did not know before, such as how to properly talk to someone formally and informally. I learned basic words and sentences in everyday topics, including shopping, food, school, dreams, future goals, and more. I learned how to properly say phrases I had a habit of shortening, while also relearning phrases I did not use for years. To be honest, I underestimated the amount of work learning a language takes. I thought that I would reach an advanced level by the end of the semester, but I have not. I was overly ambitious in my goals of believing I would be able to understand the news in Korean. I thought I would be able to describe my day in Korean to the advanced level I am able to describe my day in English. However, I do know that though I do not sound like a native speaker yet, I still have made much progress from where I was in the beginning of the semester. I am able to talk to my mom for fifteen minutes in Korean, I am able to listen to music and understand, for the most part, what it is trying to say, and I am able to read basic Korean books with proficiency. My mom told me that she saw me improve this semester, and I am glad that a native speaker such as herself noticed my efforts. Some difficulties I encountered were forgetting my old ways of speaking Korean and learning a whole new way to say something. For example, my parents are from the countryside of Korea, so many of my phrases are learned from people with a dialect. It is difficult learning between dialects because, on the one hand, I know that I am still saying something that makes sense. However, I am more tempted to learn the more popular dialect way of saying certain words and phrases. It was difficult rewiring my brain like that. I also have many words in Korean that I have made up or shortened that my family members have come to understand. Therefore, it was difficult at times to speak in Korean because many of the words I thought were real words were in fact words that did not exist in the Korean language. From that perspective, it was difficult to once again rewire the way I learned a language because I had to relearn the basics all over again.
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