In the past two weeks, we decided to try something new and I took a Korean intermediate language quiz to see how I would score. I did a few when I took my language assessment at the end of last semester, and I thought it was a fun way to see at what level my Korean skills were. I took another quiz at an intermediate level, and found that the quiz wasn't too hard. It basically just made me read passages and tell them what it means. I think because my strengths are speaking and understanding every-day words and phrases, quizzes like this are easier, but may not be a fair representation of my Korean skills. Therefore, I took another quiz which focused more an grammar where I performed not as well. This quiz made me identify grammatical errors in a given sentence. Because I know Korean grammar by basically what sounds right, some of them were difficult to identify. As I continue to progress in Korean, I think coming back to these quizzes to test myself will be a good way to see how much progress I have made.
An article I read with my language in one of the weeks was about a new way of counting calories.This article was somewhat harder to read because it contained a lot of health terms that I was not sure of. However, my language partner helped me through it, and I was able to make through it. We also talked about the Korean culture and their almost obsession with appearance. I've heard about Korean celebrities who only eat less than 1,000 calories a day, or only eat sweet potatoes for a week in order to loose weight. This obviously is also an issue in the US as well as throughout the world, but I often feel that Koreans take it to another level. I think this relates back to the importance they put on appearance.
In my own time, I've also been practicing writing more and watching and reading more of the news. As I've stated before, I think practice over time is what will allow me to improve Korean and let it stick for the long run. I think this in combination with the work I have been doing with my language partner has definitely helped my Korean skills.
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