This month, Isaac and I focused on advancing my Korean grammar and the structures that follow. The categories we went over are honorifics (존댓말), causative form, passive voice, complex sentence structures, advanced particles, subjunctive mood, advanced verb endings, and extended hanja learning.
For honorifics, I was already quite familiar with the concept because of my parents and relatives. Most sentences end with -요 and -다 and answers of 네. We went through many different verb endings such as 했어요, 합니다, and 습니다.
For the causative form (사동), I learned that I just have to add -게 하다 or -게 되다 to the end of the verb stem. This translates to the causes and influences of the verb due to an occurrence or someone. Passive voice, 피동태, -이/히/리/기 gets added to the verb stem to indicate that the subject is being acted upon.
We went over a lot of advanced sentence structures and particles to improve my writing skills. For sentence structures, I practiced using relative clauses, conditional clauses, and conjunctions like -면서, -기 때문에, -지만, which translates to: with, because, although.
For particles, phrases like -에 대하여, -에 따라서, -에 의하면, -만으로도 are used to express the relationship between words. The direct translation would be about that, because of that, according to that, just with that. I am able to explain in depth with these particles in my writing.
Although practicing these grammar structures improves my Korean language skills, the best practice is communicating with my partner. Having open conversation and continuous corrections, I can find my Korean improving in small increments.
This SDLAP journey that I took for three semesters has really helped me improve my Korean skills and prepare me for further language advancement. Although I will not have a Korean language partner, I continue to plan on finding sources and ways to improve my professional and advanced Korean language. I am hoping that I will be able to visit Korea soon to show my improvement and explore all the things that I have learned and seen in the media. I am glad I got this opportunity to join this class and not only learn Korean but also the optimal way of learning a language.
Comments
It's really good that you guys are focusing on advanced grammar like that. That is one of the things I personally struggle with the most, and I sometimes need to take time with my own language partner to go over sentence structures and grammar.