Blogs

For my second artifact, I am watching a short clip from a Korean television show and will be summarizing it in English.

The clip is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vph_cmwwplA

This clip is about a couple that recently got together and is talking about the process of how they came out to the public about their relationship status. The girl speaking, Susie, stated that she was surprised to wake up to one of the writers for a television show asking her if she was getting married. Susie stated that she had no idea what she was talking about and was told to read the news article online. After finding out that there was a news article about their relationship status, she got a call from her agency telling her to talk to her boyfriend about how to clean up this situation. Susie responded to her agency by saying that her boyfriend will take care of it and that she will rely fully on him because she believes that he will choose what is best for them. After this, it was revealed that her boyfriend has confirmed their relationship status and the hosts of the talk show was saying how it was a blessing because of their successful relationship.

For this week, I have learned more about the casual speaking and how foreigners speak English through the Korean media. I watched a short clip on Youtube of a Korean television show and presented on it during my time with my language partner. The clip is linked below and is about a comedian who was embarrassed to speak to other foreigners in Korean due to their exceptional skills in the language. through this, I have learned some technical words in Korean and learned how Koreans speak in comedy. Through this, Minkyung taught us different tones of Korean that can be used to distinguish the skills of each non-native speaker. Minkyung also pointed out filler words like "uhmm" in English that makes conversation sound more natural in Korean. I also learned that one of the foreigners spoke Korean in a similar manner of how I speak Korean. Similar to lots of non-native speakers, I realized that I speak Korean by directly translating English into Korean. However, this is not always the most fluid way to converse. I will learn more and try to talk more fluently and more casually in Korean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbQ-O7VGRHg

After learning Korean for quite a while now, my vocabulary has increased a noticeable amount. Although most new vocabulary that I learned are not actual formal words, they are still useful if I do decide to go to Korea. Minkyung teaches us a "trendy vocab" every week and it helps me get in touch with Korean culture. Through presentations, one of the students that are in the individual classes with me will go up and talk about a trendy vocab. These trendy vocabulary are often multiple words that are shortened and used as colloquialism. However, for more technical terms, the news article presentation helps tremendously. One of the presentation options is to read a newspaper article in Korean and talk about it in class in Korean. This forces me to find articles and look up words that I do not understand, expanding my Korean knowledge. Minkyung also taught us different labels of hierarchy in the workplace. This will be of tremendous help if I decide to intern or work in Korea.

I hope to learn more trendy vocab, but also some formal words that will help me to talk more about technical subjects. In order to do this, I will have to read more articles and read more stories in the field that I am interested in. More exposure will allow me to learn the vocabulary fast and efficiently.

For this week, I am planning to learn more about the technical aspects of Korean. By reading some business articles along with general news articles in Korean, I hope to learn some technical vocabulary and formal, presentational writing skills. My Korean was weakest in the writing aspect and I hope to increase knowledge and skill in that portion of Korean. Watching the news in Korean with my parents, I only understood the context through the pictures and small vocabulary that I picked up on. However, through this, I hope to increase my vocabulary and end up capable of understanding the Korean news. Especially with the Korean news that is going on, I believe that as a Korean, I am obligated to learn more about what is going on in Korea. 

• First Cultural Post:  What is your interest in 'your' language and what do you hope to accomplish this semester?

Many of my friends at Richmond are Korean Americans. Therefore, I have been exposed to a lot of Korean culture and language. Since my freshmen year I have been involved with the campus Korean American Student Organization and served as an officer my junior year as their Marketing chair. Currently, I am the president of the organization now. I think it is important to have some sort of basic knowledge of the language and somewhat understand the language. In addition, in the future I am interested in traveling Asia and Korea is one of the countries I am planning to visit in the near future. Although, I may be traveling with my friend that is fluent in Korean, but it would be more convenient if I could understand as well. Furthermore, I may be meeting my friend's family and relatives, so it is important to be able to somewhat communicate with them. Since in Korea it is very important to show respect, so being able to somewhat do that would be helpful. 

• 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?   

I have already learned several different new words in my target language, Korean. Every class we learn different words, phrases, and learn to combine them into sentences.  The most recent class we learned different names of foods in Korean. I learned these phrases through practice and hearing/seeing them when I go to restaurants. In addition, since I already know mandarin many of the terms in Korean are somewhat similar to Mandarin. This definitely helps me in better understanding and learning the Korean terms. My goals for Korean is to be able to understand and be able to travel in Korea. 

• Respond to the reading, reflecting on what is lost when languages die.  (You might want to watch the interview with David Harrison posted to the front page of the Ning.) 

Language is filled with a lot of history and culture. So, when a language dies it not only loses the physical language but also the human heritage aspect. We lose a community of people who could communicate exclusively and uniquely with each other. In addition, many reasons languages are created because only their language can communicate something specific to their unique culture. For example, many countries have their own sayings and only can be fully understood if you spoke the language and are from the culture. Therefore, it is important to keep all the different languages alive because without it we would not be diverse and would lose valuable years of history. 

I really couldn't say how many new words I have learned, but the vast majority of them have been to do with grammar rather than actual vocabulary. That said, I've learned to count to 100, can list all of the colors of the rainbow, and can talk about my family too. I've written down a lot of vocabulary words, but it is still taking me a lot of time to learn all of them. I'm hoping that my Culture Project can help me with this, because as Basque surnames always mean a certain place, there are a lot of good vocabulary words within them. The words I did learn, I learnt through a lot of repetition, and quizzing on the part of Amaia. I think that I have met my goals for the most part, but there is definitely still a lot of vocabulary I want to learn. That said, I am glad that I got a lot of grammatical rules out of the way, because knowing those, I can continue learning vocabulary by myself next semester and be able to move on. I would say that I still have goals to continue increasing my vocabulary more than my grammar, and be able to know a lot more adjectives and nouns, which I think is definitely a reachable goal.

I thought that the reading was interesting, both because I am familiar with the Athabaskan languages as a Washington native, and also because I started learning Basque in order to try to help preserve it. Although I now know that Basque as a language is not in decline, it meant a lot to me when I began learning it to know that I was helping to carry on the legacy of my family. I really appreciate what these people are doing in Oregon especially, because although it is unlikely that after these five speakers are gone, the language will continue to survive, they are trying to preserve it at the very least. As an archaeology student and archivist, I can really appreciate that as well. When languages die, so does a large part of a group's cultural history, so I think that it's really great that the language can be immortalized in the internet.

Knowing a language's history can help a person understand it, because there are certain historical and cultural factors that help people understand language better. An example of this is my class on the history of English in terms of Greek and Latin. By knowing the history of words, I can understand how they are put together, and therefore better understand what they mean. This class has even helped my understanding of French, because the Greek and Latin roots are much the same as those found in English. This can help be applied to Basque too, because understanding how loan words entered the Basque language, as well as which ones, can be great for better speaking Basque. By knowing that things introduced by the Romans were given Latin-based words in Basque, like "oliba" for olive, you can start to predict what certain things might mean, before technically knowing the words for them.

Some may be wondering what history has to do with language. When we typically think of history, we think of dates, facts, and events that we have memorized in a set timeline. Learning about the history of a language however is different. The history of languages gives us valuable information about the origin of the language and the characters, which can provide us with more insight to be more mindful in studying, so that we can easily grasp concepts and patterns. For example, the Korean language has originated from Chinese characters. Hangul was established in the 15^th century, but before that, Korean was written in hanja, and Chinese characters made up the written form of the Korean language. For Chinese learners, this may be helpful because although they may not recognized the blocked characters and the new writing system, they may be able to easily catch certain sounds that have the same meaning in Chinese. 

• Third Artifact:  Introduce yourself and your family

I will read a passage in Indonesian and translate it instead since I introduced myself and my family in my second artifact.

Third%20Artifact.m4a

My goals for week 10 were:

From Bahasa Indonesia bagi Pentur Asing Tingkat-A1: Unit 5 Jalan-Jalan (touring/visiting)

• to learn the names of animals, "things," and public buildings that are "near" to my everyday life
• to learn how to give and ask for information about animals, "things," and public buildings, i.e., train stations, markets, shopping centers, etc. 
• to have a conversation about my favorite places to visit on holidays
• to identify the rooms within a house and basic house goods 

Culture

From Jobless Vloggers

• to understand the context in which recent uprisings in Jakarta occurred 
• to understand the broad opinions about these uprisings
• to read the economist about current geopolitics concerning Indonesia

Review

With my language learning partner

• to have a comprehensive conversation covering the topics that I have learned

Accomplishing these goals:

I worked on Unit 5 "Jalan-Jalan," sourced from Indonesia's Ministry of education and culture. I worked on my listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills via the activities within this chapter. The listening and speaking parts were completed with my language learning partner. Moreover, I watched videos that covered the recent protests taking place on the streets of Jakarta as well as listened to the commentary of people voicing their opinions on how these protests reflect the current nature of Islam in Indonesia and where the country is heading next. I also read about Indonesia's stance on the South China Sea conundrum. Lastly, I spent two hours with my language learning partner working on my speaking and listening skills as well as talking about Islam's presence in Indonesia's society. 

Listening back to my artifact, I realized that my tone is very unnatural and my accent is nowhere as good as native speakers. However, the words and the sentence flowed well and sounded somewhat natural. Although the beginning of the artifact started well, I could not find a way to bridge the introductions with the farewells. I believe that this will become better as my vocabulary and my fluency of the language increases. 

For my week 4 and 5 goals, I believe that I achieved them to a working knowledge. These goals were a little bit advanced for me, especially week 5's goals. However, with the help of Minkyung, I got it straight and learned how to be humble, something of significant importance in the Korean culture. The online lectures helped in a way, but were too formalized. It was difficult to tie everything into a natural and flowing conversation. Since the video only shows a certain scenarios, it was hard for me to learn when to use the words and sentences.

Artifact%20One.m4a

Family values and respect in the family is extremely important in the Korean culture. Sons and daughters usually speak in "Nopinmal" (a style of speaking directed to people with higher respect-level) to their parents although some do not. Also, the father of any family is more respected than the mother, although this has been changing more recently. For example, when I eat with my grandparents, no one eats until our grandfather takes the first bite of his dish. Also, in Korea, divorces are very frowned-upon compared to America. I don't know any Korean friends whose parents are divorced but a lot of my non-Korean friends' parents are separated. Up until the 1970's, most Korean marriages were arranged and Koreans have a unique style of wedding called the traditional Korean wedding. Koreans who get married these days usually take part in both the typical wedding ceremony and the traditional Korean wedding. Lastly, in the Korean family household, the first son is usually more valued than the other children. I know this from experience because I am a first child. 

There are not too many differences with attitudes about time in Korea compared to that of America or any other country. One difference is counting one's age in Korea. When you are born in Korea, you are one years old instead of starting at zero. That is why I am one year older in Korea compared to my age in America. Specifically with time, Koreans do not have any special sayings like "quarter to ten" or "one and a half hours". There is simply just one way of saying the current time, how much time is left, what time to meet, etc. For dates, Koreans use the format of DD/MM/YYYY unlike America. Additionally, there are two different calendars in Korea. One is not used by millenials at all but for everyone older, they use that calendar to refer to their birthdays. For example, my father's birth date is 6/22 in the common calendar. But his birth date in the old calendar is some date in April and that is when my family celebrates his birthdate. 

For my culture project, I am going to do it on the history of the Korean presidency. Due to the recent US elections with two very controversial candidates, I gained an interest in politics. Also, the current Korean president is mixed up with a lot of controversies and this sparked my interest in Korean politics as well. I want to explore the history of the Korean presidency and how the nation was ruled after it became an independent country after Japan's control. I'm going to research the history of each president in Korea since Rhee Syng-man all the way up to the current president, Park Geun Hye. I want to learn which presidents did what, who was popular/unpopular, and how they came to power, etc. Knowing how your home country was/is being run is important to know, just as how I should be interested in the presidency of the country that I am living in right now.

The Korean writing system is very unique and is not similar to any other language in the world or even in Asia. It is a language with very few number of alphabets and when you ask a lot of Koreans, they will say that a particular Korean word looks like how it sounds like. There are exactly 14 consonants and 10 vowels. These consonants and vowels can be combined to form different words.

Additionally, the Korean writing system is interesting in the fact that one letter (that contains at least one consonant and a vowel) has one syllable. Unlike English, where one word can have multiple syllables, Korean words can only have one syllable. Also, the Korean writing system is fairly new as it was invented by King Sejong in the 1400's. Even though I mentioned that the Korean language is not similar to other languages, it has a lot of derivations from the Chinese language and some Japanese words as well.

My understanding of the Korean language vastly improved the past couple of weeks. Thanks to my self-directed language 110 teacher, Minkyung, I was able to learn more on not just the Korean language itself but the culture as well. I consider myself an Americanized Korean now and I have almost no knowledge of the current state of Korea in terms of culture, politics, new vocabulary, entertainment, etc. Studying with my 110 professor has helped me keep track and “catch up to date” about Korea. For example, I learned a lot about the Korean educational system. I learned that in Korea, students have to basically decide their major in high school and when applying to colleges, they can only take the “Korean SATs” once. Aside from that, Korean students study extremely hard in high school and receive much more freedom in college. Additionally, I learned that Koreans are even more self-insecure about their image than I originally thought they were. Not only does your physical appearance matter when applying to jobs, students have fun insulting each other about each other’s appearances a lot. This explains the high rate of plastic surgery in Korea, especially among the females. Another important subject area that I gained a lot of knowledge in is Korean politics. Korea is going through an extremely difficult and strange scandal right now with their current president, Park Geun Hye. It was revealed that she was taking part of giving highly classified information to a close friend of hers who was found to be a Shaman. Although this is an extremely unique and serious case, there have been numerous political scandals and stories of corruption in the Korean government in the past.

Regarding my learning process of the Korean language, I believe I got better at grammar and spelling, areas that I lacked in before. Twice a week, I meet with my 110 professor and do grammar exercises and even spelling-bees that improve my writing skills. In addition, I have learned so many new words that I have never known before. I came to America after only finishing the second grade in Korea. This means my level of Korean is that of a second-grader. I learned a lot of difficult vocabulary and even “trendy” words that are used commonly in Korea at the moment. These “trendy” words are usually abbreviations of two to as many as five words that are used to describe an individual, situation, or anything for that matter. I greatly improved in my communicative competence as I practice having conversations with my fellow classmate, Jin. I also noticed that I call my parents a lot more often to utilize the skills that I have learned in Korean. In order to further improve my communicative competence, I am going to speak in Korean a lot more often with my Korean friends I have in school and in church. I will also continue to keep up with current events, especially the stories unfolding in the government regarding the president which interests me.