Blogs

PhoneConversation.mp3

This is a recording of a phone conversation I had with Kevin. We talked about classes and I asked Kevin if he wanted to go to a concert with me and he refused. 

There are 24 letters in the modern Korean alphabet and it consists of 19 consonants and 21 vowels. The letters are also grouped into syllabic blocks, vertically and horizontally. The Korean alphabet is very straight forward and there are usually little to no irregularities in the language. For grammar, there is a subject-verb inversion present. A lot of the sounds in Korean are available in English as well. English speakers, however, may have trouble saying certain combination of alphabets. One that comes into mind is the 의 (ɰi). Many English speakers have trouble saying this combination because it is not normally used in their language. In Korean, many native speakers have trouble saying English words that contain the letter R. This is also because there is no R equivalent letter in Korean. Therefore, many times Koreans will pronounce the R sound with an L sound. 

We are currently still ordering books so we have not worked on the Korean alphabet that much yet. Although we have gone through some diction and spelling mistakes that even native Korean make. 

Document a learning task that you have completed that meets a personal goal.

Below is me writing about a memorable day in my life. I wanted to practice summarizing an important event concisely but properly in writing. Learning to write about something that means a lot to my life was a personal goal for me which I got to achieve through this. I have also attached a presentation I gave about 첨성대 which is a historical construction of Korea. I wanted to give a formal presentation in Korean professionally, so this was a good practice to meet my personal goal. undefined

Introduce yourself and your family

안녕하세요. 저는 장지영입니다. 저는 22살이고 지금 버지니아 주에서 리치몬드대학교에 재학중인 4학년입니다. 저에게는 위로 언니 두명이 있고 엄마와 아빠는 한국에 계십니다. 큰언니는 저보다 7살이 많고 3년 전에 결혼을 해서 캘리포니아 주에서 살고 있고 2년전에 제 조카를 낳아 현재는 육아에 집중하고 있습니다. 형부는 화학교수가 되고 싶어서 UC Berkely에서 Chemistry Ph. D 과정을 밟고 있습니다. 둘째 언니는 저보다 2살이 많은데 제작년 12월에 졸업을 하고 지금은 대학원 준비를 하면서 gap year를 누리고 있는 중입니다. 아빠는 30년이 넘게 경제학자로 일하고 계시고 올해 말에 은퇴하실 예정입니다. 저희 엄마는 전에는 서점 사업을 하셨는데 지금은 잠시 쉬고 계십니다. 

Show that you can ask and answer questions about identity

질문: 안녕하세요. 만나서 반가워요. 이름이 어떻게 되요? 나이는요? 그리고 지금 하시는 일은 뭐에요?

답: 제 이름은 장지영입니다. 만나서 반갑습니다. 저는 1995년생으로 만 22세이구요, 지금은 대학생이지만 5월에 졸업하고 나면 뉴욕에서 일할 예정입니다. 

My classmates gave presentations on Kimchi, Tae-Kwon-Do and national symbolisms. From all of these cultural presentations, I learned about the history of each topic and even what makes up the names of the topics they chose. I also learned about the benefits of Kimchi and Tae-Kwon-Do and what the Korean flag means when broken down to each symbol. I also learned about the national flower of Korea and what it means. They were all very interesting topics that I knew about Korea on a surface level but didn't really know details about. 

Family is very important in Korea too. Knowing your roots is placed so much emphasis in Korea. So it is your duty as children to make choices that would honor your parents and family knowing parents have gone through so much sacrifice and hardships for the better lives of their children. Parents have and still do overwork and put up with hardships in their lives for the sake of their children and family. Children in Korea tend to be very dependent on their parents even when they get old as many still live off of their parents in their late 20s and 30s if they can't find a job. It is very common to see those grown-ups still living in the same household as their parents. Kinship is incredibly important to Koreans and family always sticks together unlike American family which focuses on raising their children to be independent. 

When it comes to time, Korean culture considers it gold. There's a famous saying that Koreans live by which is 시간은 금이다 to demonstrate how Koreans value time so much and "빨리빨리" which means "quickly quickly" because Koreans are known for doing everything fast. We live in a culture where people as a group tend to be very impatient and have to have everything done quickly. So scanning items in grocery stores are done incredibly fast and even food comes out quickly in Korea. Also, the internet speed in Korea is the fastest in the world and people still complain that it's slow for them. Because Koreans value time so much, they don't want to waste time and act on anything fast and first. This probably also stems from a culture that is heavily based on competition against each other. 

I have chosen the June Struggle of 1987 as my topic for the cultural project. I recently watched a Korean movie called 1987 which talked about the June Struggle and portrayed the historical events during the year. So I wanted to learn more about this historical year. To learn this topic, I will be looking at wiki pages in English and Korean and also watch Youtube videos that explain the full context of the events that led up to 1987 events and what happened in the year. I will also be looking at historical references about the year. 

Hangul is the Korean alphabet. It has been used to write the Korean language since its creation in the 15th century under Sejong the Great. It is the official writing system of South Korea and North Korea. 

The alphabet consists of 14 consonants and 10 vowels. Hangul letters are grouped into syllabicblocks, vertically and horizontally. For example, the Korean word for "honeybee" is written 꿀벌, not ㄲㅜㄹㅂㅓㄹ.As it combines the features of alphabetic and syllabic writing systems, Hangul has been described as an "alphabetic syllabary" by some linguists. As in traditional Chinese writing, Hangul texts were traditionally written top to bottom, right to left, and are occasionally still written this way for stylistic purposes. Today, Hangul is typically written from left to right with spaces between words and western-style punctuation. Some linguists consider Hangul the most logical writing system in the world, partly because the shapes of its consonants mimic the shapes of the speaker's mouth when pronouncing each consonant.

Unlike the United States, Korea is heavily based on collectivism. Collectivism refers to the practice or principle of giving a group priority over each individual in it. Korea scored 18 on individualism while America scored 91 on individualism. The power of collectivism in Korean culture is demonstrated in the miracle of Han River. Because of collectivism, Koreans work together as if the whole country is one family in times of hardships. After Korean War ended in 1953, Korea saw a incredibly rapid growth following the war and transformed from a developing country to a developed country within 50 years. By the end of the century, Korea had grown to become the world's 11th largest economy. This was possible because of how Koreans work together to achieve a common goal that is better for the whole instead of focusing on individual benefits. During IMF Crisis, within the first two days of the gold collection movement, over 100,000 South Koreans donated more than 20 tons of gold worth over $100 million. In total, it added up to $150-$200 million and helped Korea overcome IMF crisis in a short amount of time (1997-2001). Recently, about 1.5 million people turned out for the non-violent protest for previous president's impeachment and it was praised worldwide for their civil protest. Although collectivism brought great results to collectivism, it has cons like commoditization of employees, sacrifice their personal lives and lack of diversity. 

Social hierarchy and age is very important in Korean culture. As weird as it may sound, many Koreans would ask each other "how old are you?" or "what year were you born" the first time they meet someone so they can figure out the hierarchy situation before forming an relationship as to who is older and deserves formal addresses. So obviously this culture is embedded in Korean language as well. In terms of language itself, the vocabulary, vocab endings and suffixes change depending on whom you are talking to. For example, to ask someone if they have eaten yet, there are two separate words used to address people of different ages. When asking someone a lot older than you, you would ask if they had "jin-ji"and when asking someone of your age or younger, you use the word "bab" even though they both mean meals. Also, you would use "yeon-sae" to ask someone's age if that person is older than you but use "na-yi" if that person is of your age or younger. Social hierarchy is very deeply reflected in Korean language, and therefore Koreans often find it difficult to address someone by calling their first names because that is considered impolite. One interesting fact I found while researching was that calling someone only by the family name which Koreans often do to be polite is actually considered impolite in Germany. Another linguistic aspect of Korean culture is that because it's a relatively more collectivistic culture than others, Koreans say "we" or "our" a lot more even when they are referring to personal property belonging just to themselves. Often times, you add "yo" at the end of each sentence to make it formal. 

I want to be at a level of superior or distinguished for all 5 categories in Korean (interpersonal communication, presentational speaking, presentational writing, interpretive listening and interpretive reading). I want to be able to speak  Korean fluently about a variety of topics especially in formal work settings even about unfamiliar topics and complex issues. I also want to be able to write professionally with more advanced level of vocabulary use and understand complex and abstract issues presented in advanced media such as news. I also have had a problem understanding professional words, Chinese characters incorporated idioms and regular phrase-like idioms. So I would like to learn them so that I can understand and also use them in my communication as well. Eventually, I want to be able to keep up with current events and more complex issues in Korean as well so I can have more professional and academic conversations with other professionals. I also barely read any books in Korean, so I want to read many novels in Korean and possibly study some of history of Korea which I barely know anything about.   

My learning goal for this week was to learn about the important history of Korea that I'm unfamiliar of. I recently watched a Korean movie called 1987 which was huge in Korea and even came to the United States to show at a few theatres. It was about a massive series of protests against the military-run corrupt government under President Chun. Even though the movie was very well-made, I had a hard time understanding the context. So I studied the June Struggle of 1987 using Wikipedia pages and a few historical resources and made my cultural presentation on this. I also watched a few Youtube videos and referenced a few Korean website like Naver.com to make my presentation. 

I have experienced myself and also heard that Koreans, especially the older generations, use idioms and proverbs a lot in their daily lives to refer to certain situations as there are many business jargons in the United States. I have personally felt really dumb when I couldn't understand these proverbs that everyone in Korea seems to know. So my learning goal for this week was to learn proverbs. To do this, I looked at a collection of commonly used proverbs in Korea and my classmates also gave a presentation on proverbs they found interesting. Youngmin taught us about common proverbs that have to do with "words." I also made a presentation on the theme of "knowing yourself" to combine a few proverbs that had the topic of knowing yourself first before judging others. 

This week, my learning goal is to learn about the worklife in Korea. I have heard many horror stories about how Korean companies overwork their employees and how bad the work life balance is in Korean culture. Through a passage that Youngmin gave us to read that sums up a daily life of a corporate employee in Korea, my classmates and I got to learn about what an average day looks like to someone who works at a corporate in Korea. We also got to learn about a certain phrases that are commonly used to describe a group of people with particular characteristics. To achieve this learning goal, I also got to ask Youngmin a lot about the work culture in Korea and researched the effect of collectivism on Korean work culture. 

This week, I want to learn how to write about unforgettable or important moments in my life in a more professional way. To do this, Youngmin has given me and my classmates an assignment to write about a day we remember as unforgettable and we also got to discuss it in class to practice speaking. I wrote about the day my firs baby niece was born two years ago. To do this, I had to look up some words and phrases that I knew how to say in English but not in Korean. I also have a tendency to make the sentences too long both in written and verbal language in Korean. So I practiced breaking my sentences into a few to convey the same message. 

For this week, I wanted to learn about how Koreans have a huge emphasis on interpreting dreams. In class, we read a story about 길몽 and 흉몽 which mean good dreams and bad dreams. I wanted to dive deeper into this culture placing so much emphasis on dreams. So I achieved this goal by looking up/researching how Korean ancestors have used dreams for long to predict the positive and negative events in life. For instance, there are various kinds of dreams that indicate you or someone you are close to is pregnant. Also, there are other dreams that may seem like a nightmare but actually is believed to bring good luck. For example, if someone dies in your dream, that person is bound to live long. If you dream about pigs, it means you will get rich. It's very interesting how dependent Korean culture is on interpreting certain dreams.

For this week, I wanted to learn about the stories behind the scene of Winter Olympics which was held in Pyongchang, Korea. To do this, I read several articles regarding the process of Korea preparing itself to be the host of this Olympics and also read about the concerns of the public about what happens after the Olympics is over. I also watched the opening ceremony of Olympics to familiarize myself more with this historical event since I learned that Korea hasn't held Olympics in its territory since 1988 .

For this week, my learning plan is to dive deeper into learning about the recent impeachment of the president, the after fallouts of the event, what the current president is doing to bring changes to Republic of Korea. I also want to practice discussing situations that haven't happened yet or have a low probability of happening so I learn how to express my regrets or wishes. To do the first one, I had asked Youngmin to pick out a series of articles that discuss what happened to the involved stakeholders of the whole president cult scandal last year and learned about that event. To achieve the second goal, I learned different ways to express my wishes or thoughts about future and practiced it in writing and verbally with my classmates in class.