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Knowing the origin of the Korean language is crucial to not only understand how the Korean language was born, but how it is uniquely different to other languages. Furthermore, this knowledge allows me to see what other languages may have influenced its creation and also reveals a part of my own ethnic identity as a Korean-American. Through my research of Korean, I was surprised to discover that Korean has obscure origins that are still debated to this day. Apparently, Koreans do not even come from a single homogeneous race but actually come from a variety of groups of people who merged together in the Korean peninsula during ancient times. Korean itself did not appear until around the 15th century and prior to the modern Korean writing system (hangul), Korean scripts often used Chinese characters to make the appropriate Korean sounds in speech. Still to this day, around half of Korean vocabulary is based on Chinese words, primarily through the influence of Confucianism. Though Chinese heavily influenced Korean language, the Korean writing system hangul distinctly separates Korean from Chinese. Invented by King Sejong in 1443, hangul consists of 24 letters: 14 consonants and 10 vowels. Known for being one of the most scientific alphabets invented, hangul is known for being a landmark achievement in Korean history since it is believed to be the main reason why Korea has one of the highest literacy rates among all other countries. 

My progress has been slow but consistent. The reason it has been slow is mainly because I based my learning plan on continuous interaction with my language partner but since I still do not have one I have not been able to do much in terms of improving my speaking skills, which was my main goal for improvement. I have been improving however, in writing and reading because I have been constantly messaging with native Korean speakers through an app called Hello Talk. I also practiced a little bit of speaking with them through phone call, but not as much as I would have liked at this point in the semester. I plan to perhaps focus more on improving my reading and writing since I do not have much opportunity to improve my speaking. I will do so by continuing to talk and message with native Koreans on Hello Talk while also writing a few sentences in Korean each day in a journal. Furthermore, I will improve my writing by continuing to self-study grammar and vocabulary through online resources such as YouTube videos. As for cultural learning, I will continue to watch Korean dramas with and without subtitles to improve my comprehension skills as well as search the history of Korea and the Korean language. 

• Reflect on how knowing a language's history can help you learn the language.

Leanring a language's history is important because it gives us an insight on the culture's history as well as what it values which one can discern by a norm's attachment to a word. For example, Hebrew is deluged with such occurrences as its history is reflected biblically in the Torah, and thus Hebrew as a language. One example is the word Ivrit (Hebrew). Ivrit is derived from the stem "eber," which, in Hebrew, means 'the region beyond." Historically, as well as biblically, when the Jews were marching up from Sinai desert and into Israel, they had to cross the Jordan River. So, "ivrit" designates a people that are across from the Jordan River. Moreover, the father of Eber, Shem, and thus the father of all of Eber's, descendants, becomes institutionalized through attaching his descendants to the name "semite." Classical Hebrew script -- Ketav Ashurit -- was first in use after the Israelites' captivity by the Babylonians. It is said this was done in order to create a distance from the Samaritanism. This new language was called Leshon Hakodesh, or the holy language. Therefore, one can see how intertwined Hebrew is with its history and religion of Judaism. Moreover, there are different forms, or generational Hebrews if you will: Biblical Hebrew -- or Classical Hebrew -- which was spoken in the Temples during Jesus' time; Mishnaic Hebrew -- or Rabbinic Hebrew -- was first spoken in the second century AD and was used in the Talmud and Madrash; Medieval Hebrew, mostly used to translate Arabic works into Hebrew; and Modern Hebrew, 19th century to modern day. Hebrew was revived in order to effectively create a zionist vision in the Israelite lands, spearheaded by figures such as Ben Gurion, and Eliezar Ben Yehuda amongst others. 

http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/History/history.html

So far I have learned greetings, farewells, introductions, some basic survival words and identity words and phrases in Korean. I think my learning plan has been effective because it keeps me in track of what i should learn next, and the resources I can use to learn them. So far I have not had to make much changes to the learning plan, but maybe later I would have to make some changes depending on how well I can grasp the previous activities and how long they take me because my tasks later on will be more difficult than the tasks I am learning now. Other than that, my learning has been going well. 

So far I think that my language learning has been very challenging. The Korean culture is fascinating because it is very different from my culture, but the language is not easy to learn. I started off thinking that I could just memorize and repeat over and over again random words and phrases and that I would easily be able to speak Korean in a matter of weeks or months. Then, as the semester went by, I realized that you cannot just learn a language my memorizing words and phrases. Instead, my language partner made me realize that the best way to learn a language is by breaking down what each word means and learn its literal meaning in order to learn how to speak the language. For example, the phrase, “I’m American” in Korean is said “cho-nun-(mi-gu-gin)-i-e-yo”. “Cho-nun” means “I’m,” “(mi-gu-gin)” means “American” and “i-e-yo” does not mean anything, it is just an ending for verbs that can implicate tenses. My Korean friends have told me that even though “i-e-yo” does not mean anything, it must still be used at the end of that phrase because it gives the sentence completion. Especially in a conversation, the ‘i-e-yo’ should be used because if not then you would just be stating a fact, and talking like a child that doesn’t know how to speak well. In the Korean culture, they tend to use words with no actual meaning at the end of a sentence because it makes the sentence sound better, thus, for them it completes the sentence. This is why I find it useful to know what each of the words mean because then I am able to use them with other words to make other sentences. This is a better way of learning a language rather than memorizing the whole phrase, and my learning partner has been extremely helpful in helping me understand and learn the language using this method.

As far improving in my communicative competence, I can continue to talk to my Korean friends in Korean and meet with my language partner every week. I can also improve by looking for more resources and apps that give me the opportunity to expand my Korean knowledge or even give me new fun and easier ways of learning the language. I think hearing myself say the words and sentences helps a lot because it allows me to really take into account my pronunciation of these words. I think having good pronunciation is important because if I speak to a Korean I would like for them to understand what I am trying to say, so I can have a decent conversation with them, and hopefully when I visit Korea, I can speak to people without having language difficulties.