So far, I enjoy the group study I have with other classmates to learn about Korean cultures and practice reading, writing and speaking with each other as a group. We learn from each other's mistakes and things that each student did well. So far, I have also been enjoying my separate meetings with Youngmin to study more advanced Korean by reading professional newspaper opinion page articles. I have had Youngmin choose an article for me so far which I read and highlighted the words I didn't know and practiced summarizing the article both verbally and in written language. From now on, I would like to choose my own article to challenge myself further and choose content that I am completely unfamiliar of or I have a hard time understanding the first time I read it. Overall, my learning plan and activities have been effective in pushing me forward in learning Korean.
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Learning goal for this week is to learn various kinds of onomatopoeia phrases in Korean. The phrases I plan on learning is 허우적거리다, 꼬르륵거리다, 두근거리다, 두리번거리다, 반짝거리다, 중얼거리다, 투덜거리다, 깔깔거리다. To accomplish this, my classmates and I under the instructions of Youngmin, acted out each phrase so everyone else could have a chance to try to guess the meaning of each phrase. Then we went over the meanings of each phrase and each one of us took turns to come up with situations that we would use each onomatopoeia phrases in.
I practiced doing the greetings, farewells and introduction to my sister who is fluent in Korean by facetiming her. Even though it was a bit awkward doing introductions to her who knows me well, it was still a good practice for the future because I might come across a situation in the future where I have to introduce myself in Korean to a future employer. I could have also practiced doing greetings and farewells in an informal way as well for improvement.
The learning goal I had for week 4 was that I learn how to pass along information to a third person in Korean. It went pretty well even though I had to make sure I use the proper suffixes and adjust them to various situations. My learning goal for week 5 was practice writing entirely in Korean to describe a movie I watched. I hand-wrote the summary of a Korean movie I recently watched called 강철비 and had it evaluated by Youngmin for grammar and sentence structure.
Greetings: 안녕하세요 오랜만이에요. 잘 지내셨나요? 요즘 날씨가 좋아서 하늘도 맑고 나무도 푸르고 참 예쁜데 좋은 한 주 보내시기를 바래요.
Farewells: 오늘 초대해주셔서 감사합니다. 좋은 시간 보내고 맛있는 음식 맛있게 먹고 돌아가네요. 다음에는 제가 꼭 맛있는 저녁 대접할게요. 조심히 들어가세요!
Introduction: 안녕하세요 제 이름은 장지영이고 저는 현재 리치몬드 대학교에 다니고 있는 4학년입니다. 곧 있으면 5월에 졸업할 예정입니다. 경영관에서 마케팅을 전공하였고 광고회사에서 일하고 싶은 생각이 있었으나 현재는 제가 정말로 좋아하는 일을 찾기위해 우선 한 회사에 취직한 상태입니다. 제가 꿈꿔왔던 직장은 아니지만 그냥 일하면서 제가 하고싶은 일을 찾아볼 계획입니다.
My learning goal for this week is to learn how to deliver a message or information I heard from someone to another person both verbally and in written language of Korean. To practice speaking, my classmates and I came up with made-up situations that we pretended like we heard about somewhere and practiced telling it to each other. To practice writing, I texted my classmates and friends about information that was relevant to them but I heard from someone else. The resources I used were the textbook and my Korean friends. I will evaluate whether I said certain things properly by showing it to Youngmin and sharing it with my classmates to receive feedback.
My learning goal for this week is to learn about performance culture in Korea. My goal is to learn how to describe a performance or a movie fluently by summarizing the content and how I felt about the performance. I used the textbook Youngmin gave us as a resource to practice writing about a performance and also watched some videos on Youtube about a specific performance mentioned in the textbook which is "난타" to really see what the performance is like so I can describe it well.
For this cultural post I am focusing on Sanskrit and Hindu classical poetry. Although Sanskrit is most known to be studied for its purely religious text in the forms of the vedas or epics of the Ramayana or Mahabarata, there is a great repository of Sanskrit poetry that is not purely part of the religious canon. I found a book of Sanskrit poetry in the library and I was really surprised by some of the subject matter and quality of the writing. Much of it is heavy in nature and eroticism. In this post, I’ll focus on the section “spring” which captures a description of the season and a woman’s gaze. The book only gives the English translation, which is a bit disappointing since I’d really like to see the original Sanskrit verses. I’ll copy some of the verses here:
Methinks that fire stole into the flame trees
In guise of winter frost
And it is he who made the forest dark
With smoke of burgeoning twigs.
How else, to tortue the poor hearts
Of absent travelers’ wives
Could he produce in guise of flowers
These blood-red rows of flame?
Bright chains of amaranth about their hips,
Fresh mango blossoms at their ears,
The red ashoka on their breasts
And maadhavii within their hair,
Their bodies rouged all over
With yellow pollen of the baluka:
Such is our lasses’ costume; may its advent bring joy to lusty lads
I’m not that familiar with non-religious Sanskrit poetry, so I found these verses interesting and surprising. The first stanza feels so cross cultural. I’ve read a lot of European renaissance and middle ages poetry, and these lines feel like they could easily fit in by any of those famous poets. The nature imagery and lines about flame, forests, and wives feel very universal. The next stanza was more surprising. There are a few Sanskrit specific words , italicized here. These lines are so sensual and beautiful and I was surprised with the intimate descriptions of women’s bodies. I find it so interesting how erotic Indian/Hindu art often is, but the culture today is still very repressive of the outward expression of women’s bodies or sexuality.
With Youngmin, my classmates and I have started learning Korean suffixes to complete sentences. We are learning about different situations we would use the suffixes in. To aid ourselves in this process, we are using a Korean middle schooler-level workbook and textbook. In addition to this, I will be reading opinion pages from a newspaper website called Maeil Economy. I will be reading these articles to expand on the amount of advanced and professional vocabulary.
I want to be at a level of superior or distinguished for all 5 categories (interpersonal communication, presentational speaking, presentational writing, interpretive listening and interpretive reading). I want to be able to speak 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.
Here's my slides from my Sanskrit Baghavad Gita presentation:
Here's my slides from my Sanskrit Baghavad Gita presentation:
Resurgence of Sanskrit in Modern India
Indian president Modi and other Indian politicians have pushed for a resurgence in Sanskrit learning in modern India. The new government mandates the study of Sanskrit in many of India’s schools. Many hail this as a way to preserve tradition and keep Indian and Hindu culture alive. Sanskrit is also useful as a building block to learning other Indian languages from which it was derived, such as Hindi, Bengali, or Marathi. Sanskrit is not widely spoken, but over 10,000 Indians claimed to fluently speak Sanskrit as a main language on India’s last census. The language is also kept alive by religious ceremony and Hindu priests who must memorize the language or at least parts of it. Some Indians think this is a great move that will promote nationalism, unity, and a passion for tradition. Others claim that a focus on teaching the language in schools takes away from students who could be learning more practical foreign languages such as French or Spanish.
Reflect on your experiences as a language teacher and learning in this latest speed-dating workshop. What difficulties did you encounter? How did you successfully relay concepts that were foreign to your classmates as your students? If you were eventually granted the opportunity to teach a full semester-long course on the target language, what strategies would you adopt?
For the past workshop, I talked about Korean words and phrases when describing certain countries and nationalities. It was pretty hard to manage the pace of teaching as it could be too fast to some listeners who had no background at all in Korean, while it could also be too slow for people who have already known the language pretty well. Also, it was hard to know whether I have delivered the message as I intended to, since there was no timely feedback available during the session. There are two techniques I found useful while conducting the speed-dating workshop: The use of pop quizzes and pictures. By using lots of related visual images, I found that my audience paid more attention to the contents when the photos of flags showed up. Also, by giving out pop quizzes on words/phrases I just introduced, I was able to interact with my audience more.
Speaking of some techniques that helped explain certain concepts to people who had no background in Korean during my presentation, I mainly made comparisons to how that concept would be in English. In such way, he/she could bring themselves into the Korean cultural setting and better understand the meaning behind certain expressions in Korean. If I were to be granted the opportunity of teaching a semester-long class on Korean, I would adopt a systematic way of teaching the language course such as following the agenda listed on the Korean textbook, learning the formation of sentence structures before practicing making any sentences and so on. Besides that, I would add more cultural aspects to the normal class by introducing certain pieces of Korean history each week and having discussions on what is happening now in Korean society.
Reflect on your experiences of (trying to) read and write in your target language. Are you bilingual? If so, would you agree with the arguments made in the two readings on bilingualism?
At first it was really hard for me to memorize the formation of each word in Korean. As the Korean language adopts syllable sound, it is not hard at all to read words out by simply following the pronunciation rules. Writing, on the other hand, can be really tough for me as there isn’t a differentiated pattern or memory point for each word, comparing that to Chinese characters.
However, by practicing writing down each word over and over again, I gradually began to pick up the way of writing for most new vocabulary I learned. At this point, I would not regard myself as bilingual in Korean as bilingualism requires certain proficiency in that target language. This also reminds me of what we discussed in class: How could one person know when he/she has reached the native speaker level in his/her target language? I would agree with Dr. Marsh-Soloway that when you dream in your target language, you have probably reached the native speaker level. By comparing with my experience in Japanese, I am pretty certain that there is still a long way ahead of me before reaching the advanced / bilingual level of Korean.
How many new words have you learned in your target language? How did you learn them? Do you have realistic goals for your acquisition of vocabulary?
For each chapter of the textbook that I am currently using as my main study resource, there are two vocabulary lists. On average each list has about 20-25 terms which include nouns, adjectives, verbs, particles and common phrases/expressions. Adding up together, there are about over 100 words and phrases that I have studied over the past weeks of classes. Besides those vocabulary words, I learned some words and expressions such as different kinds of food, family, different job professions on a mobile language-learning application platform called Drops. I learned new words and phrases mainly by memorizing the formation and meaning of each word/phrase while writing them down on a piece of paper for 10 times each. The application of these words in sentences is also essential to the learning process. Also, for each learning session we have weekly quizzes to check on my memories of the new vocabulary.
Honestly speaking, I set up an unrealistic goal for how many words/phrases I will master in Korean by the end of this semester. However, by timely adjusting my learning pace and vocabulary goal, it is more efficient for me to digest the words I have mastered while keep up learning new ones.
How do languages go extinct? Respond to the reading, reflecting on what happens when a language dies. How can linguists help preserve a language? Can a language ever be brought back to life?
One simple answer to the question of why certain languages go extinct is that, when the number of speakers decreases, the language loses the ability to sustain itself anymore. When the last speaker passes away, the language he/she speaks is not able to be inherited by the decedents. Languages that are either too difficult to learn or with too limited uses are ones that are more likely to go extinct.
However, I believe that every language exists for a reason, and hence they deserve to be passed on as they all represent the history and culture in certain period of human development process. Linguists can help preserve a language in lots of ways such as analyzing the history and formation of that language and preserving those information in the modern data bank. Other ways could be that linguists could help preserve the limited population of target languages and educate them on the importance of passing on that certain linguistic inheritance. With enough information collected and preserved, I believe that languages that have gone extinct could certainly be brought back to life.
Reflect on how knowing a language's history can help you learn the language. To what family does your language belong? What sounds, words, or structures exemplify periods of contact with other cultures?
Learning the roots and history of one language would definitely help me understand the historical settings and reasons behind the modern usage of certain words and grammatical structures. Korean is one of the oldest living languages in in the world. Hangul was invented during Chosun Dynasty by King Sejong. It belongs to the Koreanic language family. The Korean language was deeply influenced by Chinese language and even till this day Hanja which is originated from Chinese characters is still in use in Korean language. Nowadays, the influences from English have been reflected on the modern Korean language. Exotic words, such as 커피/Keopi/ which means coffee, sound very similarly to the sounds of those words in English. Other words like 도서관 /doseogwan/, which means library, have similar sounds to the pronunciations of the same words in Chinese. When studying new vocabulary, it is useful for me to relate the sounds and meanings of certain Korean words to my background in both Chinese and English in order to quickly master those target words.
Do some preliminary research on what most interests you about the target culture, and describe how this topic relates to language. Do you need any special vocabulary or linguistic knowledge to engage this topic? If so, have you included objectives in your learning plan to engage this topic?
As I am graduating soon, topics related to future career are often mentioned among my peers. I believe that the most interesting topic to me currently would be to explore the working environment in Korea. That being said, I did some preliminary research online and found out that the work ethics in Korea is widely known for being rigid and demanding. The power distance at workplace is pretty high and a hierarchical system is emphasized within each firm. The harsh working environment is exactly one form of reflections of the current Korean societal culture. When communicating with people of different levels within the firm, people often use different sentence structures and expressions.
To further my understanding on this topic, I need to acquire knowledge of special vocabulary in job positions within the firm and daily greeting expressions to either boss or peers. Currently I am working with my language partners on greeting expressions in formal language. Expressions and words in formal language system are generally appropriate to use at workplace. In the following weeks, I am planning to learn more daily expressions and expand my vocabulary under the formal language system.
Describe the phonetic inventory of your target language. Are there sounds in your language that don't exist in English? Provide several phonetic transcriptions of important words.
What do you need to know about the structure of your target language? How will you acquire the knowledge you need? Have you identified resources and textbooks to promote your task-based objectives? Why or why not?
There are many sounds in Korean that do not exist in English and some even in Chinese. The Korean language adopts Hangul System which is composed of 14 consonants and 6 vowels. It is a syllable timed language which means that each individual word stress is not emphasized when speaking. Pronunciations such as double consonants in Korean ( ㄲ,ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ) do not have exact sounds in English. For example,ㄲ is pronounced as /k͈/ which is similar to /k/ in English but with a stiff glottal opening. One common word can be 까치, which means magpie in English. Some other examples of phonetic transcriptions in Korean can be: 오빠 /oppa/ (Elder brother of a female); 누나 /nuna/ (Elder sister of a male); 동생 /dongsaeng/ (younger sibling).
In terms of the Korean language structure, it is very similar to the structure of Japanese. The word structure is composed of consonants and vowels, and the sentence structure is either subject + verb or subject + object + verb. In order to quickly master the the formation of sentence structure, I mainly learn Korean by comparing with that in Japanese to understand the meaning behind the simple usage. For the learning resources, I found both the textbook (Integrated Korean Beginning) and workbook useful as a systematic way of studying Korean. Besides that, I really enjoy using online resources and platforms such as HiNative and the Chinese language study website ‘Hujiang’. A lot of questions can be directly answered by the native speakers on HiNative. Also, Korean tutorial videos on YouTube are also helpful for me to explore various cultural concepts and current hot topics.
Here is my powerpoint for the cultural presentation!
