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This week I have been mainly focusing on how to ask different questions in Hindi. For instance I have learned how to say "How do you say this/that in Hindi?" and "What is written there?" or "What does this say?" The question structure is interesting in Hindi and the word order for the question changes depending on the type of answer that can be given. The placement of the question word क्या (kya) changes. I am still a little bit confused as to when I should start a sentence with the question word or the subject but I am working with Bishan to better master the order when asking questions.

There are also different words used when describing someone depending whether or not they are near or far. If you were to say "He is Frank" you would use यह (yeh) if he is close to you and वह  (voh) if he is far away. This is an aspect of Hindi that is not found in English and I find it very interesting. I feel like the existence of these two separate terms helps remove confusion when using pronouns. If you are telling a story about two people and one is in the room it will be clear which person you are talking about when you use the word for he whereas in English there would be no differentiation.

One of the things I did in the past few weeks is watch news clips, as well as clips from variety shows to see how much I could understand. One week, I watched a clip from the Korean SNL, where a lot of new slang was used. While I am familiar with most of the older slang, I did not know what a lot of the newer words meant. I feel that compared to the US, my generation in Korea uses far more slang, and like to shorten words - kind of like how we shorten "laugh out loud" to LOL. Therefore, when watching the clip, I had a somewhat harder time with not knowing the definition of some of the words, but my language partner explained it to me after. Therefore this was a good opportunity for me to learn new worlds for daily usage in Korean. 

Trying to understand the news clip was also somewhat difficult at times because I did not understand some of the technical words. Because they are also speaking fast, and in monotone, it was harder to get a grasp of what they were talking about, compared to variety shows - where the tone tends to be far more dynamic. I think as I watch more news clips, I will be able to continue improving on my vocabulary.

As we do weekly, I also read a news article out loud, and was given feedback by my language partner. Vocabulary is also the hardest component here. The article was about the Obama administration - thus included a lot of more difficult political words. While I could grasp the general idea of most of the sentences, it is hard for me to be able to know the definition of each individual words. However, I think this is something that will improve over time.

We also had a conversation about culture, and compared the environment in which we were raised. Although my mom moved to the US at a very young age, she always pushed academics very hard growing up, which seems to be the norm in Korea. However, what seemed drastically different was the more open relationship I had with my parents. Especially as I have gotten older, my parents are comfortable talking about most topics whether it pertains to love life, alcohol, etc. However, it seemed that my language partner's parents were not as comfortable. This made sense because it seems that the Korean society is much more conservative than that of the US.

In my first artifact, I did something that was similar to one of my artifacts I did for 110 but tried to expand on it with phrases I was not sure of. It took me a while to make sure I had all the spelling right and used the right vocabulary. However, with the help of my language partner I was able to get through it. I hope that by the end of the semester that I will be able to utilize even more vocabulary, as that is one of the main things I hope to work on. In addition, when listening to the recording, I can definitely hear an accent when speaking, but I think it is understandable enough. However, I did stumble a few times and hope that practicing speaking will get rid of those issues. 

Even after the first week of being given materials and resources on how to self-teach, I realized that I did not know how to effectively self-teach in my past attempts. I did not exhaust all the resources out there, but I just thought sticking to one book would be enough. However, beginning this semester and having so many resources and different ways to go about learning, it was difficult to make a coherent plan. I tried out different websites and bought the Korean from Zero book and I ended up going weeks just doing different lessons on each and I was only learning bits and pieces here and there. I made my learning goals and I thought they were reasonable for a semester’s time, but I really forgot about what I had on my list. I was using Korean from Zero and I just wanted to go chapter by chapter because I was really just looking for structure, which I felt like my learning goals were not structured enough.

I was and I think I still am more accustomed to the structure of learning languages in the classroom where there is a set list and going through topics seem to flow naturally. But even with my learning goals, which are topics that a lot of beginner’s Korean books cover, I felt like I was jumping around and not really grasping everything I needed to know. So from here on out, I think if I learn another language or continue Korean, I will find a course to take. I like that in a course, the teacher will have activities where allowing you to learn by interacting with others. I do not know many Korean students on campus, so I did not have a language partner, which is something I really value when learning a language. When I was studying abroad, tandem language partners was a big thing. It is where you teach your partner English and they teach you French, for example. I learned better French abroad in one semester than I ever learned in six years of Spanish classes and although my grammar was not the best, I was confident in holding conversations. For Korean I am nowhere near that level of confidence.

I think the way I ended up learning as much as I could to complete my learning goals is sufficient for learning survival conversation topics for a short trip to Korea. I ended up just using online sources like Talk to me in Korean and Korean word/phrase lists to learn the basic vocabulary for each topic I listed and I liked those sources the best. I think when I created my learning goals, I had it in the back of my mind that I would go more in-depth than what I ended up learning for each goal, but in the end I just wanted to learn at least something in each topic. For most of the semester, I was learning more of the grammar rules and how to construct sentences using the Korean from Zero book and I was getting stuck and frustrated. I ended up learning half of my learning goals going through that book, but it was a much longer route because of the detailed grammar. I was getting confused because the book would say a phrase in one way and then another source would say it differently. In the end I realized there are multiple ways to say a sentence in terms of the formal/informal endings and I think I have heard enough of the different ways to be able to piece out sentences I want to say. If I continue Korean, I would like to learn past and future tenses so I can be able to expand the range of conversation to talk about future plans and my past experiences. 

A couple of weeks ago, I heard about a Korean reality TV show about 101 "trainees" who are fighting for 11 spots to debut in a girl group. The girls' ages ranged from about 15-28 years old, and they had been training at their entertainment companies anywhere from less than one to 10 years. Hearing about this TV show, I was reminded of the crazy process in which aspiring Korean "idols" go through in order to debut. Idols are young singers generally in groups who have been trained by entertainment companies often for many years before their debut.

The process of becoming an "idol" is vastly different from the process in the US. They often audition or are scouted at a very young age - often in elementary or middle school. They are then expected to train almost daily in areas such as singing, acting, speaking, having charm, etc. However, while many of these trainees spend a majority of their childhood practicing taking away from their school, friends and family, they have absolutely no guarantee as to whether they will one day be able to debut. Due to this, these young trainees are under tremendous pressure in that they are essentially sacrificing their whole lives for something which may never come true. The entertainment companies who take in these trainees are generally large companies who train trainees, debut them, and basically control them even after they debut. While they are technically singers, idols are not only expected to sing. To be successful, idols must have singing, dancing, acting abilities, be funny, be kind, never date, but preferably not have plastic surgery (which is difficult since the audience expects idols to be flawless). 

Even if the trainees are able to debut through grueling competition and uncertainty, the stress continues. First includes financial issues. When the entertainment companies are training the idols (as well as when they debut), they spend money on their training, plastic surgery, housing, or even their hairstyles whether the idol wants it or not. The entertainment company essentially sets up an account for each individual, and after they debut takes the money back of what they spent. While this may seem fair to some, a lot of the money that goes into the idol is mandatory. For example, idols often do not have a choice in their haircut, where to live, what training they must receive, etc. Therefore, while the idol may be bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars upon their debut, the idols themselves will be making a very small percentage of that revenue. Because what is included in this "account" is often not transparent, lawsuits against the companies by the idol are not uncommon.

In addition, the idols are expected to practice day and night, go on variety shows, music shows, tv shoots, etc forcing them to stay up to sometimes four days in a row. It is not uncommon to hear about a celebrity who faints due to exhaustion. Not only is there physical exhaustion, it is also mentally difficult. The Korean fans have extremely high expectations for these idols - and essentially expect perfection both physically and mentally. If they gain minimal amounts of weight they are called fat, if they are not smiling on a show, they are accused of being rude but if they're too smily, they are then accused of stealing the spotlight. This causes tremendous stress on most idols - shown in the fact that many idols quit and return to normal life after a few years.

I think this is an interesting reflection on Korean culture in that it relates back to the extremely hard-working, fast-paced environment most Koreans live in. Because it is so different from the culture in the US, it is interesting to see the different cultural environments.  

Korean%20Plastic%20Surgery.pdf

My cultural project was on plastic surgery in Korea. I was interested in this topic because I noticed that the Korean standards of beauty are very different than those of the U.S. It seems everyone in Korea wants to be pale, skinny, have a slim face, double-eyelids, dye their hair, and make their eyes bigger. This is all I see in pictures of Korean celebrities. Even the skinny Korean girls seem to be talking about jaw-line surgery to slim down their face. High school students are asking their parents for double-eyelid surgeries for graduation presents. I know many people in the U.S get plastic surgery but I feel like among non-celebrities it is not really a big thing. But I think Korea's high standards of beauty may be linked to just striving to be the best in general, as Korea's main resource is its people. However, I think this puts a lot of pressure on people to strive to be the ideal person, whether it is beauty or intelligence and as a result, the stress and suicide rates increase every year. 

Here is a brief little recording of me talking a bit about my family. 

Artifact%203_%20Family.m4a

Here is a video of me teaching how to say different body parts. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YIBF-aOKYc&feature=youtu.be

Going according to my learning goals I have accomplished: 

Introductions, myself, my family

Body parts, how to say I'm in pain

Basic items in a Korean menu, some fruits and vegetables, how to order something

Numbers sino-korean and Korean version

Basic clothing vocabulary, ask how much something is, say something is cute, ugly, pretty

Describe today's weather

Days of the week

Basic vocabulary for the transportation: bus, taxi, how to ask where is something.

I don't think I hit the extent of what I wanted to learn, but just the basics for each goal and that made it more feasible to accomplish. For example, I wanted to be able to go shopping and be able to list everything in the store, but I really just know the basic words for shirts, pants, skirts, etc. I think what was more useful in the end was just to use topic lists that had key phrases and vocabulary. For example, the Korean restaurant word list had how to say I want bulgogi, and then the name of different menu items. I wanted to go by the whole book of Korean from Zero, but at my own pace I was getting stuck in the nitty gritty bits of grammar and I wanted to focus on how to structure sentences when it wasn't even on my learning goals. But learning by the book, I realized how hard Korean grammar becomes after a certain level. I did not really practice actually speaking, except when I occasionally talked to my Korean friend and I would insert phrases that I knew and were relevant to our conversation. I started using egg bun recently because it just became available on the iPhone. The downside go learning by topic as I did is that I would only feel comfortable discussing things in the realm of what I listed above. Moving on from here, I am not sure if I am the best at self-teaching a language. I think for basic survival terms like I learned it is feasible, but to be able to have longer conversations I need the structure of the classroom, where there are in class activities and I am forced to use it in the class conversations. It would have been nice to have an actual language partner to kind of have that structure to practice. But I think I did alright on my own. Watching Korean dramas has become more interesting for me because I can actually pick up more words now and recognize the context they are using it in. 

This week I plan on working on my goal of learning vocabulary and phrases that are useful towards health such as describing pain, body parts, and different health care professionals. I have my categories of vocabulary outlined there. but in terms of phrases, I think at least knowing how to say this hurts here, my leg,arm, etc hurts is still good. I will mainly use vocabulary lists I found on pinterest that have been useful for learning vocabulary for other things as well. I will also use the Korean from zero for body part vocabulary. As for phrases I found a list on pinterest that is helpful in learning phrases for talking about pain. I will also look at Talk to me in Korean for more help. I don't think it'll be feasible for me to learn names of diseases and go into complex conversations such as diagnosis and treatment as it's really beyond my level of comprehension at this point and I won't be able to grasp it all before the end of the semester since it can pretty much turn into a medical korean course by itself. 

Prezi:

http://prezi.com/c0to1z8ig7b_/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

And this is the link to the youtube video if you cannot see it in Prezi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F70Rt4yteUk

During this year I tried to read books, scientific papers and news articles in German. I do not really have a problem understanding the context of any written work, because I have a rich vocabulary. However  if the unknown word is the key word in a sentence, or even a paragraph, I try to guess its meaning, but sometimes I have to look up the word in a dictionary. I do try to use a monolingual dictionary, because I found it more useful to be able to explain a word in the same language, rather than associate it with a word in another language. In fact, bilingual dictionaries are useful for being able to translate text from one language into another. Monolingual dictionary sometimes provides synonyms and antonyms as well, which I find useful in my own writings. When it comes to writing, I still struggle with indirect speech, in particular using Konjunktiv, because it is not used that often in daily life. Furthermore, I sometimes make mistakes using the Praeteritum Tense for irregular verbs, because it is not as often used as the Perfect Tense. Basically, one has to learn all verbs and the way they change in praeteritum by heart. There is no trick, which makes it hard. I also need to improve my punctuation. It is especially hard, because the punctuation in German is different than the punctuation in English and Bosnian. Other than that, I think that my writing is good, but I do have to improve my writing style, because I tend to use informal or less scholarly language.

In my opinion, bilingual speakers are not necessarily more intelligent than people who speak one language. However, bilingual speakers do have the opportunity to immerse themselves in multiple cultures. For example, I grew up in a Korean American household. Throughout my childhood, I was exposed to both Korean and American culture, which gave me two different perspectives. I think being bilingual gives you a broader knowledge base. A broader knowledge base may be correlated with intelligence, but I don't think being bilingual necessarily makes you more intelligent. Any learning opportunity that is taken advantage of is a great way to broaden the way you think and the way you process different environments. Language is a great way to experience a new culture.

My learning goals for this week is to learn emotions in Korean. I would need to learn how to say “I’m happy, sad, tired, bored, angry, nervous, worried, calm, etc." I would be using these resources to help me learn emotions:

• YouTube videos
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4swnVDBhVaU
• Practicing with my Korean friends
• Practicing with my language partner
• BYKI
• Other online resources: http://www.rocketlanguages.com/korean/learn/emotions-in-korean/

My learning goal for this week was to talk about the weather. I would need to know how to say “What is the weather like?” and possible ways of describing the weather such as “warm,windy, sunny, hot, cloudy, cold, rainy, humid etc.”

I would use all these resources to learn this:

• YouTube videos
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjMf6r4KI80
• Practice with my Korean friends
• Practice with my language partner
• BYKI
• Other online resources: http://www.rocketlanguages.com/korean/learn/weather-in-korean/

I did not get to read or write in my target language because I am a beginner at learning Korean, so I decided to learn the basic words by listening to the words and how they are pronounced. Later on, as I continue to learn the language, I will be able to speak and write in Korean. As for right now, my experience in learning the language has been challenging, but also very rewarding because I was able to grasp almost everything I wanted to know. Although, there is always still some room for improvement. 

My learning goal is to learn how to converse in Korean over the phone. When I go to Korea next summer I want to be able to converse fluently with my cousins and family members. I thought this dialogue I found on Berkeley's Online Intermediate Korean site depicted a similar conversation I had (or tried to have) with my cousin last winter break when I first took a bus to Seoul to see her. I plan to accomplish fluency and conversational skills by listening to the audio of this dialogue as well as practicing and reading it aloud. 

A: 여보세요. (Hello?)

B: 여보세요, 거기 은영이네 집이지요? (Hi, may I speak to Eun-young?)

A: 네, 제가 은영인데요. (This is Eun-young.)

B: 은영아, 나 현배야. 잘 있었니? (Hi Eunyoung, this is Hyunbae. How are you?)

A: 응, 현배구나. 난 잘 있었어. 넌 서울 구경 잘 하고 있니? (Oh, Hyunbae. I'm doing well. Are you having fun exploring Seoul?)

B: 아니, 길도 잘 모르고 한국말도 서툴러서 혼자 다니기가 너무 힘들어. (No, I'm lost and I'm not very good at Korean so it's hard travelling alone)

A: 그래? 그럼 이번 토요일에 나하고 같이 다니자. (Really? Then let's go around together this Saturday.)

B:고마워. 어디에서 몇 시에 만날까? (Thank you. When and where do you want to meet?)

A:너희 집이 서울역하고 가까우니까 거기에서 만나자. 서울역 앞으로 12시까지 갈게. (Your house is near Seoul station, so let's meet there. I'll be there at 12pm/noon)

B: 서울역에서 남산까지 가는데 시간이 얼마나 걸려? 난 남산에 가 보고 싶은데. (How long does it take from Seoul station to Namsan Tower? I want to see Namsan.)

A: 한 삼사 십 분쯤 걸릴 거야. 별로 멀지 않아. (About 30-40 min. It's not too far)

B:요즘 비가 많이 오는데, 그 날은 날씨가 좋을까? (It's been raining a lot, do you think the weather will clear up by then?)

A: 아마 괜찮을 거야. 걱정하지 마. 그리고 많이 걸어야 하니까 편한 신발을 신고 오는 것도 잊어버리지 마. (I think it will be fine. Don't worry. Also, since we'll be walking around a lot make sure to wear comfortable shoes).

B: 알았어. 그럼 그 날 보자. 잘 있어. (Okay, I'll see you then)

A: 그래, 안녕. (Okay, bye.) 

This semester, I studied the Korean language and some of the Korean culture. Initially when starting this adventure, I was quite ambitious about what I wanted to learn before the semester ended. As the semester progressed, I realized that my learning plan involved more than I could accomplish within this semester so I had to scale back my goals. Thus I decided to learn greetings, ordering food, important shopping words and phrases, and question phrases such as “what is this?”, “what is that?”, etc. Throughout the semester, I’ve learned many words and phrases some that were new to me, but others were old to me because of my years of listening to Korean pop music and watching Korean dramas. I have had the chance to get to know my peers better who were also studying Korean. By doing the learning journals, I was able to reflect on my progress this semester, which was a bit slow at first, but I slowly progressed. Now I can read hangul, as well as a basic introduction and asking questions, so I think if I keep up with Korean for years to come, I’ll be able to write it without looking at the writing of others.

The difficulty that I encountered was not having a language partner to help me or to converse with because I, along with some others who have been studying Korean, was never assigned a language partner. Despite asking our professor many times for the language partner, we were not assigned a language partner at all. However, even though I did not have a language partner, I was able to find some free online resources that helped me with my Korean, but sometimes it is helpful to have a native speaker who can help you with pronunciation. Other than that slight difficulty, everything else with studying my target language of Korean went well.

Overall insights that I have gained as a language learner and a cultural explorer is that learning a language can be fun if you have good resources. I had the chance to to find a Korean language app called Eggbun that was helpful as well as a few Korean websites. After leaving this class, I plan to continue learning Korean by going to South Korea for two weeks after my graduation next month. After undergrad, I want to continue exposing myself to the Korean language and the Korean culture.

Throughout this semester, I had the chance to read numerous articles and readings about languages that would sometimes ignite my interest.  One particular article was Why Bilinguals Are Smarter? the writer mentioned how people who were bilingual tend to be smarter and he even used the example of the children who were asked to sort blue circles and red squares into bins on the computer. At the end of this task, it seems that the bilingual students did better. What the writer also mentioned was that those who are bilingual are able to concentrate more on tasks and ignore distractions. They also have the ability to switch their attention from one thing to another, like driving while memorizing directions. This made me reflect a lot on my own language learning experiences and I thought that if I had continued learning French then I would be quite fluent right now and I think I would consider myself to be bilingual.

Taking this self-directing language class has made me realize that I do better learning a language when I am in the classroom as opposed to just learning it on my own. When you learn the language on your own it can be difficult because there is no one there to guide you properly or to help you when you need it. Overall, if I had to the self-directed language experience all over again, I do not think that I would do it, but I would prefer learning the language in a classroom setting.

This semester, I studied the Korean language and some of the Korean culture. Initially when starting this adventure, I was quite ambitious about what I wanted to learn before the semester ended. As the semester progressed, I realized that my learning plan involved more than I could accomplish within this semester so I had to scale back my goals. Thus I decided to learn greetings, ordering food, important shopping words and phrases, and question phrases such as “what is this?”, “what is that?”, etc. Throughout the semester, I’ve learned many words and phrases some that were new to me, but others were old to me because of my years of listening to Korean pop music and watching Korean dramas. I have had the chance to get to know my peers better who were also studying Korean. By doing the learning journals, I was able to reflect on my progress this semester, which was a bit slow at first, but I slowly progressed. Now I can read hangul, as well as a basic introduction and asking questions, so I think if I keep up with Korean for years to come, I’ll be able to write it without looking at the writing of others.

The difficulty that I encountered was not having a language partner to help me or to converse with because I, along with some others who have been studying Korean, was never assigned a language partner. Despite asking our professor many times for the language partner, we were not assigned a language partner at all. However, even though I did not have a language partner, I was able to find some free online resources that helped me with my Korean, but sometimes it is helpful to have a native speaker who can help you with pronunciation. Other than that slight difficulty, everything else with studying my target language of Korean went well.

Because I'm in the lower intermediate level of Korean, it's difficult to say exactly how many words I have learned so far. I have some background in Korean, so many of the words I've learned came easy to me. I think I learned between 200 new words in Korean. I think it would have been helpful if I was able to learn with a language partner for I could use the new words in discussion, but I mainly learned them online and through Korean dramas and shows. I watch Korean shows and dramas with English subtitles, but when I come across or hear an unfamiliar word or a phrase, I look it up in a Korean-English dictionary. I created a Quizlet for Korean with new vocabulary words, idioms, and common slangs. With my acquisition of vocabulary, I hope to visit Korea and be able to speak more at restaurants, hospital, stores, etc, without depending heavily on my Korean friends or family members. 

In the cultural presentations presented by some of my classmates during that last class session, I had the opportunity to learn about different aspects of different cultures and languages. Personally, I enjoyed learning about cultures and languages outside of Korea because since it is the culture that I am studying. In Omer’s presentation, I had the chance to learn about Israeli holidays and how they celebrate them. What I enjoyed most about his presentation is seeing how Hebrew is written because for me when looking at different languages, the written system, if it is not one that uses the English alphabet is intriguing, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.

Ann’s presentation om Korean plastic surgery was also interesting because I was aware of how big the plastic surgery industry was in Korea, but I did not think that it started at such a young age like 12 years old. Many of those in Asia who have monolids commonly seek double eyelid surgery because it makes the eyes seem bigger and may make you look more attractive. However, everyone has their own standards of beauty so sometimes to achieve that beauty, people sometimes decide to get more and more surgery until they look the way that they want to. In my opinion, everyone should accept themselves the way that they are, but if getting plastic surgery makes them seem more confident and accept themselves, then that is fine as well.

With Shayna’s presentation, two of my close friends would have thoroughly enjoyed it because she talked about Turkish coffee. She also bought in props and showed us the process of how the coffee is brewed and how it is served. Costa’s presentation was quite impressive because he spoke in Greek for a good portion of the presentation and it sounded so cool. I’ve never really heard Greek spoken before, outside of the movies, but it was a nice experience. Also to learn about how many Greeks were abroad and the various countries that they currently live in was a nice experience to learn about too.