It has been around 5 weeks since learning sessions with my partner began, and so my learning plan has a much more rigorous structure. For the past few weeks, we have continued our topic based conversations - some including the recent Ukraine/Russia Conflict, Korean concerts (including recent/upcoming), plot/meaning of Korean dramas, etc. These topic based conversations allow for a better ease of flow, since I don’t have to think about what to talk about next. And because these topic based conversations are slightly niche, it has forced me to use words or phrases I had never used before. Some words that came up in our recent conversation, for example, regarding Ukraine was “민주주의” (democracy) and “제재” (sanctions). Building off of my previous learning journal, I have also taken notes of new things, so I can refer back later and not forget. So as long as topic based conversations go, I think I am quite satisfied with the level of communication/comprehension that I have currently achieved. I am also listening to lots of Korean podcasts/radio shows. I use KBS Kong to listen to recorded radio sessions, which have different hosts. These radio shows in Korea are quite popular, and many celebrities are invited to speak with the host, which I think is rarer in the states. I also use youtube to watch more casual podcasts/interviews. One I really enjoy listening to is HIPHOPLE’s NOW, which features a variety of hip hop stars. All in all, listening to a variety of different shows has helped me to understand korean culture better, and to listen to variety of type of korean, including formal, informal, slang, etc. No learning experience comes with no difficulties, but so far it has been fun and not very frustrating. If anything is frustrating, it’s when I encounter a mistake I already encountered and should have fixed, or blank out when I definitely know what to say. But I just step back and think, so the learning process so far has been fine. Moving forward, I will probably spend less time on topic based conversations and start to study korean grammatical structure more rigorously - like vowel harmony and affixal copula, both which english lacks. Studying these types of characteristics will definitely help me improve my Korean, along with other languages I learn in the future.
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This past month, I focused on my learning objective to improve my Korean pronunciation. My language partner, Jannette, and I thought that it would be a good idea to practice reading Korean and work on my Korean pronunciation by reading Korean song lyrics and singing Korean songs. We explored different genres including, ballads, k-pop, and R&B. I was definitely better at reading the lyrics to slower ballad songs than fast k-pop songs and I failed pretty miserably at rapping. However, it was a good and fun way to practice verbalizing Korean. Hearing Jannette’s fluent pronunciation also allowed me to compare and practice making the right sounds. After we sang the songs, we looked at the lyrics and used Papago to find the translations of any words that I was unfamiliar with. By doing this, I got to learn new Korean words from the songs we sang. Some words I learned were:
무뎌진: I got used to it
투명: transparent
그림자: shadow
화려한: glamorous
애태우다: worry/fuss about
Then, to practice using these words, I used them in sentences. For example, I said, “나는 너의 드레스가 화려해서 좋다.” This means, “I like how glamorous your dress is”. This exercise was very successful because it allowed me to grasp a fuller understanding of how these words would be used in an everyday context. Singing Korean karaoke was not only helpful in getting me to read and speak Korean, but I also got to learn more about Korean music culture, popular songs, and various artists in Korea. Although I was already familiar with the genre of Korean popular music (K-pop), Jannette shared some of her favorite Korean ballad songs with me, including 바람기억 (Memory of the Wind) by Naul and 너를 만나 (Me After You) by Paul Kim. I learned that there are a plethora of different types of music in Korea outside of just K-pop.
In addition to learning Korean through music, I accomplished my objective of learning the Old Testament books of the Bible in Korean- up until the book of Esther, which is the seventeenth book. This was not as difficult as I initially expected because some of the Korean names are pronounced similarly to the English names. For example, Ezra in Korean is ‘에스라’, which is read as ‘esra’. I also learned that ‘상’ (sang) means first and ‘하’ (ha) means latter. Samuel in Korean is ‘사무엘’ which is pronounced the same as in English (Sa-moo-el). So, 1 Samuel is 사무엘상 and 2 Samuel is 사무엘하. Learning this made it so much easier to memorize certain books of the Bible in Korean.
For this second language journal, I will be focusing on what my partner and I have accomplished in the month of February. After getting set up with my partner towards the end of last month, we’ve really been making good progress every week. This is my first time taking a language course where it is self-paced and I think that’s a huge benefit for myself and my aspirations. However, what I’ve found is that these weekly meetings are incredibly helpful to hold me accountable for my learning. It’s very easy to try and put this on the back burner, but by having weekly meetings and assignments from my partner, it’s made me much more focused than I otherwise might have been. With that being said, where we left off last month with my first post was just with very basic materials. I was being introduced to the language on a broad scale and really working through things like common words, the alphabet, and numbers 1-40. For this month, we’ve been trying to focus in more on the intricacies of beginning to speak the language of Portuguese, but of course only on a base level. However, it did take me a little longer than hoped to grasp the introductory things we started weeks ago. One thing that was really giving me a hard time was trying to shake some Spanish tendencies of mine. For example, we were trying to read some simple sentences and words, but I kept failing to really recognize when the ão in the portuguese language was used. That combination stayed very foreign to me for a long time when trying to recognize words. However, I have now learned that the Spanish ending of ion is more or less an equivalent to that of ão. Take the word administración in Spanish, that becomes administracão in Portuguese. Tips like this have been really helpful for me starting to learn how to read and speak things. In addition to this, I learned that the typical io/a diphthong in Spanish is not common to the Portuguese language at all. Instead, it would just relatively be an o/a for Portuguese. For example, espacio (spanish) vs. espaço. Those are just some interesting differences I’ve picked up and my language partner has done a great job trying to leverage my Spanish into our learning.
As for the new areas we’ve moved into this month, we’ve been trying to focus on speech regarding questions and answers. My language partner has been giving me a lot of assignments where you have to fill in blanks or open-ended responses to conversational questions. I’ve been sort of understanding this okay because a lot of the question words are super similar to Spanish. For example, quem, como, and quando are very similar. As for common responses, we’ve been trying to look at to be and have verbs. My favorite one I’ve learned so far is estou com inveja, which means I am jealous. Practice is the most integral part of these lessons for me because I really understand what we’re doing when in the meeting, but once I revisit it, I forget certain things about what I’ve learned. The weekly assignments have been super helpful, and I think that I’m moving in a really good direction. To couple with my weekly meetings, my partner suggested I watch the movie City of God in Portuguese with subtitles. This really helped reinforce a lot of dialogue that we’ve been working on in our meetings.
As for the future, there’s a few goals we have in mind. First, I would like to be rather conversational on a basic level and be able to fully understand these basic questions and phrases by next month’s post. In addition, I’d like to be able to identify different ways to respond to questions and how to ask the right ones within the language. For next month, my partner is going to show me the book pois não and see if it could help me transition from Spanish to Portuguese. However, we aren’t entirely sure if its the best resource for me, but we are going to try it soon. Third, we are hoping to set together some culmination of what I learned for me to practice and keep repeating so I don’t forget the foundation I’ve built. After that, I’m not entirely sure, but we definitely will keep progressing in the best way possible for me and my aspirations.
The highlights of this month include finishing TTMIK Level 1 book and textbook and watching a Korean thriller called “All of Us are Dead” on Netflix. The TTMIK workbooks arrived mid-February and I did the older lessons in the workbook to catch up. I am glad that I came across TTMIK because they have a variety of resources online including textbooks, workbooks, grammar workshops, and audio recordings for beginners. Working through the workbook helps reinforce and apply the lessons that I learned from the textbook. This is definitely a resource I would recommend to beginner learners because TTMIK is comprehensive and makes it easy for the average student.
This month, I learned present and past tense conjugations of verbs, “I want to …”, interrogative words such as “Who”, “What, “How”, “When”, “Where”, “Why”, the native Korean number system, and how to negate sentences. My structured syllabus this semester has really helped me stay on track and utilize my time wisely. Since I plan out what I want to do per week, I can adjust the weeks accordingly if I feel I need more practice on a particular topic such as present and past tense conjugations. I can recognize sentences in past and present tense, but to be able to write them out myself is a bit challenging because some verbs have changes depending on other characters that are attached. The interrogative words were the easiest to understand and applicable to daily life conversations. For example, I watched the Korean thriller “All of Us are Dead”, and I heard many times “nu gu” or “nu ga”, which means “Who”. This was in the movie lines, “Who was bitten by the zombie?”. Compared to the Sino Korean number system, the native Korean system was more difficult to understand. I remember the Sino Korean numbers better because the pronunciations are similar to that of Cantonese and Mandarin. This makes sense because Sino Korean numbers are derived from Chinese. One to ten in native Korean is not difficult to understand, but when you get to higher numbers such as 30, 40, 50, and so on, each ten has its own distinct name. In Sino Korean numbers, 30 is “san sip”. 40 is “sa sip”.
During our language partner meetings, Somyung does a great job at preparing material for Peace and I to practice speaking and give immediate feedback afterwards. We read Korean children stories and wrote our own introductions. While the Korean stories were a bit hard for me to read, it was a great exercise to improve my reading and pronunciation skills. I read “The Lion and the Mouse” and we all read “The Rabbit and the Turtle” together. The plots were easy to understand since I heard the stories when I was a small child.
My plan for March is to start TTMIK Level 2 textbook and TTMIK Level 2 workbook. I hope to make a comprehensive list of all the verbs and vocabulary words in TTMIK Level 1 book in Quizlet or in google docs. This way I can easily review the essential verbs and vocabulary.
For this week’s cultural post, my language partner recommended I watch the movie City of God or known as “Cidade de Deus” in Portuguese, and take a dive into the controversy and cultural elements surrounding the film. The film was released in Brazil in 2002, then worldwide in 2003, and is supposedly set loosely on real events. It takes inspiration from the novel with the same name Cidade de Deus and is set in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. This movie fared well amongst critics and was nominated for four Academy awards, with one of them being Brazil’s entry into the category of best film in a foreign language. It’s clear that this movie is very popular and still gets talked about widely as one of the best movies of the 21st century. I personally can see why as I thought it was outstandingly done and was suspenseful enough to keep the audience engaged throughout. There also were many characters you identified with from the Favela and became immensely intrigued in their stories and decisions throughout.
In order to watch the film, I had to force myself to watch in Portuguese and have English subtitles on. This was pretty confusing at first and I had to rewind multiple times to re-watch various parts of the film. In addition, it’s also a rather long movie running over 2 hours but that’s a side point. With all that said, I was able to work through it and actually took a lot away from a dialogue and interaction perspective. It was intriguing to see normal conversations within the movie and then look to the translations to really try and understand how that relates. In my head I was constantly trying to pick out words I knew and seeing how they connected with the very unfamiliar utterances of the characters (which there were a lot). I was really looking for question phrases I know like: Tudo bem, Até amanhã, Eu estoum bem, and other common phrases. One word I seem to remember from the film is fraude which means fraud. Which just is another word to add to my vocabulary.
As for the actual plot, it deals with the growth in organized crime in the city while the main characters are set on two differing paths with one choosing to take part in drug dealing. The main controversy of the film is that many believe that this film was glorifying poverty and violence within favelas, which in turn reinforces many stereotypes about favelas and lower end living in Brazil. Many critics believe that the film doesn’t accurately portray the rich culture of Favela’s and just focuses more on crime/violence within the film. While I can see this argument, I definitely think it did a good job of portraying cultural aspects of favelas like food, music, and other instances of local life. Another big critique of the film was that it inspired a phenomenon called “favela tourism”. This is increased tourism is seen as not being ethical because in many cases it’s not uplifting the actual people or living conditions, but rather just seen as a way of making money.
The second biggest controversy of the film was while casting actual members of favela’s helped improve the authenticity of the film, they weren’t paid a fair wage for their work. It’s been shown that actors across the board, from main characters to supplemental roles, made anywhere from 5,000 - 10,000 reais when the film itself grossed over 100 million. This is quite sad, and many actors seen in the hit film are today still living in poverty within the same locales. This is definitely a big issue and one I was very surprised to learn about. Often times we assume that life is similar to that portrayed in these cultural films or television worlds, but in reality, it’s often far different.
Overall, this film really immersed me into the Portuguese language and cultural. I learned so much through the film, and in outside research, about Brazilian culture and overall life in the country. Major themes of violence, inequality, and others became a focal point within the film and my research. It was interesting to see how controversial such a hit film was and how that film related to actual life in where it’s set. I definitely learned a lot through this experience linguistically and culturally.
One of my favorite things to do in South Korea was going to a noraebang (karaoke). Noraebang (노래방), formed by norae (song/sing) and bang (room), literally means a room to sing. It became popular in Korea in the 80s and 90s after karaoke machines were invented in Japan in the 70s. In Korea, noraebang is a huge part of the culture because it’s an affordable and fun way to socialize or de-stress after a long day at work. Noraebangs are so common that you can probably find at least one on any street in Seoul, especially in recreational areas or student areas. It is common for Koreans to eat and have drinks at a bar and then go out to a noraebang to sing. Noraebangs are enjoyed by Koreans of all ages, from children to older adults. Because noraebangs are busiest in the evenings, they are often open until late at night.
Hongdae is an urban area near Hongik University known for its music culture, street shopping, restaurants, and entertainment. When I was in Hongdae, there were dozens of noraebangs, all within close proximity. Hongdae is one of the most popular places among students and young adults to enjoy nightlife and sing at a noraebang with friends, family, or even coworkers. Besides Hongdae, other popular noraebang areas in Seoul include Gangnam or Myeongdong.
Noraebang prices are calculated based on time and the number of people you are with. It is also cheaper to go during off-peak hours. The average hourly price ranges from 5,000 ~ 15,000 KRW depending on the time and the number of people. Mornings, 9am-12pm, are usually half the evening price. There are also luxurious noraebang rooms which are more expensive around 20,000 ~ 30,000 won per hour. There are also ‘coin’ noraebangs that have smaller rooms than traditional noraebangs but are less expensive since you pay per song, rather than hourly. Oftentimes, noraebang workers will give you extra time to sing or additional songs as a ‘service’ (for free). One time, my friends and I received a whole extra hour of additional time.
Sources: https://korealocalpages.com
One of the topic based conversations my partner and I had recently was regarding an important day in Korea. In about a week or so, it will be 삼일절 in Korea, or Independence Movement Day. This important day commemorates the protests and demonstrations that occurred on March 1st, 1919, by Koreans against Japanese colonization/occupation. Many lives were lost in valiant effort, and so many look upon this day with respect and gratitude, similar to our 9/11. Occupation began in 1910, when Korea was annexed by Japan. Thereafter, many Koreans were subjugated to many forms of suffering, and many historical documents/artifacts/buildings were lost. There isn’t much need to go into detail, but in retrospect, many holidays and figures now exist to remind us of our freedom, which was possible thanks to many factors.
삼일절 translates directly to 삼 - 3, 일 - 1, 절 - day, referring to the date, March 1st. As part of their demonstrations, many Koreans would proclaim “대한 독립 만세”, which means “Long Live Korean Independence”, or just the latter part, “만세”. Nowadays, people are more inclined to say “대한 민국 만세”, or “Long Live the Republic of Korea”, which shows how far the country has come.
There is still political/social strife between Korea and Japan, many hold bitter outlooks against Japan. However, I believe resentment has drastically reduced over time, with newer generations who aim for amends and peace. Although formal conflict may remain politically, hopefully social/cultural relations will continue to improve between the countries. These holidays are more to remind us of the valiant efforts of the Koreans of the past, and less of an admonishment against Japan.
Winter Olympics 2022 has been ongoing for a few weeks now, and I’ve always admired the skills and bravery these participants have to compete against the best of the best. My favorite events to watch are figure skating, speed skating, and a new favorite, free-style skiing.
What captivated me to figure skating was the amount of grace, technique, and artistry the skaters must put in to impress the judges in order to gain a high score. Yuna Kim, a South Korean figure skater, won gold in the winter olympics in Vancouver of 2010 due to her magnificent short and long programs. A short program lasts two minutes and forty seconds and a long program or free skate lasts 4 minutes long including various tricks such as jumping and spinning. It is not enough to just deliver the jumps and the spins, but incorporating them into an artistic fashion enhanced by the music selection. Yuna Kim’s jaw-dropping performance in the Vancouver Olympics won her a gold medal because she delivered beautiful jumps and spins and incorporated artistry. Yuna Kim tried again for the gold medal in the Sochi 2014 olympics but her performance resulted in a silver medal and that was the end of her skating career. In addition to figure skating, this young athlete also does modeling and is in various advertisements.
Another sport that South Koreans do well in is short track speed skating. I discovered speed skating this year from scrolling through the Chinese social media app called Weixin or known as Wechat. Figure skating is beautiful to watch and with music in the background makes the sport even better. On the other hand, watching speed skating is like watching the climax of a horror movie. The moments towards the end of the race are nail-biting and my eyes are glued onto the screen. Like most races, whoever crosses the finish line will claim gold, so on the laps closer towards the end, the skaters move faster and quicker to try to grab the gold title. The best chance a speed skater has to be the fastest is to optimize their position by bending their knees and maneuvering sharp corners carefully. The roundings on the ice tracks are so sharp that the skaters have to put their hands on the ground when turning the corners to keep balance because they are going at high speeds during the straight parts of the ice track. Crashes and falls are very common as well if the athlete doesn’t control their speed well when turning corners since many of the skaters are back to back to each other.
In this winter olympics, athlete Hwang Dae-heon won gold in the men’s 1500 meter and olympic athlete Choi Min-jeong won the gold in the women’s 1500 meter. Impressively, Choi Min-jeong won the gold in the 1500 meter and 3000 meter relay in the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. Not only in these past two winter olympics, South Korea is the nation that dominates this sport in the olympics racking up 24 gold medals throughout winter olympic history.
https://olympics.com/en/news/south-korea-women-short-track-speed-skating-beijing-2022
Regarding language learning, sociolinguistics is probably the most effective and appropriate approach for me. Because I want to especially improve my conversational skills, my speaking and listening/comprehension proficiency are what I focus on. Focus on sociolinguistics allows me to improve on these, because of how each culture implements their language in a social setting - like formality, proper addressment, and overall lingo. By connecting the culture and the language, I can get a better understanding of what I am learning, like implied meaning, passive/aggressive delivery, etc. I think this is especially important with the Korean language, as I think Koreans are generally more cautious with their social surroundings, to the point where they even have their own word - “nunchi”.
I think this also ties into psycholinguistics, as it is important to understand how the language connects with the mind. Sometimes, I think a certain phrase sounds much more casual when spoken in Korean rather than English, and vice versa. This probably also ties into sociolinguistics, but by understanding how language affects perspective, I can hopefully gain a better understanding of the language itself.
Moving forward with this knowledge, I think it will greatly benefit my learning by looking into the social/psychological influences of my target language. By looking into these social/psychological differences between English and Korean, I can also gain a deeper comprehension of English, which may help me in the future with other languages. I’m not completely sure on how to look further into the sociolinguistics/psycholinguistics of Korean, but I can continue to integrate myself into the culture, which has and probably will help with this.
Where are you now? What can you do? What do you know?
Interpersonal Communication: Intermediate-Mid
Interpretive Listening: Advanced-Mid
Interpretive Reading: Intermediate-High
Presentational Speaking: Intermediate-Low
Presentational Writing: Intermediate-Low
What is your ultimate goal? What is your goal for this semester?
What do you want to be able to do with this language at the end of this semester and in the future?
I want to be able to achieve a level of fluency where I can conversate with ease and not have to think so much before speaking. Confidence is also another aspect I really want to improve on. A lot of the time my American accent comes out when speaking Korean as I think too much about what I am going to say and as a result lose confidence while I am speaking. Vocabulary on specific topics that relate to my everyday lifestyle would also be something I'm looking to pick up. Along with vocabulary, I do want to become more natural by learning slang and jargon especially for my everyday life like the gym or playing videogames. Korean culture and history are also other aspects I want to learn this semester. I also want to be able to text/type in Korean as fast as I text in English.
Learning Objectives:
- Vocabulary, Writing (Texting/Typing), Culture, History
- Tools: Games, Youtube Channels, Kdramas/movies, Quizlet
Week 1:
- Review and access language capabilities
Week 2:
- Form vocabulary picked out from Youtube channels on topics such as dating culture, daily life, and the gym
- Learn new phrases (slang + jargon and common phrases)
Week 3:
- Watch and review historical Kdrama/movie
- +new vocab
So far I have learned most, if not all, conversational aspects. I went to Korea to study abroad and was able to pick up on writing and reading fairly easily. Having a language partner is really useful because I am able to conversate with them comfortably for extended periods of time. Although I was forced to speak Korean during my time abroad it was very basic and limited to short conversational language. The covid restrictions really prevented us from associating with the native students there. Being Korean-American definitely prompted my learning journey, along with the nagging of my Grandmother.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XaoYWOLgeOGLgG8zlCZR4eXwxN-LVi6vNMoVdJ-SmKY/edit?usp=sharing
