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Dean and Crush have been some of my favorite Korean artists to listen as I try to learn more Korean. Both are R&B singers with unique vocals and catchy melodies. In particular, Dean creates a more futuristic, unconventional twist on his music. Below are links to playlists of their music that I listen to a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gja6xTWls44&list=LLBzZHVCqYkmw_Z21PKiUhCA&index=25&t=1521s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HufNkEVJ6s&list=LLBzZHVCqYkmw_Z21PKiUhCA&index=25
For Easter weekend, I had a meal with my family- rice(밥), side dishes(반찬) of kimchi(김치) and kim(김), and meat(고기). We made wraps(쌈) with lettuce and rice, meat, and soybean paste(된장) inside.
As I’ve been learning more Korean, I’ve been trying to use what I’ve learned by practicing when I’m talking with my parents including text. Texting is harder for me since I’m not as able to sound out the subtleties of words. In my conversation with my parents, my dad actually corrects my spelling. However, it has helped me to become more comfortable with phrases that I use more often and incorporate them more into my daily conversations.
In talking about my plans for the summer with my learning partner, I was reminded of my trip to Korea two years ago. I visited Korea for the first time since I was 5 years old. There, we visited my relatives in Gwang-ju(광주) where my parents are originally from. Since I was in Korea, everytime I greeted someone older than me I bowed. I got to experience a lot of the food culture there with the open grills and stoves where you can watch your food be made as well as the street food. In the picture below, we were at one of the beaches in Jeju Island(제주도). Jeju Island is one the most popular tourist places as a vacation place with its unique food and beautiful scenery.
I’ve been watching Healer(힐러) which is a Korean drama about a night time “errand boy” called Healer, a tabloid reporter, and a famous journalist from a major broadcast station who all come together to learn the truth about a past incident that connects them all. It is an action packed drama with its fast paced scenes revealing the secret corrupt doings of many politicians and influential people through the work of news reporters, Young-shin and Moon-ho, and Healer. Through this drama, I’ve been able to pick up common everyday phrases as well as slang that people use today by repeating what they say.
As I enjoy singing, I’ve been watching Korean singing contest shows like The Masked Singer, SuperStark, and I can see your Voice. The Masked Singer is a contest where eight disguised guest singers are judged solely on their singing skills. SuperStark is contest for upcoming young singers and who want to join some of the most popular singer companies such as JYP and SM. I can see your voice a contest that brings random upcoming singers as well as tone deaf people with celebrity guests who have to guess which are which. Korean variety and entertainment shows are a big part of Korean culture. I’ve come to enjoy watching these shows in listening to many amazing singers and learning popular Korean songs.
I’ve come to learn a lot of the many differences between Korean culture in talking with my parents and Seonghye(성헤 선생님). In Korea, people are very sensitive to how people think about them. For this reason, people, especially girls, make sure that they look their best when they go out. Last week, Seonghye was saying how she wouldn’t be able to go out without makeup in Korea because people would assume that something was wrong with her. Because of this, she says that she wakes up two hours earlier so that she can put on her makeup and get ready for the day. It is socially expected to always look your best while in America that is of less importance. Many American college students would be described casual in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Korea’s obsession with outward appearance I’ve been told is fed by the large amount of competition to get in the best schools and jobs. In order to get the best jobs, especially in a small country, there is a pressure to look your best all the time.
Recently, I’ve been watching a lot more Korean YouTubers to help me in my Korean especially in casual conversation as they use more informal speech. I’ve been watching Pony who is a Korean makeup artist and 영국 남자(Korean Englishman) where Josh, an Englishman who speaks Korean, introduces Korean culture to his fellow friends and family in England. I’ve been using english subtitles to help me understand but have been trying to look at them less to see if I am able to understand what they are saying. Watching these YouTubers have helped me a lot in understanding what context to use certain phrases and words in a casual conversation as well as my pronunciation as I practice saying certain phrases out loud. It has been easier to learn Korean through these channels as I’m more engaged with the content.
We learned the names of various foods like 불고기(beef) and 초밥(sushi). We then learned descriptive words of taste such as 맵다(spicy), 시다(sour), or 싱겁다(bland). We then learned how to say something is not (descriptive word) or are not doing something. We use the structure of a verb with an ending of -지 않아요 or we can use 안(not) with the verb or descriptive word. For example, 김치를 먹지 않아요/ 김치를 안 먹어요(I’m not eating the kimchi). Then, just as we learned earlier, we learned the honorific form of some irregular verbs, specifically “ㄹ” verbs, for basic sentences and suggestions. For example, informal 놉니다 versus formal 노십니다(to play). 노시다 is a suggestion to play. In our last class, we learned body parts such as forehead(이마), knee(무릎), and leg(다리). We also learned and practiced some common idioms that Korean use a lot. If your 눈이 높다, you have high expectations. If your 발이 넓다, you know a lot of people.
During week 11 and week 12, Jimin and I reviewed for the final exam and the main topics that would be covered. It allowed me to recap on all of the diverse material that I learned throughout the semester. I felt proud of how much material we had covered and how much more comfortable I was with different vocabulary words, as well as with conversational speaking and writing. This review session was helpful for me to prepare for the final exam and also to further engrain the material into my head for future use. We also discussed my potential learning goals for the fall semester, and how I would proceed with my language learning throughout summer break so that I would not have a huge gap in my Korean language learning. I hope to continue with the learning method that we used this semester in which we combined several different topics and materials into one session to diversify it because I thought that it was very efficient and entertaining. Finally, Jimin and I watched more Korean variety shows and had different types of casual conversations to wrap up the semester.
During week 9, I went with Jimin and her other students to New Grand Mart to experience Korean culture through Korean food and groceries. Although I had been there before many times, it felt like a new experience because I was actively trying to learn more about the Korean culture and language through conversations with my peers in Korean and also discussions on the food itself. I would not normally have done this if it were a more nonchalant, regular outing. It was also helpful that my peers had the same motive to learn more about Korean culture. Overall, I thought it was a more enjoyable way to learn about Korean culture, as the other sessions had mostly been on campus and through text or video.
During week 10, I wanted to focus especially on conversational speaking. Therefore, Jimin and I came up with different topics to discuss and had a casual yet informative conversations on each of them. I was able to incorporate some of the sayings and vocabulary that I had learned throughout the semester and thus was able to engrain them into my head. As the conversation was rather informal and flexible, my Korean speaking came very naturally and proved my progress even in this semester. I thought that reading different texts aloud during previous lessons helped with the conversation because my Korean speaking was more fluid and natural. As Jimin and I are also close friends, I was able to converse in Korean with her about personal topics and thus could use Korean to describe my emotions as well. Overall, it was a well-rounded conversation that involved many different aspects of Korean culture. It encouraged me to incorporate more vocabulary into my everyday speaking.
During week 7, Jimin and I viewed a recent Korean film called “Swing Kids” that beautifully blended Korean history, comedy, music, and romance all into one. It took place in a Geoje prison camp during the Korean war and unraveled the story about a North Korean soldier, an African American officer from Broadway, a Chinese soldier, an amateur dancer, a Korean prisoner who hopes to find his wife, and a young single mom. I was enthralled by the sheer diversity of the group of characters who came together to form a tap dance group in the midst of a war and also by how they used dance to make a political statement about the war itself. As I love modern Korean movies that incorporate historical events, this movie was one that I would definitely watch again. At times when it was difficult to understand what was happening either due to the vocabulary in the dialogue or the historical background itself, we would pause the movie to discuss it. I thought it was helpful that the movie began with a brief overview of the historical events at that time. The movie “Swing Kids” enhanced my understanding of the historical context of South Korea and thus improved my cultural and language learning with a modern twist. Discussing the movie after watching it also helped me to recap and fully understand the historical context of it.
During week 8, Jimin and I had our Korean lesson at the local juice bar called Ginger Juice. It was a nice change of scenery and made the lesson more enjoyable. By going through a packet that had passages, discussion questions, and multiple choice questions concerning the content, I was able to test my knowledge of the readings right after I read them. The content included history about one of Korea’s top colleges, Yeonse University, and its founder. It also included the significant meaning behind two famous paintings. By reading the passages aloud, I further enhanced my language learning because I had to pronounce some words that I was not familiar with. Also, it helped with my conversational speaking because I normally do not get to speak in Korean as often as I would like to. The passages concerned Korean traditions, Korean history, etc and thus encompassed a wide range of Korean culture. I thought it was a very practical way of learning because I could test my understanding of the passages through questions.
During week 5, because it was close to March 1st, we learned about the 100th year anniversary of March 1st, which the Korean Independence Day. It was one of the first public displays of Korean resistance towards the Japanese regime and involved many public demonstrations. It was also around the time when the 26th King Gojong passed away and had his funeral. I learned about the various famous protestors involved, as well as the intensity of the violence of the Japanese towards them. Although I had learned about it before during history class in Korea, it was a good reminder of the sacrifices of noble Korean citizens and how our independence was painfully achieved. This lesson fulfilled my interest in learning more about Korean history to connect with the past of Korean citizens. Jimin incorporated different methods of learning such as a comic that concisely detailed the events, and I thought that it was a refreshing way to learn history.
During week 6, Jimin and I discussed a Korean news article of my choice. I went onto Naver.com, which is one of the top websites in Korea that is similar to Google. It was titled “Why Trump Believes North Korea Will Become the 2nd South Korea” and had many different
vocabulary words that I was unfamiliar with. I purposefully chose a challenging article so that I would have more to learn. Before reading the article, we went over the vocabulary words I was most likely to not know of. This strategy greatly helped me to understand the article better while reading it through the first time. This article was educational because it concerned the connections between the US and Korea, and thus it is integral to my language and cultural learning as I am tying English to Korean. I hope to read more news articles on my own time to further enhance my learning about Korean culture and news updates. During this session, we continued learning more idioms, along with words that had opposite meanings to each other. This helped me to connect back to the previous session.
During week 3, I learned more vocabulary and idioms because I wanted to learn even more than before. I particularly liked the idiom “My liver is going to fall off” because I thought it was rather unique and comical. It meant that one is so startled and scared that it is as if one’s liver will fall off. ON the other hand, I had some struggle with “My liver is swollen” because I could not easily see why it had any relevance to someone boldly acting without care or thought. However, with Jimin’s help, I began to grasp the concept behind the idiom. We ended the session with more episodes of a Korean comedy show, along with commentary all throughout. I thought the diversity of the material was very helpful to my learning methods because it triggered my brain to learn in different ways, instead of merely through written textbook material.
During week 4, I learned about the geography of South Korea. I enjoyed this session in particular because I have traveled across South Korea with my family to many different places but have never really taken the time to process where the place is relative to all of the other provinces, nor what characteristics the place is known for. I thought that this session provided a good balance of vocabulary and culture, for the slideshow that Jimin used to teach had many pictures and main points about each province. The slides included the popular dishes of each province, the geographical characteristics such as forests and water, and also some history as well. I enjoyed this session because it incorporated many different aspects of language and cultural learning into one. It motivated me to learn more about any place or province that I visit in Korea.
During week 1, Jimin and I sat down to discuss my learning goals and how to achieve them this semester. I emphasized that I wanted to read and analyze news articles, build my vocabulary even further from last semester, and incorporate more diverse learning materials and methods. We planned out the first few weeks of the semester and decided to build upon that as we went along. I thought having a planning session was very useful because it allowed me to truly individualize my learning experience and cater it to my needs and desires. I became rather excited about how much I would progress throughout the semester in terms of my Korean language speaking, cultural learning, and writing.
During week 2, Jimin and I took a different approach than normal. We decided for me to learn a chunk of a few different concepts during one tutoring session to provide a more diverse learning experience in which I would not be overwhelmed with just one topic. Therefore, we discussed Korean idioms, vocabulary, and casual conversation. Korean idioms are commonly used sayings that have a deeper meaning, and thus they allow people to amplify their point and draw others in. Some examples are “My tongue is heavy” or “I grind my teeth,” which mean that I can keep secrets well and that I am vengeful, respectively. These new idioms were rather useful for me to incorporate into my everyday speaking so that I would be able to express my thoughts and feelings more maturely. I recognized many of them because I had heard Korean adults speak them before but never really comprehended the intensity and depth of them. In addition, I learned more advanced vocabulary as I had wished for this semester. Although I may not use them in my everyday conversations, I thought they would be useful especially in writing essays or formal conversations. I plan on incorporating the vocabulary and idioms I learned during this session into my writing and conversations, especially with my Korean-speaking parents. We finished up the session by watching a Korean comedy show that featured many famous celebrities that I was familiar with and incorporated conversation and culture as we casually talked and commented while watching the show. I thought it was a very natural way of learning about Korean pop culture and food.
This week we learned the different variations of 가다(to go) and 오다(to come) based on the different positions of where you are and your relation to the person going and coming. Some examples are 나가요 which means someone is leaving your house,room, etc. whereas 나와요 is when someone is coming outside to meet you. 올라가요 is when someone is leaving up the stairs. 내려와요 is when someone is coming down the stairs towards you. We also learned the different ethnic restaurants such as 한식집(Korean restaurant), 일식집(Japanese restaurant), 양식집(Western food restaurant), and 중국집(Chinese restaurant). The next week we learned the sentence structure where we suggest something. You first have the verb and then the subsequent ending of -ㄹ/을까요? You could say 식당에 갈까요?(Shall we go to the dining hall?) If you are talking more informally with someone you can use the structure of the verb used and the ending of -ㅂ/읍시다. This asks the listener to perform some action together and is a stronger way of suggesting something. For example, 영화를 봅시다(Let’s watch a movie together).
This week we learned vocabulary relating to family(가족). We learned family members such as great uncle(큰 아빠), uncle(삼촌), and aunt(고모). You would use these same terms for the mother’s side of the family but would also insert 외 to indicate it is the mother’s side. Some family members that are called differently on the mother’s side is aunt(이모). We then learned the irregular forms of verbs when using honorific speech with elders. When talking with someone older than you, you would first add -께서 to their title and then add the irregular or regular form of the verb you are using. Some irregular verbs in the honorific speech are 주무시다 versus informal 자다(to sleep) or 드시다 versus informal 먹다(to eat). Other than a few of these formal forms of verbs, the rest are used in the standard structure of using the verb and adding -으시다/시다. The next week we learned descriptive words such as 더럽니다(to be dirty), 춥다(to be cold), and 복잡하다(to be busy). 시원하다(to be cool) can be used to describe a person as well. A person who is called 시원해요 is considered a relaxed or “cool” person. We then used these descriptive words with the ending particle -고 which means “and” and links two words together. For example, 우체국이 좁고 복잡합니다(The post office is small and busy).
We learned some of the basic verbs used in Korean- 자다(to sleep), 가다(to go), and 만나다(to meet)- and then learned the basic structure of a simple sentence in which we could use them. In a simple sentence you first have the subject with a 은/는 particle depending if the subject ends in a consonant or vowel. Next is the object with 을/를 and then the verb with 습니다/ㅂ니다. The endings with the verb are said to be more formal in use. A sample sentence would be 저는 친구를 만납십니다(I met my friend). You can also change a sentence into a question by adding the ending -습니까/ㅂ니까? 읽습니까?(Have you read this?). We then learned common things that we have such as school supplies and necessities- 열쇠(keys), 신분증(photo ID), and 공책(notebook). We learned other ending particles such as 이/가 which are attached to the subject depending if it ends in a consonant or vowel. These endings can be used with 이것(this), 그것(that), and 저것(that one over there). These words are used to describe objects or people based on position. 이것 would be used for something that is in front of you while 그것 would be used for something that you are talking about that is in front of someone else. 저것 would be used for something that is far away from the both of you. An example sentence would be 이것이 책입니다(This is a book). I then did an exercise of labeling all of the things in my room.
This week’s session we practiced speaking and our pronunciation with our greeting and introductions. We reviewed the two different korean number systems- counting numbers versus order numbers. We also reviewed the 한글(hangul) character layouts as well as double consonants. The next week we learned several place names such as bookstore(서점), clothing store(옷가게) and department store(백화점). We then learned how to say where we are going using the new places we learned combined with 으러/러 가요. For homework, we wrote out our daily routine in Korean.
