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Learning journal week 9
This week I reviewed present continuous tense and learned question words. I remembered the pronouns and suffixes, negation and vowel harmony in verb conjugation. Some of the question words I have not learned before. For this topic I will practice by writing sentences for each pronoun and each verb I know. I will also apply the vocab I have accumulated to the sentences. Grammar is my favorite thing about Turkish. Once you learn the pattern and keep vowel harmony in mind it is so easy. I think I am ready to learn other tenses.
Learning journal week 7
This week I am learning about items in the city, shopping, and how much is this? This build upon the last topic of items around the house and asking questions about where is something or what is it. For this week I will record myself describing an item I want to buy. This also gives me an excuse to online shop. I will find a Turkish company and make sure the language is in Turkish and go through the website. I might not actually buy anything but it will get me familiar with the vocab used for shopping. I plan on shopping if I go to Turkey so this lesson is extremely useful.
I am able to understand some adjectives used such as "new items" (yeni gelenler) as well as the colors used to describe items. Some vocabulary is familiar to me, whether it be from english (ie: jeans) or from a romance language (pantalon). I believe I would be successful if I needed to shop at a Turkish store online or in Turkey.
Learning journal week 5
This week I am learning about items around the house. In addition to the vocabulary, I am learning to ask where something is (nerede?) and what is something (bu ne?) and how many (kac?). I hope to be able to identify these items with ease and talk about this vocab with ease. I want to be able to form questions and answers about the vocab. I will study this topic daily and will know whether I have learned it well enough when I revisit it in later weeks. I will label items around my house with the Turkish word for them. This topic is definitely useful in everyday speech, especially the question words.
Learning journal wk 3
This week I am reviewing some things I learned last semester. I am reviewing seasons, days, numbers, and time. I hope to master these topics and be able to talk about them with ease and without hesitation. I plan on studying a lot on my own. I will try and get into the habit of reading the time aloud in Turkish. I might put Turkish numbers up on my wall so I can look at them daily. I will also review the days of the week and months and seasons. I started writing the date out in Turkish everyday on my class notes. This has been helpful, although I’ve forgotten some months, because I don’t have school all of the months out of the year.
My learning goal for this week would be to learn and master how to respond when someone compliments you. The online video lesson's topic is between two friends where one is complimenting the other for volunteering on the weekends, but in Korean culture, it is rude to just accept it and say thank you. Instead, the person receiving the compliment must either brush it off as something not worthy of complimenting, or to blow off the complement. This reflects the Korean culture where people try not to be arrogant or appear prideful, but must approach all things with humility. Thus after watching the video, I plan to practice using the grammar structures, have my language assistant help, and apply the vocabulary words in applicable situations.
Due to my first artifact being a letter to my grandparents I can't really evaluate it as a conversation. But I do see improvements in my use of language, and proper spelling and sentence structures. I believe my letter flows better and I am forming comprehensive sentences that my grandparents would be able to understand. I believe I am able to go deeper than what my normal conversations have been with them in talking about day to day things, explaining my college experience, and asking how they are doing.
b.) I think I met my goals for weeks 4 and 5 relatively well. I am continuing to watch the online videos to help me properly understand more grammar structures and learn more business-oriented vocabulary. I have learned a number of more complex words that I would never have been able to understand before, and actually understand the meaning of words that I may have heard of before but never really understood. I understand now how to suggest to someone of higher authority in a respectful manner. I am still looking to practice these grammar structures more and apply the vocabulary words I am learning in applicable sentences.
Thus far, my mastery over the Korean language has been improving. My knowledge of the language has definitely improved as I have learned proper grammar structures and have increased my vocabulary bank. However, applying this knowledge and honing my skills through practice has been lacking a little bit. The practice methods I am using is maybe not enough. I am currently using online videos to help me go through the basic Korean grammar structures, expressions and vocabulary, and it does provide me with a couple practice questions. Despite answering and checking, I feel that I may need a bit more practice in order to really drill into my brain the knowledge that I am retaining. Despite the inability to retain all that I am learning, I am enjoying properly learning the grammar structures. Until now, my only use of grammar has really been through speech and usually with my parents who are more likely to understand my broken Korean grammar and thus not really go out of their way to correct me. Especially because I have not had much practice writing Korean, I have definitely enjoyed practicing it thus far, and improving my spelling skills and grammar structures.
Understanding and learning more about the culture from which I come from, I am beginning to understand the different uses of Korean around different groups of people. Understanding that the society of Korea is heavily broken into hierarchies where the elders, and those higher up in society are deserving of respect, and those of your age require different use of language, and even for those younger, a different style of language, it’s been difficult trying to translate that sort of separation into English, in which there are no special rules. In my own experience, I have not had much practice in addressing those “deserving of respect” as often I only conversed with my parents, and even if I did interact with elders, and people higher up in society, I did not talk much. I knew the basics of answering questions, and certain greetings and farewells, but had no experience in really having a substantial conversation with them. So learning the proper grammar structures and the rules have really helped me build confidence in how to approach with proper respect and speech. And having grown up with friends who all spoke english, I never really had the opportunity to practice informal Korean either. I noticed it when I visited my cousins in Korea who are a little older than me but technically still in the range of me being able to talk to them informally. I wasn’t comfortable enough to hold a conversation with them, because I had become so used to talking to my parents or not using Korean at all. However, learning the grammar structures and especially vocabulary because Koreans use a lot of abbreviated words to mean certain things, has helped me develop confidence in being able to hold an informal conversation with them.
In order to improve my communicative competence, I believe I need more practice just applying the grammar structures that I am learning, and incorporating the vocabulary that I am learning to my day to day life if possible, whether it be conversing with my parents, or just writing them in sentences that would be applicable.
Knowing a language's history can be beneficial in learning the language. For example. the Korean language uses an alphabet called Hangul. Chinese characters have an influence in Hangul and it is possible to find similarities in the language. If one were proficient in Chinese and had the mentality that there are similarities, he or she might find it easier to learn Korean. Learning the target language's history and how it was created can provide insightful information on the culture and the different influences the language might have taken in. If one were to understand these influences, he or she might be able to create associations with the target language and its influences to create an easier path in learning the culture and language.
Knowing the history of my target language is important because it will increase my language competence. Learning about how the language was formed and what the creator of the language intended it to be can help in knowing proper grammar and syntax of the language. In Korean, respect and hierarchy is taken very heavily. Without the knowledge of the difference of formality in the words, it will be extremely easy to offend someone. Talking to someone older or more experienced than you requires another form of speaking. This speaking called, nopimal, is used to show someone respect and hierarchy.
Also, knowing what other languages my target language was based off of could potentially help me. Lots of Korean characters have Chinese influences on them. If I knew and understood how Chinese worked, it would help me understand Korean easier. Some words have even been formed through stories or folktales that are passed down from long time ago. Knowing these stories can also help in memorizing these words.
a.)Again, my goal for week 4 is to continue mastering the use of business type language. Specifically just practicing writing more sentences using the vocabulary that I learned and incorporating the grammar structures as well.
My goal for week 5 would be understanding the expressions used in business conducts. More specifically in suggesting something to a higher authority. For example, if I had a good idea for a business project, how I would go about suggesting that to my project manager or even the CEO.
b.) I will continue using the videos that I am watching in order to help me understand grammatical structures and learn new vocabulary words associated with business like language in Korean. I will do the examples provided in the video first with the video together as it instructs me to do so, and then on my own after a couple hours in order to reinforce the idea.
c.) I will evaluate my success as my teaching assistant tests us each week usually focused on the videos we watched, past sentences we went over during the time that we meet, and/or new sentences that we would write.
Time is of the essence in Korea. That is reflected in their transportation systems, and everyday lifestyles. Usually, their weekdays will be jam-packed with work from morning to evening, while their weekends are jam-packed with vacation plans. If you take a look at the transportation system in Korea, their railroad system is one of the most technologically advanced systems in the world, rarely not being on time, and fast and convenient. Mostly everyone travels by subway, but for those that drive, their driving reflects the importance of time to them as well. From personal experience, driving in Korea is pretty hectic as driving regulations are often broken, e.g. running red lights, barely waiting for pedestrians to cross by. I remember riding in a taxi cab one time where the stationed driver didn't want to wait for the light to turn green thus took a left turn on a three way intersection on a red light.
Even their restaurants are very focused around the importance of time. There are many street restaurants in Korea, as they revolve around providing either portable food or very quick service food. Most Koreans are in-and-out of the restaurant in less than 20 minutes unless going out after work, or meeting with friends. But during the workday, food needs to be portable and it needs to be quick.
In short, Koreans are not looking to waste much time outside their work during the weekdays and are extremely focused on making the most out of their day.
The Korean language is one of the few Asian languages relatively alphabet based. Despite many other asian languages being character-based, Korean has been structured differently. The Korean language was originally based off of Classical Chinese, after the WWII, Korea took an initiative for reform to fully separate their language from Chinese and Japanese roots and influences. However, hahnjja, the original character-based Chinese/Korean language, still has influence as it helps clarify meaning between two native Korean words that may be spelled identically, or help decipher more complicated words as people are able to break down the word into parts/roots.
Despite being an alphabet based language, Korean is still much different from english, in that a word in Korean consists of multiple parts. Similar to how letters form a word, different parts of the Korean alphabet form a word; however, it is vastly different because words in Korean consist of different parts of the alphabet, whereas English words can be formed up of any letter in the alphabet. So Korean requires a set number of certain parts of the alphabet in order to complete a full understandable word.
My cultural topic will be focused on the importance of respect and honor towards those who died serving Korea in the Korean War. The war of 1950, commonly called the 6-25 war in Korea is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, wars in Korea and the amount of honor and respect towards those who served is immensely important. Having had the opportunity to visit the relatively new veterans cemetery this past summer, I saw how much honoring the fallen meant. One of three cemeteries of such size and magnificence, the National Veterans Cemetery, required nearly $34 million US dollars in building. And in my personal experience, the feeling of being there was one of transience and absolute awe as the hill on which the cemetery is built on looks out onto the nearby mountain and being elevated, it looks out into the nature and holds a very tranquil ambience. Much thought and planning clearly went into the building of this cemetery as location, structures, and the cemetery itself was all perfect. There seemed to be no mistakes or risks, but rather the cemetery reflected years of careful planning and scrupulous work. The place reflected clearly that honoring those who fought to keep Korea independent is of absolute importance and deemed highly in the culture.
My learning goals for this week was to understand the type of language I would use in a business type setting. In order to do so, I watched a 30 minute instructional video that helped me understand the different words associated with the business world in Korea, and then proceeded on to using certain grammar phrases that indicate business like manners, and respectful behavior. After watching the video, I wrote a couple sentences practicing such uses and had my learning assistant quiz my spelling by reading out a sentence and then having me write it out. I would say that I have not mastered the use of such language, but as a work in progress, I am now aware of the existence of such mannerisms and vocabulary.
I have begun to work on exercises that improve my spelling and writing. These exercises help me better understand the grammar structure of the Korean language and learn the different tenses and suffix endings that indicate the tense of the verb. This will assist me in writing a letter to my grandparents by being able to structure my sentences in a comprehensive manner and a format that my grandparents would be able to understand. Also learning the different ways of speaking to different groups of people; such as my friends, or immediate family, and those deserving of respect. My grandparents, falling under the category of those deserving of respect as Korea has a very hierarchical structure, would require me to use appropriate language that reflects that respect. I would not be able to use the language that I use to my immediate family to my grandparents because they are, in a sense, in higher ranking than say that of my friends or immediate family. My previous knowledge of the Korean language mainly consisted of very everyday language because I had only used it in situations where it required of such. I was never in an elongated set period of time where I had to use respectful language so therefore, I never got into the habit of using such language, nor felt the need to learn it. Thus my focus has been on being able to identify when to use such language and how to use language that reflected respect towards those in a higher position than me.
Knowing the history of the language you are trying to learn gives you a deeper perspective of the language and helps you better understand the language itself. When learning a language, it is extremely helpful to understand why such things are a certain way and why such rules exist. That's where knowing the history of the language can help you better learn the language because it can provide explanations for the certain rules. Knowing the history of the language can also help you discover the roots of the language. You're able to discover whether the language you are studying descends from another language and then use that to your advantage by finding the common things and therefore be able to better learn the language. As we read about the family tree languages having roots in Anatolia with studies of biologists backing it up, likewise, if we are able to understand the history of the language we can better learn the roots of the focused language and learn it better.
- Learning Journal 8: State your learning goals for this week and how you went about accomplishing these goals.
This week, I began Task 3: Telling Time, Date, and Counting
My Goals Were:
How to ask for the time
How to tell the time
How to ask for the date
How to tell the date
Know the months and days of the week
How to count: 1-10; 11-20; 20-100; 100-1000; 1000-9000.
To accomplish these goals, I used material (Unit 3: Happy Birthday) sourced from Indonesia's Ministry of Education and Culture. In it, reading activities, listening activities, writing activities, and speaking activities (latter with my language partner) allowed me to learn to the fullest extent. I accomplished all of my goals listed above. I learned the names of days, how to read, write, and tell dates, names of the months, and how to write, read, and tell years. I also worked on giving information related to time, days, dates, months, and years. And I worked on soliciting such topics as well.
Lastly, I met with my language partner for two hours. We further expanded upon the above topics. I practiced my listening and speaking skills with her.
