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In the past two weeks in Korean class, we have learned some new words, a suffix and start to learn polite informal expression. We learned a lot of Korean words about traffic tools. Because there are many foreign words in Korean, I found that some of them are similar to English or Chinese pronunciation when I was learning the words. “Subway” in Korean is “지하철”( Ji Ha Cheol), this sounds to me like what people in Hong Kong call the subway. In one of my favorite Korean reality shows, I found that Koreans love Hong Kong movies and stars from the last century, which I guess may be the reason for the “subway”s pronunciation. “Bus” in Korean is “버스” (beo se), this pronunciation is almost identical to that in English. Except for the word “bus”, the pronunciation of  “taxi” is almost the same as that of English, which is “택시” (taeg si). Besides these words, we also learned bicycle (자전거), car (자동차), boat (배), train (기차) and plane (비행기). Ms. Kim tells us that South Korea, especially Seoul, has a very developed subway system. The metro system covers almost the entire city of Seoul, with some suburbs accessible. I remembered that when I visited Seoul in the previous summer vacation, I used to take the subway everywhere. It was easy to find out how to get there by the subway by downloading an app with subway lines. There are lots of small shops and convenience stores in the subway stations in Seoul, and I even saw bakeries, cafes and restaurants, which are really convenient for office workers and students.

In class we learned the use of the affix “으시 / -시”, which is attached to a verb stems.  It is used to express respect for the subject of the sentence. n view of the composition of Korean words, there are two situations, one ends with a vowel sound and the other ends with a consonant sound. Just like the final polite & formal style verb ending, “십니다”, when the verb stem ends in a consonant, we will use “으시”. When the verb stem ends in a vowel, we will use “-시”. To get a better understanding, Ms. Kim gives us a few examples. “읽다” means “to read” and its main part “읽” is end with “ㄱ”, which is a consonant, so by the definition we need to use “으시” and write as “읽으시다”. However, when we look at “보다”, which means “to look”, we can see its main part “보” is end with “ㅗ”, and since it’s a vowel, by adding “-시” we get word “보시다”. 

In addition to talking to people who are older than us, we are more likely to talk to our friends or to people who are younger than us in our daily lives, and there is no need to use polite formal expression. So Ms. Kim planning to teach us the polite informal expression “아요/-어요” in next class and this final verb ending is in present tense. She also told us that if we were familiar with someone older than ourselves, we could use polite informal expression with their permission.

Although many of those in America had already been self-quarantined, Maryland’s governor has urged the residents to stay within the state at home. I enjoy running outside with my siblings at night, but because of the order that we can’t be outside after 8:00 pm, I haven’t really been outside of my home lately. Instead, my family liked to do movie nights together, so I was glad that for homework, Jenna assigned me to watch and reflect on a Korean show. Like I mentioned before, I chose to watch Reply 1997 on Netflix. Since Jenna had already seen the show before me, I was able to ask her any questions I had. The show is about the life of a teenage girl and her friends starting from high school to their high school reunion. The fun part of this series is that you have to use which one of her friends ends up as her husband. As the story progresses, most of the boys can eliminated, but they only reveal the husband in the last episode. Sadly, while I was talking to my mom about the show, she spoiled the ending (even though it was who I thought was going to be the husband).

As I started watching the first episode, I noticed right away that the setting was in Busan and all the characters spoke that region’s dialect (saturi). It was actually very difficult for me to completely understanding what they were saying. Also, the fact that they were also speaking much faster than how my family and I speak challenged my listening skills. Even with these obstacles, the content was pretty easy to understand because the characters were supposed to be around me age. Since the setting was in 1997, it was interesting to see what kids of activities teenagers in Korea did during that time. Some of the scenes were taken at their school and I found it interesting how each class had a head representative. The pressure on how each student was ranked was also shown. I thought that I had learned a lot about the culture of Korea, and I was able to compare that to how much Korea has changed in the past 2.5 decades. While most students have phone nowadays, one way that Korean students communicated in in 1997 was through pagers. Some of the characters mentioned that if one of them needed something, they should “beep” the person. This sort of reminded me of how doctors might’ve communicated with each other in the hospital. Another method of communicating that was shown was the online chat rooms. The main character would sometimes chat with random people (or her friends of course) online. This make me think of the chat rooms my friends and I would use with our Nintendo D.S.

When I was writing my first reflection, I didn’t have much to say because I had only watched an episode and only knew some of the background information. For the second week, I watched a couple more episodes and I was able to compare some of the experiences the main character went through with some of my own. It was difficult at first to write all of this in Korean because I knew what to say but didn’t know how to. When I was in this scenario, I tried to repeat what I wanted to say out loud before attempting to write it out. It felt good to write multiple paragraphs in Korean and I could see my progress.

During the past two weeks, the main tasks that I worked on were speaking in Persian. My language partner was flexible with our learning plan during these two past weeks as the distress coronavirus in the world has increased. My last journal was about the spread of this virus in Iran and the struggles that it was causing on people of this nation, including the closing of schools and worship sites. Most of our time was spent discussing and analyzing the increase of this virus in Iran and around the world.  At this point, there were only identified cases of the virus in the state of Washington in the US. We not only looked at news provided by Afghan and Persian channels but also looked at news from American channels like the New York Times to compare the language that was used to talk about this virus. 

What we hoped to accomplish this week was to analyze the impact of a global issue that started in one country but how it rapidly spread around the world. What I learned from this lesson is that our world is more connected than we think. Be it via travelling abroad, forced migration or economic imports/exports, there was a great potential for this virus to spread around the world. At this point, this virus is not only impacting people in China or Iran but a great spread has also been seen in Italy and Spain. The second major thing that we discussed was the unpreparedness of countries to handle such situations. Most countries including Iran spend a lot of money and resources in developing nuclear weapons, however, at a time like this, those things are meaningless. Some governments and political institutions continue to call this virus a scam but from what we have seen in China and Iran, I think the rest of the world should be concerned about this virus. The third thing that I discussed with my language partner was how the news about this virus was being communicated to people. We questioned if at a moment like this, is it rational to use a kind of language that hides the truth from people for the sake of not causing them panic? Given Iran’s approach to this which I discussed in my last journal, I don’t think it is wise to hide the truth from the people and manipulation should not be used to persuade people to stay calm. Language can be a great tool to send awareness to people but at the same time, it can be used to persuade people to do the wrong things.

Since this virus has reached Iran, this topic has made its way into our learning plan. The reason for this is that it continues to impact the social, economical and political issues that we are analyzing and reading on the news about Iran and Afghanistan. Regardless, my community partner and I continue to work on some of the goals that we had set during the first week. Last few weeks, I took the time to type on my computer in Persian, this week because it was more discussion-based, I took notes in my notebook. Similar to the last weeks, the strategies that we used during this week were mainly through watching videos, listening and speaking. I watched videos on BBC Persian, New York Times and Tolo News.

Picture Credit: The Atlantic 

These past two weeks have been all about adjusting to meeting with my language partner and working on setting aside time to utilize the online resources as much as possible. I have been using the How to Study Korean website a lot and it is very helpful with giving me lots of practice with listening and reading. I find that setting a schedule for myself to practice every day is much easier when I am not on campus as I don’t have so many other things that I have to do while running around campus.  

While I practice listening, writing, and reading, one of my major weaknesses is mixing up certain characters especially with the vowel sounds. Because I have this problem, I am sometimes unable to write or read the words correctly. I think for the next couple weeks, I will be working on strengthening this problem by focusing on the differences of the sounds of the vowels. One of my strengths is being able to recognize simple words easily like 사과 or 노래 or 뽀뽀 which are apple, song, and kiss. These are easy words that I can easily recognize. I think writing out the words is harder for me. I think another thing that I can practice over the next couple weeks is writing words down from listening to them in dramas. One last thing that I can do is to practice typing them after writing them down. This will improve my memory with them. 

I think when I practice speaking with my language partner, I am still struggling with pronunciation which is also correlated with my mix up of the different vowel sounds. I think once I am able to fix the major problem of mixing up the sounds, I will be able to fix the pronunciation problems. I think I enjoy practicing in person rather than through a webcam. 

One thing we talked about was the current pandemic and how much it is affecting the world. I think it’s interesting that South Korea is the “model” country for this pandemic. Their healthcare system seems to be something the United States should aspire to follow considering they were able to get through this coronavirus pandemic easily with many resources. One thing that we discussed that South Korea did was that they sent out a notification whenever a new case happened and you were able to get alerts from an app whether you were in the area of someone who had coronavirus or not. Earlier on they retraced the steps of those who tested positive and those who might have had contact with someone who tested positive using security camera footage, credit card records, and GPS data from cars and cellphones. Once there were more people who tested positive, they had to rely on the app to send out mass notifications to people. I thought this was interesting and something that the United States would probably not do because privacy was given up. But I think considering this pandemic is a serious issue, I’m sure that sacrificing their privacy was worth it. 

When I traveled around Korea last summer, something that was obvious to me were the different types of dialects people used depending on which area they live in Korea. If I was to receive a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of Korean language and culture, I would want to learn more about the influences on how different dialects were formed and how a region’s culture evolved as the dialect was developed. Korea has six main dialects, also known as saturis, which were most likely divided up by mountain ranges. In America where some say “soda” while others say “pop”; in the same way, some Korean saturis can call the same objects different names. My mom speaks the standard dialect while my dad grew up with the Jeolla-do saturi, so communicating with my dad’s parents have been more difficult for me. I think that the formation of different dialects is fascinating, and I would like to understand more about how they came to be.

Another aspect of Korea I would like to further study is how other countries influenced their culture. With so many other surrounding countries like China and Japan, I want to find out what parts of their culture they have in common with each other. When looking at language, Korean is pretty much its own family but have many words are similar to those in Chinese and Japanese. Since they were close enough to have some overlap in vocabulary, I want to also find the overlap of their customs and traditions.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been at home for about three weeks now. Since everyone has been attempting to adjust to their new reality as the University has moved online, I have not been engaging in Korean lessons with my language learning partner. But I recently got in touch with her a few days ago and we have made our plans to meet weekly for the rest of the semester. Regardless of the situation, there have been a few ways I have been attempting to practice my language learning while at home. Although not as great as face-to-face instruction, I have tried to make the most of what I have available and in some ways, I have been able to uniquely supplement my studies.

For starters, I have been able to practice my speaking on a daily basis since I am now home with my family. This was one of the goals that I had established in the beginning of the semester and since it was not easy for me to speak outside of my lessons with Jimin, it has been great to practice my speaking. I speak some Korean with my sister but mostly with my mom. She speaks to me almost entirely in Korean, and will just translate afterwards if she happens to use any words that I do not know. 

Another thing that has been helpful is watching Korean dramas. My mom loves to watch a few episodes every night after dinner and I started joining her out of boredom. The three dramas that we have been into are Itaewon Class 이태원 클라쓰, Memorist 메모리스트, and Eccentric! Chef Moon 유별나! 문셰프. Outside of serving as pure entertainment, watching K-dramas has helped me witness language use in reality-like situations and I have also learned some new vocabulary.

The last thing that I have implemented is switching my iPhone Siri from American English to Korean. I initially wanted to change the entire system in my phone to Korean, but it ended up being really difficult to use my phone. However, that is something I want to do in the future so I am hoping to become better at my target language soon. When I first changed my Siri, I had forgotten I had done it until I tried to use the Maps app on my phone. I was so shocked when the GPS started speaking in Korean to me and I honestly could not understand a lot of what she was saying. Luckily, my mom was in the car with me and she was able to translate everything. I never really used Siri but after that experience, I decided to make more use of it so that I could practice speaking and listening to Korean. I now use her to send texts, make phone calls, and check the weather. These are definitely tasks that I could complete with my own hands but I think that it has helped with my articulation and in general, has provided a way for me to continue speaking.

I hoped to learn more grammar and review the vocabulary that I’ve been learning. I think I was able to complete these goals these past two weeks.

The past two weeks I have been able to meet with Professor Kim over Zoom. I think that these meetings have been going well and I’ve still been able to learn Korean. We have been able to do the activities that we did in person, over Zoom, which is really helpful. As usual, Professor Kim began the classes by asking me in Korean how I’ve been and just have casual conversation about how our weeks have been. After catching up, we went over a list of vocabulary. For the first week it was new vocabulary and a mix of vocabulary that I was kind of familiar with. For the most part I was able to get a majority of the vocabulary but had forgotten some of the words that we learned. After going over vocabulary, we learned some new grammar. Professor Kim gave me a worksheet with a bunch of grammar particles on it. We went over each grammar particle and when it would be used. She also made me read example sentences. This helped me get an idea of what context I would use the grammar particle, as well as practice my reading skills. I’ve noticed that I’m able to read a little quicker, which is encouraging. For the second week, we had a similar format. We went over the vocabulary list again, and I was able to remember more words than last time. I think repetition is good when it comes to remembering vocabulary. After going over vocabulary we went over the rest of the grammar particles.

I was also able to meet with Jannette these past two weeks. Again, we reviewed some of the things that I learned with Professor Kim. I had a hard time remembering the grammar particles and when to use them, so we had some practice with that. Although we practiced them in very simple sentences, it was good practice. I think that I’ve been getting a better understanding and the speaking practice definitely helps. Being able to speak Korean more is very helpful when it comes to me remembering things, so speaking Korean with Jannette is a great way to practice.

In order to practice what I’ve learned these past two weeks; I will go over the vocabulary that I’ve learned. The more I go over it, the more it’ll stick. I will also look over the grammar particles and try to use them in sentences when I can.

I think my strategies have been effective so far. I’ve been remembering the vocabulary more and when I watch Korean dramas, I am able to pick up on more things.

In order to build on what I’ve learned so far, I hope to expand my vocabulary and build upon the grammar that I’ve learned so far. I’ve been watching Korean dramas these days, and I think that it is a great way to keep my mind thinking about Korean. When I watch, I try to pick up on words and grammar. I will also repeat things that I hear. I’ll practice speaking as much as I can with Korean friends and use apps to learn more vocabulary.

As a cultural artifact, I watched a Korean drama called Itaewon Class. This drama is about a young man, who is also an ex-convict, who opens up his own street bar. It follows his journey from when he was a high school student, all the way to his grown-up years.

In terms of entertainment, I thought that this show was really good and entertaining. I would recommend it to anyone who is into Korean dramas or is just looking for a show to watch. Not only was it just fun and exciting to watch, I think that I was able to learn more about Korean culture from this show.

One aspect that I learned about was the night life in Korea. The main character decides to open a street bar, which are very popular places for people to hang out at night and on the weekends. Since a lot of the show took place in these kind of nightlife areas, I felt like I had a glimpse of what Korean night life is like. It seems very lively and many people go out to these street bars and restaurants to eat with their friends. I also saw that the most popular alcohol is Korea is soju and I constantly saw the characters drinking it in the show.

I also learned about the Korean drinking culture as well. Something I thought that was interesting that I never knew before was that, when someone drinks with a parent, it is common practice for them to turn to the side and drink. I guess that this is a sign of respect in some way. Something else that I noticed was that people would always shake the bottle, elbow the bottom of the soju bottle before opening it, and then serve it. I’m not too sure about the background of it, but I just thought that it was something interesting that I probably would’ve never learned in a classroom setting. A final thing that I noticed about Korean drinking culture is that there is a phrase when drinking soju. The main character drank with his father for the first time and his father asked him if the soju is sweet or bitter. The main character said that it was sweet, indicating that it was a good day. It is said that when you’ve had a good day, the soju will taste sweet, but if you have a bad day, it will taste bitter. I thought that this was really interesting, and again, is something about Korean culture that I wouldn’t have learned in a classroom.

A final thing that I learned about Korean culture was their cuisine. Another aspect of the show is a battle between this small restaurant, owned by the main character, and a giant restaurant company. Since there was a battle between these two food companies, food was obviously a huge part of the show. I got to see different Korean dishes, such as soondubu jjigae, which is a soft tofu stew, and other stews. I noticed that Korean cuisine involves a lot of soups and stews which is something that is very different from American cuisine.

In conclusion, I learned a lot about Korean culture from watching Itaewon Class, that I wouldn’t have learned about otherwise. I think that watching Korean dramas, or shows in whatever language you are learning, is a great way to learn about aspects of their culture that you wouldn’t learn about in a classroom. Itaewon Class was a great show and I would highly recommend it to everyone.

Due to my state’s recent stay-at-home order as well as the COVID-19 outbreak in general, I have been spending a lot more time on social media, especially Instagram. I recently saw this trend going around called “whipped coffee”, which seems to have originated on TikTok. After seeing multiple posts of people making the coffee, I also noticed that it was being called “dalgona coffee”, and I knew that dalgona was a Korean candy. As far as I knew, dalgona did not contain any coffee products so I decided to do more research to look into this trend.

Dalgona coffee is basically the opposite of a latte, meaning that instead of frothing the milk, you froth the coffee component. The recipe is pretty simple– all you have to do is mix equal parts of instant coffee, sugar, and water. The goal is to whip all three ingredients together until you achieve a light and airy texture, like in whipped cream. Most people pour the whipped coffee over ice and milk, but I have also seen some people pour it over steamed milk for a warm drink. I personally dislike the taste of coffee but a lot of my friends have been enjoying the trend so I wanted to try something similar. Instead of using instant coffee powder, I decided to try it with matcha powder. I poured my whipped mixture over iced soymilk; it ended up being pretty good and not too sweet! I don’t own a mixer so I wouldn’t make this drink on a daily basis since I would have to hand whip it every time, but I can see myself making it as a special treat. It was really aesthetically pleasing as well as tasty so I can see why it was trending.

As for dalgona itself, I also did some research on its history. It is a popular traditional Korean street food that became popular in the 70s. It only requires two ingredients and is pretty easy to make. In South Korea, they typically heat sugar in a large metal spoon over a flame. You continuously mix it and when it becomes completely melted, you quickly add a bit of baking powder. This causes a chemical reaction and the mixture becomes foamy and increases in size. After mixing for a few seconds, you quickly pour the mixture onto parchment paper and put a skewer in it while it hardens. In Korea, the street vendors usually flatten it with a metal press and use small metal cookie cutters to make cute shapes in it. Once it has completely hardened, you can put it off and eat it like a lollipop!

I recently watched an episode of “The Return of the Superman”– a popular South Korean reality-variety show that features celebrity fathers who are left alone to care for their young children– and one of the dads tried to make dalgona for his child. He attempted multiple times and continuously failed because he kept burning the sugar mixture. He eventually had to ask someone on the film crew to make it for his son and she was able to do so successfully on her first try. I am planning on trying to make this tomorrow with my sister and hopefully it will go smoothly since I know what not to do.

Although an unfortunate situation, the current COVID-19 pandemic has supplemented my language learning experience in a way that would not have occurred if we were still on campus. I came back home to Hawaii about two weeks ago, which was the Friday of our original spring break. Coronavirus had started to slowly appear in the United States a few weeks before that but until mid-February, most people had not paid any attention to it since it was not as prevalent in our own communities. However, my mother and grandmother frequently keep up with Korean news broadcasts, so I initially knew a great deal more about the situation in South Korea rather than in the United States. Even though I was not reading the news articles or watching the news for myself, I was able to learn a lot simply from hearing my family talk about it. Since I did not hear or read the information myself, I did not learn about any of the medical terminology, but rather gained a better understanding of Korean culture.

I am a Healthcare Studies and Philosophy double-major and my specific interest is in bioethics. Witnessing the past few weeks has been a very surreal yet educational experience in terms of healthcare systems around the world. It was interesting to see how South Korea responded to the pandemic and the public health measures that they took to ensure the safety of their citizens. Their main methods consist of aggressive testing and contact tracing, which were swiftly implemented. Korean citizens were also extremely compliant with their government to avoid widespread infection. This made me think of when we learned about different characteristics of cultures in the beginning of the semester. The way in which Korea reacted to the outbreak is truly reflective of how Dr. Hofstede characterized the county, especially as low in individualism and high in uncertainty avoidance. Citizens were quick to adjust to governmental restrictions and rules in order to combat the virus. This is especially demonstrated in how the Korean government is strictly observing those who have the virus and conducting surveillance to find new patients. People have gladly given up their privacy because they know it is a necessary trade-off. Many healthy individuals have also been volunteering as needed to further support the government’s efforts. Social trust is clearly very high and Koreans are very adaptable, which has prevented a great number of deaths, even with the country’s proximity to China.

What I learned through observing Korea’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been useful in enhancing my language learning. The qualities that Koreans exhibit are also reflected in their language, which I also pointed out in some of my past posts. My new knowledge has not only taught me more about the culture, but will prove especially useful when applied to actual communication with other Koreans. This explains why honorifics are an important aspect of the language and why communal terms– like ‘us’ and ‘we’ rather than ‘me’ and ‘I’– are heavily used. 

    Since we are not returning to campus, my language partner and I have decided to have lessons through Facetime. This past week we decided to discuss what the rest of our plan for the rest of the semester is moving forward. The plan is to utilize the most of online resources because it’s not really something we have done so far. A couple websites we were looking at using were talktomeinkorean.com and howtostudykorean.com. This is on top of a facetime session each week which will practice my speaking. Both of them are popular websites that people use to learn Korean. I have been continuing with the usage of Duolingo which has been really helpful. The online resources are more ways to strengthen my reading skills. Other than that, I always use watching kdramas as a way to strengthen my listening skills.

  So for the past two weeks I have been using these online resources to strengthen my reading and I think they are actually really helpful. How to Study Korean is really helpful where it divides everything into different units so starting at unit 0 is the Korean alphabet. Unit 1 is basic Korean grammar and the level advances every unit. With the units, there are also workbooks, practice worksheets, and vocabulary lists to help. It was really helpful for me to learn more about Korean grammar because I think that is an area that I have not really learned much about. Overall, the website really impressed me. The other website Talk to Me in Korean is more of what I focused on last semester. Each lesson has conversation vocabulary with audio, an explanation, and a quiz. I think this website will be helpful for me with reviewing and learning new vocabulary. This website seems to be more popular because they have a free set and a premium set where you have access to more resources if you pay a certain amount of money.  

   A new Korean drama that I am watching currently is Hi, Bye Mama! It’s a really heartwarming and sad drama. It is completely unrealistic but the concept is really interesting. The main character is a girl who died in a car accident and before she died, she was pregnant with a baby girl. During the accident, she made sure to protect her baby so that it was safely born. For five years, she has followed around her daughter and husband as a ghost not knowing that her daughter actually can see her. During this time, her husband remarried as well. When she finds out that her daughter can see ghosts, she curses out the deity or God above and ends up alive on Earth not a human but not a ghost. Her journey through saying her last goodbyes and making the last memories with her loved ones is sad to see especially when her daughter doesn’t recognize her as her own mother. From this drama, I learned about Korean shamans who can see ghosts or are connected with their spiritual side. Overall, I can finish off my semester strong with the plentiful resources that I have. 

Although I learned to write at a young age, I never attended a class with intense writing sections. I would say that my writing and reading skills aren’t as high as my listening and speaking skills. Nowadays, I prefer to type, specifically text, rather than write free hand because in this era of technology, texting is much quicker. I also tend to make frequent mistakes to the autocorrect installed in my phone is helpful to see the mistakes I’ve made. On top of that, I haven’t actively written Korean by hand in some time, so my handwriting looks like one from an elementary student. It is a bit more difficult to write because all of the vowels and consonants are squished together. In Korean there are batchims which is the final consonant and is written in the bottom position. In the word “닭” (chicken) the ㄹ and ㄱ are the batchims. English doesn’t have batchims which makes writing much more spaced out and easier.

When I decided to practice writing more sentences in Korean, I realized that all of my sentences were ending in either “다” or “요”. I got a little frustrated because I wanted to make new sentences, but when I researched it, I learned that pretty much every formal statement had ended with “다” or “요”. When looking at the relationship between simple and complex sentences, I would say that it’s similar to English and many other languages. Sentences become complex when more detail is added (number of clauses increase). The English sentence structure is subject – verb – object while Korean’s is subject – object – verb. So in the sentence, “I eat fast”, the translation in Korean would be 나는 (I) 빨리 (fast) 먹는다 (eat). Since the sentence structure is different, I sometimes find myself stumbling on how to structure a sentence correctly. I can fix myself by saying what I want to write out loud and that’ll solve the problem.

March 29 Biweekly Learning Journal

            This past week, Jenna and I went over my cultural presentation topic. I decided on presenting it on traditional Korean food. I will have a general idea of the topics to choose and what part of Korean food to dive into next week. Furthermore, Jenna and I looked over an example article with some questions in Korean. The article was about the BTS music band in Korean KPOP. The article talked about the rise of BTS and how they have become so popular internationally. The questions on the article were pretty easy to understand and find the answers to, but it was definitely a lot harder to write down the correct answer with correct spelling and grammar. The questions were stuff like, “how much money did they make on their debut album” or “what is the name of their first song called.” The questions were easy for me to differentiate and understand through context clues. I think this practice article and questions were really helpful for me to get better in Korean writing and reading comprehension. I asked Jenna to print me one or two more for this week. So, this week, Jenna brought two more articles with some questions attached to it. I worked on it during class and finished it after. We went over my answers and spelling, correcting any mistakes that I made. Another thing that we did during this week’s class was a spelling practice exercise. Jenna wrote five to six phrases in Korean and I had to identify the mistakes in each phrase. I was able to get most of the mistakes but there were a few that I thought were wrong that was right. I definitely have to get better at not second-guessing correct spelling and grammar. I hope to continue to improve on my grammar and spelling in Korean writing through the last few weeks of the semester.

            For my long-term goal in this class, I still hope to take the Korean placement test after next fall and hopefully pass the proficiency test. I think my strengths include listening and speaking in Korean, but my weaknesses are writing and reading comprehension. Compared to the beginning of this year, I definitely have gotten a lot better at reading and writing. My speaking and listening are at the same level of proficiency, but I think I have been able to clearly communicate in Korean with more diverse vocabulary as well as pronunciation of phrases correctly. For writing in Korean, I have definitely been able to be more accurate when writing in Korean as well as writing quicker than when I started learning Korean last year. I remember I couldn’t even write a full sentence correctly and quickly last year, but now I can confidently write anything in Korean without horribly mistaking some of the spelling in Korean. For next week, I will be starting to research on my cultural presentation on Korean food culture and find exactly what type of topics to research and present.

Since the university extended our spring break another week and remote learning has recently began, I have only communicated with my language partner once. Although we were a group in the start of the semester, it was decided that Jenna should meet Vivian and I separately in case of any changes that might conflict with each other’s schedule. Jenna and I decided to use the KakaoTalk app’s video call as a way to communicate and keep in touch during quarantine. In our first meeting back, we discussed our situation and how we were doing. It was kind of nice to talk to another person in Korean that wasn’t a family member. Since teaching through a screen was not the most ideal case, the homework she gave me was to watch a Korean drama. After watching, I would need to write a summary or reflection about the episode. This way, both my listening and writing skills could be put to use. Jenna gave me a few suggestions, but instead of a newer series, I decided to go with a drama called Reply 1997 which came out around eight years ago.

Since I have only stayed home and with an occasional walk, I have been spending much of my time with my family. Both of my parents moved to America in their thirties, so they are much more comfortable communicating in Korean. My siblings on the other hand are comfortable speaking in both English and Korean but prefer communicating in English. I was able to practice speaking since it is the only way my parents can completely understand me. Usually with my siblings, Konglish was the way to go. Recently, my sister and I have gotten competitive with who is “better” in Korean. We tried to make it into a contest with bragging rights as our incentive. It was a point to recognize and correct the other person’s grammar or sentence structure, a point if you could get the vocabulary word correct that the other person didn’t know, another point for being able to write out a difficult word or phrase that my mom would provide for us, and finally another point if we could guess what my dad was saying when he spoke with an unfamiliar dialect. It is disappointing to admit that she won because I unintentionally said the incorrect phrase multiple times, but it was a fun way to keep working on my skills.

When our family got bored, we tried to play “Assa”, a Korean rhythm game. It is supposed to be an icebreaker with a goal that everyone learns each other’s name, but we decided to play it anyways with our Korean names. It’s a game where we have to time what we say with the correct beat as the rhythm speeds up. There were so many games I learned from other Korean friends that ended with all of us laughing. Even in the midst of the covid outbreak, I got to enjoy spending time with my family while progressing in the Korean language.  

When my family lived in Missouri, we hosted a college student who studied and sang pansori. She would sometimes give us sample performances and attempted to teach us this style of traditional Korean musical storytelling. Pansori is often referred to as the “Korean Epic Chant”; for those who have never heard this genre, I would compare it to a form of opera. The word itself is derived from pan (판), which refers to a place where people gather, and sori (소리), which means sound. It is comprised of three main components: the singer, percussionist, and audience. The singer narrates a story while the drummer accompanies them. Since this is a form of storytelling and the lyrics and method of delivery is largely improvised, the drummer and audience will occasionally shout encouragements to the singer. This improvising makes every performance unique, even if it’s the same story. The sole singer plays every character in the performance, even the background, and will alternate between singing, speaking, and gesturing with their fan. Both the singer and drummer wear hanboks, the traditional Korean wear. With the intense vocal training that pansori singers go through, they are able to produce more than four octaves along with falsetto and breathing voice.

This genre first arose in the 17^th century of the Joseon Dynasty and it was used for shamanism so that people could pass on rituals, but it wasn’t until two centuries later that it became popularized. Like many types of entertainment, pansori was mainly performed for the nobles and royals. Finally, singers changed the lyrics and melodies so that the lower class could also enjoy this music. By training groups of women, a singer names Shin Jae Hyo became responsible to make pansori Korea’s national music. When the Japanese invaded Korea, the number of pansori performances started to drop. Also, with modern music being popularized, this art form wasn’t being recognized as much. Nevertheless, in the past 60 years, pansori regained its popularity and even young children start to learn it. In the Joseon Dynasty, there were 12 sets of stories pansori singers would tell, but only five of those original are told today. Even so, those stories have multiple versions as they changed over the hundreds of years; each full performance can last between three to eight hours!

People say that the all pansori masters have trained next to a waterfall at one point in their life. This is so that they can get some of the inspiration from the sound that nature makes around them. They will try to mimic the sounds so that they can incorporate them into their stories. When I hear pansori, I don’t really understand the words that they are saying at all times, but I can sense what the singer is trying to portray through the pitch of their voice and how fast they talk. It is an authentic style of music and performance that I have become more interested in. It’s amazing to see how some people can make these beautiful sounds that have the ability to move others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=72&v=BIwuh5ThHsA&feature=emb_logo ;

When humans first learn a language, they have people around them that are constantly using it and books that contain the written way of that language. When the language is no longer used by through the four skills, speaking, listening, reading, and writing, the language can go extinct. A language can die when the last members who utilize them pass away or when people have to learn the dominant language in their environment and forget about their old language. Linguists can help preserve a language by working with native speakers to audio record their conversations. Having a dictionary, preferably online so that it doesn’t get misplaced, and having the audio translation will also help. Other artifacts, songs, and dances that are part of the culture can also be recorded. In this way, the older generations can pass down the knowledge of the language and culture to the newer generation. This can even help bring back a dead language to life. In the article, it mentioned that the language of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians went from a status of nonexistent to federally recognized. It also mentioned that the dances were adopted by the surrounding tribes, but at that time, the language was not adopted. The process took many decades, but now there are around 4,900 members in the Siletz tribe.

The government once used schools to extinguish the native ways but now the language of the Siletz is offered in public school. Learning this new language allows students to meet the language requirement in Oregon. The tribe is continuing to spread their language and culture so that it can be appreciated and preserved.

In Korean classes over the past two weeks, Ms. Kim has brought word cards to reinforce our learning of Korean characters. The contents of the word cards are all things we use everyday, or familiar animals like lions(사자), cats(고양이) and dogs(개). During the practice, I can consolidate my memory of Korean letters and learn some new words. 

Grammar is an essential part of learning a language. Because we are still students, when we study or travel to South Korea in the future, we will meet many people who are older than us, so it is very important for us to learn and use polite and formal style of Korean.  So the first thing we're learned is final polite & formal style verb ending, “십니다”, which is used with a verb stem to formally explain or declare something to a listener. In view of the composition of Korean words, there are two situations, one ends with a vowel sound and the other ends with a consonant sound. When the verb stem ends in a consonant, we will use “십니다”. When the verb stem ends in a vowel, we will use “ㅂ니다”. Because “ㅂ” is a consonant sound, words that end in a vowel sound can be combined with this sound very well, whereas consonants and consonants can't be fused, they need to exist separately. To get a better understanding, Ms. Kim gives us a few examples. “가다” means “to go” and its main part “가” is end with “ㅏ”, which is a vowel, so by the definition we need to use “ㅂ니다” and write as “갑니다”. However, when we look at “있나”, which means “to exist” or “to have”, we can see its main part “있” is end with “ㅅ”, and since it’s a consonant, by adding “십니다” we get formal word “있십니다”. Although there are many rules in Korean, most of them follow the rules for classifying vowels and consonants, which are easy to do with practice. 

We continued to watch Korean drama, “Crash landing on you”, in class and after class. We all enjoyed this, not only because we were familiar with the actors and actresses but also because of the unique plot and their excellent performance. I like the hero very much and I just watched his another Korean drama not long ago, which called “Memories of the Alhambra”. Before I started watching the show, I always thought it was a love story, but it was actually a science fiction theme and it’s about a VR game. He used guns in the drama, and I suspect that his good acting and good looks, which fit the image of a soldier, helped him get the part in “Crash landing on you”. We will continue to talk about the show in the next class and learn some words and daily expressions. Although there are some differences between the north Korean language and the south Korean language, the grammatical structure and most of the vocabulary are the same, and we can learn a lot from them.

The week before spring break, Jenna, Vivian, and I discussed about the March 1^st Movement, also known as the Samil Movement (sam literally means three and il means one). We watched a couple of videos on YouTube and talked about them afterwards. Growing up, I was exposed to only some of the aspects of Korean culture such as the food, main holidays with family, and some folklore. The history aspect didn’t interest me much until recently. I knew the main parts of Korea’s history, but I wasn’t aware of this movement. I learned that it was a protest for independence from Japan and that more than a tenth of the population took part in it. Ryu Gwansun was one of the organizers who was arrested and tortured and ended up dying from her injuries. The fact that she was younger than me yet brave enough to stand up for her country was amazing. It was surprising to learn that many of the leaders were religious leaders. The video also showed the prison cells and how some of the torture techniques were used on some of the protesters. The videos and discussion afterwards helped me to understand how far Korea has come to become this country. It was an insightful lesson that I’m could reflect upon.

During spring break, I went on a trip to D.C. with the first-year Bonner Scholars. Even though the students couldn’t speak Korean, some of us thought that we could watch the Oscar-winning film, Parasite. The subtitles were on, but I tried to ignore them so that I could really listen to what the characters were saying. Everyone enjoyed the movie and we talked about how great the symbolism was because every country could relate to it. I surprised when some of my friends asked me about the setting in Korea. They wondered if Korea “really looked like that” and I replied that the two houses featured were on the extreme sides since most Koreans live in apartment complexes in the city.

While in D.C., we used subways (along with walking of course) as our way of transportation. During those times we got bored, so Ellie and I decided to teach a Korean game called Bunny Bunny. In the version that I normally play, the word for carrot (당근) comes up. When I said that we could use “carrot” instead, they insisted that we teach them the word. They picked up on the game quickly and we played during our free times. During the long walks, I taught my friends a couple more words and phrases. Some examples are 하지마 (stop it), 인정 (I admit/recognize/agree), and 아줌마 (refers to “aunt” or a middle aged woman).Many of them enjoyed the crash course and it was fun to use bits of Korean to communicate with them. I told them that their Konglish skills were definitely improving. I only spent a short amount of time giving them vocabulary words, so I was impressed that they were able to recognize the them even after a couple of days.

Biweekly Journal March 15

            For this past week, Jenna and I met up to talk about the start of my cultural presentation. I threw some ideas for my project on Korean culture to see what the best topic would be. I had three main ideas for the cultural presentation. The first was about Korean food culture and how it differs with American food. A lot of Korean meals contain three main parts: entrée like meats and fish, soup made of cabbage or tofu, and banchan which translate to sides and appetizers that harmonize with the entrée. The next topic I thought of was Korean clothing and traditions. Modern fashion in Korea as well as traditional clothing in Korea. One example of a popular Korean tradition is Hanbok, which is usually worn during ceremonies and special occasions. The last topic I was thinking about doing for my cultural presentation is about Korean sports and the most popular types of sports in Korea. After a small bit of research, I found that the most popular sport in Korea is baseball. For that project, I would learn about the importance of baseball and how it has contributed towards Korean culture. Jenna told me the food and clothing would be best for the cultural presentation. So, I aimed to choose which of the two to start working on for the cultural presentation for the next few weeks.

            The week after, Jenna and I went over some of the summaries I wrote for a couple of articles. One article was about Korean baseball and the other article was about how the coronavirus was affecting Korea. I learned a lot of new vocab words as well as recognized some of my mistakes in my summaries. Jenna helped me look over my writing and helped me fix some of my mistakes. For this week, I wanted to work on differentiating between two common spelling mistakes I always do when I am writing Korean. These are the variations of the “eh” pronunciation.   

These two sound exactly the same in Korean and I always get this spelling wrong. I wanted to go over a couple of the common spellings for this vowel with Jenna. She helped me with some of the common words in Korean that is most used with each of the vowels above. The difficult thing about these vowels is that there is no set pattern to which one to use. Jenna told me I just have to memorize which words involve which vowel. This will definitely be hard in the beginning, but reading a lot of Korean articles as well as writing more Korean in the next few weeks will definitely help me recognize and get a feel for which vowels I should use. For next week, Jenna gave me a conversation in Korean to read and go over. It was about going to the movies and dinner in Korean. It was a generic conversation that had a variety of spellings that I could apply to my Korean writing.