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This semester I learned that learning a language is more difficult than I expected. Going into this semester, I thought I would increase my fluency in Korean but my fluency stayed relatively the same. However, the cultural aspect of Korean was expanded significantly because of my language partner and the presentations that were given by other language learners. Since our language partner was straight from South Korea, she gave us a deep insight into Korean pop culture and colloquialism. Because she was from Korea, it gave us the benefit of learning new and changing Korean vocabulary.

Although Korean is considered one of the simplest languages to learn, I had difficulty increasing my fluency. I was already aware of some Korean because of my background and was looking to increase that fluency by speaking with less of an American accent and increasing my vocabulary. Although I did increase my vocabulary slightly, I saw no improvements in my accent. Watching lots of Korean television shows did help in showing what a native speaker talks like. However, I had trouble mimicking that accent in a proficient manner.

Because our language partner was a high school teacher and was relatively young, we were able to relate to her. She gave us insight on the current political situation that is going on in Korea and many different social issues that are ongoing. These aspects of my language learning were the most interesting to me. I was not really aware of what was going on in South Korea before this class, and this class really sparked an interest in my home country. Through this new interest I have, I can combine my language learning with current events by reading more Korean articles and watching more Korean news. 

The most useful information I learned throughout my time as a language learner was the concept of working in Korea. Since I have a possibility of securing an internship in Korea, I was eager to learn more about the work place and its correct and formal language. Minkyung provided us with different vocabulary that is used in the workplace and gave us a summary of what it is like to work in South Korea. I also found the presentations to be helpful in learning about culture as well as presentational speaking. The cultural presentations in the 105 classes helped me to understand the Korean culture and how it relates or affects the Korean language while the 110 presentations has given me a chance to practice my Korean in a presentational manner. During the 110 presentations, it gave me a chance to explore different topics like news, media and society, and trendy vocabulary.  It also gave me a chance to speak in a professional manner in Korean, a chance that I never had before. This gave me a sense of my skills in Korean and what I needed to work on. I had to think of some ways to phrase things on the fly and find a way to connect everything together.

All in all, this whole semester I learned many things about the culture as well as the vocabulary, but my overall fluency in Korean has not changed. I enjoyed this semester and learned many things including the current politics and pop culture in Korea.

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I did my presentation on Ukrainian wedding traditions. Ukraine has an interesting set of traditions associated with weddings, and the celebrations last much longer than American weddings. The festivities often start on the eve of Ivana Kupala day, when young couples go into the forest in search of a rare flower. The girls go in wearing a vinok, and if a couple comes of of the forest together with the man wearing the vinok, the two are engaged. The process then involves the families of the two. There is a process of blessing the wedding, and then wishing the couple good luck and happiness. Then the celebrations begin and there are several songs typically played during reception ceremonies (one is included in my presentation). Finally, the tradition of "kidnapping the bride" is when the bridesmaids "kidnap" the bride and give the groom clues so he can find her. 

This week, I wanted to learn how to invited a friend somewhere. I figured that this would come in handy during my time in Ukraine next year. In order to learn this skill, I used my textbook for guidance and then I practice writing my own dialogues. I also wanted to start learning the genitive singular case. This case has tons of uses, so I think it will take me some more practice to learn all of the right times to use this case. 

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For this artifact, I decided to practice introducing myself to my future English class in Ukraine. I tell them a little bit about my background, and then I tell them that if they have questions, it would be best for them to ask in English or Russian because I have only been studying Ukrainian for a few months. Then I tell them that in our class, we will have an English only policy. 

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Culture presentation

The cultural presentation I did is about Korean housewife culture and the social status of Korean women. Women in South Korea have experienced great improvement in social status over the last 30 years, however there are still major inequalities in workforce and political participation. Most young women, even those who are well-educated and have professional positions, will leave their jobs as soon as they are married due to family and husband expectations.In fact, most Korean companies will dismiss their women employees once they married. As a result, less than 15% of married women in contemporary Korea work outside the home.Looking back to the history, the traditional role of a Korean woman has been submissive and confined to the home.A woman was expected to produce sons and take care of parents-in-law.There has been a increase in the number of women joining the workforce, the gender wage gap in Korea is still the worst among OECD countries. The Korean housewife culture has contributed to many negative social impacts such as the "bored housewife syndrome", neurotic symptoms for those housewives who experience unenjoyable family life. Positive impacts of housewife culture would be the contribution to the development of Korean dramas, especially those build on housewife lives. Despite the many promises the woman president Park Geun-Hye has promised, there are still less manifested, and I think the way for a true woman's revolution in Korea is still very long.

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I read an article called "Why Korean Dramas Are Popular?". It talked about the most common reasons why people become kpop or kdrama fans. As a big Korean drama fan, I always doubt the reasons why I am so obsessed and could not find a specific reason. This article gave me a better understanding of the production and stories behind the drama itself. According to the article, the first reason is that Korean drama is "Squeaky clean". The majority of K-Dramas are G-rated and very clean compared to American movies and television. Foul language is rare, violence is minimal, and love scenes rarely progress past kissing. In fact, even seeing a French kiss in a Korean drama is newsworthy. Some types of scenes make more impact to viewers when the show isn't flooded with them. Another reason is of course the attractive idols. There is a reason there are lots of "broody shower scenes" and "princess for a day makeovers" to be found in Korean shows. Other reasons such as romantic music, cool clothes, the format, addictive properties, etc also contribute to the popularity of Korean drama.

This semester was interesting in terms of my Korean language learning. I learned many things about Korean and the culture as well. I came into this class thinking that I will greatly increase my fluency in Korean, but I ended up just learning a tremendous amount of Korean pop culture along with traditional culture. I did end up achieving my main goal of being able to have a texting conversation with my mother. This was due to the constant drilling that was provided by Minkyung. Through these drills, it taught me proper Korean grammar, along with some colloquialism that is commonly used in Korea. My vocabulary of Korean also increased, but it was not a significant amount. I did, however, learn a tremendous amount of Korean business terms through the business articles that I read. Although I can not understand the articles fully, I can somewhat understand the gist of the article. This is due to my constant exposure of the Korean language. 

I did have difficulties in writing. Since Korean has different consonants that sound the same but are used differently, I frequently confused the two. However, with the help of my phone's autocorrect, I was making less errors. Overall, looking back at the semester, I realized that I learned a lot of Korean without even realizing it. Being able to talk to my parents and shoot them a quick text message is a skill that I learned from this class.

This week I decided to review the cases that I have learned so far, and practice with other aspects of grammar. Aspect verbs still give me a lot of trouble, so I worked on trying to distinguish when I should use the perfective and when I should use the imperfective. In order to study these grammar concepts, I used the Ukrainian grammar book from the global studios and I also found some videos online that explained the differences between the aspects. I think this will be one of the things I struggle with the most in Ukrainian, so I really wanted to practice it some more. 

This week my goals were to learn how to use the locative case. This is one of the cases that Russian does not have, so it was a little difficult for me to break out of the pre-established thought process and make a distinctive locative case in my mind. I still struggle a little bit to understand when I should use locative case as opposed to other cases, but I think it will start to come together with more practice. For review, I have been doing the exercises in my textbook.

This week my goals were to learn how to use the locative case. This is one of the cases that Russian does not have, so it was a little difficult for me to break out of the pre-established thought process and make a distinctive locative case in my mind. I still struggle a little bit to understand when I should use locative case as opposed to other cases, but I think it will start to come together with more practice. For review, I have been doing the exercises in my textbook.

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For this week, I am going to work on my listening skills by watching more Korean news and television shows. By listening to more Korean, I will be exposed to more vocabulary and how they are used in context. Through this, I will learn how to speak more fluently and understand Korean at a faster rate. I will mainly focus on the casual Korean television shows for their basic vocabulary and move onto more sophisticated news shows and other formalized broadcasts. 

I found a website where they have clips of Korean television shows, along with full episodes that have subtitles for most videos uploaded. My plan is to start with using clips with subtitles and leaving them on so I can expand my vocabulary. I will learn vocabulary that I do not know from the subtitles and reinforce the vocabulary I already know through listening to it over and over again.

This week we learned how to say the different months in Urdu from January to December. I also learned more information on the Islamic calendar and how it differs from our calendar. There is a short video on how to say the different months in Urdu. I also learned some background information on the Islamic calendar. We discussed how the role of Islam is so integrated into the life in Pakistan that even the time works based on Islamic History. During Ramadan, people open and break their fast according to the Islamic calendar.

After we discussed how the Islamic calendar works during our first meeting, in our second meeting, we discussed examples of how to tell someone the date of today. We did an exercise where dates were written in English and I verbally translated the dates in Urdu. We also practiced on how I can ask someone their birthday and respond by telling them mine when asked. In addition to this, we briefly discussed how I can also translate years from 1990’s to ask someone their birth year to 2016 so I can discuss important events that have happened between 1990-2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-N5i0QX2c8

http://www.islamweb.net/en/article/200326/significance-of-the-islamic-hijri-calendar

This week we learned how to tell time. We first learned how to count to 1-60 so I was familiar with all the minutes in Urdu.  I practiced saying the time with all twelve hours changing the minute.  We discussed how you can also say it is noon, midnight, dawn, and evening when asked. Zaka also recommended a video that shows how to tell if it is a quarter past a certain hour or half past an hour. We discussed how the system of differentiating the morning and evening in Urdu like we add A.M. and P.M. to time.  We also did an exercise where the time was written down in English and I had to verbally translate it in Urdu.  We discussed how after this week, I should regularly ask for the time and also be prepared to tell the time when asked during our tutoring sessions. 

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          As of now, I know the Urdu alphabet fluently. I am able to read short simple riddles for children at a slow pace. I am still learning how to write letters and how they need to be connected in order to form a word. The readings and the articles that we have come up with are educating me on the cultural aspects of the people and geography of Pakistan. I am starting to learn the political tension that is associated with a Pakistani identity. By learning about the history of Pakistan I am able to better understand the division between Hindi and Urdu despite the similarity in how it is verbally spoken.

          The learning plan is giving me a chance to take that first step towards becoming literate in Urdu. The pace that I am going at with my learning is not teaching me reading and writing skills at the pace that I would like to be fluent in. In order to pick up the pace on developing my reading and writing skills I can integrate on immersing myself in the language in my daily routine. I will start to read the headlines that are published in Urdu by family members for example. I will also continue to read short riddles on my own in order to pick up reading pace. There is more information that I would also like to learn about Pakistan’s history with India so I will to find more readings that give various perspectives on how the history impacts people’s identity.