During the second week of lessons, Jimin and I met up at our usual spot. She had me read a news article on Naver.com about the recent Corona virus outbreak, and I thought that it was a great choice as the currency and relevancy were high. It was relatively easy to comprehend despite being a news article, but there were a few terms that I was unfamiliar with. I read it aloud to practice my Korean speaking as well. Whenever I came across a term that I didn’t know of, I asked Jimin for help in order to fully understand the article. It reported the rising alarm from the virus outbreak that started in Wuhan, China. I was quite familiar with the outbreak itself, as was my family in Korea. I recall my mom telling me to buy face masks to protect myself…Overall, I was pleased to find that I could read and understand the news article quite well. In our future lessons, I hope to read some more challenging news articles to improve my reading comprehension skills, as well as my speaking skills.
Following the news article, Jimin and I watched a popular Korean drama that is currently airing and is available on Netflix. I was surprised to see how many Korean dramas are available on Netflix now, and I think it is very beneficial to my language and cultural learning as I can have easy access at any time to Korean dramas of different genres and backgrounds. The one we watched was “사랑의 불시착,” and it stars two very famous actors/actresses named Hyunbin and Son Ye-Jin. It is basically about a rich South Korean business woman/heiress who tragically lands in the lands of North Korea, where she meets the highly-ranked North Korean military officer Hyunbin. They become star-crossed lovers as Hyunbin tries to get Son Ye-Jin back to her country. It was fun watching Episode 7 with Jimin and being absorbed in the unrealistic story line. At times, it was difficult to understand the language as there was a lot of North Korean dialect, but Jimin would always help me out with that part. I found it to be an easy way of exposing myself to North Korean and South Korean culture, as well as the film style that is catered to a Korean audience. I found that it was very different compared to dramas in the US, as I think that the story line and acting is even more dramatized in Korean dramas. There certainly is a huge emphasis on wealthy heirs and heiresses, as well as on star-crossed lovers in Korean films. We kept Korean subtitles on throughout the episode, and this helped me to catch any phrases that I wasn’t able to keep up with. Overall, it was an entertaining way to end the lesson. I hope to watch more of the drama with Jimin, as well as explore other forms of media during our lessons.
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