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Here is the podcast with Jimin, Elliott, and June. 

Podcast

In this cultural post I want to talk about PC bang in Korea. PC bang literally means PC room and it is also known as internet cafes. It is a café where you can play multiplayer computer games for an hourly fee. Although access to personal computers and internet are extremely available in Korea, PC bang is very popular as it provides a social meeting place for gamers to play together with their peers. Another characteristic that makes PC bang so attractive is its ability to offer access to expensive and powerful high-end computers or gaming PCs, designed specifically for video gaming, and exceptional internet speed optimal for the best gaming experience. PC bang also provides all types of food ranging from as simple as cup noodles to actual restaurant menus such as black bean paste noodles (짜장면). Additionally, it is open 24/7 which attracts all the night hour gamers as well. It essentially provides everything you need for optimal gaming experience. As PC gaming culture in Korea is very important, PC bang continuously improve to provide better and more services to customers.

The concept of PC bang was first introduced around the 90s and it was a popular idea for new entrepreneurs during the IMF situation. PC bang is still very popular to a large range of age groups including children, teenagers, and young adults. Few problems were raised due to PC bang such as how users including children fall into game and internet addiction, causing damage to other aspects of life. PC bang exists in other countries, but it is definitely the best and the most developed in Korea without a doubt. What’s more attractive is the in-game benefits that the PC bang can offer. Almost all games in Korea offer PC bang exclusive items and events that promotes gamers to visit PC bang more often. Another element that has contributed to the popularity of PC bangs is the lack of private space for young adults at home. Many Koreans live with their parents until they get married, reflecting Korea’s traditional Confucian extended family system. In addition, with the harsh education system and culture in Korea, many young adults feel like they are under strict rules at home, further influencing young adults to feel the lack of privacy. Korean youth are usually released from the surveillance of the watchful eye of their parents when they become college students or get a job, but freedom does not resolve their lack of privacy, particularly when it comes to romantic relationship in Korea. As a result, PC bang is able to provide the necessary privacy and a way to stress relief for many people.

I have been to PC bang myself in Korea and United States. PC bang in Korea is definitely better because it provides more services there. I remember when I was little, I used to play games with my friends in a local PC bang all the time. The gaming environment is really different in PC bang compared to playing games at home. It almost feels like I can play much better in games when I’m there. If you are a PC gamer, I highly suggest you try out gaming in PC bang.

June Choi

Dr. Soloway

SDLC 113

April 26, 2020

SDLC 113 Cultural Post #4

            As I am graduating college and facing a future filled with working a real job, I thought it would be interesting to compare work life and culture in South Korea compared to that in the US. Upon digging into Korean work and business culture, I found that age and status are very important. This is no surprise, for even in everyday life, specific customs are in place to show respect to elders or any person who is older than one’s self. Like in the US, working people often greet eachother with a formal handshake, but it is also common for businessmen to formally bow almost at a 90 degree angle to others especially if they are greeting a powerful or wealthy businessman. One difference between western and South Korean work cultures that I found was that in western cultures, there is a heavy focus on the individual worker and his/her skills and contributions that bring about a company’s success, otherwise known as individualism (개인주의). One needs to be valuable to a company as an individual in order to be worth being employed for a long period of time. On the contrary, as Korean society is based on Confucianism, it is evident that some Confucian principles have seeped into work culture to create a heavily group mentality-based environment (단체주의). Oftentimes, Koreans will work in groups to complete a project and are often dependent on other employees.

            Although there is difficulty in separating work and personal life in all countries, I found that Koreans especially have trouble doing so. Personal and family time are prioritized more and kept separate in the US, while in Korea, often times there are post-work drinking parties or dinners with co-workers (회식) for any day of the week. It is common for Korean working people to return home in the late hours of the night or even the early hours of the morning after spending time with their coworkers. These parties and dinners are generally for team building and communication between coworkers in order to unite everyone. However, I find it quite unfortunate and saddening that Koreans spend so much time with their work partners and invest so much into their work life that they often neglect their personal life and families. One similarity that I found between the two cultures was that both cultures heavily use business cards when people exchange their contact information. However, there is a more formal exchange in Korean culture, as one hands over the card with two hands, and one receives a card with two hands. Finally, it is highly common in Korean work culture for people to work overtime often without pay. Additionally, it is considered rude to be rushing out of the door once the official work hours are over, and oftentimes, workers will wait for their superiors to leave. I find that these concepts are present in western work culture but are not as extreme. Below are some links to articles as well as youtube videos that I found were very helpful.

https://www.koreaexpose.com/south-korea-rigid-work-culture-startups/

https://asialinkbusiness.com.au/republic-of-korea/conducting-business-in-korea/korean-business-culture-and-etiquette?doNothing=1

https://www.englishspectrum.com/differences-in-work-ethics-between-korea-and-the-west/

https://10mag.com/things-to-know-when-working-in-a-korean-company/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T2bF_Y78IU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnwW7o0pVrw

June Choi

Dr. Soloway

SDLC 113

April 26, 2020

SDLC 113 Biweekly Language Learning Journal Post #8

            For the past two weeks, Jimin and I maintained our weekly videochat lessons and covered a variety of topics, including current political issues, grammar, and watching Korean dramas. As for political issues, I learned that April l5th was the voting day for the Korean Members of the National Assembly. The Korean National Assembly is made up of 300 seats, 253 of which are “지역구,” or District Assembly Members. Those members are then further divided into groups of 163 seats for the “더불어주민당,” 84 seats for the “미래통합당,” 1 seat for the “정의당,” and 5 seats for the “무수속.” 47 of the 300 seats are given to the proportional representation assembly that are experts in diverse areas. Again, these 47 seats are divided into groups of 19 seats for the “미래통합당,” 17 seats for the “더불어민주당,” 5 seats for the “정의당,” 3 seats for the “국민의석,” and 3 seats for the “열린민주당.” These different groups  are basically different political groups, just like the Democratic and Republican groups of the US. This voting day was a rather important event for Korea as it was the first ever voting day to occur in the whole world after the COVD19 pandemic started. I thought that learning about this voting day was a great way to expand my knowledge of Korean politics and also to add more complex political words to my vocabulary. It was interesting to learn about the different political groups in Korea and to compare them to those in the US.

            Jimin and I also went over the 6^th anniversary of Sewol-ho “세월호,” which was a national tragedy for Korea on April l6th of 2014. This tragedy involved the sinking of a ferry headed to Jeju Island that resulted in the death of 304 passengers, nonetheless countless missing passengers. Many of the passengers aboard were high school seniors embarking on their celebratory senior trip as is common in Korea. Koreans used a yellow ribbon as a symbol for hope for return of the missing passengers at the time. I remember when this was all happening in the year of 2014, and it was just so tragic of an event that it left most of Korea and Korean Americans, especially, just speechless. I knew of the high school that had sent its senior students on the ferry, as I had lived near that high school while I was in Korea several years ago.

On a brighter note, some grammar that Jimin and I went over included the importance of specific spacing between words in order to portray the correct intended meaning. One example was “아버지가 방에 들어가신다” vs “아버지 가방에 들어가신다.” This shows that one misplaced syllable due to spacing can completely change the meaning of a sentence. Additionally, I learned of the 6 grammatical rules below:

1. 문장에서 각 낱말은 띄어 쓴다.
   1. 낱말이란 뜻을 가지고 홀로 쓰일 수 있는 말의 가장 작은 단위이다.
   2. 나물좀줘 -> 나 물 좀 줘
2. 조사는 앞의 명사에 붙여 씁니다.
   • . 조사란 명사(noun)뒤에 붙는 말로 Tommy가, Ellie를, 수업이, 선생님이다 와 같은 말입니다.
3. 의존 명사는 띄어 씁니다.
   • . 의존 명사란 문장에서 혼자 쓰일 수 없고 그 앞에 꾸며 주는 말이 있어야 하는 명사를 말합니다.

1. 예시: 할 수 있다, 아는 것이 힘이다.

4. 숫자를 세는 단위를 나타내는 말도 띄어 씁니다.
   • . 사람 열 명, 신발 한 켤레, 개 세 마리, 사탕 두 개, 만 원
5. 두 말을 이어 주거나 나열할 때 쓰이는 말들은 띄어 씁니다.
   • . 한국 대 일본, 사과, 배, 귤 등, 선생님 및 학생
6. 본용언과 보조용언은 띄어 쓰는 것이 원래 규칙입니다.
   • . 용언: Subject의 상태를 표현하는 verb나 adjective
     • 본용언: 혼자 쓰일 수 있다 (읽고, 춥지, 꺼져, 아는)
     • 보조용언: 혼자 쓰일 수 없다. 본용언 뒤에 붙어서 본용언에 뜻을 더해준다. (싶다, 않다, 간다, 척한다)

1. 책을 읽고 싶다, 날씨가 춥지 않다, 불이 꺼져 간다, 잘 아는 척한다.

Overall, I thought that learning these 6 grammatical rules were very helpful in my everyday writing and speaking, for they are widely applicable. As my college career comes to an end, I hope to continue conversing with Jimin as a friend and also as a tutor/student.

Due to the coronavirus situation, I have been spending a lot of time watching videos at home. While streaming through different Korean shows with my parents, I came across a TV show called “Mr. Trot”. It is a competition among trot singers including professional and non-professional singers. The winner wins a prize money and also receives a chance to record their single. There have been many shows that have been made in the music industry starting with many audition programs like “K-pop Star”. However, normal competition shows like “Mr. Trot” started to become popular as well. Singing competition shows like “Show Me the Money” grabbed a massive attention from the entire country and even internationally. These competition and audition programs generally targeted young audiences by focusing on music genre that younger generation listen to such as pop and rap. Unlike these previous popular shows, “Mr. Trot” focused on the trot music which is very popular among older generation.

Trot music, also known as Ppongjjak (뽕짝), originates from Korea during the time under Japanese colonial rule in the first half of the 20^th century. With the trot genre having its history of about 100 years, the singing style has been continuously changing. With the rise of K-pop and other genres during the 90s, trot began to lose its popularity and was viewed as more old-fashioned. Recently trot began to regain its popularity due to singers like Hong Jin Young and Daesung targeting younger listeners. The traditional trot music generally contained lyrical contents about love, parting and longing for sweet home as it depicts colonial tragedy during the time. Also, unlike the popular K-pop music today, trot music is mainly performed by one singer or as a duet. It is rare for trot singers to play any instruments while singing and it does not have any heavy choreography. It is a genre focusing a lot on the actual singing component rather than attractive performance.

With “Mr. Trot”, we can see another change in trot style. Younger singers are producing trot music and starting to focus more on performance. It is moving away from the old-fashioned characteristics and trying to integrate more younger population. The show achieved one of the highest view rates among all TV shows aired on TV. Close to the end of the show, it was able to gain almost 8 million participating votes to decide the winner. Modern trot is becoming to be associated with lighthearted fun and many singers including K-pop singers are adopting trot songs, contributing to the expansion of the fan base to a younger generation of listeners. This is evident from the large voting participation from younger generation around my age. The singers on the show is also expanding the concept of trot idol which is becoming more accepted today. After the show concluded, the competition participants gained much popularity and began to show up in many other entertainment shows, confirming the growth of popularity among trot idols. With trot continuously changing throughout the history of Korea, it is still making history today. If you are not familiar with the trot music in Korea, I highly suggest listening to modern trot music. I personally didn’t like the traditional trot music, but it is really catchy and I’m starting to feel differently about it.

Here's one song from the show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Pbx9LrsDk

and another by a modern trot singer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_HAPoqV9mo

After learning about the drinking manner with Jenna and Christi, I started to wonder about the Korean drinking game. It always seems to me that even though there are so many drinking games in Korea, people know about them all. I have heard about some of them, but I want to learn more about the details.

One of the most popular and commonly played is called 아이엠그라운드 (I am ground) game. There are four beats where you clap at different places. People sit in a circle for this game and clap together. The first round is self-introduction when people say their names on the last two beats. After that, one person says his/her name first, and then say another person’s name followed by a number less or equal to four. The person who is called out needs to say his/her name on the beats, and then call out somebody else again. One person is out if he/she is off the beat, calls a wrong name, or if he/she calls somebody who is already out. This is a good way for people to make friends when they are hanging out with a group of people whom they are not yet familiar with, such as friends of a friend.

Another classic drinking game is 눈치 (sense) game. In the game, one person stands up and calls out “one!” out of a sudden. Then, each person calls out the number that is one step bigger than the number called out before while standing up. If two people call out the same number or stand up at the same time, they are out together. If everyone calls out a different number until the last person, then the last person is out. This game is fun because there is always tension in the air when people are trying to be the next one standing up. It is also more convenient for people to play since they don’t have to sit in a circle to play this game.

A game that I have tried with my friends is called 바니바니 (bunny bunny). People sit in a circle and start with one person saying “바니 바니” twice. On the first 바니바니, the person points to himself/herself, and on the second one, point to somebody else in the circle. The person who is pointed at will repeat the “바니바니” and pass it to somebody else again. Also, whoever sits right next to the person who is pointed at should say “당근! 당근!” (carrot carrot) when the person in the middle is saying “바니 바니.” Whoever forgets to do “당근! 당근!” or didn’t catch the “바니 바니” passed on to him/her will drink or even take a shot.

There are many general rules for the drinking game. For example, whoever loses the game is taking a shot. Before the person drinks, other people on the table will sing a drinking song, such as “술이 들어 간다! 쭉, 쭉, 쭉쭉! ” (Here comes the drink! Drink, drink, drink, drink!), which makes the drinking more fun and interesting.

Sources:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=2FBajA_MLWY&feature=emb_logo

https://10mag.com/10-korean-drinking-games-you-have-to-try/

http://whatakdrama.com/best-korean-drinking-games-how-to-play/

When I traveled to Korea last year, I noticed that there are so many coffee shops even on one street. But even before that, I’ve learned a little about Korean coffee culture from its dramas. When a couple goes out to date, they would meet in a 카페(café) and order two cups of coffee. There are also vending machines for coffee in colleges or on the rooftop of the building, where people can have a small cup of coffee and chat with their friends.

From a drama I’ve watched, I learned that Koreans love to order “아아”, short for 아이스 아메리카노 (Iced Americano). It is so commonly ordered that it has a shortened word for it. Even in winter, people love ordering it with ice. However, according to the Kraze, coffee was introduced to Korea about 121 years ago. The first person in Korea who tried coffee was Emperor Gojong, after which coffee shops and cafés started to appear in Korea. Now, a lot of young people or couples would go to a coffee shop and chill for an afternoon.

Nowadays, Korean cafés have grown so much that this industry becomes very competitive. Every café wants to distinguish itself from others, and thus more cafés are trying to have their theme or concept to make people stay and remember it. A lot of Korean cafés are good places for photo takings, which would attract more young people who are active on social media. Many cafés will have white walls with simple wooden decorations, which creates a healing atmosphere as soft music is played in the background. Despite the well-decorated shop, the display of the coffee is important too. If it is not for takeout, coffee will be served in a glass bottle, usually with a wooden plate under it as well. There will also be small cakes or bread served beside the coffee.

There are also many themed cafés in Korea. For example, there is a snoopy-themed café in Seoul. The cups are painted with the Snoopy characters, the cookies are made in the shape of Snoopy, and there are many decorations related to Snoopy as well. In general, it is a cute shop that would attract young people there to hang out and chat with their friends. There are many other themes designed by the cafés in South Korea, such as vintage, Cotton Candy, and Line Friends. They are called the “Instagrammable cafés” since people would go there for good photos to post on Instagram. This café culture is formed in South Korea in recent years. I want to try it out with my friends someday and I think it would be really interesting.

Source:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyDfoS9E6I0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ncNbguX8M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DY6MyDYhx4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0LdUlGewLQ

http://www.thekrazemagazine.com/latest-updates/2019/5/12/the-caf-culture-of-korea

The last two weeks of classes are used to wrap up the semester. I video chatted with Jenna, my language partner, and did the podcast interview to reflect on the semester.

My plan for this semester of Korean is to improve my language skills while learning more about the interesting aspects of Korean culture. For the first half of the semester, I met with Jenna and Christi, and we did more practice on reading and conversations. Jenna would print out a news article or a weather forecast for us once a week, and we would read through the material line by line and tried to translate it. It was definitely challenging to us at first since sometimes there might be hidden meaning under the expression. Different from my first language, Koreans would say the sentences in a less direct way, which takes one step further when it comes to translation. I remember when we were translating a long sentence from a news article, it took us some time to figure out the logical connection between the parts. It was also not easy for me to get used to the formal expression and the vocabs when we were trying to interpret the weather forecasts.

I enjoyed the conversation practices a lot. Each time Christiana and I would divide our roles and read the lines for each role. We would learn some new vocabulary in a specific scenario before the conversation, and then find them in our lines. I found myself good at guessing a rough idea of the meaning of the sentence, which gave me some confidence in the practice. It was also a very effective way for me to learn new words as I used them in our conversation. I miss doing this practice with Jenna and Christi a lot as we moved on to the online instruction.

For the second half of the semester, we did a lot of cultural learning. We started with learning about the drinking manner in Korea, which turned out to be more complicated than I thought it would be. We then watched a Korean web drama together, which is a new way of drama that I was not familiar with. As the tempo of society gets faster, people don’t have the time and patience to watch one episode from a traditional drama for an hour or even longer. Therefore, web dramas are becoming more and more popular. They are much shorter in length compared with traditional dramas and thus more convenient for people to watch on their commute. I’ve also noticed that some variety shows are trying out a similar way too. Some TV programs have only 5 minutes on TV, so it gets to condense all the funny parts and thus attracts more people to watch. I’ve practiced watching a short Korean variety show on YouTube without subtitles, and I was surprised that I could understand most of it. This has been my goal since I started learning Korean, and I’m glad that I can feel my improvement. I’m now more confident in my listening and conversations, which is satisfying.

https://richmond.box.com/s/vh7pnhlxx1pc51nsdu7dd95t0vnm854y

When I learned about the SDLAP courses near the end of the fall semester, I was excited to take the introduction and Korean courses. Although I came into the class with fluency, I realized that I could speak and understand the language but wasn’t aware of much of the culture. I haven’t attended Korean classes since middle school, so it was nice to learn with my language partner. It was also my first time learning from a fellow student and I enjoyed that experience because I felt that it was easier to ask her questions whether it was about grammar or the college culture in Korea.

One of the main things that became apparent to me was that language and culture are intertwined, so no one can really know too much about them because there is so much information to be discovered. When we first made a list of the targets for the semester, I had a difficult time coming up with the goals. After researching about Korean culture, I realized that there were too many things I didn’t have any knowledge of. I even became interested in Korea’s history and traditions, something I once ignored while attending Korean school in middle school. I found it difficult to see improvements in my language learning if I didn’t practice every day. Language skills only improve when the practice is in use and since the course is self-directed, I would have to motivate myself to write and read in Korean to progress in those skills. I also found that out of the four skills of a language, writing was the hardest for me to improve in a short period of time. I was able to fix many of my mistakes because I learned the grammatical rules, but like many rules, there are situations that are exceptions to it, so identifying those exceptions were a challenge to me. I found that I gained more vocabulary and expressions through watching Korean dramas, and of course, speaking in Korean with other students. I will continue my language learning through these activities and will do further research on Korea’s culture. There are also many websites online that can help me learn the vocabulary for pretty much any category.

In class, I enjoyed learning about the family trees and how time can influence a language to evolve. Playing around with the collectivism vs individualism comparisons online was insightful on how cultures differ from each other. The Western part of the world seemed to be more individualistic than the Eastern part of the world. The reading I found most interesting and useful was about the one on phonetics. I didn’t know that people could produce so many unique sounds. During class, I enjoyed learning the details of how we form these sounds and also trying to make new sounds that are not used in the English language. I would like to learn more about how the uncommon sounds came to be and if the location of the origin of the language influenced which sounds the language uses today.

Podcast%20interview%20spring%202020.m4a

As I mentioned to Jenna as a goal of my Korean learning this year, I want to learn more about Korean cultures. This week, I learned about the 고스톱 (Go-stop) game, a traditional card game in Korea. I’ve seen old people playing this game in Korean dramas during the festivals, but I never got to understand the rules of it. It always seems that everyone has their own sophisticated strategy for the game, which looks cool to me.

Jenna introduced the basics of the game to me – the cards. The cards are named 화투, where 화 means flower, and the whole word means “flower cards”. All have them have drawings with styles in sync. There are 48 cards in total, categorized into 12 different months, so there are 4 cards for each month. The cards from each group or family have different names. For example, the cards of January is called 송학, which means crane, and thus there is one crane drawn on a card from this set. In the game, there are four different kinds of cards: 피 (shell), 띠, 열끝/멍, and 광 (light). However, it is not that each family will have all four kinds of cards. Instead, in each family, there is either a 광 or 열끝, one 띠, and two 피 cards. For each kind of card, the drawing on the card will have different details. For example, 띠 cards have red or blue ribbon across the drawing, and 광 cards have a small Chinese character written at the corner of the card.

I then went to YouTube and tried to learn more about the rules. I watched several videos, but it is still very confusing. When the game starts, 6 cards will be shown on the table and each player will have 7 cards to their own. The general rule is that each player is using their own cards to win the cards on the table and getting points. When a player gets to 3 points, he/she gets to decide if he/she is going or stopping. As they go more, they will earn more points if they are winning points from the next round. However, if they do not get any points and the other players do not get any points, this round will be not valid and the scores at the next round will be doubled.

I really want to try this game once, not with money since that would be illegal gambling. I believe it will be easier as I try it more and figuring out some strategies for winning points without making the round null. I love that this game can bring family members and friends closer and it allows you to chat as you play. I hope I get to try this game someday with my friends.

YouTube video that I watched for instruction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfDURLM7hBM

For the first week, I spent most of my time traveling home and staying in the hotel for quarantine, so I reviewed the news articles and the conversations that we have practiced with Jenna. I met some words that look familiar to me and give me a general idea of the meaning, such as 전공 (major) and 쓸모 (usefulness). After reading through the words besides the translation, I practiced memorizing them and then started to read the conversations. The conversations helped by providing a context for the words so that I learned these words better. I also read over the news articles and the weather forecasts we practiced earlier in the semester, which is a lot more challenging than the conversations to me. There are a lot of official phrases and expressions in the articles. I found myself getting more and more used to the formal expressions after each practice, and I noticed some expressions commonly used in the weather forecasts, such as 예보했다 (forecasted) and 증가 (increase), which helped me with my reading.

Then, I practiced my listening by watching two 12-minute long videos in Korean without subtitles on YouTube. It turned out better than I thought – I could understand 80% of the conversations, and I could guess the other 20% based on the context. I was surprised when I was about to finish watching it. There are also some short sentences shown on the screen as notes. When they jump out, I would stop the video until I read them over and understood what they meant. I could feel myself faster in reading in Korean by this practice, which was encouraging to me. Besides this, it was very interesting to me as I encountered many brand names in English that are interpreted by Korean characters. I would read out the characters first and then guessed out the represented brand, 발렌시아가 for Balenciaga, and디올 for Dior. It was not hard because the pronunciation is a little bit different from the original one and only has more ending consonants than expected. After finishing the practice, I watched the two videos again with Chinese subtitles. I stopped at the places where I did not quite understand by guessing and read over the phrases and vocabs and matched them with the subtitles. I found this practice challenging but fun, so I plan to do this more often for future practices.

After the practices of these two weeks, I gained more confidence in my reading and listening in Korean, especially in a conversational environment. As I watch Korean variety shows in my spare time, I would stop when there is a written phrase appear on the screen. I would then read it over and match the parts with the translated subtitle. It is super helpful for my reading practice as I now can read short phrases without stopping the show. I would recommend it to anyone who is learning Korean and is very interested in Korean variety shows like me. I mentioned this to Jenna later, and she thinks it’s good too.

It is already the end of the spring semester and it went by so fast. I have come so far in my language learning journey and I know that this isn’t the end of it. I don’t think I will have the opportunity to take this class again, but with everything I learned so far, I know I can continue on my own. Jimin and I took our time to discuss my progress so far and I am surprised how much I grew this semester. We also spent some time reviewing all the materials I learned this semester. I still had some trouble with one of the grammar lessons and Jimin was able to clear up some confusion. Another thing we did was checking how much faster I can read now. In the beginning of the semester, we measured how fast I can read by timing my reading of one article. We timed it again at the end of the semester with the same article and saw a significant improvement in my reading speed. After reading so many articles throughout the semester, I began to read while word-chunking which is the act of reading multiple words at once. Before, I was so focused on reading each word one by one, but now, I am able to take in several words at a time. Additionally, being familiar with the vocabulary also increased my reading speed. This is a significant improvement in my journey, and I was happy to know that I have accomplished one of my goals this semester. Although it is hard to measure other goals, being able to measure my improvement and knowing that I have achieved it definitely boosts my motivation. I really want to thank Jimin for being my language partner this semester and I appreciate all the effort she put in for me.

On my own time, I took some time to explore the business website. I know I have a lot to learn but I’m happy to know the direction I want to take and how to begin my journey alone. Also, my parents have told me that I am improving so much in speaking and I am very proud of myself for that. I have put a lot of effort to speak more frequently and the hard work definitely paid off. Communicating with my parents helped a lot, especially during the time I spent at home throughout the quarantine. One thing that my parents have told me is that I am speaking more and more in Daegu dialect. Because my parents speak in Daegu dialect, I was able to absorb a lot from them. I have noticed that my Daegu dialect only come out around my family which is very interesting to me. It really shows that the way people talk around you affect the way you talk. This wasn’t one of my goals this semester, but I am happy to know that I have learned some Daegu dialect. I am hoping that I can reach a point where I can choose to speak either the Daegu or the Seoul dialect. With some new goals I found this semester, I look forward to continuing my Korean learning journey.

Jimin and I were able to read a lot of news together about current events in Korea. We talked about the legislative election coming up on April 15 under the new electoral system. I don’t have much interest in politics in Korea, but it was still worthwhile reading. We briefly talked about how the current Moon party is trying to change free Republic of Korea into a socialist party. We were also able to research on some controversial topics related to this election. It was about how the Moon party is acting against the free democracy by ordering elderly population in Daegu region to self-isolation on account of the coronavirus. The main concern was that this would reduce the votes by the conservative party. It was interesting to learn how the political fight was being formed around the ongoing coronavirus situation. Although I don’t know enough to form my own opinion, it was good to know about the political power struggle in Korea. I was able to discuss some of it with my parents and it definitely is a new knowledge that is worth knowing. Other than the election, we talked about the 6^th anniversary of the Sewol ferry disaster that is coming up on April 16. This is a very sensitive topic in Korea, and I know when I heard of this news then, it was really heartbreaking. It surely is one of the biggest events that took place in Korea in recent years and if you don’t know about it, I really suggest taking the time to learn about it. Next, Jimin taught me the spacing rules in Korean writing. I remember learning this last year and it is still confusing for me. It is something that I really have to master and get used to. Jimin provided a worksheet with sentences containing incorrect spacing and I had to find the incorrect spacings and correct it. Constant practice does help me familiarize the rules and it will take more practice for me to write without spacing mistakes. I used to apply some of the spacing rules without recognizing them, but because I am aware of these rules now, I feel much more confident in my writing.

I decided to listen to more business-related news on the radio this week and it was quite difficult to follow everything as I lack the professional language. Business language is one of my biggest interest in learning Korean. I want to be able to comprehend business news and this was my first step towards getting familiar with it. I really hope to further improve in this area so that I could use it in my future career life. I still have a long way to go and this is just the start but researching on my own and learning about it is really fun especially because it’s a subject that I really like. Going forward, I will try to read more business articles in the future and expand my knowledge on it. I found a great business news website (businesskorea.co.kr) that has both English and Korean version and I’m excited to explore more with it.

It is really unfortunate to be under quarantine now, but my language learning journey still continues on. With April approaching, Jimin and I was able to talk about 만우절, which is the April fools’ day in Korea. It is exactly same as it is in United States, but I found something very interesting in an article we read. Korea had a similar day in its history during the Joseon dynasty. On the first day of snow every year, the subjects of the King would be allowed to say a light lie to the King without any punishment. We also talked about how Korean BJs (Korean streamers) and celebrities use April fools’ day to present fake news to pull attention from the media. Besides reading articles, Jimin taught me more Chinese characters used in Korean. This also gets me frustrated as well but less than the spelling rules. Each Chinese character has its own meaning and they are combined to make a word. By knowing what each character means, you can expect the meaning of a word that you don’t know. For example, the character”인” means manpower and the character “력” means power. By combining the two characters, the word “인력” is formed which means man power. However, these are relatively easy to learn, and the four-character words are a lot more difficult to learn and harder to guess its meaning. Part of the learning is simply getting familiar to the characters and recognizing them in different words. I did a lot of exercises which a word is given, and I would have to write the correct meaning of the word. The four-character words are more difficult to simply guess as it usually means a whole phrase, so I practice them similar to learning other normal vocabulary. These characters also make up most of the professional language used in Korean, so it opens up a way to learn these professional languages as well.

With the COVID-19 situation, I listen to the radio very often with my parents, trying to keep up with the current news both in United States and Korea. There’s been many cases in Daegu where many of my relatives live and I hope the situation in Korea gets better. Using radio and podcast is really a good way to practice listening as it doesn’t have any visual support. I’m really getting used to listening Korean even though I lack the knowledge in professional language. However, I continue to expand my professional language with the help of my parents. Whenever an unfamiliar word come up, I would ask my parents and add it to my vocabulary list to review it later. With the quarantine, my parents have been a good source of learning and they allow me to practice speaking so much because I am forced to use it all the time. Although I am not able to meet with Jimin physically, a lot of my learning has been coming from watching videos and reading articles. As I stay at home, I think I will have a great learning experience as I get more exposure to the language at home and culturally integrate myself.

During the spring break, I was able to use Korean so often. I communicate with my family in Korean only, and being back in an environment where I use Korean more often than English helps me practice the language. Back home, I feel very integrated to the Korean culture as I eat Korean food and watch Korean shows with my parents. Furthermore, I have to show Korean manners and etiquettes which is another aspect of cultural integration. I watch a variety of Korean TV programs and movies with my family. I watched a Korean comedy show called Infinity Challenge which is a show that I have been watching since I was a kid with my parents. In this show, they use a lot of slangs and phrases that is popularly used in Korea and listening to it makes me feel more comfortable and natural to use it in my speaking. Koreans come up with new slangs and phrases very frequently and even people who live in Korea have a hard time keeping up with them. Shows like this is a good way to stay updated in continuously growing Korean language. Furthermore, this show includes a large spectrum of cultural things in Korea that I am not familiar with and it is really a good way to further progress in my cultural journey. Because this is a comedy show, I learn a lot of the Korean humor points that are different from American culture.

I was able to catch up with Jimin this week and learned about Korean spelling rules. I get really frustrated with Korean spelling rules because there are so many of them. I can learn it one day and forget it really easily. For example, the combinations of letters “데” and “대” are used in two different ways. What makes it really hard is that it sounds exactly the same but in writing you will have to know which one to use. The first combination is used to describe something that happened in the past and the second combination is used when communicating something that another person said. Also, there are rules for words that are just so confusing because it applies to some words and it changes for another. Writing is definitely the hardest out of listening, writing, and speaking because I do the least of it, especially with correct spelling. Many informal communications in writing such as messaging a friend or posting comments on Youtube is done without following any strict spelling rules and grammar. Koreans like to use a lot of abbreviated terms and sometimes only write the consonants implying the word it is supposed to mean. This is something I really need to get familiar with as well as it is used often in various settings. I practice these rules by writing sentences out and applying the rules, but it is something I need to review regularly so that I don’t forget them. As I continue to practice writing in Korea, I am familiarizing myself to a lot of things and I can feel it becoming more natural as I try to use them even in informal communications.