I learned so much during everyone's cultural presentations! I was very interested in learning a little bit about the gendered aspects of Hebrew, as well as the differences between formal and informal speech in Korean. Furthermore, I was intrigued and impressed by Diego's presentation on traditional Korean weddings. I am studying Korean as well and that is an aspect of the culture that I have not focused on yet, but the differences between Korean and Western weddings was really fascinating. I also had a fun time "walking through the market" while learning some phrases in Wolof. Lastly, Jessica's presentation on Korean school culture was super interesting. I already had some background on what high school culture is like in Korea, but Jessica took it to the next level and really dove into the specifics and I appreciate how elaborate and detailed her presentation was. Overall everyone spoke very well and seemed excited about what they were talking about.
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English:
Thank you for an awesome semester!
I hope you had a great experience at UR...
Wishing you all the best :)
We should meet up if/when I go to Barcelona
Catalan:
Gràcies per un increïble semestre!
Espero que tinguis una gran experiència a UR ...
Desitjant-vos tot el millor :)
Hem de trobar-nos si / quan vaig a Barcelona
I struggle quite a bit with the double Ls in Catalan...
SDLC105_Artifact.mp3Here's an audio to try to explain the difference
For reference:
English:
a) I hate the rain and b) Moon
Spanish:
a) Odio la lluvia and b) Luna
Catalan
a) Odi la pluja and b) Lluna
I watched an interview from FC Barcelona's coach on how he feels about his country and its language.
He is very proud and loving of Catalunya. Calling his country a marvelous place and saying he would like nothing more than playing for a Catalan national team...
Some of his most striking phrases are:
"es la nuestra llengua" --> "it is our language"
"som un país i tenim una llengua propria" --> we are a country and we have our own language
The video actually has English subtitles, so if you're interested here is the link
When I started studying Catalan, my family was hyped because I could watch Merlí -- a TV series in Catalan that is available on Netflix -- with them.
Sweet innocence, to think I would be able to watch a whole Netflix series during the semester... But I did watch the first episode in Catalan! ... with subtitles in Spanish, because that was the closest that I could get to Catalan and farthest from "my" languages (PT and EN)
Short summary: Merlí, the main character, is a middle aged man. The episode opens with him and his ex-wife discussing living arrangements for their son while she takes a job away in Rome. Merlí is living with his mother, because he was out of a job -- he is a philosophy high school teacher. But then luck strikes and he is offered a position... At his son's school! Merlí is peculiar and treats his students differently from the other professors in the school.. I don't know what will come of that...
I understood what happened throughout the episode, but I definitely did not understand *everything* that was going on. But I worked hard to listen to the Catalan and compare it to the Castellano on the screen, and I felt like I did a fine job differentiating each...
Overall, I think that my learning process has been a success. My goal was to strengthen my reading, writing, and speaking skills, and learn more about of history of my parent’s home country, South Korea. I was able to go more in depth about the language and culture while having a general interests in the topics that I have chosen. I was able choose the content of what I generally wanted to learn about, making the exercises more enjoyable. This allowed me to want to learn more and continue with the self-teaching.
I really enjoyed reading various articles, which I found from Naver, and reading the book, Please Look After Mom. Though I generally do not read for fun, I was compelled to read because topics were very interesting. My favorite part was reading the book because it was a very emotional and eye-opening. I never thought that I would read an actual book in Korean that was not a children’s book because I do not like reading in Korean due to my frustration of not being able to read fast. However, because I was reading so many texts in Korean, starting from textbooks to articles, I started to see the change in my reading pace. Seeing results really made me proud and motivated me to continue learning.
In addition, I liked applying to what I learned in real-life settings. I never speak Korean to anyone except for my parents, but talking to my language partner in Korean and having her critique me was a great way for me to fix my pronunciation. Even though I had another partner last semester, I was still feeling awkward about speaking to others in Korean so the practice made me become even more comfortable. When I went to Grand Mart to get rice cakes, I could not find them and so I had to talk to an employee in Korean to ask where it was. I did not feel as uncomfortable. I did the same thing last semester but I was anxious about the whole process.
Even though I will be graduating this semester, I will continue to learn the language and culture on my own. I will be going to Korea this fall and cannot wait to use the skills that I have accumulated over the past year. Although I am not perfect with the language, I feel as though I became better and relaxed with Korean. I think that I really took advantage of my time to progress and hope to utilize what I learned this whole year when I am out in the real world.
For my cultural project, I decided to look in Japanese imperialism in Korea and an important figure, Yu-GwanSun. The pdf attached is my powerpoint which also consists of my sources in the end. My presentation is also on Panopto.
Basically, I focus on the brief history of the colonialism period and talk about how Yu-GwanSun was a prominent activist that fought for the country. She dedicated her life to fight for not her freedom, but the general people’s freedom. She watched so many of her loved ones die in front of her eyes, but she never stopped rallying because of the love she had for Korea. In the end, she died of extreme torture and yet in her last breathe, she said, “Japan should fall”.
I chose to talk about her because I really respect what she did for the country despite being a high school student. She was an amazing person and should be known to others for who she was and how she lived.
<Confucianism Ideals>
Despite the implementation of Westernized ideals in Korean society, confucius teachings are still prominent today. Confucius was a Chinese philosopher whose teachings were spread throughout all of East Asia, including Korea. His emphasis on familial structures and respect for elders is greatly instilled.
With people who are older, higher up in position, and higher up in education status, the honorific form has to be used. It is extremely rude if the form is not used. If one does not know whether or not use the honorific form, it should be used as default. Also, bowing is a habitual greeting that should be done upon people who are older, etc.
Furthermore, Koreans tend to look upon family as a strong support group. Even if one is far away from the family, there should still be some form of contact. In addition, children are pushed to take care of their parents when the parents are older. Nursing homes are not as popular as Westernized places. Because the parents spent their time and money on the children, the children are expected to reciprocate the gestures.
Despite being a Korean person who grew up in America, my parents have taught me the same ideals of respect and familial support. Thus, when I was in middle school, I would accidently bow to my American teachers once in a while!
Source: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20120213001231
Because I wanted to practice my writing, I asked my language partner to give me prompts to answer. I would write as much as I could about the prompts and my partner would fix the mistakes that I had in my spelling.
This helped me convey what I was thinking on paper. I never write in Korean because I never have to, so my spelling is my weakest point. Attached are pictures of some of the writing that I had done.
The past two weeks, I decided to watch a drama to further my learning process of listening and comprehension skills. Usually, when I watch a drama, I tend to read the English subtitles because I can not check up with what is going on. I looked up on Google for a popular drama, and found that Descendants of the Sun was the top drama on many people’s list (it was on Netflix). Thus, I began watching the drama and only turning on subtitles, when I did not understand what was being said. This allowed me to immerse myself in the language without having subtitles as a default.
The only downside to is that the subtitles can be wrong sometimes so I did not just focus on the subtitles for translation but I also utilized Naver to translate the words/phrases I had trouble on.
I think that this is a good way to strengthen one’s listening and comprehension skills because when learning a language, consistently listening to it is a strong way to understanding it.
My parents sometimes bring up the past about Japanese colonialism and how horrible it was for the people in Korea. They would talk about this matter when they watch the news and conflicts between Japan and Korea come about. At first, I did not know much about what happened in Korea because we are not taught of this matter in the US. Thus, I decided to look into the history of Korea, to understand what my parents were always talking about.
<Japanese Imperialism in Korea (1910-1945)>
The annexation of Korea happened on 1910 when a Treaty of Annexation was signed. This was the start of extreme oppression of the people. Many people were killed and tortured, and the culture was taken away from the people. Speaking Korean was not allowed, using Korean currency was not allowed, and going to school was not allowed. Basically, people’s freedom was taken away. The most saddest parts were when people’s bodies were being used as weapon testers and women were being sexually violated (they were called “comfort women” by the Japanese). Even today, the Koreans mourn for the deaths of so many people and have strong emotions about the past because the Japanese government never officially apologized for the tragic event. Today, the national holiday, March 1st Independence Day, is one of the most important day because it signifies the time where people were finally free from the horrid persecution.
Sources: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-koreas/
Artifact3.2.PNG Artifact3.1.PNG
Because I wanted to practice my texting and spelling skills in Korean, I made a group chat on Kakaotalk with my family and individually texted my mom for practice. Because it was her birthday, I wanted to buy her a gift so I texted her a lot to ask her what she exactly wanted. Also I texted her because I thought that she did not receive her gift, I was anxious.
The screenshot of the conversation with my family was due to my sister sending a picture of what she cooked.
Attached are two pictures that are screenshots of the conversations. I did not screenshot more because some of the messages were private.
For the past two weeks, I began reading a book in Korean. My mom recommended me to read the book, 엄마 를 부탁 해 (Please Look After my Mom). She sent me the book through mail and so I began reading it. Basically, it is an emotional book about how a family overlooks the mom’s existence and when they lose her at a subway station, they began to understand how they horribly treated her. I really recommend this book to people because it is a book that touches on the importance of life itself.
The book was not too hard to understand and this was the first time I read a book that was not a children’s book.
Because my mom read the book, I was able to discuss what the chapters were about and continue a conversation of how I felt about it and the important messages hidden within the chapters. In addition, I even texted my mom, while reading about the book, to give her my thought process of the readings.
This week, I decided to look into the history of how Korean language came to be. Because I am learning the language, I thought that it would be interesting to look into the history of Sejong the Great, the king who changed the language system of Korea.
Sejong the Great was one of the great kings in the Choseon dynasty in the 1400s. He not only was a king who instituted the Korean language system throughout the land, but wanted the public to generally learn the language. The aristocrats were against the public learning the language because they wanted to be the only ones educated so that they could have a upper hand of knowledge. Without the basic knowledge, the public were oblivious of their oppression from the rich. Sejong wanted to change this, so he created the Korean alphabet and passed books to the poor so that education was being spread throughout the land.
In addition to his great creation, he generally wanted the his people to prosper. He established shelter and food sources for the people without homes, created fair loan systems for the farmers, and cultivated the cultural/political heritage of Korea. It can be said that he was ruling for the people and wanted Koreans as a whole to succeed.
For the past two weeks, I was able to practice my conversation skills with my mom. I facetimed her a lot of times because it was her birthday. I wanted to get her a present but did not know what she wanted so during the time period, I talked with her around 5-6 times to figure out what she wanted.
Through multiple of questions and answers, I was able to finally able to get the information of what she wanted. After I got her the gift by shipping it to her, the handbag I bought her had a tear so I had to explain to her how to ship out the bag to return it.
I was able to have a conversation utilizes different phrases to prolong the dialogue. My mom was able to help me when I was stuck with my words. This was a great practice for me because it was not a conversation that was about what I did, ate, or how I was doing.
I believe that to really further the process of language learning, one has to speak with a native to practice speaking skills. Because I do not have friends or family near me that speak Korean, this allowed me to really think about what to say in this certain situation. Because I am going to Korea soon, I hope that speaking with my mom constantly about a wide variety of topics will enable me to have a smooth conversation with my relatives.
Also, I went through two more units of the workbook.
Looking upon goals in the beginning and what I want to accomplish, I think that I have been following my plans up-to-date. I do not plan on making any changes.
I believe that my learning plan and activities are helping me increase my reading, writing, and speaking skills. I am practicing a lot on my own and with my language partner. My partner has told me that my mistakes on writing have been improving.
Last semester, I changed my plans multiple on times because it was my first time studying a language on my own. I did not know what level I was. However, I was able to get a basis of where I stood in SDLC 110, I was able to figure out what I should do for this semester to further my learning progress.
I continued on with filling out the workbook. But alongside with working on it, I began to read news articles that I found in Naver.
The past two weeks, my goal was to understand the articles. As the content is more harder for me to understand, I wanted to challenge myself as it is a better practice more me. To make it more interesting for me, I looked into the lifestyle/culture section of the news.
http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LS2D&mid=shm&sid1=103&sid2=238&oid=020&aid=0003130538
http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LS2D&mid=shm&sid1=103&sid2=238&oid=421&aid=0003228379
I found couple articles on food, read them, and wrote down the general summaries of what it was about. I then asked my dad to read the article and see if what I wrote was correct.
To make it a little harder, I decided to read an article on the education aspect in Korea.
http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LS2D&mid=shm&sid1=102&sid2=250&oid=001&aid=0009925049
It was more difficult to understand the article and I had to read it multiple of times to comprehend to material. Like what I did above, my dad read the summary of what I wrote and fixed my mistakes. I made more mistakes than the articles about food, considering the topic and content being harder. However, this was good practice for me because I learned new words that I had not known about before because it was an unfamiliar topic.
For my artifact, I have pictures of the workbook that I am working on. As stated in my bi-weekly report #2, I went through the textbook and answered the questions on the workbook. My language partner then graded my answers. Artifact2.pdf
For the past two weeks, I have been working on a workbook given to me by my language partner. The workbook consists of speaking, writing, and reading practices for people who know the basic language but want to have more practice. After I go through one unit of the book, I answer 12 pages of the workbook that consists of fill-in-the-blanks, multiple choice, and full sentence writing. For the past two weeks, I went through 3 units. Each unit has different topics, like problem-solving, working life, etc. I will continue on with the workbook with other activities to further my knowledge of Korean.
As I work on this packet, I hope to see less errors on my spelling. As I am more comfortable with speaking, this is good practice for writing and I like how there is a textbook to go back to, and understand what I did wrong.
I recommend for others to get a workbook because it teaches all of the different elements of the language.
