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I am sad that my Indonesian studies are coming to an end this semester and also that my language partner, Farida, is going back home to Indonesia soon. I truly learned so much from her this semester and not only that, but we have so much in common and I consider her a friend rather than just a language partner or instructor.
Our last few weeks were spent wrapping up our lessons, which was the A1 unit. When I continue next semester, I will be moving onto A2. I had a midterm a few weeks ago, which went a lot better than I expected. It included multiple sections that effectively incorporated listening, writing, and reading. The actual content was fair and included several units we had studied before. My only issue was forgetting certain vocabulary. I understood pretty much all the questions, instructions, and the grammar points included, but there were a few words that I had to guess the meaning for. I used context clues and process of elimination, however, so I think it all worked out well. I was nervous before because I did not actually know how/what to study for the exam. I understood that the A1 level was derived from a textbook which Farida introduced to me and showed me the PDF for in the beginning of the semester, but it was not something we explicitly looked at. Most of the time, the lectures would be from PowerPoints she created, so I studied by reviewing those and looking at new vocabulary I had written down in my notebook.
Since we had a midterm, I assumed we would have a final exam as well, but instead we have a final presentation. This final presentation is one I had to create (with Farida’s help) all in Bahasa Indonesia, about an American topic, and presented to her Indonesian colleagues and students. I chose the topic of mental health in American universities. She prepared me for this presentation by dedicating our last few lessons after the midterm to useful things such as transition words, slang, and formal language (specifically for delivering a speech). These lessons were very interesting because I had never heard of most of the content before, and they were extremely helpful when creating my presentation. The lesson on transition words/phrases is definitely something I referred to when creating/thinking about my presentation. There were a lot of adverbs and prepositions that I had heard before in Bahasa, but never knew the actual meaning of, so it was very valuable. Learning about formal speeches was probably the most difficult one. We went over the opening, body, and closing of a speech (we later modified it to fit a presentation rather than a speech). Most of the language used in the opening/closing is extremely formal so I was not familiar with them at all. Something we also did after midterms was listen to her fellow Fulbright colleagues give presentations on Indonesian subjects. One was on Balinese culture and the other was on Ramadan practices in Yogyakarta. I had actually remembered about these presentations just now, but she may have included them to show me examples of a presentation in Bahasa Indonesia as a form of preparation. To be honest, I am very nervous to present, which is happening on Tuesday evening! I have had assignments in the past where I had to converse with native Indonesian speakers, but this will be the first time speaking in front of several native Indonesian speakers and delivering a presentation. Wish me luck!
I made a lot more progress in Slovak than expected especially when comparing my current language experience to my past experiences with Spanish and Danish. When I started learning Spanish, I was nine years old and a lot less familiar with any language, even English. I did not have a great grasp on the ideas of cognates, grammar, or speaking around unfamiliar topics. The first two years of Spanish were especially slow in introducing content as I only learned basic vocabulary and studied the present tense over and over. There was very little emphasis on proper pronunciation or practicing conversations and a lot of focus on memorization and workbook activities. When learning Danish during my junior year of college, I had the advantage of understanding linguistics and English at a fairly competent level. I knew the importance of identifying cognates, had experience with learning complex Spanish and English grammar, and understood the benefits of circumlocution. However, my Danish language professor fell back on a lot of traditional, systematic teaching methods. As previously mentioned in my past language learning posts, my Danish language learning experience mirrored the teaching methods of an early 20th century schoolhouse. My professor typically spent the hour and a half instructing us to read long paragraphs aloud in unison and focused on activities that felt more like formulas than natural language production.
With my Slovak language experience, I absorbed so much more knowledge in a more meaningful and natural way. Adriana taught me three different declension cases (nominative, accusative, and instrumental), two different tenses (present tense and preterit), how to tell time, and numerous categories of vocabulary (travel, food, city living, etc.). Despite only learning Slovak for three(ish) months, I gained so much more knowledge and confidence than I expected. Though I still struggle with pronunciation, I really feel more confident in my Slovak skills. When listening or watching Slovak media, I can better pick out familiar words and understand the general meaning of the video or podcast.
However, this semester, my proudest accomplishment is actually dedicating myself to a lingual and cultural tradition that my family completely lost as they assimilated to the United States. Though it was out of my control, I always feel great regret and sadness over the loss of my familial culture and language (both on my German and my Slovak side). Their late 19th century immigration to the United States also meant the loss of cultural and linguistic identity for their descendants. Throughout my childhood and young adulthood, I struggled with the absence of a strong cultural connection and the absence of my paternal relatives. These two losses feel like they go hand-in-hand as I lost the ability to interact with the older generations on my paternal side and lost their connection to family lore and traditions. In taking this class, I connected with a part of my ancestry and family that was previously absent from my life. In learning the language, the culture, and the cuisine, I feel slightly closer to this lost ancestry and my lost paternal connection. My connection to my ancestors and the older generations seems stronger and more tangible as I share a small part of their primary language, their cultural practices, their religious rituals, and food traditions.
There is little question why the South Korean beauty industry has been on the boom these last few decades. The rise of K-pop and globalization allows industry producers to innovate their products using new ingredients and push products with high-value commercial deals. The nearly $6 billion dollar domestic beauty industry is a reflection of the cultural shifts in South Korea but are these changes beneficial for the people or have the standards been warped so much by the materialistic market that the populace has become a victim of its own ideals.
South Korean women spend twice as much of their income on skin and beauty products than the American woman equivalent while South Korean men spend more than any other men in the world on these beauty products. This is a result of the myriad of advertisements that cover the view of commercial hubs like Myeong-dong, Seoul. The adverts usually have popular Korean celebrities showing off the products as the newest hot trend for the people to use. Thus, the mainstream beauty standard in South Korea is to have perfect skin and hair that looks like the celebrities. This also leads to extensive skin care regime with products claiming to fix or enhance your skin. I can not speak for the validity of every single product but I have heard about the popularity of South Korean skin products. In fact, many different people end up coming to South Korea to purchase these goods or buy South Korean exported goods online.
But South Korean beauty is not limited to skin care as more extreme options are actually pretty common. For example, cosmetic surgery is extremely prevalent in South Korea as the majority of South Korean women have had something augmented by the time they graduate university. Similar to the appeal of the South Korean commercial hubs, many people come to South Korea to have cosmetic surgery performed on them. It may seem a bit strange to other countries, but when the opportunity to change how one looks is so readily available, safe, and cheap, it is no surprise that many Koreans have embraced the opportunity. This is not to say that the entire society is welcome to these more extreme options however. People with tattoos are generally looks down upon as rebellious and anti-social and plastic surgery is often a controversy for the idols in the K-pop industry. In the big picture, South Korean society is pretty conservative so the beauty industry is in a weird place where many youths embrace it as a part of their lifestyle but the older generations scorn the industry.
The narrative that the celebrities and the cosmetics industry pushes is that looking good is essential and many people do not disagree. We see this happening everywhere in the world. However, right now the boom in the beauty industry has halted because of the pandemic so we may see the makeup sales stagnate enough that people's perceptions change. Though that is an unlikely outcome, it will be interesting to see how beauty standards in South Korea shift over time.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VABg3uLZEEK6ukhOl80HBz0rG6A-Nu8G2BVK9HY9v3A/edit?usp=sharing
Doljanchi (돌잔치) is a tradition in Korea that celebrates the first birthday of a baby.
Traditionally, at the beginning of the dol, people gave prayers. They would prepare a prayer table with food such as rice, seaweed soup, and water. They prayed to two Korean gods, Sanshin (the mountain god) and Samshin (birth goddess, asking for luck and long life and thanking the birth goddess. However, not many people do this because Christianity became one of the dominant religions in Korea. Because Christianity is one of the dominant religions in Korea, this tradition does not happen anymore. This tradition generally happened during the Joseon Dynasty.
The child participates in a tradition called doljabi (돌잡이), a fortune-telling tradition where the child is placed in front of various objects. There are traditional doljabi objects and modern doljabi items that are placed in front of the child. Some examples of traditional doljabi items are money (wealth), pencil (scholar), rice (plentiful life), thread (long life), and bow and arrow (military career). Some more modern doljabi items are a microphone, stethoscope, sports ball, gavel, and many more. The child's parent chooses the items for the doljabi so they can choose the traditional or modern items or a mix of both. He or she is encouraged to grab an item from the set of items, and the item selected will foretell his or her future. The child crawls over to the items laid out for him or her, and the items chosen predict what kind of future the child will have.
Doljanchi tradition began in the 18th century. During that time, Korea was not very developed, especially in the healthcare field, so the infant mortality rate was very high. Even in the 1950s, it was at 26%. Since their infant mortality rate was so high, they considered it a milestone if the infant reached his or her first birthday. Therefore, the people celebrated the milestone with a big party wishing for the child’s good future and life.
During the doljanchi, the birthday baby wears a hanbok and a traditional hat. For girls, they would wear jobawi (조바위) which is a traditional Korean winter cap with earflaps or gulle (굴레), which is a traditional headgear worn for warmth and style. For boys, they would wear a bokgeon, a hanbok head shroud young children wore, or a hogeon (호건), a traditional headgear for young boys to wear.
Dolsang (돌상) is the main rectangular table that is seen at the child’s first birthday. On top of the rectangular table, there are two circular round tables. They represent the wish and hope for the child to grow up without facing hardships. On top of the dolsang, various items have significance and meaning. Some items are fruit, rice cakes, five silk pouches (harmony), dates, minari wrapped in threads (vitality), and many more. There are different kinds of rice cakes put on the dolsang. One kind is baeksulgi (백설기) which represents the pure start of life. Another type is osaek songpyeon (오색송편) which has five different colors representing harmony with the child’s surroundings.
During the last month spent with my language partner I was able to finish up some of my lesson plans and reflect upon my progress over the semester. We had weekly meetings with Ariana and Somyung where we would watch the short films of “XX” . During some of the videos I was very engaged because it got very dramatic and interesting. I made a reflection as I was watching these films because my brain was processing on how to act and how to not act when similar situations come. I realized that people gain knowledge from watching kdrama and I did not know how much influence it was giving me on how I behave with others. But I was amazed at how I was able to learn more about the culture of Korea.
Last week my group recorded our podcast. I think I was able to reflect well as I was talking to my language partner about what we did over the semester. I achieved my goals in improving my writing and as I look back to my diaries I noticed how in the beginning of the semester I had a lot of errors and red marks but towards the end I barely had any marks to fix. I also reflected on how it is not just learning about the language because in order to engage in society or with the people you need to know their culture. A lot of teenagers in Korea would slang words and idioms in their daily conversations but these aren’t taught when you are learning about the language. I feel like just because you know the language and you visit Korea does not always mean you can blend in with the people. Since you know the language you can communicate with people in general but to be a deeper part of society you need to know the flow of the fast changing language.
These days a lot of people shorten the words to where it would once be 응응 “yes, yes” in proper form people now just use letters “ㅇㅇ” It is even crazier how they would shorten not only words but sentences or groups of words “ㅇㅈㄲㄲㅂㄹ” that would be like “왜 자꾸 까불어” which is a word I heard from one of the korean dramas I saw it could be translated to “why are you messing around”. I am sometimes afraid because I am also falling behind with the language even though I lived in Korea for 4 years. It is fascinating how the language continuously changes and I need to keep checking in with the culture so that I do not fall behind.
This semester my main goal was to improve on my writing skills and I saw clear evidence of my improvement so I am proud of my accomplishments. I would really like to thank my language partner for achieving my goals. I think if I were to continue taking Korean class next year, I would now want to write harder essays instead of short writing prompts and diaries to master the language.
During these last few sessions, my language partner and I focused on reviewing the grammar that I had studied during the most recent chapter of the textbook. In addition, I was quizzed on sentence construction using the vocabulary of this chapter as well. Although I had a good idea of how to build the sentences, I still had to look back on my notes to remember the characters. I have had trouble memorizing the words and I should spend more time on the vocabulary. Besides reviewing the chapter grammar and vocabulary, we also recorded our podcast to review the work we have done this semester and it was fun to look back on these last few months. It is a bit sad since I will be graduating this year so I won't be able to participate in these sessions anymore but I am grateful to have found such a fun and helpful department for learning about linguistics, language, and Hangul. One of the things that I really enjoyed this semester with learning Korean was that we had a textbook to look into during lessons and studying. I found that last semester I spent a lot of time on worksheets, which was still really helpful but a textbook offers structure and direction that is invaluable. With that in mind, I really enjoyed this most recent chapter on purchasing goods. One of the main uses of a language is understanding cuisine and being able to apply the language in buying stuff. Learning about Korean currency was also quite interesting and required a bit of numbers as mentioned in the previous learning journal.
My language partner also learned the deep dive on Korean grammar as well and she commented on how the Korean particles was not something she thought about but just did naturally as a native speaker. It makes me wonder about what parts of the English language I take for granted as a native speaker and may be difficult or nearly impossible to distinguish for the English learners out there. Sometimes English words can differ only by a couple letters and can be confusing and I can see similar issues popping up when learning Korean.
I hope to continue learning Korean and applying it after graduation as learning it was quite fun. I know that my career most likely will not require the use of Korean but I initially picked it up as a way of supplementing my hobbies and interests in Korea comics and variety shows. Not to mention Korean music is becoming even more popular abroad so knowing the language may be interesting when the Billboard music list is filled with Korean Artists. I might also pick up another language after Korean and strive towards becoming a polyglot though that is wishful thinking because I do not have the motivation to learn that many languages without purpose. Although my experience in SDLC was limited because of the Covid-19 pandemic, I hope that future students here will get to experience the community of the department and the engaged learning that comes with studying face to face.
For the month of April, I completed the usual work: writing diaries, watching 2 Days and 1 Night, and vocabulary quizzes, and article summaries. I had a lot of fun with the article summaries this month. I was able to find articles on celebrities and dramas that I was genuinely interested in, and it was fun to read about them, improving my Korean reading and comprehension and writing skills. I also wrote my diary entries, and my language partner pointed out how I improved on writing more complex and longer sentences, and I felt really happy about my improvement. Rachel also suggested to me to start writing on paper more despite my preference to type Korean. She gave me multiple suggestions, and I chose to choose my favorite song and write down the lyrics for it to practice my penmanship. I thought this was a great way of practicing my writing skills because it made me really think about the lyrics and their meaning behind them, and I also was able to learn new vocabulary words along the way.
Generally, I find the areas of grammar I struggle with when I write my diary entries. This month, I focused on two areas of grammar to learn about with my language partner. The first grammar rule I learned about was how to write that shows surprise or displeasure, which is expressed with 는다니. Adding this ending to a vowel would create a meaning that implies the speaker’s astonishment at what happened. I also learned how to express my surprise with nouns, which is done by adding -라니. The second grammar rule was learning how to talk about a negative result that happened because of an unexpected or unpreventable event, which is expressed with -는 바람에. However, -는 바람에 could only be used if it is described by something that has the connector 는 attached to it. I thought this rule was interesting because it uses 바람, which means wind in Korean. I found it fascinating how this could be used to express an unexpected event that happened.
I added a new agenda to my learning plan, which was learning about superstitions in Korea. As I was watching a drama in my own free time, it brought up a superstition that Koreans believed in, and I thought it would be fun to include it in my learning plan. I told my language partner about it, and we explored the different superstitions that Koreans believed in, and it was really interesting to learn about them. When we learned about them, I even remembered the superstitions my mom told me about when I was younger. Some superstitions I learned about was the evil spirit free day calendar, which is called 손없는날 달력 in Korean. This superstition is about how if you move on certain days of the month, it can be bad luck, and there is a specific calendar that shows the acceptable and non-acceptable dates for moving. Another superstition is shaking your legs shakes the wealth out of you, which is 다리 떨면 복 나간다. In Korean culture, your legs symbolize wealth and prosperity so shaking them will shake out all the luck and wealth out of you. I had a lot of fun learning about these different superstitions, and I hope to continue learning more about them.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qZWStGKhAE7ZHEOFXqcxb4eDLm5AUXwm/view?usp=sharing ;
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xbrut1URmbIs8FSiK5pvbEWbcXV61f5H/view?usp=sharing
Ahoy!
Over the past two weeks, I cooked four different Slovak dishes to gain a cultural practice that I can take with me after the end of this course and analyze their window into Slovak culture and language. I made pirohy, palancinky, višňove koláče, and hemendex. With each of these recipes, I took their ingredients, origin, or name to better understand Slovak culture and language.
Link to Video and Presentation: https://richmond.box.com/s/dszho8vez29v9emhuu4z6g14ou69d5xz
(I am unable to attach my presentation and video on the Ning. However, attached is a link to a Box folder with both the presentation and the video).
Sources:
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/slovakia/articles/10-traditional-slovak-dishes-you-must-try/
https://www.internationalcuisine.com/about-food-and-culture-of-slovakia/
https://nomadparadise.com/slovakian-food/
http://englishmaninslovakia.co.uk/2017/02/20/spotlight-on-jarmila-hlavkova-author-of-the-first-slovak-recipe-book-to-be-published-in-the-english-language/
https://slovakia.travel/en/slovak-gastronomy
https://www.cheese.com/bryndza/
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/slovakia/articles/brief-history-bryndza-cheese/
https://profil..sk/en/gastronomy/
https://cookslovak.com/2018/03/14/sour-cherry-cakes/
https://cookslovak.com/2019/05/28/what-the-first-slovak-recipes-looked-like/
Jeffery Cole‘s Ethnic Groups of Europe: An Encyclopedia
June Granatir Alexander‘s Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America
During my language partner sessions with Rachel, we practiced talking in Korean by just talking about what is going on in our lives in Korean. We talked about the time we spent a couple days ago. Me, my roommate Ephraim, Janette, and Rachel all went to a Korean restaurant to eat some Korean food. Rachel kept nagging me about wanting to eat Korean food so I told her to ask Ephraim if he could drive us. Ephraim agreed and so we went! The restaurant is named Seoul Restaurant and it was moderately priced. I got a black bean noodle dish called jjangjangmyeon. I also got a spicy tofu soup dish that is called soondooboojigae. If I am being completely honest, the food was pretty bland. If I had to rate the food out of ten it would be mayb a 6. Rachel got a pork cutlet with some dumplings that is called donkasu. Janette got a galbi spicy soup and Ephraim got a cold noodle soup called nangmyeon. I ended up paying for them. R.I.P to my bank account. But overall, the experience was good. The restaurant actually had a little Korean supermarket so after eating we got some Korean desserts. I also bought chocolate wafers for a special somebody. It was also the first time Janette and Rachel hung out in person so that was good to see. Rachel also told me that she is pretty adamant about changing her major. She is uncertain right now of what to change it to, but she really does not like accounting. I’m in a similar pickle as I am reconsidering my Computer Science major. Rachel, Ephraim, and I also practiced Korean saturday as well. I invited Rachel out to visit friends I knew from VCU. She was hesitant at first to go with us but after I told her there would be Korean food, she changed her mind quickly and agreed to come. My friend cooked us some Korean barbeque. He fried up some pork belly called sam gup sal, and cooked some braised beef ribs called galbi that his mom dropped off. He also cooked us some jin ramen. It was nice to see Rachel eating a lot since she usually does not eat much in dhall. I felt sort of bad because of the fact that she was the only girl in the room for a while. But at the end of the night, I asked her if she had fun, and she said she did so yeah. I was able to dive in and enjoy more of Korean culture on Sunday! Ephraim’s mother planned us a feast! She literally bought like 10 pounds of meat and it was pretty nuts. She had galbi, sam gup sal, kim bap, kimchi, and so many side dishes! Everytime I go to Ephraim’s house I am thankful and impressed by the hospitality his mom shows me. My other roomates who are not Korean also came to enjoy the feast. It was fun to see them meet Ephraim’s family and enjoy Korean food.
If I received a research grant, I would like to study the origins of Slovak morphology and how/why it broke off from other similar languages like Polish, Sorbian, and Czech. I would especially be interested in exploring the diversions between Czech and Slovak. One of the most difficult issues in conducting this research would be tracking Slovak back into history. Most records of written Slovak language only begin in the late 18th century to the early 19th century. Alternatively, records of written Czech language date as far back as the 12th century. Luckily, these two languages (Slovak and Czech) first surfaced as the same language in the late Medieval period before splitting off from each other. Despite these difficulties, I would first want to gather data from different Slovak, Czech, Polish, and Sorbian speakers from different regions of the country. As this is a hypothetical situation, I would travel to several different cities in each country to account for different dialects. For example, Slovak has four major dialects to observe: Eastern, Western, Central, and Lowland. In each city, I would present a set of twenty common words to compare the differences and similarities for each language and each dialect. After collecting this data, I would want to access the earliest available written texts for each of these languages to check for similarities and differences. I will compare written text from roughly the late Medieval period to the current day with my survey results in order to understand the changes in Slovak morphology.
If I received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of my target language and culture, I would want to conduct research on Korean-Americans who moved to Korea and Koreans who moved to America. As a Korean who moved to America, the cultural and language differences were hard to grasp and understand. When I compared my experience with my sister, I realized that we had completely different experiences despite coming to America at the same time. I think it would be really interesting to research the experiences of learning a new language and adjusting to Korean culture as a Korean-American, and comparing the two. For phonetics, it would be really cool to compare which areas of phonetics each group struggles with. Because English and Korean have different phonetic inventories, analyzing the differences in where they excel or struggle in phonetics would be interesting. I would also want to analyze the impact of cultural shifts after moving to a different country. Korea and America both have very different cultures in terms of honorifics, hierarchy, body languages, and more. It would also be interesting to see how they learn and excel in the target language and see the differences between the methods used when learning English as a Korean-American and Korean as a Korean-American. I also want to analyze the differences in pragmatics, which is the study of meaning in a particular context. Koreans generally have “nunchi, '' which is having the ability to know other people's moods or surroundings and act accordingly to it. So, when conversing with Koreans, we tend to have nunchi, and if we don't, we would be criticized and judged. However, in America, we tend to be more direct on what we want to say. I think it would be interesting to see how Korean-Americans in both countries respond to these cultural differences.
The idea of ghosts or spirits is a prevalent culture phenomenon in many countries in the 21st century and Korea is no exception. In Korean culture, ghosts or 귀신 (gwishin) are believed to be deceased who have not fulfilled their life's purpose or have unsettled grudges against the living. The idea of ghosts stems from the spiritual beliefs of Shamanism, a type of religion that is still actively practiced in Korea. Shamanistic rituals are often performs to appease these ghosts and help them past over to the figurative other side of the afterlife. There are typically four variants of ghosts that Korean culture depicts. These are "cheonyeo gwishin" (처녀귀신), “mongdal gwishin” (몽달귀신), mul gwishin (물귀신), and “dalgyal gwishin” (달걀귀신).
Cheonyeo gwishin are female virgin ghost that have passed without becoming a mother or having a husband. These ghosts are typically depicted as having pale white faces, blood red lips, white mourning gowns called "sobok" (소복), and their hair down. Korean women had it tough as their role in society was to serve her father, her husband, and her children. Although these ideas are fading, gwishin are representative of generations of belief in this idea.
The male equivalent of Cheonyeo gwishin are mongdal gwishin. These are male bachelors that led unfulfilled lives by not having a spouse. These are less common than the female ghost in media generally. Shamanistic rituals are performed to bring together these two ghosts to fulfill their lives spiritually and help them pass on to the afterlife.
Mul gwishin are water ghosts who died of drowning and are often depicted as lonely but spiteful spirits who try to pull the living into the water to die like them. The final type, the dalgyal gwishin, is the strangest of the bunch. It is an egg shaped ghost with no facial features or limbs that instantly kills anyone who looks at them.
Although these ghosts are most likely fictional, they still play a large role in Korean culture and are a reflection of the standards of Korean society. These ghosts demonstrate the importance of gender roles and of familial relations. Shamanism and the media continue to perpetuate the ideas of ghosts in Korean society.
Two recent Korean shows that focused on ghosts or spirits are Hey Ghost, Lets Fight! and Hotel Del Luna. Hey Ghost, Let's Fight! follows the story of the young man who has the ability to see ghosts and the ability to physically interact with them. He fights ghost at the request of others for money and soon accepts the help of a ghost to fight along side him against other ghosts. Hotel Del Luna follows the story of a ghost hotel in the middle of Seoul and its ill-mannered owner who was cursed to manage this hotel because of a crime she committed but does not remember. Each show illustrates some of these ghosts variants and makes the idea of ghosts humorous but scary at times. I would highly recommend either of these shows to anyone who enjoys a good rom-com with some Korean ghosts to add!
Since last time I have continued to another chapter that focuses on the process of purchasing goods in Korean. This new section introduces some vocabulary related to currency, food, and counting. This section also touched briefly on the sentence construction of polite phrases. One interesting fact about the Korean language is that it has two different number systems that are used in counting. The native Korean number system is commonly used for smaller units of counting, whereas the Sino-Korean number system is used for much larger units. This generally starts at around 100. I drew comparisons here with the process of counting time in Korean as when people count time in Korean, both numerical systems are used. For counting currency, the Korean currency system has four types of coins (10 won, 50, won, 100 won, and 500 won) and three kinds of notes (1,000 won, 5,000 won, and 10,000 won). The conversion rate between Korean won and USD is about 1 to 1000 so 1,000 won would be about $1 and 500 won is about $0.50. The actual rate at the moment for accuracy is $1 = 1,129.00 Korean won. The process of creating numbers in Korean is actually pretty straight forward as it is just combining smaller numbers characters with the larger number characters. For example, the number 3 in Korean is 삼 (pronounced sam) and the number 100 in Korean is 백 (pronounced bek). To say the number 300, all you have to do is combine 3 and 100 like so, 삼백 (pronounced sambek). This process carries over linearly to higher degrees of numbers. It was actually refreshing to see and perform number construction in another language because I do not really think about it in English. I remember that this simple process ties back to the initial intentions of the language in making it as convenient and straightforward as possible, especially in modern times. Although having two number systems still is a bit confusing.
One interesting thing I learned from this section is that when counting units, the Korean language has a specific word to enumerate different things. This is similar to the English language where we refer to socks as pairs of socks when implying more than one sock. In Korean, pairs would be 켤레. The sentence structure would be socks + count + pair (켤레) in Korean. Additionally, the Korean language has a general enumeration word 개 (pronounced ge), for counting things that do not have a unique enumerator.
