Due to the delay of spring break and the fact that I recently spent three days returning to China from the United States, this journal will only contain one week of Korean learning. Since we were in different time zone, and the Internet in my quarantine hotel in China was not very good, Brenda and I had some difficulties in our online class. However, fortunately, there are only three weeks left before the end of the semester. Brenda and I decided to save the last two weeks for the podcast and the final presentation. Therefore, this week, we summarized the knowledge we learned in the whole semester and reviewed the knowledge points that are easy to be confused and easy to make mistakes. I've been ignoring the importance of summaries. In previous semesters, I learned new language knowledge with my language partner until the last week, and I never made a formal semester summary. This will undoubtedly allow me to learn more, but it also increases the likelihood that I will forget something. At the beginning of the term I found that I had forgotten some of what I had learned. I think this situation should be addressed and avoided in a timely manner so that the foundation is solid. So this week's summary I think is very necessary and helpful.
This semester, I pay more attention to the application of grammar rules and formal written Korean. In the class, Brenda and I spent more time practicing making up sentence and situational deduction than simply learning how the rule works. By learning two formal Korean articles, I also gained a general understanding of the structure and rules of formal written Korean. At the same time, I also did a timely search and understanding of Korean events and recent trends. For example, I watched the Oscar-winning movie “parasite” and talked to Brenda about the gap between rich and poor that the movie reflected. Brenda and I are both bilingual and culturally proficient, so we discussed the similarities and differences between the three countries (US, South Korea, China) on this social issue. Inter-Korean relations is also a hot topic in South Korea recently, so I also watched some TV dramas and interviews about North Korea life and people and decided to make this the theme of my final presentation. I think these cultural learning is also an important part of language learning.
In addition, we reviewed the suffix which is something easy to be confused. There are 이/가 for topic, 은/는 for subject, 을/를 for object, 에/에서 for place/time, and 의 for possessive. We wrote a lot of examples to practice not missing them up. For example, 나는 니콜이 웃을때 좋아요(I like when Nicole smiles), and 니콜은 마크를좋아해요(Nicole likes Mark), which both use two of those suffixes. The conclusion I got was that always ask yourself two questions when using these suffixes. Which part of the sentence does the word you want to add suffix belong to? And does this word has a consonant or not? By thinking of the answers to these two questions, you will never mistake these suffixes.
This week's summary and review not only allowed me to check what I had learned in the past, but also gave me an opportunity to prepare for the podcast.
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