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Since this week was midterm week, my language partner and I came to a consensus that for this Korean language meeting, we should watch a Korean drama to not only de-stress from our hectic schedule of tests and assignments, but to also learn and listen to actors speak in Korean as well. For the meeting, Jenna prepared for us episodes from a web series called “XX” starring Ahn Hee-yeon, Hwang Seung-eon, Bae In-hyuk and Lee Jong-won. Each episode is only about 25 minutes each, so we had the chance to watch two episodes for the time being. Personally, I have not watched korean dramas in over 7 years, and transitioned over to watching American tv shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Friends. Culturally, there is a significant difference between Korean tv shows and American tv shows. Korean tv shows are more heart-wrenching, unrealistic, and always more romantic. On the other hand, I realized that American tv shows focus a lot on real-world problems, are more dramatized, and talk about problems that are more controversial. For this meeting, I was excited to invest myself once again to watch a Korean drama because that is actually how I first started to learn Korean when I was young. I remember actually reading the subtitles more than actually watching the various scenes and cinematography and listening to the actors speak. 

For the first episode, we decided to keep the English subtitles on and watch the series. Although I am pretty proficient in Korean, listening and talking Korean with my parents and friends are very different to the Korean spoken in an artistic/film platform. “XX” was particularly harder to understand because it is a very recent drama that just stopped airing on television. It used much more modern slangs that I was not aware of and used more poetic lines in the script. For example, in the drama, they used the word “열공” which I had no idea what it meant. I asked Jenna what that meant and apparently, it is an acronym for “열심히 공부해” or “study hard.” Additionally, since I have not watched Korean dramas in a long time, the overall vibe and cinematography of the typical Korean drama evolved drastically. Before, anyone could expect what kind of beginning it was going to have and how it was going to end. However, this drama was very unique and spontaneous, which made me realize just how advanced Korea’s film has gotten. 

For the second episode, since I have a better grasp of the characters and the overall plot, Jenna turned the subtitles off which made the watching and listening infinitely harder. Now, I had to think more about what the characters were saying and I found myself repeating the words said by the protagonists. This actually helped a lot because I found myself retaining a bunch of vocabulary words and phrases said by the characters. 

Overall, I think this meeting has made me fall back in love with Korean tv shows and I realize that I actually learn the best “XX” is a modern drama, I also learn a lot about Korea’s culture and how it has changed. In the future, I hope to continue watching the later episodes on my own time and try to watch it without turning the subtitles on once again.

In the past two weeks in Korean class, we have learned more phrases and words. We first learned three question words, what, where, and who. Then Ms. Kim asks questions around these three question words to make us familiarize with those words. While asking questions, we learned several kinds of words according to different questions and situations. First we learn the words for the four seasons, spring (봄), summer (여름에), autumn (가을) and winter  (겨울). Ms. Kim says there is an old Korean movie called spring, summer, autumn and winter, although I haven't seen it. I know that the first name of a female Korean singer is봄, so I am familiar with the word of spring.

We also learned some Korean food names, such as tofu soup (순두부찌개), barbecue (불고기), bibimbap (비빔밥) and many more. I often go to Korean restaurant with my friends in Richmond, and one of my favorite dishes is seafood noodles (해물 짬뽕). Ms. Kim told me that although I ate the seafood noodles at a Korean restaurant, it was a Chinese dish for Koreans. Because China and Korea have a close relationship historically, a lot of Chinese food was brought to Korea. Because people in different places like different tastes, Korean people have improved Chinese food, and that's why I didn't find out it was Chinese food. The most popular dishes are noodles with Fried soy sauce (짜장면), seafood noodles (해물 짬뽕) and sweet and sour pork (탕수육). In China, the noodles with Fried soy sauce (짜장면) are salty and contain minced meat, but in Korea the noodles are sweeter and have lots of sweet onions and have no meat. When learning words, I found an interesting combination of Korean words. Take the word seafood for an example, sea in Korean is 해 and things in Korean is 물, as we combine this two words together we’ll get해물. We can understand it as something in the sea, which is seafood.

Since we are college students, Ms. Kim also taught us some common words used in college, such as professor in Korean is교수님. Korean people value age and seniority, even if two people are only one year apart. I'm a sophomore, and my fellow student is a junior. When addressing each other in Korean, I would call her "senior" (선배), while I would refer to her as "junior" (후배).

In addition to vocabulary, Ms. Kim also briefly introduced the Korean suffix. In the Korean greeting sentence “안녕하세요” consists of a noun plus a suffix to form a verb, “안녕” is the noun and “하세요” is a distortion of the original suffix. The original suffix is “하다”, because greeting is a polite expression, the suffix should be changed when greeting the elder, we use “하” plus “시” plus “어요/아요”, which is “하시어요”instead of하다”, so we add “안녕” to the front of suffix and get “안녕하시어요”. Although the principle of suffix deformation is such, but because people pronunciation habits, over time it become “안녕하세요”. This is a very simple suffix, and we will learn more about suffixes and grammar in the future

I can’t believe it is already halfway through our semester. I have noticed so much change in my Korean familiarity and comfortability. Last week, I started to use an app called Duolingo in my free time. Some of the high-level lessons in Duolingo really does test my ability in grammar and spelling. It is quite challenging and fun. Duolingo is another way to get a regular practice of my Korean, especially in writing and reading. Another thing that’s great about it is that it lets you pick a topic of your choice. I been trying to do two lessons a day, but sometimes the reset time isn’t quite right with my sleeping schedule, making me lose the streak. The streak is one of the things that make it attractive. It’s a small goal that is achievable and make you more competitive among your language learning community in the app, similar to a snapchat streak. I really recommend trying this app if anyone hasn’t tried it before. I think it is really important to find different ways to practice your language to make it more fun for yourself and engage in an effective learning experience.  

Another thing I been trying to do past two weeks is listening to the Korean radio. There are so many types of radio and some are really funny, and some are really soothing to listen to. I especially like the funny stations and the news stations. It is an amazing way to practice your listening skill. If you are not a person who likes to listen to a radio, there are radios specifically for starting and ending your day. I tried having it on while I was getting in bed, and it was a lot better than I thought. Many of them play some nice Korean music and it helped me fall asleep. Now, if you’re into the K-pop industry and various idols out there, there’s so many radio stations featuring many idols and celebrities. I hope you guys give it a try and explore with it.

Jimin and I have been continuing to practice idiomatic expressions and reading different articles. We read some recent newspapers and there are so many articles on coronavirus in Korea. Number of coronavirus cases keeps on rising today, and CDC has raised a level 3 alert for South Korea. I have so many families and friends in Korea, especially in the city of Daegu where the recent breakout occurred. Reading these newspapers really scare me sometimes and I hope the situation gets better as soon as possible. Everything aside, my language learning experience has been great past two weeks. With continuous practice with the idiomatic expressions, I am now able to refer to different expressions in different situations that I come across. My reading and writing are improving as well with the new approach with Duolingo on my own. Finally, I’ve become so comfortable listening to Korean while watching videos and listening to radios. As I find new ways to explore my language learning career, it makes me so happy that I could apply my Korean skill in so many ways, and that encourages me even more to study and practice harder.

During the past two weeks, the main tasks that I worked on were reading and speaking in Persian. Due to the distress caused by the spread of coronavirus in the world, my language partner (Zari) and I read and watched the news about it. Recently, this virus was spread in Iran causing tens of deaths and infecting hundreds of people. The spread of this virus has had a significant impact on schools and sites of worship. We spent most of our time discussing and analyzing the impact of this virus on Iranian people, society and culture. Most of this news was recorded by BBC Persia. Furthermore, we discussed the danger of such a virus spreading to countries in Afghanistan where sanitation is one of the poorest in the world. The second task that we completed was completing some grammar workshops from the book called, Intermediate Persian: A Grammar and a Workbook.

What we hoped to accomplish this week was to analyze the intersection of the rise of complex issues such as this virus and society. What I learned from the news was that there are hundreds of Iranians and other people who travel from Iran daily. I think this news by itself is a form of awareness to people who are not from Iran and see this country isolated or very strict about traveling. The second major thing that I gained more knowledge on was the distrust between the people and the Iranian government. When the virus was first spread in Iran, the political officials declared it as a scam by the enemies and said that it was not a major problem. When people heard this news, they did not take the precautions that were needed to stop the spread of this virus which lead to tens of people dying. However, once the Iranian people saw the contradictory news between what the government officials and what this virus was doing, it created distrust among the people. It was interesting to see the way language that was used by the government officials in comparison to people who were speaking about this virus. The language used by the government officials was one that was very proper but also in a way that minimized the harm associated with this virus. On the other hand, common people were more panicked and straightforward on how they felt about the spread of this virus in their country. Furthermore, the spread of this virus has caused the Iranian government to cancel Friday prayers and stop people from attending religious shrines. 

The past two weeks have been a bit of a different kind of studying with my language partner because we spent most of our time reading and listening to the news. Regardless, my community partner and I continue to work on some of the goals that we had set during the first week such as getting accustomed to typing in Persian. While we focused most of our time on listening and conversing, I also took the time to type some short reflections about what we learned. Additionally, I started using the grammar workbook to reinforce and consolidate my knowledge of certain grammatical points. We continue to work on the two dialects of Faris and Dari. 

Similar to the last weeks, the strategies that we used during this week were mainly through watching videos, listening, writing and speaking. I watched videos on BBC Persian along with printing Persian articles from this new agency. Every time I watch or read the news in Persian, I continue to take notes of certain words that I may not be familiar with or if there are any questions that I have about the usage of grammar. 

Recently, Jimin and I have been exploring many different Korean folk tales to not only share nostalgia about our parents telling us bedtime stories when we were children, but also to look into the stories for their deeper meanings that we didn’t realize before. Korean folk tales serve as an excellent way to learn more about Korean culture through the different values and morals that they highlight. A couple of the ones that we read include The Princess and the Beggar, The Korean Cinderella, The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon, and Heungbu and Nolbu. The Princess and the Beggar is a rather feminist Korean folktale that revolves around a weeping princess who chooses a village beggar as her partner as she refuses to marry based on social status. This forces her to be expelled from her father’s court, and eventually, the beggar becomes rather skilled and educated enough to be welcomed back to court with the princess. The Korean Cinderella is a twist on the original Cinderella story that involves a Korean girl named Pear Blossom is treated as a slave by her stepmother and is forced to complete 3 nearly impossible tasks. With the help of some magical creatures, Pear Blossom is able to complete them and also become a nobleman’s wife. Overall, I thought the theme revolved around karma, and that this version of the Cinderella story was more unexpected and deep in meaning. The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon is the story of a tiger who mistakenly thinks that a dried persimmon is a deadly predator and runs away. It illustrates the dynamics between the strong and the weak, and ends with the moral that even the weakest can win against the strongest by outwitting them. Finally, Heungbu and Nolbu was one of my favorite folktales that Jimin and I read, and it was also the one that I was most familiar with already. This tale was written in the late Joseon Dynasty and is one of the most popular bedtime stories for Korean children. Heungbu and Nolbu are brothers, with Nolbu as the greedy older brother and Heungbu as the kind and empathetic younger brother. They found that their father was to split his fortunate in half for each of them, and Nolbu dramatically threw out Heungbu’s family in an effort to keep the fortune all to himself. Following this, Heungbu remained impoverished until he came upon an injured swallow that he nursed back to its full health, after which swallow gifted Heungbu with seeds that yielded gemstones. Nolbu demanded Heungbu to tell him of his secret, and after Nolbu tried to recreate the fortune himself by breaking a swallow’s leg, Nolbu was showered with misfortune. Overall, this tale emphasizes that good deeds bring wealth and luck. Additionally, it challenges the traditional Korean value that the eldest son is the most important of the family. Overall, I felt that these Korean folktales are a very valuable part of our Korean cultural learning, especially since they are one of the first lessons of Korean values for Korean children. Even though the writing and vocabulary is very elementary, I thought that the deeper meanings behind the stories made them worthwhile for my Korean cultural learning. In the future, I would like to explore more advanced Korean novels that also have Korean values embedded in them.

          As of 2017, there are 7,099 languages in existence today. Since there are so many distinct languages worldwide, it is crucial to be able to organize and categorize these different entities. According to Scribd, a language family tree can be broken up into smaller subdivisions, or languages branches. For example, other well-known branches of the Indo-European Language family include:Germanic, Celtic, Hellenic, and Baltic languages. Currently, I am studying Korean as my target language. While Korean is among the world's most misunderstood and misrepresented languages because of its obscure origins, scholarly evidence suggests that Korean and Japanese belong to the Altaic language family, which also includes Turkish and Mongolian. On the other hand, some linguists actually insist that Korean is a language isolate. In Korea when I was very young, I remember learning a few Chinese alphabets and phrases called “한자” or “hanja” was a requirement in our curriculum. This was probably the case because Korea was heavily influenced by China and Japan in its history. This makes sense on why some of the roots of Korean words actually are the same roots as Chinese words. A great deal of Korean words are comprised of hanja. Learning hanja will help me to memorize the words more quickly, as knowing the roots will help me in this process. In English, it can be equated to knowing Latin and Greek root words. Knowing the root of a word can help me better understand its meaning and remember it later. In addition, Languages can transform through genetic or genealogical classification which can be described as the way in which languages develop new traits and characteristics while also maintaining its ancestral roots. Linguists try to track it as best as they can, however, sometimes, this task is very difficult, so we might actually have more language families than we are aware of. 

We are about half-way through this semester and as I look back on my work in this program, I can say I am very proud of what I have accomplished. Prior to the start of this program, I only knew the alphabet in sign language, plus a few obscure signs such as “restrooms”, “mother”, an elephant”. However, after just five weeks of instruction, I am able to generate and participate in the conversation with my instructor. Just this past week, we had a full 30-minute discussion relating to our living situations, spring break plans, family dynamics, and our favorite colors. Although I knew and it was emphasized in the beginning of the course that participating in dialogue/signing is the best way to learn a language, I forgot the entire effectiveness of such a method. Granted, I did not sign everything correctly during my conversation, but I was able to convey my information/points acutely enough that a deaf individual was able to understand me! It is AWESOME! Nevertheless, although I have learned so much, I still know so little.

            When Kay, the translator, comes in, I am astonished by her ability to interpret my instructors incredibly fast signing. I might be able to understand a small portion of the story due to the intrinsic nature of sign language, along with my few weeks of training, however, the speed at which Reba signs is almost indistinguishable. However, Kay can interpret! As a hearing individual who helps the deaf community, Kay helps inspire me to continue my sign-language journey.

            In addition, Reba has recently asked me to assist her with her sign-language course here at the University of Richmond through the School of Professional & Continuing Studies. I am unsure as to what this entails entirely; however, the fact that she thinks I am able to help other students learn the language has really given me confidence in my abilities. I believe the vocabulary she will be teaching to her other students will be very introductory as the course is only one day a week for four weeks. Nevertheless, I am applying the final “Teach” portion of the “Learn. Do. Teach.” model. On top of this, Reba has explained to me that the members of her ASL Champs group, the ASL teaching origination she works for, will be having a dinner get together. The purpose of such an excursion is to practice ASL outside of a classroom setting in a fun, satisfying manner. And Reba has invited me to this event! I am so excited to meet other people who as passionate about ASL as I am excited to finally be introduced to deaf community members.

            Despite the fact that the course is going incredibly, and I look forward to it every week, I do wish I was able to learn more medical terminology, as that was my original goal for learning ASL-to be able to questions and treat deaf individuals in a medical emergency. However, learning a language is a process and takes a great amount of time and training. So, I understand that this too will come in time.

For the week before, I practiced conversation with my language partner, Jenna, and learning partner, Christiana. Jenna printed out a handout of conversations of two college students talking about the semester so far. We read through a list of vocabulary first, including some related words such as (semester), (class), and (major). We also learned the words for some subjects or majors, including chemistry, computer science, and finance. For each word, we would read it out loud first and then guess its meaning by its pronunciation. There are some words that are very similar to English, which makes them easier to remember. There are some words that sound like Chinese as well, but they turned out to have completely different meanings, which would sometimes confuse me a little bit. As we went into the conversations, however, the vocabs make much more sense to me. Christiana and I chose a character each and read through the conversation line by line. After finishing reading the sentence, just as we did for the list of words, we would guess a rough translation for the sentence. Then, we looked into the sentence more closely and figure out its transition, logic, and phrases used. We all agree that this is a really effective way of learning new words as well as having conversations. When I was confused about a particular word, we would refer back to the list of words we just learned or wrote down the new phrases on it, which helped me learn the new words faster. We love this kind of practice and it builds up our confidence in speaking too.

This week, we watched a Korean Web drama named “XX” together. Different from the most commonly seen Korean dramas with twenty or more episodes and an hour and a half for each, the web dramas are much shorter. They have usually around or even less than twelve episodes, and each episode takes around twenty minutes. Nowadays in this fast-speed society, not a lot of people would spend twenty hours on one drama – it’s too much time commitment. Instead, the web dramas are much shorter and easier to watch on commute. As more and more people start to watch web dramas, the quality of web dramas improved a lot over the past five years. Compared with the first web drama I watched three years ago, “XX” is well-made with higher quality in its soundtracks, choices of actors and actresses, and storytelling. Another interesting thing I noticed in web dramas is that they are slightly more obvious in promoting the products they are sponsored in when compared with TV dramas. In TV dramas, if the actor or actress is sponsored, say by a clothing brand, then they would wear this brand for a larger portion of time while fitting into the settings and characters. The brand name would appear at the very end of the episode but not in the drama. On the other side, the web dramas would actually show the brand name and its products in a scene and have the main characters talking about how they like them. This also shows how the web dramas have a really limited time for their audience to stay focused and interested, so they have to send out the messages in a more direct way. I love learning about these cultural topics and discuss them with my partners.

For this week’s biweekly journal, I want to talk about some of the high and low points of these past two weeks. To start, I just want to say that I did not have the opportunity to practice Korean as much as I would have liked to. Due to the past two weeks being midterm season, I found that a majority of my time was spent on studying. However, I will talk about some of the things I was able to do amidst midterm season.

            First, I was able to call my parents and family, but not that much. However, when I did get the opportunity to call them, I made sure to only speak in Korean so that I was able to practice my fluency and competency. In addition, I was able to talk to them about the COVID-19 and potential plans for when I come back home for spring break. These are two prevalent topics since the COVID-19 is supposedly starting to spread in California and the fact that I will be going there for spring break. My parents would freak out and ask me if I had a mask and to be careful.

            Second, on YouTube, I started to watch a bunch of Korean content creators. From Yeon’s couple, Korean Englishman, and Gabie kook, there are so many channels that I started to watch. Some of these channels are great to watch because they add in English subtitles, so if I didn’t understand something, I am able to look at the translation and understand what they were trying to say. In addition, there are channels that do not have English subtitles, so I am able to practice listening and understanding what native Korean speakers say and sound like.

            Lastly, I want to talk about future plans, since I was not able to practice and learn Korean as much as I would have liked these past two weeks. This upcoming week, I will focus on calling my family as usual, and work on my fluency and ability to speak Korean. Also, I will finish up my schoolwork to ensure that I can have a restful spring break. Looking into the future during spring break, I will dedicate this time mainly to rest and interact with my family. While I am back home, I will be placed in an environment where I will get the opportunity to speak Korean for a significant amount of time. Going back home to see my parents and family will allow me to not only practice but learn since I am able to ask my parents for clarification. I can get this clarification because my parents also have the ability to speak a little bit of English. In addition, my family spends a lot of time watching Korean entertainment programs, so it would be nice to spend time with them and watch these shows with them. I am excited to go back home and spend time with my family, and also for the chance to impress my family members on how much I have learned about the Korean language over these past few weeks.

Korean is the language of the Korean peninsula in northeast Asia. It is believed that the ancestors of the Korean people arrived in the Korean peninsula and in Manchuria around 4,000 BC. They displaced, or assimilated, the earlier Paleosiberian-speaking settlers. Many small Korean tribal states were established in these locations between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD. There are many theories about the origin and affiliation of the Korean language. What makes Korean linguistic affiliation very difficult to establish is its long history of contact with Chinese and Japanese. According to the so-called Southern theory, Korean belongs to the Austronesian language family. However, according to the Northern theory, supported by a number of linguists, Korean is a member of the Altaic language family. At the same time, some linguists point to some similarities between Korean and Japanese, suggesting that it might belong in the Japonic group of languages. With the issue of the affiliation of Korean being unresolved, many sources classify it as a language isolate. During the Japanese occupation of Korea, Japanese was declared the official language of Korea, and the use of Korean was officially banned. Koreans were even forced to change their family names to Japanese ones. With the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945, despite national division and civil war, Korean was once again established as the official language of both Koreas. After the division of the country in 1945, each Korea developed its own national standard and language policy. Today, Modern Korean is used in all spheres of life in both Koreas.

The reason why people are continuously interested in learning the history of languages is that it provides a historical and social context of a language that help people contextualize and familiarize with languages' historical applications and their modern relevance. It is also how linguists predict how languages changed and will change over time. There are many different reasons for language change. Changes can take originate in language learning, or through language contact, social differentiation, and natural processes in usage. Example of a type of change can be sound change. By learning the pattern of language changes from the past to the present, linguists can assume and predict that the same pattern will occur from the present to the future. However, it is just not that simple regarding various changes in societies, cultures and interactions between cultures. 

In the past two weeks we first learned about words for different professions, and how to say what we are aiming to become, and to express this to out peers we learned how to ask for someone’s major and how to tell them our own. I’m currently planning on becoming a computer scientist (컴퓨터 과학자). 전 컴퓨터 과학을 전공하고 있습니다 (I am majoring in computer science). Then, we learned about how to say what the date is. 김수미 교수님 (Prof. Sumi Kim) helped us practice this by asking us what the current day’s date is, what the past day’s date was, what tomorrow’s date would be, and when our birthday is. Along with the saying the date, we also learned how to say which day of the week it is: 월요일 (Monday), 화요일 (Tuesday), 수요일 (Wednesday), 목요일 (Thursday), 금요일 (Friday), 토요일 (Saturday), and also how to say this week (이번 주), last week (지난주), and next week (다음주) which is really useful in my everyday conversations with friends about projects (계획) or exams (시험). 김수미 교수님 (Prof. Sumi Kim) helped us practice these by asking us what we did the previous week, or what our plans are for this week or the next. Almost every time Prof. Kim asked us any question about what we did the previous day, or the past week, or over the weekend, my answer was always 춤 (dance). This was because I spent a lot of time practicing dance for Block Crew. This actually helped my language learning because a lot of my friends in Block Crew speak Korean, so whenever they spoke to each other I could practice my listening skill, started picking up new vocabulary, and even spoke a bit of Korean whenever I could. For example, whenever we’re learning new steps, someone would repeat the step and ask the person teaching “이처럼?” which means “like this?” Other times when someone dances really well someone would say “대박” which can be used to express that something was really good. And in general I got more used to saying and listening to the words 뭐 (what), 언제 (when), 어디 (where), 왜 (why), 어떻게 (how) to the level where they started popping up in my head naturally when I think of saying any of those words to anyone. So, sometimes when my friends call my name I respond with “뭐?” (what?) or “네?” (yeah?). Some of the credit for this habit of mine goes to the k-drama Cheese in the Trap. I’ve been learning a lot of useful words and phrases and getting a good idea of how interactions in colleges in Korea look through this k-drama. I’m currently working on accumulating a list of words and phrases that were used in the show which I thought were really useful. 

One of the best parts of these two weeks was a moment when I received a V Live notification (picture attached at the end) on my phone which said that 방탄 소년단 (BTS) is holding a live stream because it was Suga’s birthday. I picked up my phone to see the notification, saw that it meant “Surprise Live! BTS: Min Suga’s birthday was 2 days ago,” and I put my phone down. It was only after a second that I realised that the notification was in Korean, and I was able to read it comfortably and understand what it said without a second thought. Objectively, this isn’t extremely big because there weren’t any diphthongs in the words which would make it harder for me to read it, and there wasn’t any complicated vocabulary used, but to me it definitely served as a testament to the progress that I have made in my language learning journey.

Note: V Live is a South Korean live video streaming service that allows celebrities based in the country to broadcast live videos on the internet and live chat with fans.

According to the so-called Southern theory, Korean belongs to the Austronesian language family. However, according to the Northern theory, supported by a number of linguists, Korean is a member of the Altaic language family. At the same time, some linguists point to some similarities between Korean and Japanese, suggesting that it might belong in the Japonic group of languages.

한자, words borrowed from Chinese characters, is present in Korean due to the spread of Buddhism from China to Korea. However, the most Chinese characters in Korean is not due to this religious spread, instead it is due to a text called 천자문. Some characters were borrowed directly from the text in simplified Chinese, some were translated based on their pronunciations of Chinese. The characters which are borrowed from Chinese characters change in terms of stroke orders. Research shows that some words borrowed from Chinese are gradually losing its popularity through time since schools abandoned the teaching of 한자 in 1971. Some words remain in common usage in contexts. I noticed this when I first began to listen to Korean because there were Korean words that I can somehow match the Chinese pronunciations. This special language borrowing and mixing makes Korean more approachable for me to learn in both terms of written and spoken.

To predict how language is going to change in the future, we can look at the factors which are causing changes and are retaining the change of language in the past. Internet platforms which provide people to communicate are causing the major change of language. Schools and other education organizations are slowing down the changes because students will study the standard language there, therefore the tradition is maintained. As the example above, after schools decided not to teach Chinese characters, the usage has been declining.

K-pop is gaining a lot of my attention through the past few years. Aside from the entertaining benefit to me. Its influences on other cultures are remarkable. People who are affected by the hallyu select common used words in K-pop fandom and mix them in their daily conversations. From the asset of social linguistic, word borrowing and language hybridizing are both a result and a reason for identity recognition.

For example, the word 오빠, elder brother, is widely used in international fandoms as a reference to their idols. However, international K-pop fans don’r use this word under the grammar rules. Instead, they mix English or Spanish or Thai with this Korean word to show their identity as a K-pop fan. Similarly, the phrase 사랑해 is commonly used in fandom to express their love towards their idols. Nevertheless, international fans use this phrase despite grammar as well as the formality of speech. These two examples are not enough to provide enough information to reveal the whole picture. By digging into the culture in terms of language, I can get a wider view on this interesting issue.

On February 28th, I had my first official Korean lesson with Jimin at 815. We began by going over a list of terms that she had prepared for me in advance, so that she could gauge my level of Korean. I was able to read all the terms but did not understand a number of them. However, when she read them out loud and used them in the context of a sentence, I was able to identify all the terms. I explained to Jimin that although I had been taught Korean in formal settings in the past, these were brief and did not account for a majority of my skills in Korean. I grew up speaking Korean at home, so I best understand the language when it is spoken out loud to me. I thought this was really interesting because in English, I prefer visually reading words over auditory comprehension. Actually, when I have to listen to podcasts or other types of verbal lessons, I find it extremely difficult to retain the information that is being relayed, and I often have to listen to the material several times before I understand everything that I am hearing. This is probably due to the fact that I grew up as an avid reader, so I have a stronger connection with written rather than spoken words. But with Korean, I can say or understand words better when they are spoken, and even though I am mentally aware of the words, I usually do not know how to properly spell or write them. It does not help that my mother uses informal language with me, also known as banmal 반말. I remember when I had my first Korean class in college, I was so surprised to see the proper forms of words and their different tenses. After discussing this with Jimin, we decided that we would make it a goal to focus on formal language since I do not have a good foundation in that area.

After going through the list, we then moved onto learning about some Korean history. Jimin told me that there was a national holiday coming up on March 1st, which celebrates the Samil Movement 삼일 운동, translating literally to the March 1st Movement. This event was one of the earliest public displays of resistance against Japanese colonial rule of Korea in the early 1900s. It also served as a catalyst for Korea’s eventual independence. To teach me about this event, we looked at a comic which described its importance. Although I could read everything and generally understand the pictures, there were a lot of terms that were more advanced than my level of reading comprehension, so Jimin explained the story as we went through the pages. One of the prominent organizers of the movement was Yu Gwan Sun 유관순. She was recognized for her peaceful demonstrations of protest, starkly contrasting against the extremely violent forces imposed by Japanese military personnel. She is commonly acknowledged as Korea’s “Joan of Arc,” and she devoted her entire life to fighting for Korea’s independence, dying in jail at the age of 17. I do not know much about Korean history and this event was really interesting to learn about, especially since it is relevant to the upcoming date. 

To close our lesson, Jimin went over a few slang terms that Koreans use when texting. I thought that a lot of them were pretty clever, although some were really silly and made me laugh. All in all, I thought that this was a very successful lesson. I learned a lot and a variety of different topics, all of which were really interesting.

After doing some research on the internet, I was surprised to discover that the language family of Korean seems to be highly contested. Most sources claim that Korean belongs to the Koreanic language family, and consider to be a language isolate. This term is used to describe a language that does not demonstrate any sort of genealogical relationship with other languages, one that does not share a common ancestor with other languages. However, there is some support for the notion that Korean belongs in the hypothesized Altaic family, which mostly has speakers from parts of Asia and some parts of Europe. The Koreanic language family includes Korean languages spoken in both North and South Korea, spanning from the ancient languages spoken from 57 BC to the present-day.

I thought this was really interesting to read about because I had always thought that Korean was a descendant of Chinese languages, but after reading further about its history, I learned that Classical Chinese was not introduced to Korea until a couple of centuries later. It amazes me that Korean has managed to maintain its individuality, even with Chinese and Japanese influences in Korea.

Languages transform through genetic or genealogical classification, which describes the process in which languages develop new traits and characteristics while maintaining its ancestral roots. Language families are formed when proto-languages produce daughter languages, which become parental languages to their own daughter languages. In order to understand the relationships and connections between different languages, these 145+ families are organized into language family trees. However, the extent of our understanding of languages is limited by the availability of recorded history, so it’s possible that there are more language families or the ones we acknowledge now are not accurate.

Amber Liu is a singer, rapper, and songwriter. She initially started her music career as a member of a female Koren pop (K-pop) group named f(x). She stayed with f(x) for 10 years and over those year she occasionally released multiple singles and she finally decided to end her contract with SM entertainment and leave f(x) to become her own brand which started with her releasing album X in 2020. Amber released a music video for her song Other People in which she gives an official update to the world about her current boyfriend by including a scene in which she is kissing him in the video. I found this very interesting.

In general, a lot of musicians have scenes of them being intimate with other people and it’s considered completely normal and as something that was done for the video just like how professional actors will be intimate with their co-stars for the scenes in a movie. When I first saw the music video this is exactly what I thought. I didn’t think of it as Amber officially declaring that she is seeing someone. I only realised that this was her intention when I saw a video on her youtube channel which has her friends reacting to the kiss scene in her music video. In the video all her friends, a lot of whom have Korean background, have really intense reactions that really surprised me. It was very clear that this scene in her music video was a very big deal. All of this got me thinking about the differences in our ideologies and about the dating culture in Korea.

From what I read, dating is a huge thing in Korean culture. The work culture in Korea is very intense and people barely get any free time, so there’s not much time for people to spend with their significant other(s). However, to make up for this, people in relationships show their affection for each other by constantly staying in touch through social media not by sending any long texts but by sending simple good morning/afternoon/evening/night texts and sending cute emoticons to each other. There are also multiple milestones and holidays that couple celebrate to make sure that they’re spending time together. Unlike American culture where couples celebrate Valentine’s day and their anniversary, in Korea, couples celebrate their first month, second month, 100th day, 200th day etc. and there are also small holidays almost every month meant to be spent with their significant other(s)–holidays like, White Day (March 14th), Rose Day (May 14th), Yellow Day, Kiss Day (June 14th), Silver Day (July 14th), Wine Day (October 14th), Hug/Sock Day (December 14th). Couple also show their affection for one another by wearing couple themed clothes or matching clothes to tell the world that they’re together. Publicly showing that a couple is together is a huge thing in Korea. This is also why people in relationships upload a lot of pictures with their partner(s) onto social media to show their affection for each other on social media. While publicly showcasing your relationship is a big thing in Korean culture, funnily enough, beyond holding hand, public display of affection is a big no in Korea. Kissing or lingering hugs are though of as things that should be shared with your partner(s) in a private setting and are considered extremely inappropriate in public. After learning about all this, it makes sense why Amber releasing a music video in which she is kissing her partner is a big deal for her and her friends.

Side note: I got to go to Amber’s concert last week and I got to meet her and it was absolutely phenomenal–both her and her performance (attached ticket and picture with Amber)!