I realized that this semester I have been putting a lot of effort into learning grammar but not enough effort into learning vocabulary. As a result, I have dedicated this week to learning new words and a good starting point seemed to be food and drinks.
As a result I looked up some online resources which provided a simplified list of vocabulary on food, typically the words names of food that would appear in a menu. However, as I was reading through the list I was surprised by how many of the words I already knew from watching Korean shows. I already knew how to say bread, noodles, meat, rice, porridge, rice cake, ramen, soup, water, tea, coffee and cola. Moreover, some words like chocolate, pizza, sandwich, juice have almost the same pronunciation as in English. In case of the names of food I did not know, I looked up pictures for each of them so that on reading the names a visual image will appear in my mind which helped me remember the words.
In addition to names of food I also learned some words to describe tastes like salty, sweet, sour, spicy, bitter etc. However, what I noticed is that when adjectives like sweet or salty is used, there is always an ending added to the words like "da" for informal and "yo" for formal. On the other hand, for adjectives like refreshing or for words that describe a particular flavor, a different ending is used. In this case "hada" is used for informal and "haeyo" is used for formal. This rang a bell in my mind because I had previously learned that "hada" is the verb "to do". So it seemed that since adjectives like refreshing or "gosohada" which means nutty flavor, has an active component to it, a verb ending is used.
Since the words I have learned are such that I can easily integrate them in daily conversation with friends, especially in the dining hall, they are easier to remember.
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