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Because our class is not an intensive language class, we really chose to focus on the Turkish grammar for the most part. When reading Turkish, I can easily identify the subjects, objects, and verbs. This has come at the expense of learning vocabulary, therefore it is difficult for me to understand what the sentence is actually talking about. My classmate actually provided a great tip for learning the Turkish vocabulary. He has been using Duolingo along with the Turkish grammar we are learning in our classes. For him, Duolingo was used solely for vocabulary. He recommended that I do the same in order to learn some vocabulary. I definitely took his advice, which very much helped me a lot. Also this last month, we learned the proper way of saying what time it is in Turkish. Apparently it is more common for Turks to use phrases like “a quarter til”, “a quarter past”, “half past”, and “10 til”, than it is in English. In English, there is more of a generational gap for these phrases. Older people use these phrases while younger people prefer to tell the exact time. The last major thing we reviewed this semester was the future tense. The future tense was also pretty easy to learn. Over the course of the semester, after I learned that Turkish was based on certain suffixes depending on the tense, I learned the material fairly quickly. The future tense is shown below:

Future verb tense: take root, add “-acak (if preceding vowel is a, ı, o, u,) or -ecek (if preceding vowel is e, i, Ü, Ö)”, add suffix

Olmak = to be

Ben: ol-acağ-ın = olacağın                  Biz: ol-acağ-ız = olacağız

Sen: ol-acak-sın = olacaksın               Siz: ol-acak-sınız = olacaksınız

O: ol-acak = olacak                             Onlar: ol-acak = olacak

It is important to note that in the first person conjugations we do not use “k”. because the consonant “k” is a hard consonant, the Turkish language makes it softer by using “ğ”. The hard consonants that must be substituted in Turkish are “k, p, t, and Ç” and will be substituted with “ğ, b, d, c” respectively. This past month we also learned about the months of the year, the different seasons, and the days of the week. One thing that was very interesting to me was how most Turkish words come from old Ottoman Turkish, while some also come from Arabic and Persian. I feel that Islam has a huge influence in Arabic rooted words in Turkish. One more thing that we have learned this semester was the modes of transportation. I honestly have learned an incredible amount of Turkish this semester. Unfortunately, I am not able to write about all of it because it is so much. I plan to continue learning Turkish following graduation because it is so interesting to me. Hopefully, I will be able to travel to Turkey and really use the language skills I have acquired so far. I am so grateful for my teacher taking the time to really wok with me. This experience has been like no other.

As mentioned in my last journal entry, we have really devoted a lot of focus to forming the present progressive tense in Turkish. We also talked a little bit about the simple present tense, but did not devote much time to it because it is very uncommon to use the simple present tense in Turkish. It is just preferred to use the present progressive tense. Listed below is how the present progressive tense is formed:

Verb: (Pre. Prog) – take the root, add “yor”, then add pronoun

Okumak = study

Ben: Oku-yor-um = okuyorum                       Biz: oku-yor-uz = okuyoruz

Sen: Oku-yor-sun = okuyorsun                       Siz: oku-yor-sunuz = okuyorsunuz

O: Oku-yor = okuyor                                      Onlar: oku-yor = okuyor

It is also important to note that if the root word ends in a consonant, you must add a transition sound after the root word depending on the vowel preceding the consonant.

Transition sounds

If the vowel preceding the consonant is:

“a”, “ı” it will transition to “ı”

“e”, “i” it will transition to “i”

“o”, “u” it will transition to “u”

“Ü”, “Ö” it will transition to “Ü”

Examples:

yazmak = yazıyorum

konuşmak = konuşuyorum

The present progressive is very easy to form. During this month, we also learned how to form the past tense of verbs. The past tense is also very simple to form. It is as follows:

Past tense: take root, add “-di, -dı, -ti, -tı”, then add personal suffix

Sevmek = to like

Ben: sev-di-m = sevdim                      Biz: sev-di-k = sevdik

Sen: sev-di-n = sevdin                        Siz: sev-di-niz = sevdiniz

O: sev-di = sevdi                                 Onlar: sev-di = sevdi

One irregularity to in the past tense is that the first person plural conjugation always ends in “k”. this is specific to the past tense. It does not happen in the present or future tenses. Another thing we learned this month is how to negate verbs. The rule for negating verbs is listed below:

Negative verbs: take root, add “mı, mi, mu, mü”, and the rest is the same depending on tense and personal pronoun

Negative present progressive:

Ben: sev-mi-yor-um = sevmiyorum                Biz: sev-mi-yor-uz = sevmiyoruz      

Sen: sev-mi-yor-sun = sevmiyorsun               Siz: sev-mi-yor-sunuz = sevmiyorsunuz

O: sev-mi-yor = sevmiyor                               Onlar: sev-mi-yor = sevmiyor

Negative past:

Ben: sev-me-dim = sevmedim                        Biz: sev-me-dik = sevmedik

Sen: sev-me-din = sevmedin                          Siz: sev-me-diniz = sevmediniz

O: sev-me-di = sevmedi                                  Onlar: sev-me-di = sevmedi

It is important to note that there are some differences in the negative suffixes for the present progressive tense and past tense. The negative past tense uses the exact same preceding vowel while the negative present progressive uses the paired counterpart vowel. In other words, there are 8 possible vowels for the negative past tense suffix while there are only 4 possible vowels for the negative present progressive tense suffix. In my opinion, learning how to negate verbs in Turkish was one of the easiest grammar rules for me to master. So far I am very content with my language learning journey so far. It really makes me happy to be able to learn a language that is not Latin based.

So far, my language learning journey is going very well. One thing that is very easy about the Turkish alphabet is that each letter makes one, and only one sound. This makes the pronunciations of words extremely easy. After learning the alphabet and basic conversational phrases, we decided to learn about the Turkish pronouns. Pronouns are extremely important in the Turkish language. Almost every word in Turkish sentences receive pronouns in the form of a suffix. Verbs, adjectives, nouns, and adverbs always have pronoun suffixes to clarify who and where these words are being applied to and directed. The pronoun suffixes are as follows:

                                                (ex. Doktor)

1^st person singular: -(vowel)m            1^st person plural: -(vowel)z

(ex. Doktorum)                                   (ex. Doktoruz)

2^nd person singular: -s(vowel)n           2nd person plural: -s(vowel)n(vowel)z

(ex. Doktorsun)                                   (ex. Doktorsunuz)

3rd person singular: -                          3^rd person plural: -

(ex. Doktor)                                        (ex. Doktor)

Another thing that is very important to note is that the Turkish language has a strict rule of vowel harmony. Suffixes have rules about what vowels can be used in them. Based on the vowel sound preceding the first suffix, only one vowel can be used to match that sound. The vowel harmony rules are as follows:

VOWEL HARMONY

A, I > I

E, i > i

O, U > U

Ü, Ö > Ü

If the root word’s last vowel is in one of the vowels to the left of the arrow, the suffixes being applied to the root word will only contain the corresponding vowels to the right of the arrow. For example:

iyi > iyiyim

güzel > güzelim

Üzgün > Üzgünüm

In order for us to master how to use the suffixes, our teacher gave us a list vocabulary words and asked us to study the definitions and do all of the personal conjugations for homework. In addition to this, we also learned the sentence structure for the Turkish language. This is something that I struggled with at first because the structure is the complete opposite of the English sentence structure. English has a subject-verb-object sentence structure while Turkish has a subject-object-verb sentence structure. This sentence structure can sometimes complicate things for me because you must apply the verb to either the subject or object using another suffix. My classmate and I found it to be difficult at first. Unfortunately she dropped the class during this time while we received another student. The new student is a Spanish teacher. This was wonderful for us because we could relate the Turkish teachings back to the Spanish rules since we all studied Spanish. This ended up helping us learn the concepts relatively quickly. During this month, and carrying over to the next month, we really started to focus on speaking and writing in the present/present progressive verb tense. It was fairly easy to learn this verb tense, as it is used the most in Turkish. We also decided that it would be more beneficial if we started meeting twice per week rather than once per week. That way we could gain a lot more practice with each other.

Merhaba (hello). Benim Adım Nile (my name is Nile) and this is my Turkish language learning journey. I really love learning languages. I have been studying languages since I started schooling in kindergarten. English is my first language and I was immersed in Spanish from kindergarten all the way through high school. Once I came to the University of Richmond, I started studying Portuguese. Now I have decided that I wanted to learn a non-Latin based language. I have always wanted to travel to Turkey and learn about the culture and rich history. Before starting to learn the language, I took an Ottoman history class in my freshman year which is what probably sparked my interest in Turkish culture. I have also seen many Turkish people in some of my favorite sources of media. On my first day meeting with my language partner/teacher Görkem, he first asked me about why I wanted to learn Turkish and what knowledge I already have about Turkish culture. He was very surprised about how much I already knew about Turkey. My knowledge included historical facts dating back to the Ottoman times, geographical locations, known politicians, bordering countries, cities within Turkey, ethnic groups, and some authentic foods. He even went on to tell me that a lot of people in Turkey do not even know much of what I had just told him. He then proceeded to give me an overview of basic facts about Turkey. He also asked me about what I wanted to learn about the language. We then came up with a plan of what I wanted learn. My biggest priority was learning the basics to conversational Turkish. The reason I wanted to learn these conversational phrases is so that if I ever have the opportunity to travel Turkey, I will be able to greet people in their language and have general conversation with them. From my traveling experience, people like it way more when you can speak or attempt to speak their language. It makes a lasting impression. After learning those basics, then I would like to progress to more advanced things with the grammar including verb conjugations and tense. In my opinion, it will probably be easiest to start with learning the present tense and then progress to the future and past tenses. So far we have decided to meet once per week for 2 hours. In our first material based meeting we learned  our basic conversational phrases like “hello”, “goodbye”, “where are you from”, “my name is…”, “thank you”, and “me too”. One of Görkem’s friends also decided that she wanted to learn a little bit of Turkish, so she joined us. It was very nice to have someone else who was just beginning. It made me feel less dumb and boosted my confidence a bit. Following our first class, I studied my notes for about 20 minutes per night. I was able to quickly learn and memorize every single phrase that we reviewed in our first class. One thing that was helpful for me, was to practice talking to myself even when I did not have anyone to practice with just to help me master the sounds of the Turkish alphabet. So far, I am very content with my language learning journey.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Rmf0Sye2-ivJM1NIJdh3FozRcKryN6Il/view?usp=sharing ;

This semester has actually been a real eye-opening experience for me in terms of learning about myself as a language learner and cultural explorer. My overall goal was to be able to gain a sense of fluency but more realistically become more comfortable and confident in my Korean. I think the most important thing I learned was that I was approaching my language learning incorrectly. One of the most helpful things I learned was that not every sound can be imitated from one language to another. This has helped improve my pronunciations tremendously. I had a tendency to translate or sound out new Korean words that I didn’t know while reading through an English phonetic inventory. Even with the Korean alphabet, I would attempt to match words/letters that sounded the same in the English alphabet. Culturally I was able to translate some of the experiences I had abroad into my language learning which was very interesting. I’ve never viewed culture from an angle like that. I’ve realized how big of an impact culture has had on me, especially as a Korean American.

The most difficult part about my language learning experience this semester was probably trying to get rid of the English translation in my head whenever I heard Korean. This is probably my biggest hurdle in gaining fluency as I’m unable to switch my internal monologue automatically. I attempted to learn how to type in Korean this semester but ultimately failed to do so due to just how difficult it was to learn that kind of muscle memory in such a short time.

I will likely continue my learning journey by keeping in contact with my language partner and maybe visiting Korea in the near future.

I think the section on bilinguals was helpful to me. It sort of helped me figure out where I placed in terms of the 3 different classifications. I moved from the US to Korea back to the US at a very early age so my situation is a bit different. My parents also did not know English so they prioritized me and my brothers learning English over Korean.

I’d love to get to learn more about the historical development of the Korean language and the significant changes it had.

This past month we had a focus on Korean history and the gym. We watched a couple different Korean dramas/movies. My favorite one was probably The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure, which recently came out. The film was set during the Joseon Dynasty period so we gained many different cultural aspects from the film although it may not have been historically accurate. I particularly enjoyed the film because Han Hyo-joo was starring. The film was a bit comedic but had some history trivia which Jannette gave a small quiz on to make sure we were listening and understanding.

In addition, me and Jannette began watching Gym Jong Kook. This is basically Jong Kook’s gym vlogs where he works out by himself and at times with other famous celebrities. Our main focus was learning some of the gym lingo. We learned how to properly work out in terms of form and getting that ‘느낌’. One of my favorite words that Jong Kook used a lot was ‘맛있어’ which basically means yummy. He would often say this when he felt the pump going as he was working out. We also focused on the body parts used at the gym which helped me with my presentation.

Another thing we discussed was the pali pali culture in Korea. We realized how apparent this was in literally all aspects of Korea. From the way they walk, to how they write, and even etiquette. This brough us to a sort of origin of the pali pali culture which was during the ‘Miracle of the Han River.’ Where it was all about rapid expansion and growth.

Finally, we wrapped our semester by going on a trip to Northern Virginia with some other SDLC students. We got some KBBQ and reflected on our semester.

For this last cultural post, I wanted to explore a traditional element of Portuguese culture and decided upon exploring music. My language partner had told me to see what I could find on folk music because he believed it was quite popular in the culture. Upon further research, it turns out that is exactly right. In Portugal, there’s a huge tradition of music called Fado music which essentially is comparable to longstanding folk music. Fado music roots back to stylistic music of previous working class and poor generations, and is best described as melodic and somewhat melancholy. The word fado translates specifically to “fate” or “destiny”, and really stresses mournful tunes and lyrics. Many common songs in the genre refer to the sea, and is linked to the concept of homesickness, longing, and nostalgia. Some say it is the genre of longing to be home. Within fado, two main genres exist: Lisbon style and Coimbra style. Lisbon style of Fado is much more popular within the country and is signified by audience engagement with clapping. On the other hand, Coimbra style Fado is much more refined as seen as a formal music style to show appreciation of something. This style dates back long ago and demonstrated its significance when Amália Rodrigues passed away, known around the country as the “Queen of Fado”, three days of national mourning were declared for everyone. This is something that’s been engrained in culture for a long time.

Accompanying the actual music, is the traditional dance and movements of Fado. The stylistic dances have differed greatly over time and really depending on the era it came from. Some typical styles include: energetic couple routines, single song and dance combined, and large crowd circles joining hands in dance. A lot of the dancing portion of Fado stems back to where Fado entertainers were from in the early nineteenth century. A lot of Fado singers or entertainers were from distinctly urban areas of the country. In these areas, tradition evolved over time to be both song and dance instead of just song unaccompanied by any movement. These entertainers then spread the tradition of dance across the country with their performances, and it became a typical phenomena for both to have its place in Fado.

Fado music has transcended typical Portuguese entertainment for generations and something that the country has tried to protect. If one visits portugal today, the visit is absolutely incomplete without listening to or seeing some Fado music be performed. The typical venue for this is now public squares around the country or private event type organizations putting on traditional folk performances. In addition, there even are Fado restaurants in some places throughout the country. This combines a unique interactive experience of song and dance with dining. Some of the most famous ones I found during my research were: Casa de Linhars and O Faia. Both are in Portugal and have continued to operate to this day. 

In addition to this research, I’ve also linked some videos for reference to a traditional Fado type song. 

Songs: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ved_vBZSY2w 

For this last language post, my partner and I decided to explore more into linguistic differences between Spanish and Portuguese. We had done this a little in the past and it’s helped to expand my understanding of the language when thinking about it in terms of how something would be done in Spanish. In the past we’ve discussed how ficar doesn’t exist in the language, how ão typically replaces the Spanish ending ion, and some other things. For this specific month, we wanted to continue building my basic understanding of the language, so one section of meetings were blocked off as review of some of the basics and vocabulary we’d already covered, and then the other half of meetings were strictly into this new exploration between the differences of Spanish and Portuguese. This was really helpful because the act of practice and retention is the best way for me to really learn anything. So, being forced into this recalling of what I learned previously has done wonders for me. On a side note, that learning process of constantly recalling information might be my biggest takeaway from this whole class and process. I never really understood the value and challenges of trying to remember something foreign, but you really have to work to commit things to memory through practice. However, with all that being said, this post will focus on my learning of the new material contrasting the Spanish and Portuguese languages.

One of our main learning focuses that we covered this month was the uses of the word “a gente”. Now a gente on its surface kind of is similar to the Spanish word of gente and similarly means “the people”, but it is actually much different. In Portuguese, a gente typically replaces the formal “nós” in Portuguese, which is nosotros in Spanish, and typically is used in everyday conversational conventions. Interestingly, one would never see a gente written in any formal texts or even in more formal conversations, but in everyday speech it’s almost completely expected. Nobody even thinks of it different, and it can be used very uniquely. For example, one in speech would say, “A gente sempre fala Português”, which means “We always speak Portuguese”. However, in written form or contextually this would be “Nós sempre falamos Portuguese”, which means exactly the same thing. It’s an interesting quirk of the language for sure and one that was super interesting to me. In Spanish, that would be “nosotros siempre hablamos Portuguese”, which is more similar to the second form with “nòs” for sure. 

In addition to learning about a gente, we also touched upon the usage of you within Portuguese and Brazil specifically. In Brazil, for example, tu (you) began not being used in most of the country actually, and the word você became the standard. However, tu is still used in Portuguese, but it is used differently depending on the region where it is spokes. Outside of Brazil, in the rest of the Portuguese-speaking world, like in Europe, the difference between tu and você is rather similar to that of in Brazil and both are still used with their original connotation. Which essentially means that você is the formal form and tu is the informal form.  Examples: Tu tá quieto, cara. Tá tudo bem?

Moving forward, our focus will be not to add any additional learning but try and keep up with what I already learned. I really learned a lot and look forward to the last two culminating assignments of the course.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pfwiv0XZaxb3d30H0E9thVhTzgOekgvy/view?usp=sharing

Over this past semester, I definitely enjoyed actively trying to reconnect with my language of heritage/culture. My objective was to increase my communication proficiency, something I feel like was able to accomplish via multiple topic based conversations and external resources, like podcasts. I also tried to improve my Korean knowledge in general, such as strengthening knowledge of grammatical structures, application of certain affixes, and expanding my vocabulary. While I definitely enjoyed my time improving Korean, I was also very much interested by the concurrent class I took, SDLC 105. I never had much interaction with the actual structures of language, I had only tried to learn different ones. The closest I got to analyzing language at all was probably in highschool English class, and we never really delved into the structure of a sentence. I was pleasantly surprised with the class, and I learned that I enjoy learning about linguistics. The things I found difficult pertained more to self learning than classes/sessions, such as not remembering to correct errors in enunciation or grammar. I would attempt to solve this by writing notes and reviewing such notes occasionally. Thankfully my language partner was accommodating, and I never felt like I lacked practice. I plan to continue my learning via study abroad in Korea next semester, but with constant practice when I come back. I can also probably keep continuing to listen to communicatory audios, like podcasts and radios.

I think the reading which introduced us to the opposition of aspects between languages, like collectivism vs individualism, etc. was really interesting. I also enjoyed reading about extinct languages, and all the processes taken place to revive a dead language. Although I don’t know exactly what I would like to learn more about, I think less technical articles and those of more interest suit me the best. When articles had too much terminology or were complex, I definitely had a harder time comprehending them. Overall, though, all the articles were interesting and it was great learning about the various aspects of language.

For this finally bi-weekly report, I decided to write about the time that Rachel, Aliya, and I decided to go to a local Korean bbq restaurant to get an authentic Korean food experience to close our semester. When I first came to Richmond, I was shocked to find out that there were not many Korean dining scenes available. For instance, they only had a Korean fusion restaurant called “J-Kogi” that I was not really fond of. Back where I live (in Chicago), my suburb is booming with Korean bbq restaurants, so I was very excited to hear from Aliya when she said that she found a new restaurant called “Korean Garden” that we could go experience. For this meeting, we decided to focus on the Korean bbq experience in particular and how this is such a huge part of Korea’s dining culture. When Rachel and I researched the background of kbbq, we found out that this originated in Korean all the way back in 37 B.C. when “맥젹" or fire-roasted skewers can be offered to the king. This was later known as “bulgogi” as well. When we first entered the restaurant, an old female server started to talk to us in Korean as she suspected that we knew how to speak fluently. We referred to her as “아줌마" which vaguely translates to an old lady and we were able to share an authentic conversation about her about my study abroad experience in Korea two semesters ago and if she had any food she recommended from the menu. She recommended us “갈비" which translates to marinated beef and we also had traditional “삼겹살" which means pork belly. We portrayed some Korean culture by having the youngest “막내" aka “maknae” do the cooking because traditionally in Korea, the youngest person on the team would do all the grilling of the meat. It stems from a hierarchy of “hoobae” and “sunbae” and usually the hoobaes/maknaes have do the cooking. Therefore, Rachel being the youngest out of the three, started to grill the meats and we simply had a lot of fun taking turns cooking afterward. We also got to experience a lot of the different “반찬,” otherwise known as side dishes that came with the meat. The lady offered us “계란찜,” “떡볶이,” “된장찌개,” and more. Eating kbbq with Rachel and Aliya brought back a lot of good memories and nostalgia about Korea and it was such a great time being able to eat good food and share a great conversation with them and the restaurant staff. I don’t cook too much Korean food at home, but I hope to change that and cook more authentic dishes this summer. 

Podcast

In Korea, busking (“버스킹”) is a popular form of artistic expression, where performers sing/dance on the streets of busy streets. This isn’t unfamiliar to us, since street performances happen all around the world, but in Korea, dance performances are more common, which is something that is less common around the world. In areas like Hongdae, the way the streets are designed allow for open performances, whether it be stairs surrounding an open area, or wide pedestrian walkways. It is important to keep in mind that like many metropolitan areas, many people in Korea walk around rather than drive, which is also because of the public transportation infrastructure and the size of Korea itself. If you go to certain areas of Seoul, you can see many vocal/instrumental performers, and in some instances there are dedicated youtube/streaming channels, where performers/strangers perform and people can view in real time. One youtube channel, for example, called “거리노래방” (Literal translation: street karaoke), features random/spontaneous performers/contestants singing to a song, an you can see both a real crowd and a bunch of real time comments. Many channels also host dance performances/competitions, where they either perform dances or invite people to dance. All this happens in the streets/walkways of busy cities, and it can be seen as a part of Korean culture.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1HC04yeSsZOKclQ7v7D6n3Z8h5Mbh3FXwDI74I83M6EQ/edit?usp=sharing ;

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14IHcaSqSHErfdfU8D1rwZyYmM_yYt4JV/view?usp=sharing

For my last cultural post, I have decided to explore and analyze BIGBANG’s new comeback single, “Still Life.” “Still Life'' is BIGBANG's first song as a band since 2018's “Flower Road.” This is a huge moment for the boy band since they have been on a 4-year hiatus due to controversial scandals, military enlistments, and marriage. Before, BIGBANG was a 5 member group, however, this is not the case as they have made their comeback as a quartet team. The reason is that Seung Ri was kicked out of the group due to his scandal regarding aiding in prostitution and embezzlement which led him to be get sentenced to three years of jail. To be honest, I thought BIGBANG would never be able to make a comeback because all 5 members were highly problematic and were involved in many ugly controversies. For instance, TOP was accused of smoking weed in the military. For context, I learned that weed is a huge crime in Korea and even the possession of it can get you in very serious trouble. In addition, one of the other members Daesung was accused of driving under the influence which led to him accidentally killing someone. Lastly, G Dragon, the leader of the group, was also accused of doing drugs and tested positive for the drug test. All of these circumstances combined led many of the Korean fans and viewers to assume that it would be almost impossible for BIGBANG to ever come back into the spotlight again, however, they were all proven wrong as they came out with a new single 2 weeks ago. The public opinion has been pretty positive as many fans longed to hear music from this infamous group once again. When I heard the song, I was deeply saddened as it was about “seasons passing” and it greatly reflected the members’ somber days as it seemed like they were ready to walk away forever from their flamboyant lives. Although I was really ecstatic about their new single, it seems that the new single is their formal goodbye to the music industry as the members are all seen walking away from their place in the music video. In addition, the music video does not show a shot with all four members in the same location. They are all scattered throughout the scenes and singing separately. They are all separated from each other which netizens are assuming that it means they are all going on a different path and thus disbanding in the near future. I am unsure if this was their intention behind the video, but I really hope to see more of their presence in Korea’s music industry. 

One ceremony that foreigners could quickly learn about another culture is the elements to a wedding. In modern day, many Korean weddings have a mix of Western and Korean elements to allow the couple to connect with their Korean heritage and bring a modern aesthetic to the wedding. There are quite a few interesting things involving a traditional Korean wedding and the first aspect would be the type of clothing.

One iconic piece of clothing in Korean culture is the hanbok. The hanbok was worn daily in the past, but in modern times, the traditional clothing is reserved for special holidays or ceremonies. The hanbok is made out of silk and consists of many different garments depending on the style that the wearer is going for. For example, in a traditional Korean wedding, a bride could wear a basic hanbok consisting of a chima (a long skirt) and a wonsam (intricate long sleeved upper garment). On the other hand, the groom would wear a samogwandae that is similar to court attire in the chosun dynasty. In addition to these beautiful garments, the colors that the bride and groom wear can have significant meaning. The colors red and blue in Korean culture symbolize the confucius ideas of yin and yang, a balance between the two forces. Therefore, the hanbok colors that some couples may wear are red and blue to signal unity and balance in their relationship. The mother of the bride would wear warm, light tones such as pink or purple while the groom’s mother would wear cool tones such as blue or gray. 

One important traditional element in a Korean wedding is the paebaek. The paebaek is a traditional tea ceremony that is part of a Korean wedding itinerary. In the paebaek ceremony, the groom and bride wear the traditional hanbok and they are seated in front of both sets of parents. The couple conduct some bows to signal respect and give warm tea to the parents. Both the bride and the groom hold a piece of white cloth to symbolize unity and catch dates and chestnuts thrown to them from the parents. The dates and chestnuts supposedly represent the number of children the couple will have. The chestnuts represent daughters and dates represent sons. Additionally, there are quite a few foods placed on the table in front of the parents including beef jerky, little appetizers, and a tower of chestnuts and dates. Those three platters of food were found traditionally, but in modern day, the low table would be filled with food. One of the interesting things that the groom does towards the end of the ceremony is the groom piggy back the bride two times around the table. 

From this research, it gives me a sense that in modern weddings, some elements of a traditional Korean wedding may be left out or modified based on the resources available. This demonstrates that the traditional aspects such as wearing a hanbok and the paebaek ceremony is used to honor the bride and/or groom’s Korean heritage and to celebrate the couple’s now established unity and status. Therefore, not all the small details that were once in a traditional Korean ceremony must be applied, but instead, do as the couple wishes.

https://www.brides.com/traditional-korean-wedding-5087200

The highlights of this month include learning about iconic places in South Korea as part of my cultural presentation, freshen up on previous language topics, continuing with TTMIK textbook and notebook, listening to a weekly podcast, and creating a podcast with Somyung and Peace about the activities that we did over this semester. 

South Korea has numerous tourist places that capture their fast paced culture and their traditional side. The traditional sites are attractive to tourists because the building architecture is unique and reveals South Korea’s history along with it. For example, one of my favorite places that I researched about was the Jeonju Hanok Village. This village was situated behind a busy city, but the village itself was quiet and with traditional architecture. One of the most noticeable parts of this village was the type of roofing the shops have. The roofs are made with thin rectangular cement bricks laid over top of each other and the corners of the roof are curved up. This type of roofing style gave a traditional aesthetic and was depicted across many historical buildings including Gyeonbukgung palace. 

I reviewed Sino and Native Korean numbers, present/past/future tense, and days of the week. Sino-Korean numbers were easier for me to understand because they sound similar to Cantonese/Mandarin characters and forming numbers higher than 100 is a similar format in Chinese. On the other hand, native Korean numbers are still the system that I am still having trouble with remembering the pronunciation for the higher numbers such as 7, 8 and 9. One, two and three are easier to understand because I hear them in Korean reality shows. For example, when the actors are taking a photo, they often say, “One, two, three!” or when they are starting a game. Therefore, I believe I need to hear the number system being used in order to remember it better. The tenses and days of the week were topics that I learned a few weeks ago, so I didn’t have a hard time recalling them from my memory. However, I still get somewhat nervous when conjugating the verbs to match the tense because there are some verbs that don’t follow the structure sometimes for easier pronunciation. 

These past couple of weeks, I learned Korean counting units, how to do self-introductions, and months of the year. One of the grammar topics that I think makes learning Mandarin hard for beginners is the concept of counting units because it feels unnatural when coming from an English background. Therefore, I was surprised when learning that Korean had counting units as well. This topic adds an additional layer of complexity to learning Korean. “Ja lu” or “gae” can be used to count objects such as pencils, pens, and knives. For self-introductions, there weren't many new topics to learn, rather, the TTMIK book organized the list of topics to talk about when introducing yourself. The months of the year weren’t difficult to understand either because they follow the Sino-Korean system. The names of the month correspond to their order in the year. For example, January is the first month of the year so it is “i-rwol” because “i” (pronounced “ee”) is one in Sino-Korean. 

This has been a very productive semester because I had a structured syllabus that guided me week-by-week on what to focus on and identified valuable resources to help me learn Korean. Thank you Dr. Soloway for this opportunity!

Korean Class Podcast - Peace Anna Somyung