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I don’t know the exact number, but I think I’ve learned at least 1000 Korean words though I haven’t quite memorized them all yet. In retrospect, I think I should have targeted my lessons to practical scenarios rather than just blindly following the book. I realized this when one of my fellow Korean learners asked me how to say ‘bathroom’ and I didn’t know how. Therefore, in these next few weeks I’d like to aim for practicality in my lessons. I think it will help if I make a dialogue for common scenarios and list the relevant vocab words I can use in that particular scenario, so that I can group the words and phrases together and memorize them more efficiently.

I learned the vocabulary words through Quizlet. I made vocab lists and practice with the Quizlet flashcards and games every now and then. I used to hand-write my vocab lists but I decided to switch over since it seemed faster on the computer. Plus, I got to practice my Korean typing which was fun. And, I basically learn the new terms by practicing over and over again. Fortunately, a lot of the terms sound like the corresponding term in Mandarin and my Chinese dialect, which made it easier to memorize. To reinforce the words into my memory though, I sometimes might come up with mini skits where I would improvise and make a scenario based on the sentence structures and vocab words I’ve learned so far. The goal is to correctly use as much vocab words as possible. Personally, I think this quiz-and-recall method is super-effective for memorizing new words quickly and holistically. By the end of the semester, my goal is to be able to use the Korean grammar and vocab I've learned in at least five different scenarios. 

My cultural goals for the semester are as follows:

1. I would like to explore religion in South Korea. I want to learn which religions are the most prevalent and the influence of religion on the daily lives of the older and the younger generation. 

2. I am interested in learning about the most popular professions in South Korea. I would like to explore questions such as what are the dream jobs of most of the young people, what are the expectations of parents. 

3. I want to learn about slang words in Korean and what the young people in Korea do in their leisure times. 

4. I would like to explore different themed cafes that exist in South Korea and try to understand what it says about Korean views and principles. 

The previous semester my goals were to learn more grammatical rules and become more comfortable in conversational Korean. I also wanted to get a lot of practice in reading and writing. At the end of the semester, I felt that  definitely had a better grasp on grammar and was also being conscious of using grammatically Korean when speaking, using the correct endings with words and simply not taking two minutes to complete a sentence. Although I got a fair amount of practice reading Korean, I was still far from being fluent at reading. It would take me several minutes for me to read a few sentences. Moreover, I was terrible in spelling words. 

Therefore, as my goals for SDLC 113 I planned to do the following:

1. Improve my reading skills by focusing on correct pronunciation of words and speed.

2. Writing simple texts such as emails, texts or stories. 

3. Using more connecting words when I am speaking and writing. 

4. Be more grammatically correct speech. 

5. Being able to hold a conversation on a random topic. 

6. Being able to express my opinion. 

7. Being able to justify myself or a point of view. 

My goals for week 4 and week 5 are to first finish my book on the Greek Invasion of Asia Minor and then present my interpretation of the book to my language partner through a lengthy conversation about the work. The novel uses heavy, scholarly vocabulary and I am hoping I will be able to use some of this vocabulary with my language partner, although this will be hard. To reach this goal during my activity of reading I plan on writing down words I believe will be useful in my conversation with my language partner. I will evaluate my success first based on whether I finished the book by week 5 and second on how my language partner evaluates my speaking during our conversation about Greek historical events in the early 20th century. 

I learned that I am a factual learner according to the FIRE model. This is because I definitely value practical knowledge over abstract theories or grammatical rules. I would prefer to learn basic word and phrases over understanding the differences between past and present tense in a language. Due to my classification as a factual learner, I probably would do better with learning a language through a language partner who can teach me key words and phrases that are important to every day conversation over a textbook. For my personal purposes of learning an advanced language a language partner might not be able to help with advanced Greek necessarily but reading books and news articles and also watching news streams will be a great way to learn. This is why I believe I should center my learning activities around observation of others speaking the language at an advanced level and picking up on words that are used often. 

I have been learning several new words in Greek. Below are a few of the words that I have learned from reading books on modern Greek history of the early 20th century. The goals I had set in the beginning of the semester were too ambitious so I refocused my efforts on reading clarity, speech, and slightly improving my pool of advanced vocabulary, while deciding to ignore writing so I am not overwhelmed with work. The books I have been reading as well as the articles and online news streams have been helpful in building my vocabulary pool so I can understand complex conversations about historical and current political issues. I am starting to be able to engage in intelligent conversations with my language partner about politics in Greek which is a very satisfying feeling. 

επιρροή-influence

αναζωπύρωση-resurgence

νεωτερισμός-modernism

παραδοσιοκρατία-traditionalism

When languages die the voice of a culture dies with it. Languages hold unique expressions and meanings that we often cannot translate into our own language. For example, the word 'gunslinger' holds a unique origin and meaning that cannot be translated directly to Greek because of the cultural pretext. As a result the translation would be a synonym like 'risk-taker' which results in the loss of a unique expression. Another loss is the cultural heterogeneity of our world. With the expansion of Mandarin, English, Spanish, and French, languages of small communities and tribes are disappearing and the cultural homogeneity is occurring. This could be seen as a positive, but the amount of knowledge and history we are losing through the loss of languages is frustrating to linguists, historians, and scientists, as well as to the older generations of these communities who are seeing their heritage vanish. 

Knowing the history of the Greek language can be very useful for a beginner. The Greek language can be intimidating due to its unique alphabet and its various grammatical rules. But understanding the roots of the language can ease the minds of new learners. Greek is an Indo-European language and a language that utilizes an alphabet with many similarities to the Latin alphabet. This makes it easier for individuals from Western backgrounds to learn the language since they have been exposed to similar grammatical rules and letters. History can also help you understand hidden meanings in words. The phrase "megali idea" literally means 'great idea' but in Greek history it symbolizes expansionist goals of the early 20th century Greek state. The word in Greece today means as a result 'ambitious idea' instead of 'great idea'. 

The Culture Shock video showcased the cultural problems international students face when they attend American universities. One aspect of the video that stood out to me was the part that described the trust placed by professors to students. Professors in American universities tend to trust that students will not cheat in exams and often feel comfortable enough to exit the classroom during an examination. This was perceived as odd by a Turkish student in the video, who explained that in Turkey that would be unthinkable. I remember how surprised I was, when I took my first test in an American elementary school in the US, at how relaxed and trusting the teacher was with the students. He sat there and read his newspaper, which made it easy to cheat for anyone in the class yet nobody cheated. The academic culture difference was stark and the result was my own personal taste of culture shock.

Hadee and I decided that the structure of the language and the grammatical side of the language may be a little too advanced for me to tackle at the moment. We decided that instead of trying to learn the language for academic use (like learning to properly read and write), it would be better, since I am a complete beginner, that I learn the language more for conversational use. We will learn the basics like the alphabet and stuff but we won't delve into the grammars and structures of it all. Learning daily phrases that I can use in actual conversations seem to be the most efficient way to go about learning the language for how I want to use it. Also just from learning the phrases, I can assess the patterns in the phrases and figure out the necessary grammatical structures and replace the vocabulary to construct the sentences I need. 

Introduce yourself and your family

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My name is David Kim

I am from Korea.

I study Computer Science.

My father's name is Jae.

My mother's name is Sarah.

My brother's name is Yong.

My brother serves in the US military.

Show that you can answer and ask questions about identity

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Hi 
Hi
What is your name?
My name is david.

What is your name?

My name is Hadee.

where do you go to school?

I go to University of Richmond.

Where do you go to school?

I go to University of Richmond.

Which Country are you from?

I am from Pakistan.

what subject do you study?

I study computer science.

What is your friend's name?

My friend's name is Hadee.

Where is your friend from?

My friend is from Pakistan.

Coming into this independent study course, I already knew how to read and write, but I didn't know how to speak, so whatever I read I wouldn't really understand. If I was told a word in Korean I could figure out how to spell it and write it. I learned this in 7th grade through my friend. She really only taught me the basic alphabet and from there I could figure out how to form the letters here and there through online resources. I first started by figuring out how to spell the names of Korean people I knew. The little special cases where some words that sound a certain way aren't spelled the way they sound were easy to figure out through seeing a variety of signs in the area I went to middle school. When I started learning Korean, I was able to skip the first couple chapters in the books that focused on learning how to read and write the letters. I found it easier for pronunciation if I read the example sentences in Korean rather than the romanized version. I think Korean has an easy writing system. The grammar and learning how to speak part is the most difficult. But I think it really helped me get through the grammar and achieve my lesson plans faster since I knew how to read. I think I am still pretty slow at the reading, just because they are different letters. I find that if they are written very small, I can't really tell what it says because the letters are all smushed together. 

• How many new words have you learned in your target language?  How did you learn them?  Do you have realistic goals for your acquisition of vocabulary?

I have learned around 140 words. Many of these words that I have learned are in conjunction with phrases as I learn better when I can use phrases. I learned these words from websites such as the only task-based Hebrew dictionary and from Mango and from videos on youtube. Moreover, I have gained vocabulary and context from practicing and learning from my language partner. I think my goals for acquiring Hebrew were a little too reaching, as I transplanted my previous mindset of learning Hebrew -- one from when I was in Israel where I was surrounded by spoken Hebrew 24/7 -- onto my self-directed language course, where my time is divided between classes and the dominant language is English. Nevertheless, I am learning a great deal, and I will continue my studying for the time remaining. 

So far, I have worked on my writing and speaking skills. I have been reading and working on the Online Intermediate College Korean exercises by Clare You and Eunsu Cho on Berkeley’s language site (http://www.language.berkeley.edu/Korean/10/index.htm). This website has been extremely helpful in improving my listening skills through audio texts as well as my writing skills. To become more familiar with Hangul, I have been copying down the texts for each lesson (currently on Lesson 11). In order to further improve my writing and spelling, I’ve been trying my best to message/text my parents using just Korean. Although some of the words I type in Korean are autocorrected to the correct word, seeing my mistakes and practicing typing in Korean have improved my writing skills significantly and I feel a bit more comfortable writing in Korean. Currently, I’m pretty slow at typing in Korean, but I hope to memorize the Korean alphabet keyboard soon so I can learn to type Korean on my laptop as well.

In order to further improve my communicative competence, I believe I need to converse more frequently in Korean, especially with a native Korean speaker. I don’t have a language partner yet, but the online site I have been using has been extremely helpful. Each lesson comes with a dialogue and audio, which is great for getting the right pronunciation and practicing fluency and flow of the sentences. The dialogues from the Berkeley’s language site are very helpful for it goes over past tense, present tense, and future tense. I have been reading dialogues out loud, and this helped me strengthen my grammatical competence as well as my pronunciation. Although it’s hard, I’m also trying to change my habit of speaking in Konglish (mixture of Korean and English) when I speak to my parents so I can improve my speaking skills in Korean. This means that I’ll probably be speaking slower, but it will be good practice.

In addition to improving my communicative competence, I think understanding the culture is an essential part of speaking the language. For example, Korea has a Confucian hierarchy and etiquette system, where elders are referred to and spoken to with honorifics. In contrast to English, sentences are changed when speaking to an elder versus someone your age. Koreans use “banmal” with friends their age and use “jondaemal” to elders or to those of higher status. For example, asking “did you eat?” to a friend would be “Bap muk eot seo?” whereas asking your grandpa if he has eaten yet would be “Jinji deu sheot seo yo?” These two sentences have the same meaning but use different words to convey more respect.

Throughout this semester, I hope to learn about the connections between the Korean language and its culture to fully immerse myself in the language. I think watching Korean dramas and tv shows are a good way to further understand Korean culture, especially dramas that pertain to family. Korean dramas illustrate the general lifestyle and culture in Korea, and use many slang words that I am not familiar with. I am going to continue using Berkeley Intermediate Language site and try to watch videos that pertain to Korea’s modern day culture. 

Overall, I thought that the idea that bilingualism makes someone "smarter" to be a little misleading. Although it appears that being bilingual helps with certain activities, as well as corresponds with a lower chance of dementia, it also appears to correspond with a smaller vocabulary in each language. It all depends on how you evaluate intelligence. Bilinguals appear to be able to make executive decisions quicker than their monolingual counterparts, but it is up to us to decide if that is true intelligence. Over all, it seems that being bilingual seems to contribute to greater executive function at the cost of some vocabulary earlier in life. I think that is a trade that most people would be pretty happy to make. 

I would say that I have learned at least 100 words in my language. I mostly learned them by finding various articles and videos online about what I wanted to learn, like numbers or basic conversational topics. I think my goals were pretty reasonable, and I have definitely worked towards achieving them. I am able to read the basic letters in Korean, as well as make basic conversation, which is what i came in wanting to do. I think choosing a more specific conversational goal would have helped me narrow my efforts, but keeping my goals lax also helped me explore my options a bit more. 

• Learning Journal 9:  State your learning goals for this week and how you went about accomplishing these goals.

This week I covered Goal 2, task 2 which states: I want to ask my friend about his or her day and what they did. Grammar / vocabulary for past and present  tense verbs, as well as Tel Aviv's dining culture. 

I have consulted websites such as youtube, namely Learn Hebrew Restaurant vocabulary, and other websites such as My Hebrew Dictionary (http://www.dictionary.co.il/food_nuts.htm). Then, I practiced with my language learning partner. 

I have learned: 

How is your day? 

What about your day? (literal translation -- another way to say "How's your day going?")

Did you do anything interesting today?

What are you planning to do today?

Want to meet

with

I am driving to.. for vacation

With whom are you going?

I am going to the gym

I want to just chill tonight -- Hebrew does not have such a saying, so we have to be creative with this one. 

What are you doing tomorrow?

Vocab:

Meal

interesting

breakfast

Dinner

eggs

glass

chair

table

bread

sandwich

soup

ice

nuts

almond

Also, present tense is acceptable in a question form.

Tel Aviv -- Dining Culture

Kosher / Shabbat: Restaurants stay kosher vs. those that don't. Kosher is not the dominant mode in Tel Aviv because many in Tel Aviv are not as conservative so as long as they don't see a mixing of dairy and meat behind the scenes, it will still be "kosher" to them. Kosher foods are certified by a Rabbi, and must observe a separation between dairy and non-dairy. However, most meat in Israel is kosher. In general, Tel Aviv does not appeal to the strictly religious. In Jerusalem, on the other hand, most restaurants are kosher because of its population. In Tel Aviv, restaurants stay open longer and many stay open on the weekends, but the must pay a fine. The dining and cafe culture is a prominent aspect of its society, and even the religious go to cafes as it is a popular meeting spot for all. 

• Learning Journal 8:  State your learning goals for this week and how you went about accomplishing these goals.

This week, as I have been jumping around within my learning plan and goals, I will be talking about the cultural context of the Israeli communication norms on the street in everyday life. This subset in under Task 1, Goal 1: To understand how Israelis communicate on the street in everyday life. The following will be specific to two cities, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, as these cities represent an interesting divide in terms of practiced norms and other societal qualities. More specifically, on transportation and the dining scene. Starting in Jerusalem, as a general rule, there are a lot more religious people in Jerusalem, and, therefore, more interaction between those who are religious and those who are secular. Religions such as Judaism and Christianity both call Jerusalem home to many of its most revered sites and locations, while, in Islam, the Al-Aqsa mosque is the third holiest site -- at least to the Sunni sect. Moreover, as a general rule, religious males will interact with males, and religious females will interact with females because there is tension that is upheld by religious belief when interacting with the opposite sex. Jerusalem is very much a high-context city. Most people know their boundaries and roles and observe them strictly. The street life is physically sectarian. For example, East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem serves a salient example of considerable friction. And the Old City with four different groups within its walls -- Christian, Armenian, Jewish and Muslim -- creates an environment of ambiguous identity should you cross into another "zone." There are different contexts at play when you interact with those espousing different beliefs. Also, in general, people don't interact on the bus (this rule holds true for Tel Aviv too but to a less extent.) Naturally, religious women will go to the back of the bus and religious males will cover their eyes so as to not make eye contact even if it occurs accidentally (both of these phenomena are marginal in Tel Aviv). During Shabbat, from sundown to sundown -- Friday to Saturday -- public transportation does not work in any location in Israel. Sheruts work, but they are a private organization and they must pay a fine. In general, Tel Aviv is the complete opposite from many of the rules concerning Jerusalem listed. Since Tel Aviv is a progressive city, there are more seculars than those who are religious, and thus this reality is reflected in its city's norms. Men and women freely communicate on the street, for example. Tel Aviv is a low-context city where diversity reigns supreme and thus no horizontal hierarchy exists, for the most part. 

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