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110 Learning Journal # 8

My learning goal for this week is to learn how to tell time and ask about time. I would need to know how to say “what time is it,” in Korean, and learn how to say the hours of day from 1- 12 o’ clock, and lean how to say AM and PM. I will use these sources below to accomplish this goal:

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I was able to ask and answer 6 questions on identity using  Vocaroo. My language partner, Alvin, asked mE the questions in Korean and I answered them in Korean. then, I asked him the questions in Korean, and he answered my questions in Korean.

1. What's your name?....My name is Rosemary

2. What's your gender? ...I am a female

3. Where are you from?...I am American

4. How old are you? .... I am 21

5. What's your job?... I am a student

6. What's your major?... My major is Healthcare and Society 

RECORDING IS ATTACHED BELOW:

korean%20identity%20artifact%20%232.mp3

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SDLC 105 Learning Journal 7

The article discusses the revival of the Siletz language and culture over a period of time. I think that when a language and/or culture is lost then a part of a person’s identity is also lost because language and culture can tell us a lot about history. Just like many other American Indian tribes, the Siletz tribe has lost a piece of their identity as generations continue to follow and more children and adults start to assimilate into American culture and society. However, this started back when the US government started displacing American Indians and mixing tribes with one another though they did not speak the same language or have anything in common. The goal was to make them assimilate or become nonexistent, but the Siletz tribe prevail and eventually their language, songs, and dances were adopted by other tribes, whose traditions had started to fade out. Despite the Siletz tribe’s language being lost temporarily after the US government declared it nonexistent, they were able to gain it back and even create an online dictionary, which I think is cool, especially for languages that are not common such as English, French, Spanish, Chinese, etc.

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110: Reflection Week 3

This week I focused mainly on trying to read Hindi. Although we are not required to know this for the course, the Mango App uses Hindi lettering and I found that I was already able to identify some consonants just based on context. Being Hindi is a phonetic language it will be easier for me to say words correctly if I can read them in Devanagari instead of in the English alphabet. I've been writing the letters down in a notebook and trying to identify them on the app and in other places I may see them.

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SDLG105 Learning Journal #6

Before starting to learn Korean independently this semester, the most possible opportunity for me to get to learn Korean language is from the popular South Korean TV soaps in which that Korean sounds fantastic, interesting and soft. The Korean dramas also contain many cultures and history that enable me to have some basic idea of Korean. However, after taking this class, I have many opportunities to learn the culture and history of Korean. For listening presentations from classmates and doing my own research, I know more about the history of Korean including meanings of bow, alphabet developments of Korean, and the holidays of Korean. I think these knowledge make me become more interesting in Korean and eager to learn more about it. Moreover, these knowledge also let me have a better understanding of Korean and realize that I can memorize the words and sentences more quickly. The history of language is very important for a language learner because it will help him/her to get familiar with the language and understand the meanings behind words. 

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Reflection Paper #2

     My language learning experience has been very exciting so far. I started from a very dark place without knowing a single thing about Urdu or the culture of the countries that use Urdu. I only knew of the existence of Urdu through a few of my friends who spoke it. Looking back, the first few weeks were pretty tough; I did not really know how to start learning a language. Sensibly, I started practicing the alphabet since it is the foundation in which most languages are built. The alphabet was significantly different from any other alphabets I've tried seen before. Each individual alphabet had a unique curvature to it. I was not sure if I could replicate the alphabets at all. Pronouncing the alphabets had numerous challenges of their own; Urdu required me to make sounds that I was previously not used to making at all and it was tough. Worst of it all, even after having practiced for days, I would not know if I had the alphabets right because of the feelings of foreignness and powerlessness the new language presented me with. I always felt like I was doing something wrong even if I was doing things right. I've come relatively far with the help of a lot of internet resources and Hadee, my language partner, but still the feeling of foreignness prevails when I think about Urdu.

    Even though I haven't advanced far enough into learning Urdu to completely understand the relationship between the target culture and target language, I've seen glimpses of how they influence each other. Pakistani culture is a culture that greatly values respect towards your neighbors. Oye means hello or hi but it is extremely informal and should not be used with just any random person you see. You need to use it with respectful suffixes like Bhai (brother) or Dost(friend). There are informal words that are suitable for casual encounters with friends and there are formal equivalents of the informal words that are for elderly or your family. One thing to note is how in Pakistani culture, family comes before anyone or anything else and that is reflected in the language. In the United States, most people address their family informally or casually but it does not seem to be the case in Urdu. Coming from Korea, this type of culture to language influence is not foreign to me. In Korean, there are almost always formal counterparts for informal words; the formal words are often reserved for when you talk to an elder. It was interesting to see the similarity in the two culture and languages.

     In order to improve my communicative competence, I need to first learn enough phrases that can be used in daily conversations and learn to pronounce things more authentically. I can say basic things like hi, how are you and such but communication requires more than just the formal greetings. Communications include being able to describe my physical self, my emotions, my desires, and also being able to understand the other person. To reach this level of communicative competence, I will need to enlarge my vocabulary pool by a huge amount; I don't know nearly that many words or phrases yet. In order to enlarge my vocabulary pool, I will just need to keep practicing following internet resources and keep exposing myself to things like music, literature, movie and friends who speak Urdu.

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SDLC 105 - Learning Journal #7

It is important to stabilize the language by having a group of people who speak the language so the language doesn't die out. Siletz Dee-ni was a dying language, but was preserved through the creation of dictionaries with an "impressive size and search capabilities." Moreover, the language is now taught in elementary school in Siletz, and the tribe is working further to establish language programs in high school to allow Siletz to be taught as a foreign language to preserve its indigenous language and history. When a language dies out, people lose cultural identities, richness, and diversity of humanity's linguistic heritage. A language contains the words and sounds that a particular group uses to describe and interact with the world, and thus forms an essential part of that group's identity. In order to preserve that identity, many people are trying to preserve languages from dying out just like we are trying to prevent endangered species from going extinct to maintain diversity in the ecosystem.

 

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110: Learning Journal #9

For Week 9, I’ll be learning how to ask questions and how to use some shopping terms in Korean. I’ll achieve this by doing Chapters 7 (Asking Questions), 8 (More Questions), and 17 (Shopping) and the corresponding exercises in my KMS book. I’m not sure when I’ll need to speak Korean when shopping, but I’m going to do the chapter anyways. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get to go to Korea someday and visit one of the fish markets (FYI, fresh fish is my favorite food)! That’s shopping for food though. Whatever, I’m sure that most of the same phrases are used when shopping for clothes. Anyways, it’s on my bucketlist.


As usual, I’ll supplement my book work with YouTube videos. I found two that seemed particularly interesting: “Korean Phrases for Shopping (As a Customer)” and “Korean Phrases for Shopping (As a Salesperson)” both by TalkToMeInKorean. That way I’ll get both sides of the scenario. Hmm, this has some potential in becoming a skit.

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110: Learning Journal #10

For Week 10, I will learn how to talk about food and how to use the two Korean number systems when counting and talking about time, dates, and age. I’ll achieve this by doing Chapters 12 (Numbers) and 13 (More Numbers) in my KMS book and their corresponding exercises. I’ll also watch YouTube tutorials on ordering food at a Korean restaurant (e.g. “Korean Phrases for Ordering at a Restaurant” by sweetandtastyTV). I also happened to snag an extra menu from a Korean restaurant I ate at this weekend, and I was so excited that I could actually read the dishes in Hangul! The menu includes many popular traditional Korean dishes, so it’s a good start for learning the names of various Korean dishes.

 

I’ll also be making my third artifact, which is actually my second artifact since I accidentally switched the tasks for the two (please see ‘My Second Artifact’ post for the full explanation). Therefore, for my Third Artifact, I’ll be completing the task for the Second Artifact; that is, asking and answering questions about identity. Below is a rough outline of the dialogue:

 

Rough translation: (polite form)

A: Hello.

B: Hello. 

A: I'm Chul-Soo Lee. What is your name?

B: I'm Becky Chen. 

A: I'm French. What nationality are you?

B: I'm American.

A: Where are you from?

B: I'm from China.

A: I'm 34 years old. How old are you?

B: I'm 21 years old. 

A: I'm a designer. What do you do?

B: I'm a student.


Yeah, so that’s the gist the conversation. FYI, I’ll be both Speakers A and B, but I’ll probably use GarageBand to change my voice for Speaker A just to prevent confusion. We’ll see how it goes.

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105: Reflection Paper #2

So far, I’ve learned Hangul (the Korean alphabet), how to introduce myself and my family, and how to form simple sentences using basic verbs. I’ve also acquired some useful vocabulary throughout the six chapters I’ve completed in the KMS book, but I’m still working on memorizing them. Actually, that’s an important point. I’ve been working on the grammar so much that I haven’t focused much on the vocabulary. I’ll probably use Quizlet to learn and process them quickly.

 

As for the cultural aspect, I definitely know a lot more about Korean culture now than I did before. Prior to the SDLAP program, my primary sources for learning about Korean culture were Korean dramas, music videos, grocery stores, and my Korean friends and their families. From Korean dramas, I learned a lot about the culture just from studying minor details and interactions between the characters, which I usually found more interesting than the actual plot itself. I also listened to Kpop music and I’m subscribed to a few Korean cooking channels on YouTube. Other times I’d pick up a little bit about the culture from hanging out with my Korean friends and going over to their houses and from visiting Korean grocery stores. For example, I got the impression that Koreans are leaders in the skincare realm from the sheer amount of skincare advertisements at an H-mart I shopped at once. These kinds of encounters with Korean culture began in the sixth grade for me and continued on to today. So, I thought I had a pretty good idea about what Korean culture was about before the program. But even so, I didn’t know the details and history, so it’s nice to get some researched information about how Korean culture developed into what it is today.

 

Communicative competence is defined by the sociolinguist Dell Hymes as “that aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific context” (“Communicative Competence” reading). To build my communicative competence in Korean, I think I’d have to talk to native speakers more often since I’m prioritizing my speaking and listening skills in this program. Perhaps, I can form a weekly group with a couple of fellow Korean learners and include a native speaker so that we improvise conversations together.

 

I suppose the exercises and dialogues in the KMS book are helping me build grammatical competence, which involves understanding the fundamentals and technicalities of the language. The dialogues are all competent discourses between the speakers so I’m studying those examples closely. The cultural presentations, posts, and other immersive activities that I do all help with my Korean sociolinguistic competence, because the information I obtain from those activities give me a sense of what kind of speech and set of words are appropriate for certain situations. A final subcategory of communicative competence that I have yet to address is strategic competence, which is “the competence underlying our ability to make repairs, to cope with imperfect knowledge, and to sustain communication through paraphrase, circumlocution, repetition, hesitation, avoidance, and guessing, as well as shifts in register and style” (“Communicative Competence” reading). Again, I’d need to practice speaking in Korean with others, so that I can mess up and try to recover from the situation.

 

I can learn about different scenarios from watching dramas, variety shows, or anything that involves a variety of interactions between individuals. Heck, I can even observe the Korean students during dinner at Dhall, but that might be a little creepy. As of now, I don’t think I know enough vocabulary or grammar to carry on a long enough conversation that would induce awkwardness such that I’d have to use my hypothetical strategic competence. I really think that the only way to get to that level is to talk a lot, so that I have opportunities to mess up and learn from my mistakes. But first, I need to learn about the structural backbone of the language before I can move on to the fancy stuff.

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Cultural Post #6

I think Korean culture is polychronic. For example, I read that Koreans would value keeping a good relationship with co-workers rather than pressing them to meet deadlines for a project. I recently read an interesting article on the concept of "Korean time". This concept refers to Koreans always being late to an appointment. But in more recent years Koreans have noted that Korean time is fading and more people are now on time to appointments. Korean time may have evolved in the recent years due to people joining the workforce where if one is late one could possibly lose their job. With so much focus on improving human capital along with the emphasis on being competitive, performing the best at school and at work, the evolution of Korean time makes sense. However, in personal relationships I think Korean time is still very much prevalent where being late to meet a friend runs less of a risk. Even if the meeting with a friend or family member runs late, I think Koreans are very much okay since relationships are so important. I feel like Korean time is very much linked to eating. I always feel like I take forever to eat Korean meals especially with Korean barbecue. Meals can be accompanied by drinking soju and having fun conversations that seem to last forever as well as it is portrayed in Korean dramas. 

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110: Learning Journal #8

For Week 8, I’m going to learn some useful verbs and how to tell and ask about time. I’ll achieve this by reading Chapters 5 (Verbs), 6 ( More Verbs), and 16 (Telling Time) of my KMS book and by doing the corresponding exercises. Since this is a fairly straightforward lesson, I’ll try to practice with a Korean speaker if possible. I also want to reread the chapter about sound changes in Hangul from my KMS book to improve my reading and speaking skills. Supplemental YouTube videos on Hangul basics will probably help clarify some issues too.

Also, this week I created a simple learning activity to practice the wanting/not wanting and likes/dislikes grammar and food terms. It's a simple game and requires three people and magazine cut-outs of Korean foods. 

1. First, teach the new learners the Korean greetings and the "I want/don't want..." and "I like/dislike..." phrases. 

2. After the newbies get the phrases, teach them vocabulary for common Korean dishes. 

3. Let the games begin! There will be three roles: customer, cashier, and chef. The customer and cashier exchange greetings. The customer must order food using as much "I want/don't want" and "I like/dislike" phrases as possible. The cashier will record the customer's order in writing and repeat as much of the order back to the customer as possible using phrases like "You want/don't want..." Then, the worker calls the order in (just naming the food items is okay here) to the chef who then selects the magazine pictures of the correct dishes based on what the worker said and serves it to the customer. If the order is correct, then it's a pass. If the order is incorrect, then the group has to attempt to figure out where the mistake was using Korean and complete the order. 

4. That's it! If you want, you can play in teams and compete with each other to see which team can complete the most orders in a set amount of time. There could be an incentive, like whoever loses has to treat the other team for ice cream or something low-stakes like that. It's a bit like "Dining Dash" if you've ever played the game on your phone.

Anyways, this is a fun and efficient game that requires you to recall what you learned in a somewhat realistic and stressful situation, which I think would help you remember the material for a long time.

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110: Learning Journal #7

For my second artifact, I created a monologue that mostly utilized grammar and vocabulary that I had learned so far. For the part where I talk about my family, I had to skip ahead to a later chapter in the KMS book to look up relevant terms but it wasn’t too bad. Below is a direct translation of my second artifact:

“Hello. My name is Becky. I am Chinese, but I am from America. I am 21 years old. I am a University student. I study math and science. Someday I want to be a doctor. I like music and movies. I like to eat sashimi and Korean food also. I dislike milk but I drink it anyways. In my (nuclear) family, I have my parents and one older brother, and one younger male sibling, and also one grandmother. My younger brother goes to elementary school. My older brother is studying computer science at a university. He is really smart. My mom and dad work at a Chinese restaurant. It’s really a big family. And you? How many people are in your family?”

 

I know it’s lacking flow, but I’ve only learned how to form simple sentences and basic verbs so far so please bear with me. Complex sentences are coming soon. As for my current performance, I noticed after I finished recording that when I said “안녕하세요” I kind of blurred the pronunciation of 안녕 to 안요. I need to be more careful and speak a bit more slowly to work on my pronunciation. I’m sure there were other pronunciation blips that I made but wasn’t aware of: I’m going to ask my language partner to help me identify them. My structure was formal throughout the audio, so I said the words in their complete form. In the future, I’d like to learn the shortcut form of the words because they are probably more commonly used among native speakers. Also, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m working on making my tones less awkward and I’ll ask my language partner for help on that as well.


After a few weeks of playing catch-up with my blog posts, I quickly realized that my learning plan was a bit ambitious. I decided to drop the BYKI lists since they seemed to have mostly impractical vocabulary. I’m also dropping the vlogs since I’m already making the artifacts, which are kind of like audio-blogs...aulogs? The Billy Go videos are going to be replaced with cherry-picked YouTube videos from a variety of Korean language instructors, which I like more because I'll be able to choose what I want to learn. I won’t include the specific names of the video tutorials, since I’ll be finding them as I go. So basically, I’ll mainly be studying from the Korean Made Simple book and doing the corresponding listening/speaking/writing/reading drills as practice. Of course, I’ll watch some Korean TV shows every now and then to immerse myself in the language and culture.

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My Second Artifact

Identity and family:

Chen,Becky_2ndArtifact_(really the 3rd artifact).mp3

**NOTE: After completing this artifact and its evaluation post, I realized that "introducing myself and my family" was a task for the Third Artifact, not the Second Artifact. But because my '110: Learning Journal #7' post focused on my progress based on my Second Artifact as it is, I will complete the tasks of the Second Artifact ("asking and answering questions on identity") in my Third Artifact. I apologize for any confusion this may have caused. -Becky

Rough translation: “Hello. My name is Becky. I am Chinese, but I am from America. I am 21 years old. I am a University student. I study math and science. Someday I want to be a doctor. I like music and movies. I like to eat sashimi and Korean food also. I dislike milk but I drink it anyways. In my (nuclear) family, I have my parents and one older brother, and one younger male sibling, and also one grandmother. My younger brother goes to elementary school. My older brother is studying computer science at a university. He is really smart. My mom and dad work at a Chinese restaurant. It’s really a big family. And you? How many people are in your family?”

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110: Cultural Post #4

“Hangul” is the formal writing system used in both North and South Korea. It is an alphabet so it consists of consonants and vowels. However, back in the 1500s, Hangul did not exist and Korea did not have any writing system-communication was mostly oral. If a Korean desired to read and write, they learned Chinese. However, only wealthy and educated Koreans had access to study Chinese, leaving the majority of Koreans illiterate. Thus, many Koreans experienced frustration in not being able to communicate their thoughts and feelings in written words. Even for the literate Koreans, Chinese script could not fully express the words and thoughts unique to the Korean spoken language. All of this changed in 1446 when King Sejong invented Hangul, a simple writing system that allowed even the poorest Koreans to read and write. Out of the 28 original letters of Hangul, only 24 are used today. The basic Korean syllable is divided into three parts: ch’osong (initial consonant), chungsong (peak vowel) and chongsong (final consonant). Some Korean words vary from this structure, such as those that have final vowels instead of final consonants. In the end, Hangul has revolutionized many aspects of Korean society. Some say that one of the main reasons that South Korea advances in computing so quickly is because Hangul can be easily entered into PCs and phones. One of the country's greatest achievements, however, is its boost in literacy rates: nowadays, illiteracy is practically nonexistent in Korea due to the learnability of Hangul.

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110: Learning Journal #6

For Week 6, my goal is to learn how to answer questions about my identity and how to talk about my family. Below are some sample questions I’d like to be able to answer:

About me:

Where are you from?

What do you do?

What are you studying?

What do you like/dislike to do?

What do you want/not want for your future?

About my family:

How many members are in your family?

What does your mom/dad/older brother/younger brother do?

What family activity do you enjoy?

How often do you visit your family?


I’ll achieve this by doing Chapters 3 (Simple Sentences) and 4 (Wanting and Not Wanting) of my integrative KMS book and by looking up new vocabulary in my Korean dictionary. I’ll probably check out some YouTube videos about family terms and expressions (e.g. “Episode 2: Introducing Family” by seemile.com) as well.

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110: Learning Journal #5

I created a Voki for my first artifact. For the non-Korean learners/speakers out there, I said, “Hello. My name is Becky. Nice to meet you. Goodbye.” I think my pronunciation was decent, but I’m not always sure about what tone of voice to use. Sometimes accenting a certain place in a sentence for one language may be awkward in another language. I know that Korean doesn’t have any tones (thank goodness), but there are still subtle ways in speaking that make you sound more fluent and I’d like to build that kind of tonal intuition. I think watching a bit of Korean TV shows will help me out in that aspect. As for linguistic accuracy and cultural appropriateness, I’m pretty sure that what I said is a standard way of speaking to a stranger. My default is to speak formally. I’ll learn general informal speech in a later chapter in the KMS book.

I completed my tasks for Weeks 4 and 5. I've learned how to introduce myself and greet others. I also find that I'm getting more comfortable with Hangul (yay!) the more I practice it. My book only uses Hangul (no romanizations) which is a big plus. I think using Hangul for everything helps me learn the pronunciation more accurately, because I'm sure there are various romanized versions of the same words. Learning the sounds of Hangul keeps things constant and saves me from a headache. Those sounds changes though...I'm going to continue practicing those. 

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105 Learning Journal #5

Esther Kwon

SDLAP

105 Learning Journal #5

After watching Culture Shock, I gained a better understanding of how difficult and overwhelming it is for international students to adjust to the American culture while also needing to function by speaking, reading, and writing in a second language. I also related to the students at some points in the video, because even though I am American, I too experienced quite a bit of culture shock moving from the west to the east coast of the U.S. Prior to coming to the University of Richmond, I had already expected to feel overwhelmed since I was moving far away from home. I certainly did not expect however, to feel so alienated during the first month or so of school. The primary reason for my culture shock was the overwhelming majority of white and black people on campus and the seemingly small minority of Asians. Although I do realize the school pushes for diversity on our campus, I felt that our school was mostly fulfilling the Asian population of our school through Chinese international students, and hardly any other Asian ethnicities. It took me a month or so to find and meet other Korean or Korean-American students on campus, but before then I had felt very uncomfortable being surrounded mostly by caucasians and feeling like I was the only Asian or Asian-American person. This is actually quite true when it comes to my classes interestingly enough, since I have noticed that I am usually the only Asian or Asian-American in my class with the exception of a few Chinese international students. While feeling isolated ethnically, I also experienced another type of culture shock due to the difference between west and east coast cultures. During orientation, I was amazed to see a bizarre uniformity in clothing, shoes, and accessories, and I quickly learned about the various “it” brands of the east coast such as Vineyard Vines, Lily Pulitzer, and Longchamp. Furthermore, I noticed a general difference in manner and speech in the east coast, as it seemed generally more brief and to-the-point. But despite these two culture shocks I experienced, I have become accustomed to them by finding the Korean community at our school while also realizing and accepting the differences of the west and east coast.

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SDLC 105 - Learning Journal #6

Knowing a language's history can help one learn the language in many ways. For Korean, Sino-Korean (Han-Ja), which is a set of words in Korean vocabulary that originated from or were influenced by Han-Ja (Chinese words), make up about 60% of the Korean vocabulary. Although Korean/Hangul is more commonly used in actual speech, Han-Ja is often incorporated in writing. The Sino-Korean lexicon consists both Chinese words and Korean words, and although a small number of Han-Ja characters are modified or unique to Korea, having a language background in Chinese can be helpful when learning Korean. Moreover, learning Han-Ja is very helpful in understanding the etymology of Sino-Korean words and in increasing one's Korean vocabulary as well as Korean history. 

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