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Recently we have been learning less about conversation and more about grammar and culture.  I've found this period very interesting as we tie in parts of Korean culture into our language learning.

This past class we did a review of everything we have learned so far to keep it fresh in our minds.  First we had a quiz, and then we played Pictionary with the vocabulary words we had covered.  I really enjoyed that activity and it was a fun way to review.  Some grammar points we went over included how to write a verb as a noun.  For example, in Korean the form is different for "I am reading" vs "I like reading".  It is an interesting concept since we don't have a similar form in English and it was confusing at first for me to understand the difference. We also went over how to conjugate a verb when talking to or about someone you respect.  There is a difference between "My friend lives in my hometown" and "My grandma lives in my hometown".  This is a great example of how the culture is reflected in the language showing respect towards your elders.  We also learned that it is more common for daughters to speak more casually to her parents and a son is more likely to address their parents in a formal way.  Also, it is common to address your friends mom by "eomma" the Korean word for mom and the same for father, grandmother, and grandfather even if they are not related to you.  In my mind, this represents the community, holistic view of society instead of in the U.S. where its more common to address non-relatives as separate people, even if you've known them for a long time. 

I think that tying culture points in with grammar (that's usually more of a boring and difficult topic) more enjoyable and easier to understand.  I would like to continue to learn grammar in this way because it not only betters my language skills, but also application into the culture of Korea.  

I have studied the holiday Chuseok 'Autumn Eve' and discovered many of its very interesting and intricate traditions.  Some label Chuseok as the Korean Thanksgiving, but it is the celebration of the 8th full moon that usually takes place in the middle of September.  It's a big harvest festival where people travel back to their hometowns with their entire family.  There are two main rituals to show respect to the ancestors.  First, people travel to their familial grave sites and pull the weeds around it and sweep/dust it to make it very neat and tidy.  This shows society how dutiful they are to their family.  Untidy graves are seen as embarrassing and dishonoring to the family.  Then, the family will prepare a food and drink offering to their ancestors including a bowing ritual. The ideal of filiality traces back to the Confucian Analects that stress familial piety as one of the core values.  

One of the dances by women in hanbok (traditional Korean dress) is called Gangangsullae.  They form a circle holding hands and transition through various formations to a song appointed to one person to sing.  This is traditionally done around a campfire under the full moon, but groups will perform the dance on stage or in other areas of the city.  Its historical significance dates back to the late 1500s when Japan attempted to take over China through invading Korea.  The Korean military ordered women to dance around the campfires scattered throughout the forests to make their army seem bigger.  

One of the main foods prepared on Chuseok is Songpyeon, a crescent shaped colored rice cake filled with a sweet paste, usually beans.  Well-prepared songpyeon predicted a handsome man in a woman's future or a beautiful daughter in a parent's future.  They rice cakes are presented on a bed of pine needles which are believed to fight off sicknesses and lower stress.  

http://www.mtshastama.org/chuseok/tradition.cfm ;

Three days ago (10/9) was Hangul Day, a celebration that Seonghye taught us about during our class yesterday.  She showed us a video that explained the origin of the holiday and typically how it is celebrated.  In 1446, King Sejong of the Choson Dynasty invented the common native writing system of Korean.  Previously, Chinese characters had been used for reading and writing, but was spoken using original Korean phonetics.  Learning these characters was very difficult and required an education, which was not accessible to most agriculture workers due to the time and the money.  Thus King Sejong created a simple writing system that was easy for everyone to learn.  For the vowels, he utilized three basic configurations, a vertical line representing a human, a horizontal line representing earth, and a dot representing the sky.  When put all together, you get all the vowel characters.  People celebrate Hangul Day to show gratitude to King Sejong for his contribution to the native Korean language.  On 10/9 those in Korea often go to the King Sejong museum and visit his golden statue.  His picture is even on the 10,000 won bill.  

https://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/happy-hangul-day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01iGGa3VIqI ;

https://www.90daykorean.com/hangul-day/

Over these past couple weeks, we have been learning how to navigate a train/subway station in Korea.  We followed the same structure as the past lesson about ordering food where we learn the terms first and then go on to conversation.  We learn phrases as well, such as "Where is...?" or "How do you get to...?".  Also the vocabulary terms were very specific to a system in Korea vs a system in New York.  We learned about transportation cards, the subway lines of travel, and asking how to get to Seoul station.  Seonghye showed us a video of these two guys from Spain who spoke little Korean, navigating a subway station after their flight.  They made some mistakes that taught us what we should be prepared for.  It was really interesting to see the process and this lesson will definitely come in handy when I travel. 

We played a couple of games this time, one of them being the little competition game on the vocabulary.  The other was a battleship type game that required us to write the Korean word on a board when given the translation in English.  And if we got it right, we could pick a coordinate of our opponents board.  These games are really fun and help us bond with each other as we learn.  

Seonghye has now moved me to the intermediate group with three other girls so that I can practice conversation and a more group oriented classroom experience.  We've met in the library a couple of times, but Seongye has rented a room in Jepson for us to use for our future classes.  In these past couple of weeks, we have been learning how to order at a cafe and some grammar points that correspond to that.  More generally, I've been wanting to learn how to navigate through a day in Korea and this is one of the steps.  First we went over terms and then practiced using them in sentences.  We would pair up and enact a scenario in which one person would be the cashier and the other would be ordering food.  This was effective in establishing the flow of a real-life conversation and allowed us to apply what we are learning.  

Seonghye has us using a Korean app on our phones that has lists of all of our vocabulary.  On the app, there are little games you can play to help you learn the words.  It even gives you a score at the end that you can compare with other classmates.  This is really helpful because its a way to study that feels like a break, and its very convenient to do for a few minutes here and there during the day.  When we come back to class the following week, we will have a little competition game to see who has mastered the vocabulary.  Its a fun activity that gives incentive to study.  

I hope that we will continue to use these strategies as they are very helpful and a fun way to learn.  I enjoy being in the group instead of one on one because its small enough where I can still ask all my questions, but its better to practice with each other. 

Over these last couple of weeks, Seonghye has been working with me individually focusing on verbs and tenses.  I asked her to teach me the past and future tenses since I have previously studies only present, and I have wanted to be able to state what I did over the summer or what I will do this weekend for example.  She gave me a sheet that described the conjugating process of verbs that end with different stems and a list of exceptions.  We practiced various examples together and I was given homework to practice more on my own.  In addition to writing, we practiced speaking with these tenses.  She would ask me a question such as, "What did you do yesterday?" or "What will you do tonight?" and we would reverse the roles as well.  

I believe these strategies were effective in that when learning the material, it seemed easy to follow with fairly straight-forward rules.  However, I did find myself forgetting them rather quickly after lessons when practicing on my own.  I have learned from this that I must not only study the conjugations but test myself so that I will be able to recall each tense during conversation without relying on my worksheets.  I hope that mastering this material will make it easier for me to understand dialog in K-Dramas, Kpop songs, and ease the flow of conversation.  

Over the course of this semester, I would like to study two aspects of Korean culture: celebrations and the presence of religion in society.  For celebrations, I will look into New Year's, Chuseok (their celebration of the 8th full moon), and weddings.  I would like to learn about the different traditions, food, games, decorations, and historical significance for these events.  I suspect there will be heavy emphasis on family and ancestors.  In the religious sector I want to see how much prevalence Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucianism has in daily activities as well as special festivities and how they have changed over time.  To explore these topics, I will research them online, watch videos of the celebrations, and ask my language partner about each topic.  It would be wonderful if we could take a day to go over vocabulary for the celebrations.