The last week, we reviewed all the things I have learned. I did more speaking and dictation exercises. I realized my reading has actually improved a lot more than I thought it had. I also really glad that I have been able to learn about Korean culture, and not just the language. Working with a language partner really helps to understand the differences in our cultures.
Next week is our last meeting and I going to take final during our session.
We watched Korean videos and worked on my pronunciation. I actually really helps when I watch with my language partner because we go over the words I don't know or I can't pronounce immediately. I also sometimes ask my partner to record herself saying phrases/words. And then I compare them to my recordings.
I have been doing more dictation exercises. I'm starting to recognize words more easily, and I can also understand Korean videos better -- even though I might not know all the words they use. I have also been making notes about words or proverbs I don't understand. And then we go over them during our lessons.
We've been focusing more on my writing skills. I have learned enough vocabulary words to form sentences. We have been going over grammar, sentence structure, etc.. The first week it was a struggle for me to write stuff down without referencing my notes. But practicing really helped, and writing things down and spelling them out also helped me to remember words better
For the last two classes we talked about weekend activities and reviewed for our exam. I've been wanting to learn how to say what I do for fun because it is a common topic of conversation among friends and people you are just meeting. First we all made a list of things we do on the weekends and compared to see which were the most common. It turned out they were sleeping (jada) and studying (gongbuhada). None of us were big on partying but we learned it anyways since it is a common activity in the US. Then, we discovered what Koreans do for fun and common activities during free time for young adults. A popular one is visiting a park and setting up for picnic and then ordering food. There are several food services that deliver to you wherever you are, similar to GrubHub or UberEats; but in Korea, you don't need a specific address if you're in a park or at a lake and they will just find you. Common foods for this are ramyeon, fried chicken, and bibimbap. Another popular activities that I can't wait to try is karaoke. It's very common for groups of friends or coworkers to rent a room with a karaoke machine and sing the night away. Some rooms are equipped with colored lights and cushioned seats for those waiting/listening.
The review was very helpful and we went over everything we were going to be expected to present on the exam. It was a fun last class and I always enjoy learning more in a language. I liked how we connected a lot of culture into our lessons and didn't focus so heavily on grammar study as I did last semester. We covered a lot of vocabulary and sentence structures to practice in conversations which is what I wanted to work on most. The collaboration with my classmates made it very interactive and increased levels of practice. Overall, I really enjoyed my class and I look forward to continuing my studies next year.
When I was reviewing over all the materials with Jimin, I never knew I learned so much. It was really cool to see that I can answer questions on the Korean history since the beginning of the country up until the modern day. Also, after learning a lot of slangs, I've applied them to real life by using some of them to my friends. Also, when a certain situation came up, I used Korean proverbs to describe the situation. During the final exam, I also used the concepts we learned to answer some extra credit questions. I wasn't sure if it would follow the rules 100%, but it was amazing to see that I have come so far in Korean.
I learned about writing and grammar in Korean. There so many exceptions in Korean that does not follow the rule in writing. An example is 며칠동안. If this followed the regular rule, it should have been spelled out as 몇일동안; however, this is just one exception that does not follow this rule. These exceptions have to be memorized purely and be recognized. In Korean there are also many words that sound the same, but have different spellings and different meanings. An example is the difference between 맞히다 and 맞췄다. The first one means to hit when aiming or in target practice. The second one is to correctly answer a question. It was very fascinating to use these in sentences.
In Week 13, because all three of us really want to travel to Korea, we decided to discuss the top tourist attractions to visit in Korea. So when later we do have a chance to visit there, this would be really helpful. One of the place I want to go the most is N Seoul Tower. I've been to there once but I could not have a chance to enter into the tower. I heard of that no trip to Seoul is complete without a trip to the famous N Seoul Tower. I want to check out the observation decks, which might give me an unbeatable panoramic view of Seoul, which might help me to take perfectly amazing pictures. Also, couples always visit the N Seoul Tower, so this must be so romantic. There’s a restaurant that is technically an observation deck in and of itself. This is a great place for a last meal in Seoul or for a date.
In Week 14, we discussed the age system in Korea. It is really different than in China and in U.S. In the United States, people's age is due to their birthday. For example, I was born in 1998 Sep30th. So I am 20 years old. WHile inKorea, age is calculated by the first day of the year. And as you were born, you are 1 year old. So I am 21 years old in Korea.
In Week 11, we watched a really famous and popular Korean film, called Along with the Gods: The two worlds. It is about a story of the death of an ordinary fireman named Kim Ja-hong and three grim reapers, who escorts Ja-hong to the afterlife, where he will be assign a public defender to represent him in 7 trials in 49 days to find out how he lived his life and where he ought to spend the rest of eternity. Although we watched it with subtitles, I still tried to watch it without looking at the subtitles. Different from the beginning of the semester, I found out that I was able to understand part of what they were saying. And I have to say, this is a really great film. I was moved a lot.
Therefore, in next week's break, I watched its series 2 as well with my friends together.
In week 9, we learned different major holidays in Korea. Such as Lunar New Year, Korean Thanksgiving (spring festival) and Hansik (eating cold food day). I was pretty interested in Hansik because it derives from an ancient Chinese practice in which people ate cold food while not using fire for a period of time. On this day, like other major holidays, people perform ancestral rituals and Seongmyo.
In week 10, we learnt about the numbering system again. But this time, we were doing this more systematically. For the China system, it sounds really similar to Chinese Cantonese.
At the beginning of the week, we continued doing the complex vowels and consonants. And then we moved to learning how to order food in a Korean restaurant. We firstly learnt several basic questions, such as "what food do you recommend the most" "please give me more side dishes" etc. We also did role play, one of us pretended to be the waitor and the rest of us ordered.
We started to learn more vocabs on fifth week. First, our language partner started to tell that there are two different systems of numbers in Korea. One is Sino-Korean(china system), and another is Korean system. We were actually so confused at first because the numbers, depending on different occasions, are used differently. After several practice, we were able to memorize them form 1 to 10. Also, we learned a bunch of emotions vocabularies.
On Week six, we had a quiz on alphabet. Our language partner gave us the phonetic translation in English and we would write it down in Korean.
We continued learning the Korean alphabet in the third week. We learning the alphabet by playing games, using boards and textbooks. We also watched an episode in a Korean Talk Show with English subtitles. I firstly tried to catch the meaning without looking at the subtitles. I failed... The episode invited people from all over the world, who have learned Korean. (Actually they are master in Korean) They are from China, France, Singapore, etc. And they are asked to talk about one or two hard time during their Korean learning period. For the forth week, we still kept learning the alphabet and started to use consonants and vowels to form characters. Like our names.
The first week of our class, we are asked to set up our goals for this semester. And these goals should be realistic. We needed to list 10 goals, which is our learning plan for this semester. Moreover, we have our own long term goals. For me, mine is to traveling to Korean without a guide. And later on second week, after setting up the goals, we started to learn the alphabet. According to our language partner, reading and writing are the easiest to learn in Korean, once we learnt the Korean alphabet, we could be able to read and write!
This is my favorite Korean band, which is CNBLUE. It is a screenshot when they were at the Music Bank(a TV show) in Korean), performing a song called "you're so fine". I could say that CNBLUE is one of the main reasons that I decided to learn Korean. I have been their fan for almost 6 years.
This is a screenshot of a really famous Korean youtuber. Her name is Pony and she is a genius of doing make-up. Now she has her own brand and more than 3000000 followers in youtube. People loves her because her make-up teaching video is really helpful. (at least I think so).
In our weekly Korean course, our language partner taught us how to do daily conversation when we go a Korean restaurant and how to order food there.
몇 명이세요? ___명이요.
예약했어요/예약 안 했어요
제일 맛있는 걸로 추천해주세요
이것/저것 주세요
반찬 더 주세요
잘 먹겠습니다/잘 먹었습니다
맛있어요!
또 올께요!
I did this in a Korean restaurant. Hahaha but I guess I have to practice more on my pronouncation .
This is a screenshot of my favorite Korean TV program, which is called Running man. The MCs and guests were to complete missions at a landmark to win the race. The show has since shifted to a more familiar reality-vatiety show concept focused on games. I started to watch when I was in middle school, about 7 years. I just love it so much!!!
This is a picture shoot by me when I was in Boston. I wen to eat this Korean BBQ with my friends in Boston. Actually, I think it looks really like Japanese BBQ...Or maybe because they just look the same? But anyway, it was delicious!
This is a screenshot from Wechat, which is a chatting app used in Chinese. It was Devin saying hi to me and introducing his name. I replied with "how was your day". And he answered "it was good".
