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Second Artifact

-We completed translating the ASSETS portion of the balance sheet within the financial statements of Samsung Corporation. The attached document shows the translated words next to the Korean words in the balance sheet. I also examined these words to figure out the roots of the words. In Korean, a lot of the words have Chinese roots so if you know a decent amount of Chinese characters, you’ll be able to figure out the meaning of many difficult Korean words. Translating and analyzing the financial statements of Samsung has helped me incredibly to improve my vocabulary and understand the reasoning behind why certain words are used in certain ways in business. Samsung%20Balance%20Sheet.jpeg

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Second Bi-weekly Report:

-For this week, we watched a movie called Inside Men (2016), a highly-acclaimed Korean political drama. This movie explores corruption in politics and corporations in Korea with dialogue that fits the current trend in Korea.

-While watching the film, I hoped to learn new vocabulary and observe how Koreans converse in formal settings using trendy words and phrases.

- I jotted down words and phrases that I did not understand. I was able to easily translate them on the spot because we watched the movie with English subtitles for support. In addition, the other student and I asked questions during the movie about certain things the characters did in the movie that were not typical in America.

-I definitely learned a lot of new words and familiarized myself with the interconnections between the governments, conglomerates, and the media in South Korea. I hope to utilize what I gained from watching this movie to hold intelligent conversations with Korean adults in the future. 

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Second Cultural Post

-For my first cultural post, I decided to explore the recent presidential scandal in Korea involving former president Park Geun-Hye and conspirer Choi Sun-shil. South Korea has always been a victim of political and corporate scandals involving almost all former presidents and huge corporations like Samsung and Hyundai that dominate the Korean economy in so many ways. To summarize briefly, insiders found out that a mysterious woman, Choi, was basically controlling Park by advising her with presidential decisions without having any authority to do so. This was possible through Choi’s lengthy, dominating relationship with Park that was eventually revealed through connecting many dots and finding shocking evidence. Americans probably believe that their government is the most corrupt organization in the world. However, after learning about this case as well as other scandals in the past, I am convinced that no government surpasses that of Korea when it comes to corruption and bribery. Because I’m a Korean who has a general knowledge of morals and ethics of South Koreans, I know far well that Koreans are driven by jealousy, money, and power, especially in politics. Koreans tend to live selfishly and seek connections for benefits. I really hope Koreans would gradually transition into a nation of people who help one another rather than feeding off another for selfish gains. Luckily, president Park was impeached and Choi is still on trial. This resulted in the election of a new, progressive president who many are hopeful that he will reduce South Korea’s political corruption and boost morals of the general public. I can confidently say that Korea is definitely heading in the right direction.

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First Bi-weekly Report

-In the first two weeks, my language partner and I set forth two specific tasks to achieve my goals. One of them was to have as many conversations as we can to get to know each other and get familiar with having formal conversations in Korean. We also decided to learn Korean terminology involved in financial statements, a document that lists all financial information for a company (in this case, Samsung).

-We had conversations about the differences of growing up as a Korean in Korea versus growing up as a Korean in America. My language partner also printed out the financial statements for Samsung and we went over all the terms in the statement and translated them to their respective English words.

-Through our conversations, I learned so many new vocabulary words that my language partner used. My partner did not even realize that these words were difficult until I mentioned it to him. Also, by going over the Korean words displayed in the financial statements, I was able to dissect parts of the words to figure out the meaning myself.

-To build on what I have learned, I will continue to have conversations in Korean with the other students on campus and take a look at financial information for other Korean companies and try to understand what’s displayed in the statements. 

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First Artifact

This is a conversation I made myself talking about Samsung's financial statements. I talk about the four different types of documents that are included in financial statements (all in Korean). In addition, I talk about some of the aspects of the financial statements and explain its significance in Korean.Korean%20Recording.m4a

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First Cultural Post

-I am going to explore topics in business and corporate culture of South Korea and the cinema of Korea.

-I will read Korean news regarding business, economy, and finance. I’ll learn terminology used in the business setting and get familiar with the corporate culture in Korea. I will also watch movies and interviews with directors to learn trendy vocabulary and sayings. I plan on watching these movies and discussing with my language partner and other students.

-I hope to learn how to have conversations in Korean with business professionals in a formal setting. I also want to be able to read Korean business news without any difficulty in order to learn about current economic news in Korea. As I mentioned before, I want to familiarize myself with how Koreans talk today because trends in grammar and vocab always change in Korea.

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Summary of Assessments and Goals

-My interpretive and interpersonal skills are advanced but my presentational skills fall under the intermediate level. I am very competent in speaking, writing, and reading generally and especially in the informal setting. However, I lack knowledge of advanced vocabulary and grammar when it comes to speaking and writing in a formal manner.

-My goals for this semester are to learn vocabulary specifically in the business setting, familiarize myself with trendy sayings to be able to converse with Koreans in society today, and to improve my speaking skills in a formal setting.

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SDLC 111: Bi-Weekly Report #5

This week, we learned about the transportation system in South Korea because the subway system is used more prominently there, as compared to here. It is common in South Korea to walk and/or ride the subway to get to places, rather than using a personal car. Therefore, I learned about the different type of terms that I would need to know to navigate the subway. First, I learned how to add money to my card that is used to ride the subway. Second, I learned how to ask for an English version of the subway map. I also learned some specific terms that are used at a subway, such as “jee ha chul yeok” for subway station and “mae pyeo so” for ticket counter. This was really beneficial because it allowed me to become more familiar with how the subway system works in South Korea, which I will definitely be using to travel around. Through this exercise, I found out that I need to learn about the money system in South Korea. In America, we usually dollars as the currency, but in South Korea, they use “won.” Therefore, I will need to learn about the different conversions.

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SDLC 111: Bi-Weekly Report #4

This week, we worked on listening and writing exercises by watching videos in Korean. We first watched a Korean variety show that talked about student life in different countries, such as South Korea, Japan, and Mexico. It was interesting to learn that the country that students are the happiest and saddest are Mexico and Turkey, respectively. Unfortunately, South Korea was the second lowest, which meant that it was the second saddest country, for students. This exercise was helpful because it expanded my vocabulary by learning about student life satisfaction in  different countries.

 

We performed another listening exercise that involved not only watching a video clip, but also following along a script of what was being said. This was helpful because there were blank spots for me to fill in from the dialogue that was spoken in the video. This was a good technique because it made sure I was paying attention to what was being spoken, so that I can fill in the missing blanks. Both of these tasks allowed me to accomplish my goal to improve my listening comprehension skills.

 

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SDLC 111: Artifact #3

Recording: 

Angella Lee's Artifact #3

Translation:

Hello! My name is Angella. This week, we learned about terms used in a subway. In order to ride the subway, you must make a t-money card. For me, I would need to find a subway map in English. The subway station at Yonsei University is called Sinchon. Thank you!

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Learning Journal 10 (SDLC 110)

State your learning goals for this week and how you went about accomplishing these goals.

 

This week I continued to expand my Korean vocabulary and learned more about describing location. I learned the names for about a dozen body parts in class and then studied them more thoroughly on my own time. I also began to study words related to campus life from materials provided in class. According to the TA, some of the terms in the textbook are rarely used by Koreans. As we’ve gotten further into the class curriculum, several of these differences between what the textbook says and what is actually used by native speakers have come up. Although all of the terms, phrases, and grammar points taught in the textbook are correct, they can be a bit stiff and will make sense but will also make you sound like a foreigner. That point aside, knowing the campus related words is extremely useful since school and campus life is what I interact with on a daily basis.

 

On top of that, I learned how to describe locations of objects. One thing that was a bit confusing was that you have to attach a specific particle to the word describing the object’s location. It also seemed strange to me that you have to use a different verb the describes existence rather than being. 

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  • Sixth Cultural Post:  Attitudes about Time in the Target Culture

I spoke about the time attitudes of Turkish people in my first cultural presentation. Very rudely said, Turkish people do not really care about time and they are almost always late, even during very important events requiring punctuality. They do not like being pressured to arrive on time, they do not like being pressured about deadlines whatsoever. Similarly, they do not like standing and waiting in queues, and may try to break the queues and go before other people. The Westerners will not like the idea of Turkish people being always late but that is something that is culturally present among people. Turkish culture is a collective culture, therefore people do understand each other's cultural habits better and being late as a guest does not bother people. 

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  • Learning Journal 10:  State your learning goals for this week and how you went about accomplishing these goals.

This week we went to the local Turkish restaurant and I tried kebab as well as pakhlava, the Turkish dessert. There was another visiting professor from Turkey and we had a conversation about Turkey and Turkish food, culture. Apart from that, we continued learning new verbs, conjugated those, learnt some family members vocabulary(very complex in Turkish, by the way). I tried to practice ordering food in a restaurant and say what I want and what I do not want. I have been using my language partner's help to practice sentences and vocabulary. I'm also using my internet resources and especially quizlet and the vocabulary sets prepared by my language partner. I practiced adverbs of frequency as well. I need to revise the conjugations of verbs and use of pronouns to feel more confident. 

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  • Learning Journal 9:  State your learning goals for this week and how you went about accomplishing these goals.

This week me and my language partner along with my classmates planned to play monopoly in Turkish. We also planned to go to a local Turkish restaurant and eat Turkish food and desserts next week. We learnt the possessive pronouns and their use with certain objects, since we would need those in the monopoly game. We also looked at different suffixes and their use in formation of different words. We continued with daily routines and more verbs as well. We read different cards while playing monopoly, revised the numbers with each dice roll and got to know places in the capital of Turkey, Istanbul. This activity helped me feel more confident in future shopping that I may be doing in Turkey.

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  • Fifth Cultural Post:  Identify a topic for your culture project and your learning goals for your topic

Our cultural presentation got postponed until December, however I think I already have an idea of what I might be doing. Since my target country and culture, Turkey has lots of unique words, phrases and expressions, I will be concentrating on giving the audience an idea of when those expressions are used. Some expressions, if translated directly into English, make no sense, therefore, I believe as a language learner, it's essential to understand those authentic cultural expressions and what they mean. Some of the examples that I'll be using include Bir yastıkta kocasınlar-“May they grow old with one pillow”, Kolay Gelsin-“may it come easy” and 

Eline sağlık-“health to your hand.” I will start my presentation with a little bit of background about Turkey and will continue with an interactive kahoot to see if people can guess what the expressions might been. I believe this would help me engage with the audience and catch their attention before I move to the actual presentation. This presentation will meet some of my learning goals, including being able to recognize, understand and use some authentic Turkish expressions and phrases. 

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Learning goals this week.

This week I'm learning animal vocabulary, some simple directions as well as suffix uses. Besides, I am learning conjugations of present tense. I am revising the nouns since those are also needed for the conjugations that I will be learning. I am learning the negative tense as well. Negative tense of the Turkish language is very easy, at least when it comes to the present tense. I know and I don't know would sound like biliyorum and bilmiyorum. The same way, I'm going and I'm not going would be giliyorum and gilmiyorum, so it's all about "mi" that is added in the verb. Like before, I'm using my language partner's help as well as am practicing with my classmates and Turkish friends. I am practicing the conjugations using different verb examples and am trying to make sentences describing my daily routines. I am also using internet resources to learn and practice more verbs. Quizlet has been another resource that I started to use to imporve vocabulary and it is pretty useful. I'll be using it in the future. 

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Reflection upon my learning plan

I think I have made good progress in Turkish so far. I'm able to say simple conversation things, introduce myself and ask for introduction, understand some very used words and expressions, including ones used in airports and restaurants. I also learnt and practiced how to say: "There are (some things) in a certain place but there are no (other things) in another place. I have been reading simple texts and I am able to somewhat understand the sentences that have familiar words in them. I have learnt some basic verbs and I will be learning conjugations of present tense next week. I can do basic shopping since I can say and understand the numbers and prices. I'm about to learn some commonly used adjectives to describe goods, people and other objects. I can express gratitude as well, which is extremely important in Turkish culture, especially when talking to the elderly people. I am also able to ask simple question like how much, where, what, when, how etc. My learning plan has been very effective, however I may do some revisions, since I think me along with my classmates and language partner have covered the material much faster than I expected at the beginning of the year and I expect to exceed my initial learning goal. The only issue is that I will need extensive revisions in order to memorize everything. 

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Learning goals this week.

Because of the heavy vocabulary sessions over the previous weeks, I decided to dedicate this week to revision. I am revising the professions and places, numbers, colors, seasons, days of the week, months, food etc. I am also asking for time and trying to understand what time it is in Turkish. As a means to develop auditory part of my target language I've started to listen to Turkish songs and watch youtube videos in Turkish. I'm also adding up some new vocabulary words, such as and, but, because etc. I believe I achieved my goal of being confident about the things learnt so far and found this week very productive on terms of my language learning goals. Occasional revisions of material, instead of constantly adding up vocabulary turned out to be important, and I may have another revision week later in the semester. 

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111 Biweekly Report 5

My language partner and I have started a new activity where we have been watching the Brazillian show called Elite. We watch one episode in Portugese with english subtitles, and the next in English with Portugese subtitles. This has been good, as I have been able to practice both my listening and reading of Portugese. So far from this activity I have been able to pick up on alot of new ways to form sentences. This has mainy been when we watch the show in English with Portugese subtitles, as the translation is not always direct so the sentences in Portugese may be different. For example, In the show the actors say in English "Has it begun?", and the actor responds "Yes". However the subtitles say in "ya comecon?   Ya" Which means directly "Already started? already". I found this to be quite interesting. 

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Learning Journal #8 (SDLC 105)

How many new words have you learned in your target language?  How did you learn them?  Do you have realistic goals for your acquisition of vocabulary?

 

I don’t know exactly how many new words I’ve learned in Korean so far. If I had to guess, I would say that I’ve learned roughly 100 words. It’s especially difficult to quantify the number of words that I have learned considering that I have learned some words through a formal classroom setting and others informally (and I don’t know if I’ve learned those words properly). I also can’t account for terms that I may know because of Japanese, but have yet to discover the cognate. I’ve been using daily practice apps to build up my vocabulary of everyday words and phrases, and I have also been learning words pertaining to my own interests through class materials and the Korean TA. Thus far, the vocabulary that I’ve built up meets the demands of my current skill level in Korean. I think my goals for the beginning weeks was unrealistic, but now that I have a better grasp on reading and writing, I think that I’m catching up and will soon be on track or close to on track with my original set of goals. 

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