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     The reading mainly talks about phones and also shows how human being’s body parts work in order to make the sound. According to the reading, essential for communication by sound is an airstrip which is created by the compression of the lungs. And there are four articulators called laryngeal, dorsal, coronal and labial in our body. Also, we have eight places of articulator which are glottal, pharyngeal, uvular, velar, palatal, alveolar, dental and labial. The article also mentions the phones of English on several parts such as English consonants, English vowels and obstruent and sonorants. In my opinion, Korean sound system is really different with American English. The Korean alphabet has 10 vowels and 14 consonants and a great number of them are really unique to the Korean language. At the same time, a lot of English sounds do not exist in Korean. For example, the “v” sound is pronounced as “b” sound in Korean. Take “visual” as an instance, Korean people pronounce it as “bisual”.

     Secondly, when I learned Korean in class, I realized a lot of special things I need to know about Korean sound system. For instance, the “k” and “g” sounds really similar in Korean. Before I write the word down and my teacher tell me I write it wrong, I don’t know that the word bag is actually pronounced as “gabang” instead of “kabang”. This happened a lot during my class and make me realize that I really need to improve my ability to discriminate differentiated segments in my listening and to produce these sounds in my speech. In order to achieve my goal, I will listen to native speaker a lot by watching drama or using the tool on the website and try to mimic the exact sounds that they pronounce. Moreover, in my class, I will write down the word once I heard it. I believe these are able to help me distinguish the different sounds in Korean.

“Modern Turkish” is meant to be phonetic, so spelling is easily guessed from pronunciation and vice versa. Turkish has 28 phonemes and is based on a vowel harmony, which means that vowels will mostly be in the front or back and rounded or unrounded. Velar consonants are (k,g)  palletized to c and j, which is similar to Russian, which is really interesting. There are also no diphthongs in the standard Turkish dialect, which are sounds formed by two vowels in a syllable (Wikipedia gives the example of coin, side). The Turkish alphabet has 29 letters and does not use Q, W, and X, but uses Ç. It is also common However, the alphabet is very similar.

To me, the most interesting thing is that in Turkish, every letter is pronounced, unlike English (and uncommon for many other languages too).

For example: ekmek is pronounced “ecˈmec” and hafta is “hafta”. Turkish does have a letter Ğ, which is a soft G, which has no sound on it’s own. Ağaç is pronounced “ɑ.ɑtʃ”, öğrenci is phonetically “øʝɾendʒi”, without the g, rather it modifies the preceding vowel.

Since the language is phonetic, my main challenge will be able to listen for certain letters and correctly memorize the sounds of each letter in order to do so. I still struggle with mixing up i and ı. I can only become better at listening and writing once I actually have a good hang at the alphabet. Once I am able to do so, I will want to listen to audio pronunciations to able grasp words and certain pronunciations. The IPA phonetic spelling is hard for me to follow, so being able to rely on an online dictionary audio recording will help me understand how to pronounce words much better. I still do this for Chinese and Russian often, so I know I will do this for Turkish too.

The Korean language, similar to the English language, contains phonetic sounds that are split into consonants and vowels. There are 21 vowels and 19 consonants in Korean. When it comes to combinations, each syllable starts with a consonant and ends with a vowel. Since I did not take Korean class yet, I searched online and found that the main difference in the pronunciation of individual words lies in the reproduction of consonants. Phonemes in English that are not found in Korean include the following: o /ŋ/, /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʧ/, /ʤ/, /ɹ/, and /w/. For example, the /v/ sound is produced as a /b/, and the /f/ sound for phone will be pronounced as pone. Differences in syllable structure between the two languages may lead to the addition of a short vowel sound to the end of English words that terminate with a consonant.

Chinese words actually do make up about 60% of the Korean vocabulary and since my native language is Chinese, it will not be too hard for me. For example, in Korean, exercise is 운동 which pronounced as 'undong' and in Chinese is pronounced as 'yundong'. 

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Vietnamese uses almost all the speech parts shown in the diagram of speech physiology in the reading on page 22 except for the dental. It also has plosive (bilabial b and p, alveolar t, d, and tʰ, retroflex t, palatal c, and velar k and g), nasal (bilabial m, alveolar n, palatal ɲ, and velar ŋ), trill (alveolar r), fricative (labiodental f and v, alveolar s and z, postalveolar ʃ and ʒ, velar x, and glottal h), glides (palatal j and velar w), and liquid (alveolar l) sounds. There are also many sounds in Vietnamese that do not exist in American English and vice versa. English has sounds such as θ, ð, ʧ, and ʤ that are not found in Vietnamese. Likewise, Vietnamese has sounds such as  tʰ, ʈ, c, ɲ, ɣ, x, ɽ, ʐ, ɯ, and ɤ that are not used in English. Some examples of words in their phonetic transcriptions would be 

ɲɔ˨˩˦ (small), ʈəːj˨˩ ʔəːj˧˧ (god/sky), and ɹaŋ ɹɔj˨˩˦ (already firm/strong). Additionally, due to dialectal variations, there are phonemes that only occur in some dialects such as z in the Northern dialect and j, r, and ʃ in the Central and Southern dialects. As I am a heritage speaker, I've already acquired the ability to discriminate differentiated segments in my listening and know how to produce these sounds, but I could listen to more dialectal variations to familiarize with the slight differences in pronunciation between them. Some useful websites with diagrams showing Vietnamese phonemics are https://www.asha.org/uploadedFiles/practice/multicultural/VietnamesePhonemicInventory.pdf, https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1085&context=jsaaea, and https://bilinguistics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Difference-vs-Disorder-Vietnamese.pdf.

This week we learned about Phonetics and the breakdown of language. It was very interesting to see that every word we see can be broken down into sounds. When I first saw the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), I felt a little overwhelmed, because I had no idea that something so common as speech and words had such a complex background to it. In addition, the breakdown of the sounds and analyzing what body part is used to create sounds was also interesting to see. 

In this weeks reading, Phonetics by G. Hudson, we were given an overview of phonetics. Some major topics that were discussed in the readings were consonants, vowels, suprasegmentals, and the eight points of articulation. Hudson also provided a breakdown of the English language, using these categories. In the Korean language, phonetics is something that is not as ambiguous as it is in English. "Hangul" is unique in the sense that the sounds directly correspond to the letters assigned to it. Therefore, by learning just the alphabet, one has the ability to pronounce any word in the Korean language.

If we analyze the phonetic inventory of the Korean language, we see primary instances of stops, fricatives, obstruents, vowels, length, stress, and pitch. I realized that the Korean language is similar to the English language, and a lot of the consonants and vowels are shared since Koreans take many words from the English language. However, there are some exceptions, like the letter "F", which is replaced with the sound of "H" or "Puh". For example, in English we would say "Fried Chicken" in Korean we would say something like "puh-ried chicken" or "Hoo-ried chicken". 

In contrast, there are some unique letters that the Korean language has that the English language does not, such as the double consonant sounds. In the Korean language, we have extra letters that sound like "kkuh, jjuh, dduh, ssuh, and ppuh". These sound differ in both sound and meaning compared to single consonant words. 

Luckily, because I was exposed to both the Korean language and the English language at a young age, I am able to reproduce both distinct sounds. Therefore, none of the sounds are foreign to me, but I believe that for those who are trying to learn the Korean language, by listening to and practicing they too will be able to replicate these sounds. Many sounds are similar, so we use a lot of the same vocal components like the tongue, glottal, and dental regions. Therefore, by learning the sound correlated to the letter in Korean, you will be able to reproduce any word. For the double consonant sounds, it is essentially a more stressed version of the single consonant sound, so with practice, anybody should be able to reproduce these sounds. 

My first cultural artifact is a sound recording of a traditional Maltese folksong by Frans Baldacchino, also known as il-Budaj. The song I chose to listen to, one of his most popular, is called Lament. It was written and interpreted by Baldacchino, but is inspired by a traditional Maltese tune called għana. Many folksongs adopt this tune that blends influences from Southern Europe and Northern Africa. Il-Budaj lived from 1943-2006 and was recognized on a local and international scale for his participation in folklore festivals. He was born in Żejtun (Malta), emigrated to Australia while in his 20s to form a folklore group with other Maltese emigrants, and then returned to Malta 10 years later. 

Maltese folk music often contains rhythmic poetic singing and various instruments such as the guitar to carry the traditional tune. While the popularity of Maltese oral tradition has declined, the preservation of Maltese folk music helps to carry forward the culture. Lament is taken off of an album called Żifna (meaning dance) which brought together many famous Maltese folk artists to revive the traditional sound. The organization that brought together the various musicians on the album is called Etnika. Etnika is also responsible for many other larger efforts to preserve Maltese tradition. 

In addition to exploring the sound of il-Budaj, I listened to a couple other publically available clips of traditional Maltese folklore music on Smithsonian Folk Ways Recordings. The sound of traditional music is extremely unique and it is hard to compare it to other folk music I have heard before, which I think is because of the various cultural influences. 

Biography and Sound Link - Frans Baldacchino Lament 

https://wirtizzejtun.com/2012/06/21/ghannejja-frans-baldacchino-il-budaj/

Traditional Folklore Music - Folk Songs and Music from Malta

https://folkways.si.edu/folk-songs-and-music-from-malta/world/album/smithsonian

Sound Clips - Żifna [Etnika album]

https://www.cdroots.com/etnika2.html

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There are many sounds in Korean that do not exist in American English. One example is tteok¹, which an American may pronounce as, “duck” or “tuck.” (Unfortunately, the International Phonetic Alphabet still greatly confuses me, so these are the best ways I can describe the pronunciations.) However, in Korean, it is pronounced as a combination of the two sounds, or “tduck” (/tʌk/). Another example of a Korean word that has different sounds is my Korean name: 선결. It is spelled “Sun Gyul” or “Seongyeol.” (You can listen to how it sounds here: https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=ko&tl=en&text=%EC%84%A0%EA%B2%B0.)² An American could get away with the first part by just saying “Sun,” although it is pronounced more like “Seong.” I have had much difficulty conveying the second part of my name to Americans. When I say it to them, they think that I am saying “Kyul.” But after I spell it to them, they overemphasize the G sound. In fact, it is a combination of the K and G sounds, which is not found in American English. Overall, the Korean sound system combines several sounds that are found individually, but not together, in American English.

Since I have been around Korean speakers my entire life, I am used to hearing the different sound segments. However, since I have never spoken Korean, my pronunciation is very bad. First and foremost, practicing speaking Korean will help me improve. It is a bit embarrassing not being able to pronounce Korean words correctly since I am Korean. Practicing with my family and friends is a good strategy to eliminate any embarrassment.

While working on this assignment, I realized the importance of the International Phonetic Alphabet. My Korean name is spelled as “Sun Gyul” on my birth certificate, but it sounds different than what an American would say. (I also realize now that it should be spelled “Seongyeol,” which is really making me rethink my whole life.) This difference in sound systems is not only the case for Korean words, but different languages from all over the world. If everyone could read and understand the IPA, learning to speak new languages would be much easier. Since few people can read the IPA, we have to continue to rely on spelling words as close as possible in English, and listening to it being said.

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tteok

²Google Translate is wrong! My Korean name means “good” and “pure.”

My target language, Korean, has some words that do not exist in American English. That is one of the reasons why my tutor, Seonghye Kim, wanted us to learn the Korean alphabet, Hangul, first. She said that it is easier to properly pronounce the letters and words when reading it in Hangul rather than the romanized way. The letter that stands out most to me is ㅡ. It is  very difficult to pronounce that letter because it sounds like “eu” in cook. I personally have to bite my teeth to say it properly so, therefore, it helps to have the phonetic and Hangul symbols. The IPA symbol for ㅡ is [ɯ], a back close-mid vowel. A whole word containing that letter is juice: 주스. In phonetic alphabet it is written as [ʝusɯ].

Furthermore, there are some letters in Korean that sound very similar. ㅓand ㅗ  are two very similar sounds. ㅓsounds like ɒ, while ㅗ sounds more like o. Two word examples for this are manners and cutting board. Manners is written like 매너 and sounds like [ɱæɢɒ] in IPA. Cutting board is written like 도마 and sounds like [toɱɑ] in IPA.

It is crucial in Korean to know the box structure of words. Depending on where in a word the letter appears it can have a very different sounds. The most significant one is 0. If 0 comes in front of a vowel, it has no sound and makes the vowel a pure vowel. However, if it comes at the end of a syllable, it sounds like [ɲ]. For example the word hello, 안녕하세요, has multiple 0, with the first and the last one not having a sound, while the second one sounds like [ɲ]. In IPA, hello in Korean sounds like [a̠nɲjʌ̹ŋɦa̠sʰe̞jo].

The main approach I am taking to being able to produce these sounds in my speech is to listen to as many recordings, videos and lessons as possible. The more I hear a word, the easier it is for me to imagine how I would write it for myself to remember and how to properly say it. I have already formed some techniques to overcome difficulties, for example, biting my teeth to say ㅡ.

Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, describes the spread of Korean pop culture since the 1990s (Ingyu Oh, 2017). The main components of Hallyu are K-Pop and K-dramas (Ingyu Oh, 2017). They have been heavily influenced by popular culture of the United States, Europe, and Japan (Ingyu Oh, 2017). Hallyu, in turn, has become a global phenomenon and has spread to other parts of Eastern Asia, the United States, Latin America, and Europe (Ingyu Oh, 2017).

Korean pop culture has become more prominent in the United States in the past couple of years (Jue and Lee, 2015). According to Ju and Lee, it has made a big impact on Asian American teenagers and young adults. It allows them to connect to and to identify with the East Asian community (Jue and Lee, 2015). It makes East Asian culture more accessible in the United States and helps Asian American youth to find their ethnic identity (Jue and Lee, 2015). Being in touch with sociocultural influences from points of origins can be important for the development of youth (Jue and Lee, 2015). Overall, the Hallyu is a very interesting phenomenon that has improved the experience of many Asian American youth and other people around the world (Jue and Lee, 2015).

Ingyu Oh. “FROM LOCALIZATION TO GLOCALIZATION: Contriving Korean Pop Culture to Meet Glocal Demands.” Kritika Kultura, no. 29, July 2017, pp. 157–167. EBSCOhost, doi:10.13185/KK2017.02907.

Ju, Hyejung, and Soobum Lee. “The Korean Wave and Asian Americans: The Ethnic Meanings of Transnational Korean Pop Culture in the USA.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 29, no. 3, June 2015, pp. 323–338. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/10304312.2014.986059.

In the past week we have wrapped up learning about Hangul, the Korean alphabet. We have now started learning about basic sentence structure and have practiced writing and saying easy sentences. In order to say these sentences, we have also learned new vocabulary that we can use in the context. The sentences we have learned so far are “hello what is your name”, “hello my name is __”, “I am a student”, “I am a teacher”, and “I am from __ country”. I was hoping to be better at saying these sentences, but I am struggling a little bit with reading the Hangul on the board while forming a whole sentence with the right pronunciation at the same time.

The strategies we are using involve a lot of repetition. We repeat the words a lot by reading and speaking. I am building onto that by listening to Korean lessons on YouTube and practicing my notes. So far, my strategies have been fairly successful, however, now that the vocabulary and sentences are getting more complex, I will have to practice even more on my own time in order to reach my weekly and monthly goals.

I will build onto what I have learned about in my target language by actually saying and writing actual sentences rather than just individual syllable. I will get to put the basics I have learned up to this point together to actually communicate. In order to build on my strategies, I will have to dedicate at least 30 minutes each day to review what I have learned and to expand on it. I have been fairly successful at learning the language so far, but since my goal is to have a basic conversation at the end of the semester, I will have to complete more work out of class.

During this week, I have felt stronger emotions while practicing the language than before. It progressively gets harder for me and even though I like challenges, it can get difficult for me to deal with a language that is so vastly different from anything I have learned before. I am more nervous every time I am asked to read a sentence out loud, because there are a lot of aspects to remember while reading and speaking.

While Turkish and English have a fairly similar alphabet (plus or minus a few letters), this does not mean the two languages are phonetically similar. This is not to imply that they do not share many similar sounds, as the Turkish letter “ç” is pronounced nearly identical to the “ch” sound in the English word “church” (The phonetic symbol for this sound conveniently also happens to be “ç”). Similarly, the Turkish letter “İ” (phonetically “i”) is pronounced the same as the “ee” sound in the English word “see”. However, the construction of words through the combination of letters is very different between the two languages. In English, consonants can combine to form new sounds. This is not so in Turkish and is one of the reasons for the few extra letters that symbolize sounds that, in English, are generally composed of multiple letters. Secondly, whereas English words contain diphthongs like in “oil” (/ɔɪl/) and “sprain” (/spreɪn/), Turkish words possess no such characteristic and even in loan words such as the French word “station” the vowels are separated so that the word becomes “istasyon” ([,istas’jσn]). Another unique characteristic of Turkish when compared to English is the yumuşak g (looks like “ğ”). This letter, when placed between two vowels in the front of the word, is sounded as [j]. However, when placed behind a vowel or between two vowels further on in a word, the yumuşak g is not pronounced. Instead, it lengthens the vowel. An example of this is the Turkish President’s name: Erdoğan. The phonetic transcription for this name is /ˈɛəɹdoʊˌɑːn/, showing that the yumuşak functions almost as more of a bilabial glide than anything else. As an English speaker, this phonetic characteristic of Turkish will be hard to master, as the closest English has to lengthening vowels sounds is just “oo” or “ee”.

As opposed to in English, Turkish words adhere to the concept of vowel harmony, in which, with very few exceptions, Turkish words incorporate either the front vowels (/e, i, œ, y/) or the back vowels (/a, ɯ, o, u/) but not both. For example, the copula (suffix-verb) “dir” (meaning he/she/it is) becomes “dür”, “dur”, or “dır” depending on the vowels of the word it is attached to. While in theory, this should make determining the pronunciation of a Turkish word easier (as all the words should match types of sounds), in reality, since English does not possess such a characteristic, it will still take much work to master. Listening to and watching Turkish soap operas may be useful in acquiring some listening skills for Turkish vowel harmony, as the somewhat exaggerated speech may assist in letting one recognize the vowel sounds used. Another characteristic of Turkish is the concept of consonant assimilation. This means that, depending on whether the consonant before a suffix is voiced or unvoiced, the suffix matches, becoming either voiced or unvoiced. For example, the suffix “cık” is the diminutive suffix when placed behind a noun. However, “adcık” (meaning little name) has the beginning of the suffix pronounced /s/ while the word “atçık” (meaning little horse) has the beginning of the suffix pronounced /ç/. Finally, an interesting and somewhat relieving characteristic of Turkish is the concept of word accents, in which a single syllable of a word will be stressed. Because English possesses this same characteristic, I am enthusiastic to see if I can recognize where these accents are just from listening to someone speaking. While the pronunciation for vowel harmony and consonant is slightly intimidating, I believe that it will become much easier after I begin to recognize the pattern in how each word is formed, and then pronunciation will have more to do with making a word sound correct (as in all the vowel sounds come from the front or back) than just sounding out what I think is written.

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One of my goals was to learn how to count in Turkish and how to apply numbers in various situations. This week I first learned how to count from 0 to 1 billion and practiced counting objects in pictures. I actually think that counting in Turkish is easier than in English, as there are no anomalous numbers (for example, in English we have "eleven" and "twelve," but the rest of the teen numbers end in "-teen"). During my session with Merve, I practiced counting money with Turkish liras. I also learned how to say phone numbers and dates and practiced saying phone numbers, birthdates, etc. as well as writing them down to enhance my listening comprehension. One thing that I still need to practice more is telling time.

            Korean has an alphabet similar to languages like English and German. Hangul, the Korean writing system, only has 24 symbols that are combined to form words and sentences. Furthermore, words are formed through the usage of blocks. Consonants and vowels are arranged in these blocks, and a consonant is always followed by a vowel. There are four blocks, the first has a laying vowel, the second has a standing vowel, the third has a standing and a laying vowel, and the last has a laying vowel and an additional consonant. Some of the symbols in Hangul have a different sound depending on the location of the symbol in the block.

            I have not studied the sentence structures or the flow of conversations in Korean yet, but the  language is highly influenced by sociolinguistics, the language and society, and anthropological linguistics, the study of language in cross-cultural setting, through the contact with other languages, especially Chinese. However, Korean is structured very differently from other Asian languages, since it has an alphabet that consists of 24 symbols rather than having thousands of symbols with individual meanings. Overall, I want to learn more about the social and cultural influence on the Korean language, as well as the stylistic components.

            I do not give preference to one disciplinary approach over the others because I think that all approaches together make up a language and help us to understand the different components of the corresponding language. However, in my opinion, computational linguistics is the least important approach in learning a new language, especially when learning how to write and speak.

            The knowledge of language structures and methodologies helps me to become more specific in my learning goals and in the way I go about reaching those goals. Knowing different disciplinary approaches helps to look at a language from different angles and to reach a more thorough understanding of the target language.

The author in How to Investing Language Structure started his statement with a simple example:  Where is the station. Even it is only a short spoken sentence, several things are taking place at one. By illustrating this example, the author set up three main levels of enquiry which are semantics, grammar and medium of linguistic transmission. However, compared with this organization, I prefer the four level models of language which are phonetics, phonology, grammar and semantics since this applies to  my target language, Korean.  The Korean alphabet consists of the sounds of hangul, so if you combine different consonants and vowels, you will get a different sound. Afterin being organized, these sound will become words. And I also agree with the author's point that the aim of grammar is to give structure to meaning and so decides to start the next chapter with semantics. No one will explore the meaning or the reason behind of something when he knows nothing about how it works.

After reading this article, I am more clear about the language structure and the importance of every part that takes place even in a short sentence. Even though the grammar of Korean is slightly different with Chinese, there are many similarities between them and I believe they will help me a lot.

    This week, my learning partner and I continued to read the book from last semester, and we are almost done with it! Just to refresh our memory, this book is called “괭이부리말 아이들 1” and it is a story about children who grew up in this poor community. Last semester, I mentioned how the Korean language is extremely descriptive and this time, I noticed the peculiar language that is used to describe certain manners.

    One example is when the author described a pregnant woman as “hoet-moeum,” which directly translates to “not alone.” I thought that this meant that the woman is simply not alone aka with someone else, but I learned that this word is only used in the context of a pregnant woman because “not alone” means that the woman is not alone because she is pregnant. Therefore, she is never alone because of the baby that is with her, in her stomach. This was very interesting to notice this detail because in English, we would just use the word “pregnant,” but in Korean, they used a word that describes “not alone.”

    Although the book is coming to an end, the story continues to be so interesting and I am looking forward to learning about how it ends!

Like other languages, phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics can all be observed in Vietnamese. For example, Vietnamese is a tonal language and there are sounds that exists in Vietnamese, but not in English. To learn the physical facts of pronunciation, I had to memorize the sounds of the letters and the tongue positions that go along with producing them—all part of the structures of phonetics and phonology. Syntax is another example of a structure that I've had to deal with. In Vietnamese to ask "where is the library," you would say "thư viện ở đâu," which translates directly to library at where. The subject in this case is first. Likewise, words indicating time (ex. Today, now, 5 o'clock, etc.) also comes first. Similar to English, you can put words indicating time in either the beginning or end of a sentence, but it sounds more fluid and correct at the beginning.

As to Aitchison's linguistics diagram, I think that combining different disciplinary perspectives, can help in recreating a more authentic speech and aid in comprehension of my target language. For example, the combination of historical linguistics (study of the history and development of a language) and sociolinguistics (study of a language  in relation to social factors) can let me know what the most appropriate words in various situations are. After the Vietnam war when the country became communist, certain words weren't used anymore. You will still hear them used by people who immigrated to other countries after the war, but not in Vietnam itself. Additionally, the standard dialect changed from southern to northern. Resulting in a change of what is considered a standard term as well (soda vs. pop). Combining this knowledge with a knowledge of how different socioeconomic groups would speak will allow me to avoid using terms that would be considered wrong or even offensive. Furthermore, if I combine this with stylistics linguistics, I can then learn to write for a target audience, enhancing my writing skills in a more holistic way.

Personally, I think that sociolinguistics is more important for someone like me who isn't an absolute beginner in a language especially in terms of speaking. It can help me in refining both my speech and writing. Psycholinguistics on the other hand isn't as useful in my opinion as I feel like I already have a thorough understanding of what methods of learning work for me since I've already tried so many language learning approaches. Moving forward I think that I think I will try to learn more about the history and culture of Vietnam through my language partner. I will probably incorporate this into our daily "free-talk" sessions.

     Since my main goal for this semester is to finish the book that we were reading from last semester, I want to be able to learn about the culture that is associated with this book. Therefore, as I am reading this book, not only will I take notes about the vocabulary that I learn, but also I will take notes about the cultural aspects of the book. Once I learn about these topics, I can do extra research to learn even more about the cultural aspects!

     Continuing from last semester, I want to continue looking at the similarities and differences between the cultures in South Korea to that of the U.S. I have noted some of these ideas in my learning plan already, such as looking at the structures of science articles and resumes/CVs. I am excited to continue comparing and contrasting between the two countries, so that I can be more knowledgeable about both of my cultural identities :)