Learning language alone is quite boring. History could help them learning and memorizing the language well. Actually language just changes by time. Therefore by knowing about the history, we also could get some knowledge that history influence some language facts. For example if we learn about Korea history, we could easily know that Korean is influenced by Chinese, Korean use some words which is made up by Chinese Character. About Turkish, their character changed a lot. By learning Turkish, I learned there are lots of words influenced by Arabic. They do not use Arabic letter now, but some words sounds like Arab language. In Turkish history, in ottoman empire, they conquer really wide area including Persia, some Arab country. At that time they just used Turkish letter which is quite similar with Arabic character. Now they just using Latin alphabet, but some parts Arabic still exists in their language. Like this if some language learner also get some history about the country, they could understand more about the language.
All Posts (116)
Sort by
I just start my US life as a traveler. Me and my friend drove from San francisco to New york. While traveling I felt some culture shock. Actually it was not that shocked but it is quite different though. Compared to Korea, for me American people seems like they have some kind of obsession for holding the door. It was first culture shock to me. They always tried to keep the door but Korean does not care about the door that much. I thought it is kind of express their kindness but now I am thinking that they just do not like to make other people upset. They are quite defensive each other that is my opinion about holding the doors. Second thing is the time chnage. When I travel to Arizona to Utah or Nevada, I want to go Entelope Canyon and participate in guide tour(Acutually participating in tour is the only way to see Entelope canyon). We drove to Arizona to Utah and tried to make reservation for the tour, but the time just changed we did not calculate the time change, so we missed the prime tour and had to wait for next tour. Korea is kind of small country compared to US so we do not have time change so it was my first experience to have time change in my life. It is quite new and interesting that in same country they have several different time. Giving tips to server is another one. We also do not have tips in Korea, so at the first time we just forgot to give them, so they just grab us to go out, and we should pay the tips and said sorry for that. About turkey, I am not sure that it is proper things but really culture shock is man shaving their armpit hair.
So far this semester, I have been able to significantly improve my pronunciation and my reading abilities. I am comfortable using three cases, and I know how to match the subject of a sentence with the proper case, number and gender. The only major change I will make to my learning plan is to start incorporating the Pimsleur Ukrainian CD for more of my lessons. This CD is very helpful for me because it allows me to focus on speaking and listening skills more than just simply focusing on grammar all the time.
For this week, I wanted to continue to improve my vocabulary and familiarize myself with professional writing.
Once again, I read articles from naver.com's economy news section. I learned about the current economical issues in Korea. In doing so, I also learned new vocabulary and familiarized myself with how professional writers write. I have been getting comments from my parents that my korean writing has gotten better (I write to them via electronic letter) so it is seemingly obvious to me that I am getting better and better every week. I am happy with where I am and happy to see how good I get at writing and how much of an expansion in vocabulary I will have by the end of the semester.
My learning goals for this week remained consistent. I am going to read a few more articles on Korean or global economy (written in Korean) in order to learn more professional words and learn how to write professionally by reading professional work.
I attended my weekly classes and read a few articles on the economy. In doing so, I learned a lot of new words and familiarized myself with the academic writing furthermore. By this point, professional economical terms that only educated adults would understand make sense to me thanks to reading so many of these articles on the economy. I am consistently getting better and am happy with the results.
So far, my learning plan has been effective. Instead of reading a book, I've been consistently reading articles in Korean. These articles cover topics that range from academics to global economy (most of them are about the economy as I felt like that is a useful knowledge to have). I've been learning a lot of professional words and how to write professionally as seen on the articles. The classes I've been attending have been helpful as well in putting into practice Korean. I think I can stick with the plan as is and ride out the year and see awesome improvements as I have been all semester long.
Attitudes about time in Korea as I know it is interesting. This really ties in with the formality system in Korea. Remember how in Korea, elders are supremely respected while the younger people are sometimes looked down upon. This holds true in thinking about time. If you are late to a meeting with an elder or someone hierarchically higher than you, you are being extremely disrespectful. On the other hand, someone older or hierarchically higher than you can stand you up for a quite a while without coming off "rude" because of the whole formality/ respect the elder culture in Korea. Younger people don't really have the right to fault the elders for being late while the reverse is easily done.
Looking back at my progress in Korean, I believe that I did improve a noticeable amount. When I was talking to my parents in Korean over the phone, she noticed an increase in the level of my Korean. I also believe that I increased my skills in writing Korean. I can now listen to what is being dictated to me and I can write it down with fairly good accuracy. I also have more knowledge in colloquialism that is used in Korea, thanks to my language partner. I believe the switch from learning formal Korean to learning about Korea along with its language through individual presentations helped in relating the Korean we use to real situations. Forcing me to do this presentations increased my skills in presentational speaking and my Korean accent. With a combination of learning formal Korean and its colloquialism, I believe that I will be able to increase my knowledge in Korean by a significant amount by the end of the semester.
For this week, I would like to learn more about the culture of South Korea and integrating that into my study of Korean. As I learn more about the culture, I want to be able to speak eloquently and be more informed about the latest news in Korea and how it affects the language. I also want to be able to speak like a native and learn more of the colloquialism that is used in Korea. Since this is not something I can find easily on the internet, I will utilize my language partner. We also started doing presentations on different aspects of Korean such as colloquialism, media, and news. This will help me keep in touch with the latest Korean and help me to be able to speak it more fluently.
When languages are lost, the whole culture in it of itself is lost. I believe that language is the primary source of culture and is of great importance when talking about culture. Reading this article made me realize that there are cases in today's world where languages are actually becoming extinct.
The article mentions the use of an online dictionary. Although this peaked a little interest in other people for support of the language, it was nowhere enough to keep the language at a stable rate. Even if the language stabilizes for now, it is only temporary and there are always fear of extinction. Also, watching the interview with K. David Harrison, I was shocked to learn that there are 7,000 languages and that half of that will go extinct by the end of the century.
After researching briefly about this topic, I learned that there are lots of languages but only a very few are stable enough to keep living on. The more important aspect of this loss is the loss of culture. When a language becomes extinct, not only does the language disappear, but also the culture that is relative to that language. Relating this back to Korean, Korean and its founder, King Sejong the Great, play a major role in the Korean history and culture. If Korean became extinct, the possibility of the importance of King Sejong the Great is also very high.
The reading basically helps me to figure out what should I pay attention to when I express and absorb/analyze the message when learning a target language. First, the view of the relationship between words and things influences how I express and absorb the language during the learning process. I could use a more of naturalist view to learn the basic meaning of new vocabulary at the beginning: to connect words to certain things in the real life. Later, however, I need to pay attention to the sense and the reference of the words I learn, because reference, such as connecting words with physical things, would not work well when the word has different meanings in different circumstances. Because words have synonymy, hyponymy, and antonymy, it is critical for the learner to precisely sub-divide the meanings of the words. Reference can be vague and not specific enough. Sense in this case, by explaining words by words based on different language concept, can help me to distinguish the word better. Also, a lot of times, a word in the target language might not be directly translated to a single word in my native tongue, instead, it might be translated as a concept, a series of words, etc. Thus, it is also very important to be aware of that, and pay attention to the collocations words of the target language.
In the Korean culture, the use of trendy vocabulary is a popular aspect of the culture. Trendy vocabulary simply means abbreviated words used to refer to a certain meaning, making it easily accessible for the use of usually younger generations. It provides a sense of intimacy between friends, or girlfriends/boyfriends. It is an extremely popular use in the Korean culture, and it quickly moves on in the sense that not many abbreviated words stay popular for every long; more often than not, the words will change quickly over time as Koreans think of new ways to say certain phrases in cooler or shorter ways. When possible suitors meet up at a blind date, they will often start with language that reflects respect as respect is a huge aspect of the Korean culture, and in order to appear courteous and proper. This will continue on for quite some time until the couple feels close enough to start joking around and teasing each other which is often when the use of trendy vocabulary will be incorporated into their communications. This reflects a sense of intimacy because when they are able to joke around and tease each other, they are feeling comfortable enough around each other to start abbreviating their language, which can often seem a bit less professional and proper. The practice of abbreviating certain phrases is a very common thing among the younger generations in Korea as older generations are more focused on appearing respectful and professional, while younger generations are still able to keep their playful spirits which is reflected in their use of such language.
As a bilingual learner of English and Hindi, i found several differences due to the varied nature of both the languages in question. As the aforementioned languages diverge not only in script but also in basic phonetics and grammar, they tend to not only represent different meanings but also different contexts. With regards to Hindi, due to the nature with which gender is treated, I found certain objects to have greater meaning. Although in English we tend to ascribe genders to objects which we perceive as significant, such as musical instruments, the English language does not provide for any gender to objects. What tends to arise is with regards to Hindi, objects are given intimate value and cultural as well as religious contexts are formed. For example, as books are considered sacred in Hindu texts, their value is increased by using feminine noun.
In terms of my learning style, I tend to gravitate towards the rational model. Largely, as I study social sciences, the rational model fits best with understanding aspects of political theory. When considering how such a style would apply to language based learning, I think I would be able to learn efficiently through a deeper understanding into the foundations, rather than delve into the applications of knowledge I don't fully understand. To amalgamate such a format into my learning activities, I believe that communicating with individuals from the region will enhance my knowledge base, but also inquiring into aspects of the language or the cultural contexts could prove helpful. Furthermore, I think that by watching movies and listening to speeches in the language can help as it could teach me about various concepts in that language, that I may then look up and understand.
