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       It has been a great experience while learning a brand new language by myself. Not only did I gain knowledge of the Korean language and culture, but I also have developed better skills of self study, time arrangement as well as self motivation. During the process, it went smoothly with my learning plan most of the time, yet there was also some time that I felt bored or uninspired to run. In this reflection paper, I am going to first talk about the good things that I really enjoyed during the semester including my favorite learning sources, my good ways of learning the language, as well as the some amazing moments in the learning process. Then I will reflect on the problems I met and the limitations of learning plan. Finally I will conclude this paper with a summary of my learning results and some advice for my future self learning either in Korean or other new areas.

       My favorite part of self learning is definitely that I work at my own pace without anybody pushing me. I know what I want and am good at so I can learn most efficiently. As I mentioned in the first learning journal,  I wanted to learn about the daily life and family culture in Korean society So I find the TV show program on YouTube called “Korean Englishman” which has clipped garnering hundreds of thousands of views since 2013. The main character in the video is called Josh, a 24 years old Englishman who speaks fluent Korean and has studied abroad in University of Seoul. In an effort to improve Korean language skills and introduce Britain to Koreans, he has decided to make YouTube Videos. I like this video and think this is a great source for self learners because Josh, the director of this show is also a Korean learner and he had all the cultural shock and he is trying to present Korean cultural from a foreigner’s perspective, in a way that resonates with us and easier for us to remember. Also the video is very funny, and I can use it as a way to relax while learning so much about Korean culture. Another good thing in my learning process is my habit of taking notes. In fact, it seems that writing things down can always help me remember them better, especially for the new Korean characters I just learnt. Although we might think something would leave a lasting impact on our memory, we might forget it very soon since we have so many things to remember from school and work every day. Therefore, I tried to write down every new thing I learnt about Korean down, including the new words and pronunciations. In this way, I can always go back to review and practice easily.

       However, there are also some difficulties and goals that I did not achieve. For example, since we were not assigned with language partners, it is hard for me to know if my spoke Korean is correct. In my learning plan, I said that I would try to learn and speak Korean to my Korean friends, however we did not meet that often and it is hard to learn something systematically from your friends. Most of the time, they just taught me one of two funny words instead of explaining thoroughly to me. Thus I think the biggest challenge for me and for self-learning a language is that it is hard to persevere and learning systematically without guidance. Furthermore, instead of learning Korean in an organized way by dividing it into different topics, I learnt it mainly based on my interest randomly. For example, if I read a really interesting article about Korean cosmetics today, I might just do some research on cosmetics and wrote down cosmetic terminologies. While if I go to a really nice Korean restaurant the other day, I might then take a picture of the menu there, and try to memorize some new names of Korean food. This random way of learning Korean seems have broaden my knowledge of Korean culture, yet failed to give me a deep understanding on each of the area.

       In conclusion, through learning a semester of self studying Korean, I have developed a deeper understanding of Korean culture and customs, from people's daily life to the history and development of the country in a wider level. After knowing that Chinese culture had had a big influence on Korean culture and language, I did a comparison in the similarities and differences between these two cultures, and reflecting on how a culture develops based on the country's geographical location and historical impacts. Also, I now have a command of basic conversations of Korean and I could start talking to my Korean friends in their language. And one of my proudest thing is that when somebody asks me about Korea, I could introduce the culture and history to them instead of only talking about pop songs and TV dramas.

Reflect on your experiences of (trying to) read and write in your target language.  

One of my main learning goals for this semester was to work on my reading and writing skills. After I moved to the U.S. and attended school here, I never had to write in Korean. Because I wasn't used to writing in Korean, I had difficulty with spelling and grammar. In order to improve my writing skills, I only used Hangul to text my parents back home. I normally use Konglish (mixture of Korean and English) in my messages, but this semester, I strictly limited myself to using only Korean. Although some of the words I typed in Korean were autocorrected on my phone, typing in Korean more often really helped me with spelling for I was able to learn from my mistakes. To improve my grammar in Korean, I have been reading lessons and practicing with the audio section on Learn Korean 101 site to become more familiarized with sentence structures. Although it would have been helpful to have a language partner to correct and practice with me, YouTube videos were extremely helpful. I also worked on my reading skills by reading everything out loud. These exercises have definitely improved my reading and writing skills, but I will have to continue practicing so I don't forget and can become more fluent.  

Esther Kwon

SLDAP 105

Learning Journal #1

These readings are helpful in the sense that they have made me more aware of what I should emphasize learning within a language. For example, vocabulary is of course a vital and necessary aspect of language that must be continuously learned and expanded, but I should be careful of what words to use specifically because even though some words may seem like synonyms to me based on English translation, they can cause sentences to mean things that I did not intend. Furthermore, proper intonation is extremely important for me to learn and recognize, since in a language like Korean intonation can in some situations be the sole determining factor of whether you are stating or asking something. Also understanding the differences between the sense and reference of words is necessary since I should understand how the word is used within the Korean language and culture compared to just a general reference stemming from a global generalization. Furthermore, I think learning the use of lexemes and putting them into fields of meaning is a helpful tool for me to use in my process of learning Korean. 

-In pakistan teachers are adressed as "sir" or "madam" never by their first names.

-In southern part of India, a woman executive will never extend her hand when you greet her. She will just fold her hand and will never allow any sort of body contact with her male counterpart. But in western part of India, a woman executive will warmly extend her hand. 

-In Indian culture, the boss is always addressed as "Sir", and superiors and seniors are always addressed with "Mr". Eye contact with the boss is considered very rude.

-In pakistan, a man holding a man's hand is a sign of mutual respect.

Needless to say, body language in Pakistan and India is very different from that of United States.

     I've learned that I am a pretty fast learner when it comes to languages. I pride myself in being open-minded and mentally flexible and that played a huge role in learning a complete new language. I also realized that I love learning a new language; it surprisingly added excitement to my bland life. Similarly, I learned that I love exploring new cultures. Learning about cultures that I haven't really experienced made me become even more open-minded. I always question why things are the way they are or how things came to be the way they are. Culture is always at the center of these questions I ask myself everyday. For example, I would question why my Pakistani friends always ate with their right hand but not the left. I wondered why they didn't partake in consumption of alcohol even after reaching age of legality. Studying the language and the culture gave me an opportunity to absorb knowledge of the culture I never lived in and would have never imagined being in. 

     For the most part. difficulty came from getting started. It was extremely hard to get started on things because I just had no base knowledge and no sense of direction. In addition, Pakistani culture and Urdu is considered pretty obscure to the general public and often times, it is extremely hard to find information on them. If it were popular language like french or Chinese, millions of internet sources have valuable information available at all times. When it came to learning about Urdu and Pakistani culture, things were hard to find. Especially as the things I was searching for became more and more detailed specifics that only people native to the culture may be aware of, my sources of knowledge became extremely shallow. I could pretty much only trust my language partner and my Pakistani friends from Pakistan to provide me with reliable knowledge. Even then, because its not knowledge given to me by a professional or an educated man in Pakistani culture, I had to take everything with a grain of salt.

     I really enjoyed the learning aspect of it all. There is something about learning the unknown that gets me going. I loved searching things about the Pakistani culture that I was always curious about and I loved seeing how despite the physical differences, Pakistani culture was not so different from my own, Korean culture. Both cultures were founded on the theme of filial piety and general respect for others. It was very joyful to see that all the evidences led towards a conclusion that people, no matter where they are from, are not that different from each other in their core. I also just enjoyed my pool of knowledge expanding and including wide variety of things that I would have never imagined learning and researching about.

     Although I am unsure which readings I found most useful, I would have to say readings about the bilinguals being smarter and about language extinction were the most entertaining. I love reading about these types of things because once again, they add to my pool of knowledge. Readings about how to be a better language learner and those sorts were useful but a tad boring for me. I would actually like to learn more about the benefits of learning more language beyond the bilinguals being smarter article. Intelligence aside, I feel that there is so much more language learning can provide us. I have changed completely when I went from a Korean-only speaker to a Korean and English bilingual. The way I thought about things and the way I saw the world had gone through a major shift. I would like to learn more about why that may be the case because I have had my friends tell me similar things before.

    Through my experience taking this class, I have definitely gained a greater understanding of the uniqueness of languages as well as knowing how important the origins of languages are and the deep history that is rooted within each language. I also realized just how much culture is embedded in language and how it is impossible for a language’s culture to be exactly conveyed in any other language. For example, there are several things in Korean that I cannot translate or express quite accurately in English simply because some of these words and phrases often have to do with how an individual expresses it when speaking or simply due to the cultural influences in such words. For example, adding “cuteness” or “aegyo” in Korean speech is something very unique in the language that cannot be accurately translated and used in the English language since aegyo originates from the cultural influences of displaying femininity in a socially acceptable manner. Furthermore, aegyo is very present and commonly used in informal Korean conversation, so even though it has a strong presence in the language, it is difficult for individuals learning Korean to understand how to properly use or understand this unique aspect of the Korean language.

            I found it most difficult to improve my speaking skills simply because I had planned on consistently meeting with a language partner to practice. Though I do have international friends who are from Korea, it is difficult for me to learn the formalities of the Korean language by speaking with them since speaking in such a manner to my close friends would be awkward and unfitting. I did enjoy however, learning aspects of Korean culture that I never knew through other people’s research and presentations during class. For example, one of the presentations was about the architecture of traditional Korean houses which was very fascinating since there was so much history and intelligence behind the design that I always overlooked when I saw these houses in pictures and in real life.
            I will continue my learning by not only continuing my use of the resources that I have found by taking this course but also by going to Korea and experiencing the language and culture firsthand. This summer I will be spending three weeks in Korea taking an intensive Korean language learning program at Yonsei University. There, I hope to improve even more in not just my ability to speak, read, and write, but also gain greater understanding of how Koreans my age interact, since the use of language often differs between generations.
            Watching the video about culture shock was the most impactful to me, since I was really able to gain a better perception of how difficult it is for many international students when they come to the U.S. to study. I also found the video relatable in a sense, since I personally dealt with some culture shock coming from the west coast and living in the east coast for the first time. I also enjoyed reading about the revival of the Siletz language, since it helped me see the fragility of a language’s existence, and how much effort and work is needed in order to keep a language from going extinct when its community begins to diminish.
            In the future, I would like to learn more about the connections between culture and language, and go more in depth in the reasons why some words, phrases, or expressions are so difficult to convey in another language. I think it is intriguing how translations are often not as simple as they seem, and how in many cases understanding a certain aspect of a language has to come from one’s own intuition. 

I know roughly 200 words in Turkish. The focus of my vocabulary has been casual conversations. I started learning adjectives. I can tell the time, I can talk about my family, where I am from, how old I am, and the weather. I am not simply learning nouns, I am learning through topics. At the end of the semester I will learn some verbs and how to conjugate them. Turkish is agglutinating, so there are suffixes that I have learned as well, that don’t technically count as whole words.

Final Reflection 105

Ever since I was little, I have been fascinated by accents, languages, and other cultures. In high school, I began teaching myself Russian, but I didn’t go far because I didn’t have the tools I needed to succeed. The Self-Directed Language course gave me skills, as well as confidence, that I need to learn languages on my own. I learned more about the culture of my target language by taking the 105 course, than if I hadn’t. I feel confident that if I continue to learn Turkish on my own, I will continue to make progress and have success.

When I would try to learn languages on my own in the past, I wouldn’t really research the culture of that language. I have found that learning about the culture in which a language lives is necessary as well as motivating. In order to really understand the language, you have to know how it is used by the people who speak it. Learning about a culture can inspire you to travel to that country one day, so it motivates you to learn the language well enough to communicate with the locals when you travel there. Through this course, I learned what aspects of culture are important to know for that language.

I am typically more interested in languages than cultures. If it weren’t for the cultural presentations and blogs, I might have skipped over learning about Turkish culture and history. Presentation days were my favorite days in class because I became more interested in the cultures of the languages my classmates were studying.

As a linguistic minor, I have learned linguistic principles, theories, and terms. With every language class I take, I can put the theoretical aspects of linguistics into real-life practice. I am really happy with my decision to learn Turkish this semester, because it is an important and fascinating language in the field of linguistics. In every textbook, Turkish is used as examples and talked about extensively.

The tips and tricks I learned in 105 were very beneficial for autonomous language learning. I also found that the classroom environment made the experience fun. We were all there not to fulfill any sort of requirement, but because we had an interest in our target language and culture and a passion for learning new things.

I think that reading and writing are just as important to learning a language as speaking is. Although I have had less practice with reading and writing, I enjoy it. I find that it helps with my pronunciation as well as understanding context. There may be a sentence that wher I know 50% of the words, but I can understand the meaning of the sentence by inference, looking at the word order, suffixes, and context. I also enjoy reading in Turkish, even though I may not understand all of the words, if my accent is good, it seems like I know what I’m doing.

The next time I met with my language partner, we practiced speaking and writing. I talked about what I did all day that day. While I was speaking, I came to realize certain things. Firstly, I found out that I have trouble using numbers. I have hard time remembering numbers and keep forgetting with set of numerals to use for time and which one to use for counting objects. Moreover, I realized that when doing a monologue, I tend to say things as a string of short sentences and keep using the same connecting word 'and' over and over again. It was not as if I was not familiar with other connecting words. I knew them but I had difficulty using them spontaneously. Therefore, I asked Ji Hae to demonstrate the use of other connecting words and she talked about what she did that day using several different connecting words. Following her example I made a sentence using different connecting word. I realized that I needed to put in more thought before making sentences in order to avoid speaking in short sentences. 

In South Korea, all major religions like Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism and Islam exist. In addition, shamanism, the practice where someone interacts with the spirit world, also exists in Korea. According to 2005 statistics, 53% of the Korean population has a religion and in 2008 there were over 510 religious organizations in Korea. Among the existing religions, Buddhism and Confucianism have the most influence on the life of Korean people. Also, over half of the country's listed cultural heritage are related to those two religions. Of the people who have a religion, approximately 43% are Buddhist, 34.5% are Protestants, 20.6% are Catholics and 1.9% are followers of other religions. 

Confucianism was established during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). Confucianism was more like a system of ethics than religion. It stressed on loyalty, filial piety and other such virtues. It can also be considered to be the source of patriarchy in Korea. Confucianism also values ancestral worship as it is believed that ancestral spirits can affect the lives of the descendants.

Catholicism came to Korea from China through the envoys of the late Joseon era who visited Beijing and the Western priests. However, the early Roman Catholics in Korea were severely persecuted. Protestantism came to Korea during the late 19th century by North American missionaries. It became popular very quickly through school education and medical services.  

There are also other religions in Korea. Cheondogyo is formed on the basis of the Eastern Learning (Donghak) of the 19th century. It maintains the doctrine that Man is Heaven, which exerted a strong influence upon the process of modernization in Korea. Daejonggyo was established in the early 20th century to worship Dangun, the founder of the first Korean state. It also affected the life of ordinary Korean people, boosting Korean nationalism. In 1955, there appeared the Islamic Society of Korea and the first Korean Imam, followed by the foundation of the Korean Muslim Federation in 1967. Islam currently has about 60 places of worship across Korea and there are about 100,000 Korean Muslims. In addition to the major religions, shamanism has also played an important part in the daily life of the Korean people, trying to help them connect with the spiritual world and making predictions about their future.

During the first session with my language partner I focused on reading and comprehension. To practice reading, I chose to read the lyrics of a song that talks about the daily routine and family relationships. I had to be very careful selecting a song since most of the songs talk about relationships, love and emotions. Such topics were not suitable reading material as they involve comparisons, abstract descriptions, and words which are rarely used in daily conversations. Even though it was difficult to choose a song, I still wanted to practice reading with lyrics because it would be easier for me to remember the vocabulary as I would be listening to the song frequently. Reading the lyrics I learned how to pronounce different words. Although I know how to pronounce different letters are vowels, there are always exceptions in the pronunciation of certain words. There are also different rules such as sometimes 'ss' is pronounced as 't'.

I also tried comprehension by working through the questions in an online Korean level test. At first, I tried the questions in the intermediate level, however, I found that my reading and comprehension skills were not yet at the intermediate level. As a result, I tried the beginner level questions and found them much easier to handle. Even if the level was beginner, there were several words that I did not know.

I am doing quite well following my learning plan especially on making notes and watching Korean culture youtube program. Through watching Korean Englishman, I gained knowledge of Korean food culture and daily life. I also made notes every time I learnt a new Korean word while reading articles and talking with my Korean friends. In this way, I could review easily by myself and I found some simple rules of Hangul system while pronouncing words with similar components. However, there are also some difficulties and goals that I did not achieve. For example, since we have not got our language partners, it is hard for me to know if my spoke Korean is correct. In my learning plan, I said that I would try to learn and speak Korean to my Korean friends, however we did not meet that often and it is hard to learn something systematically from your friends. Most of the time, they just taught me one of two funny words instead of explaining thoroughly to me. Thus I think the biggest challenge for me and for self-learning a language is that it is hard to persevere and learning systematically without guidance. Instead of learning in an organized way, I learnt Korean mostly when I am free and meeting with my Korean friends. I think this is definitely one of the most challenging thing in self learning and i would take it in to consideration and try to make a more specific and trackable plan in my future learning of Korean.

In these following two weeks, I am going to focus on practicing writing Korean characters. I feel like I have spent a lot of time on exploring Korean culture and spoken Korean; I know how to speak some certain words most of the time, yet could not write them down. I think writing is definitely the most challenging and important part while learning a language. In my notebook, I wrote all the new words I learnt each time, yet it's easy to forget the structure of the words if I don't practice. Therefore, my plan for the following weeks is to practice writing 10 characters every day for 10 times each. In my opinion, repetition is one of the most efficient way to remember.  At the end of the semester, I hope that I would have a good command of all the characters I've learnt this semester, and could have the word images in my mind when I talk to other people in Koean. 

My learning goals for this week are to gain more knowledge on Korean's attitudes toward family as well as the manners and how they call their family members. In Korean dramas, we could always see that children are expected to be very respectful to their parents, especially fathers. I would like to talk with my Korean friends to see if their fathers play the leading role in the family including approving marriages and providing foods. Also, I would like to learn how to pronounce and write the vocabularies of family members including father(아빠), mother (엄마), elder sister(언니), younger sister(여동생), elder brother(오빠), and younger brother(남동생).

One of the two topics I picked for my cultural post is the lifestyle of students that are my age. Being somewhat familiar with Korea, I know that drinking culture is a huge part of university as well as adult life. Because it is different from how students in the US spends their weekends, I thought it would be interesting to learn more about it. 

Unlike drinking in the US, the drinking culture in Korea has a lot of etiquette rules - even in a university setting. Generally, the hierarchy runs based on age. Therefore, if there is someone older than you which you're drinking with, you must accept any drinks they give you and make sure their glass is filled. I've heard a lot of stories where some students were not comfortable with drinking. However, since it is often considered rude to decline a drink, they are forced to do so.

Korean students also play a lot of drinking games. Examples include: 3-6-9 where you count excluding numbers with 3,6 and a 9 and take a shot if you mess up, the quick wit game, where people count and stand up, but if more than one person does so, they must drink, and the name game where you pick a topic and say as many words you can think of while keeping track of what people said before you, among many others.

Korea also has a large club culture. In areas like Hongdae, which is by Hongik University, the streets are full of bars which continue well into the morning. The Korean drinking ate is 19, so people ranging form 19 to around 30 usually frequent the club scene. Along with Hongdae, areas like Gangnam and Itaewon are also full of clubs - and generally play electronic or hip hop music. There are also bars in addition to clubs. However, unlike most bars in the US where you can mingle with strangers, most Korean bars have restaurant-like seating only, so most people tend to hang out with the people they came with. However, bars in areas where foreigners are more common - such as in Itaewon - tend to have more "American style" bars where people can mingle and meet new people.

The past two weeks, I have been watching more news clips as well as reading news articles. For the most part, we have been sticking with more lifestyle news articles when it comes to reading because of my vocabulary skills. With lifestyle articles, it seems that there are still many words and grammar rules I don't know, but enough that I can get through it and ask questions. As we do every week, I read an with my language partner, one of them being an article about a popular outdoors market in Korea. It took some time to get through it due to the vocabulary (since I ask for its definition as I read), but I was eventually able to make sense of it. However, I feel that I did learn a lot of new words, and reading articles every week is definitely improving my vocabulary skills. 

This article was also interesting because it gave me an insight into the Korean culture. This article discussed that there is an outdoor market in Seoul, which is becoming bigger and catching up with those in other Asian countries. While I've been to Korea within the past few years, I had never heard of this market. I know Korea is famous for overnight outdoors market with cheap clothes, but I was surprised to hear about a more trendy market. I am definitely planning to visit the next time I am in Korea.

In addition to reading the article, I also wrote a paragraph about what I've done in the past week. For me, the most difficult part of writing in Korean is coming up with descriptive words to write about, as well as the spelling. I think as my vocabulary expands, it will be easier for me to come up with words to write with. After I finished, my language partner noticed a few mistakes and corrected some of my spelling errors. I feel that I often resort to the same sentence structure and words I am familiar with when I am writing. One of my additional goals for the semester will be to extend out of my comfort zone and start using terms and structure I am not as familiar with. 

We also talked about differences in Korean culture to US culture. For example, Koreans tend to believe that your blood type is a good indicator of your personality type. Since personally, I don't really believe in that your blood type or horoscope can tell the future, it is interesting to learn about it. Often in Korean TV shows, they will ask what their blood type is, and discuss how fitting it is with their personality. While I don't believe that there are only four (since there's 4 main types of blood) personalities, I do agree that it may be fun to connect personalities to blood types.

   One of my learning goal is being able to order food in Korean restaurant, so I made the artifact about some common food names and requesting sentences in Korean as following. Also, I made two Voki for pronunciations and the URL links are attached below: 

Pronounce food names: http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12667196&width=575&height=323&chsm=319564abded917fccf3f28b86f0abd21

Order food in restaurant: http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12667229&width=575&height=323&chsm=3e1aa6156a5ff8ede582db8f28c17cd7

Food names:

Rice is BAP (밥): 

1. Five grains rice: 오곡밥 OGOKBAP
   
2. Seaweed rice: 김밥 GIMBAP
3. Mixed rice: 비빔밥 BIBIMBAP  

Stew is 찌개 (JJIGAE): 

1. Kimchi stew: KIMCHI JJIGAE (김치 찌개) 
2. Soft tofu stew: SOONDUBU JJIGAE (순두부 찌개)  

(1) Soup is 탕 (TANG):

1. Ox bone soup: SEOLLUNGTANG (설렁탕) 
2. Ginseng chicken soup: SAMGYETANG (삼계탕) 

(2) Soup is 국 (GOOK)

1. Rice cake soup: DDUKGOOK (떡국)
2. Seaweed soup: MIYEOKGOOK (미역국) 
3. Soybean sprout soup: KONGNAMULGOOK (콩나물국)

(1) Noodle is 면(MYUN) 

1. Blackbean noodle: JJAJANGMYUN (짜장면) 
2. Cold noodle: NENGMYUN (냉면)
3. Instant noodle: RAMYUN (라면)

(2) Noodle is 국수(GOOKSU) 

1. Soymilk noodle: KONGGOOKSU (콩국수)
2. Buckwheat noodle: MAKGOOKSU (막국수) 

Some common requests in Korean restaurant: 

1. Please give it to me: 주세요.
2. Please give me the menu: 메뉴 주세요.
3. Please give me water: 뭍 주세요.
4. Please give me the bill (Check, please): 계산서 주세요.

If you want to say more something, add 더 in front of  주세요:

1. Please give me more side dishes: 반찬 더 주세요.
2. Please give me more kimchi: 김치 더 주세요. 

Some flavor requests: 

1. Please don't make it salty: 짜지 않게 해주세요.
2. Please don't make it spicy: 안맵게 해주세요. 
   

Some other common sentences: 

1. What is delicious? 뭐가 맛있어요?
2. It is delicious: 맛있어요.
3. Where is the restroom? 화장실 어디 있어요?
4. It is on me: 제가 낼게요.
5. Goodbye (to waiter/waitress): 안녕히 계세요. (formal)
   

 Summarize your assessment and goals

My assessment is that I am an intermediate beginner is interpersonal communication and a beginner in interpretive listening. My ultimate goal for this semester is to be semi-conversational in that I would like to travel throughout Israel and be able to get by. One task within my goal is to be effective in street communication. My goal in this task is to be able to understand how Israelis communicate on the street in such areas as giving directions and in transportation. I also want to have a basic conversation should I meet someone I know. My second goal is that I would like to be able to have a dinner with an Israeli friend. What I mean by that is I would like ti effectively order in Hebrew and to communicate with the staff in Hebrew.