Blogs

Last week, I worked with my language partner and peer on the weather reports. Firstly, we read through a weather forecast line by line and tried to understand each sentence. It took us longer than we expected. We have also spent some time on the vocabulary for weather forecasts such as "rainfall amount," "highest and lowest temperature," and "cloudy." There are many new phrases related to weather forecasts as well, including the verbs for rains and snow "dropping" and "to be reported/ forecasted."  To help us get better at reading in Korean, we decided to do similar readings every week so that we can get more used to the phrases as well as the expressions used in such a formal news article. Jenna has also been introducing the usage of words and grammar to us, which is helpful too. It is a challenging task, but I am also going to learn a lot from it.

After reading the article, we went through a conversation talking about the coronavirus concerns that started from Wuhan, China. We talked about washing our hands more often and wearing masks when going out. We will spend more time on it next week as well as a news article about the coronavirus in Korean, and I'm looking forward to that. 

I met with Jenna, my student tutor for this semester for the first time this year. This meeting was relatively short because we talked about our goals and ideas for the semester. For this year, I aim to continue learning Korean culture and language. Last semester, I improved a lot in reading and writing in particular. This year, I hope to become more fluid when reading Korean. Furthermore, I want to be able to correctly spell Korean words and use correct grammar. Jenna and I also talked about what days we will be free during the week. Overall, it was good to catch up with Jenna and it was important for me to sit down and reassess my goals. For the next week, I will look over the Korean vowels and consonants, as well as look at some of the practice sentences and phrases I learned last semester. My main goal this semester is to practice writing and reading so I can pass the COM2 exam in Korean. I will either take the test this semester or next semester, depending on how well I progress. I asked Jenna to give me short and simple articles over the course of the semester. Furthermore, I aim to become more efficient in free writing in Korean. I want to be able to write sentences and paragraphs like a story in Korean. Currently, I am fairly confident in my ability to speak and listen in Korean. I continued to practice both of these forms of communication during winter break with my family. On the other hand, I am more confident in my ability to read and write when compared to last semester, but I definitely know that I have to work on becoming more fluid in reading/writing. My long-term goal includes being able to pass the COM2 exam, but there are several short-term goals that I aim to achieve by the middle of the semester. Firstly, I want to learn how to write a complete and thoughtful letter to my parents on Christmas and on birthdays. Outside of tutoring sessions every week with Jenna, I aim to use radio garden and voice notebook to get better at reading and writing.

These first two weeks I mainly spent my time revising everything that I learned last semester. I didn’t go over any Korean over winter break and one month is a long enough time to forget everything that you learn. Unsurprisingly enough, the things that I initially found difficult to learn were still difficult to relearn. Big ideas that I revised were:

• The Sino-Korean numbers and Korean numbers.
• Changing a verb from present to past tense. 
• If we take a verb in its standard form and either add suffix -아요 to it if it ends with vowels ㅗ or ㅏ, or add suffix -어요 to it if it doesn’t end with these vowels, it results in a conjugation of the verb that can be used in polite informal speech.
• If we take a verb in its standard form and either add suffix -습니다 to it if it ends in a vowel, or add suffix -읍니다 to it if it ends in a consonant, it results in a conjugation of the verb that can be used in polite formal speech to formally declare the topic of the sentence to the listener.
• If we take a verb in its standard form and either add infix - 으시- it if it ends in a vowel, or add infix -시- to it if it ends in a consonant, it results in a conjugation of the verb that can be used in polite formal speech to place emphasis respect for the subject of the sentence.
• -은 and -는 are topic marking particles used with words ending with a final consonant and words ending with a vowel respectively, and -이 and -가 are subject marking particles used with words ending with a final consonant and words ending with a vowel respectively.
• A LOT of vocabulary including vocabulary for relatives, polite vocabulary, and more vocabulary from Korean songs, movies, dramas.
• Sentences that can be used by college students 
• 뭐 (what), 언제 (when), 어디 (where), 왜 (why), 누구 (who), 어떻게 (how)

Revising all of this was good to get me used to Korean again and get me up to speed with my reading and writing skills. However, I do think that I didn’t practice speaking as much as I would’ve liked. I didn’t do it much at all actually. This semester I’m going to prioritize speaking Korean more and learning more conversational Korean alongside grammar, and writing. I’ll make better use of resources like iTalki to practice talking to people. I’ll also try to record more video of myself speaking Korean every week/ every other week to make sure that I’m actually practicing speaking Korean. 

My overall goals for this semester are to become more comfortable speaking Korean, learn more conversational Korean alongside formal Korean learning, and dive deeper into Korean culture. 

For this week's cultural post, I read an article about the BTS band from Korea. BTS is a very very popular and worldwide famous boy band that originated from Korea. 

https://news.joins.com/article/23697348

The BTS band has been very popular in the United States, even performing at the New York New Years Day Show. The article I read about talks about how BTS is currently ranked in the Billboard top 50. BTS is also currently ranked in the social top 50 charts. BTS has also surpassed Justin Bieber in the billboard charts currently. The article talks about how BTS is a new style of music that has gotten popular in the United States. The article also talks about Old Town Road and how Country Rap has also become very popular. The article compares the two styles to show how there are new musical genres and styles that are becoming popularized worldwide. BTS group primarily sings and raps in Korean, so I thought it was really interesting how popular it has gotten all over the world. The article is well written, indicating the style of music BTS plays, and how well it has performed in the charts in the United States. This article helped me practice reading Korean as well as understand the cultural and musical aspects of Korea. For me personally, I don’t really listen to BTS but I know how popular they have become in the last few years. They have even collaborated with one of my favorite rap artists, Juice WRLD. It is cool to see how music is spreading across countries even though it may be in a different language. For the next cultural post, I hope to find a new aspect of Korean culture I can learn about, whether it is food, music, or tradition. Lastly, I thought that the article did a great job incorporating Justin Bieber’s new style of music and relating it to BTS and Old Town Road. Justin Bieber recently released an album, and contrary to his past music, has much more singing involved. BTS is just one of many future foreign bands that will become popular in the United States, and this article shows how different music styles can spread through the world in a matter of months or years. The article has some bias on BTS because it was published on Naver, which is a very popular new media website for Koreans. The article boosted the numbers of BTS on a whole bunch of billboard charts, which is usually not as popular or known. For example, the social 50 charts aren’t really has known as the billboard top 100. The article boasts the numbers of BTS on a whole bunch of random music charts multiple times throughout the article. I thought it was interesting to see the number of times the author could talk about BTS being in a chart. He also goes in too much depth, talking about how much BTS moved in the chart over a course of some months.

I looked into festivities in South Korea. There are many traditional festivals celebrated in Korea which have large cultural roots and are tied to agriculture and harvest season. When I was reading about the festivals, it was really fun to read about the different traditions that people cary out, but the thing that fascinated me most was the important role that food played in these festivals. Along with certain traditional acts associated with the festival and its meaning, most of these festivals have a certain dish or drink that is consumed during the festival. Here is a list of Korean traditional festivals accompanied by their significance, what people do, and what people eat and drink:

• 설날 (seolnal) - This is the Lunar New Year. It is one of the biggest holidays in Korea. People wear 한복 (Korean traditional clothing), and demonstrate their respect for their elders through 세배 (a new year’s bow) and their deceased ancestor by performing 차례 (an ancestral ritual).
• 정월 대보름 (jeong-wol daeboleum) - This is a day to celebrate the first full moon of the new year. This is also a day when farmers prep their fields using fire and charcoal to do away with whatever is there and fertilize the ground for the year’s farming. They traditionally do this by playing 쥐불놀이 (jwibulnori). Other people (non-farmers) go up a mountain and make their wishes to the moon. People drink an alcoholic beverage named 귀밝이술 which is known to brighten their ears and make good things happen during the year.
• 머슴날 (meoseumnal) - This is a festival for servants. The masters allow their servants to celebrate the day by having extra foos, singing, and dancing. This was invented to encourage the servants to work better on the year’s farming. The servants usually had 송편 (traditional rice cake).
• 영등제 (yongdeungje) - This is the Wind God festival. People usually prepare a special meal with 섬밥 (special rice) and pray to 영등 for an abundant harvest for the year.
• 삼짇날 (samjinnal) - This is a festival to celebrate the coming of Spring. People eat 화전 (rice pancakes with flower toppings) and 국수 (noodles), and drink 두견주 (azalea petal wine).
• 한식 (hansik) - This is a festival that notifies the start of the farming season. People perform 제사 an ancestral ritual, and eat 쑥떡 (mugwort cake), 쑥단자 (mugwort dumplings), and 쑥탕 (mugwort soup).
• 초파일 (chopail) - This is a festival to celebrate the birthday of Shakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism. People celebrate by making and hanging lanterns. They eat a variety of 떡 (rice cakes), 만두 (dumplings), and special dishes made from fish. 
• 단오 (dano) - This is a festival in celebration of spring and farming. People play folk games like 씨름. They eat a variety of 떡 (rice cakes) and herb cakes. 
• 유두 (yudu) - This is a festival celebrated in hopes of getting rid of ghosts and bad spirits. People perform rituals to the farming god with newly harvested fruits hoping for a fruitful harvest. People also eat 국수 (noodles) as it is believed that this leads to them living a prosperous and long life.
• 삼복 (sambok) - This is the hottest day of the year.  In order to get through the hottest day of the year, people eat 삼계탕 (a dish made with chicken and 인삼). 
• 칠석 (chilseok) - This is a festival for women’s weaving activities. They pay their respects to 직녀, a talented weaver in Korean folklore, in hopes of weaving better. People eat 밀전병 (wheat pancakes) and 밀국수 (wheat noodles).
• 백중 (chuseok) - This is Korean Thanksgiving. People play lots of games like 씨름, and perform rituals like 차례 for their ancestors. They eat traditional foods like 송편 (traditional rice cake), 토란탕 (taro soup), and 소주 (liquor made from newly harvested fruits and vegetables).
• 중양절 (jungyangjeol) - This is a festival to enjoy autumn. People enjoy the 단풍놀이 (autumn leaves) while eating 국화전 (chrysanthemum pancakes) and 어란 (roe), and drinking 유자청 (honey citron tea).
• 동지 (dongji) - This is a day with the longest night and shortest day. This day marks the beginning of spring. People eat 팥죽 (porridge made of red beans) which is believed to ward off evil spirits. 
• 섣달그믐 (seotdalgeumeum) - This is to celebrate the last day of the year and drive away evils spirits to welcome a prosperous new year. Most of the day is spent in preparation for 설날 (the new year).