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I was able to meet Prof. Sumi Kim and we went over a lot of new vocabulary and lots of new particles and how/when to use them. She also gave me some reading practice which was really nice because that is what I have been focussing on lately. I kept up my speaking practice that I mentioned in my last journal, and reviewed what I have learned so far with Prof. Sumi Kim by asking and answering questions as usual. I also realised that it has been a long time since I have reviewed Korean numbers and Sino-Korean numbers, so obviously I did some sudokus with different types of numbers to review them in a way that I find fun. I also started watching a new Korean drama called Itaewon Class on Netflix and so far it has been really interesting.
This is going to be my last journal entry, and I will not be taking Korean next semester at least, so I want to take some time to reflect on my language learning journey.
I first started learning Korean because of my interest in BTS. Eventually, my interest in BTS has kept reducing as my priorities changed but I started really enjoying simply learning Korean. I find Korean culture fascinating and I am really grateful to have had the opportunity to dive into it and see new traditions and perspectives. I have come a long way from when I first started. Going from basically knowing nothing to being able to reading, write, and speak basic Korean feels amazing. I was able to really acknowledge how much I have grown when I was telling my family about learning Korean and they asked me whether I could do certain things and my response to most of them was ‘yes’. My grandfather randomly came up to me and said, “ask me what I ate in Korean,” and I was able to use the word for grandfather, use the right honorifics, and had good enough vocabulary to respond to his request on the spot and it made him and me really happy.
Simply learning Korean with Prof. Sumi Kim and Gavin has been extremely fun. They made it a very comfortable space to learn where I made a lot of mistakes, and did not always get the right answer, while also learning a lot, and getting a lot of things right. Them along with my friends who supported me through this journey by helping me practice and making sure I understand are people I am grateful for. As I reflect right now, I see that a lot of why I appreciate Korean as a language and a culture is because of the people I have met through it and the memories that I have made. So, I will make sure to carry forward what I have learned and keep making more memories with different people. I hope to definitely dive deeper into Korean. For now, as this semester comes to an end, there is one thing I can say for sure: I definitely need to eat more Korean food!
Korean architecture is characterized by naturalistic tendencies, simplicity, economy of shape, and the avoidance of extremes. I’m going to dive into it and how it evolved over time based on the time periods.
Prehistoric Period
There were three types of prehistoric dwellings in Korea: pit houses, log houses, and elevated houses. Pit houses consisted of a deep pit and a frame of grass and clay supported by timber. Log houses were made by laying logs horizontally one on top of one another like bricks with clay being used as cement. Elevated houses were constructed in two stories to keep food away from animals.
Three Kingdoms Period
The three kingdoms were Koguryo, Paekche, and Shilla. Koguryo was influenced by Chinese culture which can clearly be seen in Koguryo’s palaces, temples, and tombs. It was characterized by powerful lines and sturdy construction. Paekche was also influenced by Koguryo and China. A characteristic of Paekche architecture is its use of curvilinear designs. Shilla’s temple was separated from China by Koguryo or Paekche, so China's cultural influence was much diluted.
The Unified Shilla Period
Architectural ornamentation, such as roof tiles decorated with floral and animal designs, was seen more often. The ‘two pagodas’ style, was prevalent at the time. Note: a pagoda is considered the grave of Buddha and is a structure commonly found at Buddhist temples.
Koryo Dynasty
The architecture during this time was very similar to Tang architecture in China.
Toward the end of the Koryo dynasty, building pagodas essentially stopped. The adaptation of the Tang architecture is called the chusimp’o style which is the ‘column-head bracket system’. The picture shows how it looks.
Choson Dynasty
The chusimp’o i.e. the column-head bracket style of the Koryo period, continued during the early part of this period. But, a new architectural style was introduced from Song China. This became the dominant architectural style of the Choson period and was called the tap’o, or the inter-columnar bracket style. The new tap’o buildings are much more decorative than those in the chusimp’o style because the intercolumnar brackets fill up the otherwise empty spaces between columns. The picture shows how it looks.
Modern Period
Western art began to influence Korean art in the later part of the 19th century. Until the 1970s the trend in Korean architecture was to adopt the western style. In the 1980s, the variety of architectural projects expanded, leading to the adoption of postmodernism which included the reinterpretation of traditional Korean architecture. The picture below is of the Seoul City Hall.
In the past two weeks in Korean class, since the heroine of the Korean drama "Crash landing on you" is a fashion company owner, and she mentioned popular colors in the TV series, so we learned Korean words about colors. I found that all the words related to colors is ending with “색”, like “white” is “하얀색”, “yellow” is “노랑색” and “green” is “녹색”. This rule really helps me remember new words. In a love drama like "Crash landing on you" the heroine's clothes and jewelry, or even her favorite food, can easily become popular. I remember a long time ago there was a TV show in which the heroine said, "On a snowy day, fried chicken and beer go best together." after the TV show, there was a time when everyone would buy fried chicken and beer. You can always see people buying the same necklace or earrings on the Internet, and I think that’s why many brands sponsor TV shows, which can increase there sales a lot.
In class we begin to learn polite informal expression “아요/-어요”, which is is in present tense. This ending differs from the previous endings in that it is not distinguished by vowels or consonants, but by the vowels found in the main part. Every Korean word must have a vowel sound, so this rule is not difficult to understand and apply. Verb stems that contain vowels “ㅗ” or “ㅏ” are followed by “-아요”, and verb stems that contain vowels “ㅜ” or “ㅓ” or “ㅣ” are followed by “-어요”. For us to have a better understanding of this rule, Ms. Kim gives us several examples. “놀다 ” means “to play” and its main part “놀다” contains vowel “ㅗ”, so by the definition we will use “-아요” and write as “놀아요”. And also, “살다” means “to live” and we can see its main part “살” contains vowel “ㅏ”, so by the definition we will use “-아요” and write as “살아요”. Ms. Kim told us that there are always exceptions to every rule. In this rule, because the ending contains vowel sound “ㅏ”, so the main part of the verb changes when it ends in vowel sound “ㅏ”, but since how it changes depends on the word, so we need to remember each change. Take “가다” and “하다” for example, we can see they all contains vowel sound “ㅏ”, if we follow the rules we'll write as “가아요” and “하아요”. However, it is inconvenient for us to pronounce double “ㅏ”, so we change them in to “가요” and “해요”. Ending “-어요” is similar to ending “-아요”, and there are also exceptions. “이다” means “to be”, and we can write it in to two forms “이에요” and “예요”. If the verb has final consonant, like “물”, we use “이에요” and write as “물이에요”. If If the verb has no final consonant, like “커피”, we use “에요” and write as “커피에요”. Ms. Jin only taught us some common verbs and the special forms of common verbs, and we are sure to encounter more special forms in the future study, which we need to remember all of them.
Over these past two weeks, I did the same thing with Jenna where I watch episodes of Reply 1997 and write a reflection on it. My reflections became longer and longer as I got more into the series and could relate more to the characters. I actually finished the show and thought it was overall a funny, heartfelt series and I also want to watch the sequels with my mom who also enjoyed watching them a couple years ago. I also recorded my podcast with Jenna, and it was nice to review what we have accomplished this semester and how much I have progressed.
At home, I began to realize that I have speaking more in Korean whether it was to my parents or siblings. My mom, sister, and I enjoy watching Korean variety shows on the weekends, so we watched shows like Running Man (variety show with celebrities playing a game) and The Return of Superman (celebrity dads spend time with their young children without the help of his wife). The language used in these shows are fairly simple to understand, so I didn’t need to put on the subtitles. Whenever there was a word or phrase, I was unfamiliar with, I could just ask my mom. She would respond with the answer and sometimes, a whole history lesson about the subject. In an older episode of The Return of Superman, one of the dads tried to make dalgona candy for his son but failed miserably. After watching that scene, my parents felt nostalgic by seeing their favorite childhood street candy, so our family decided to make it. Just like the dad on the show, my sister and I accidentally burnt the sugar the first time. We learned from our mistake and made some more dalgona and imprinted a heart shape on the candy, just like how people running the street vendors would do it.
I’ve also been listening to more Korean music because my parents like to sing older Korean songs while doing their work and my sister enjoys blasting K-pop music from her room. Also, one night as our family was finishing up a game, my mom mentioned how Korean people say that someone’s blood type relates to their personality. People reported that they didn’t get along in relationships with other people of specific blood types. Pop artists in Korea even released songs centered around blood type and personalities in the early 2000’s. According to this theory of the four primary blood types, people with type A are emotional, passionate, sensitive and clever, type B are driven, creative, decisive, and stubborn, type AB are a mix of both type A and B, and type O are daring, outgoing, generous, and confident. There is even a chart that reveals which people with specific blood types are compatible with who. I even took a quiz to see if the it could guess my type; it was close, but not correct. I thought that this was interesting and could be compared to how others look at their horoscope. Even though the blood type to personality doesn’t seem to be scientifically true, it is accurate that blood type correlates to certain physical immunities.
For me, the first thing that pops up in my mind when the word culture comes up is the food. The items that people generally think of Korean food are bulgogi (marinated beef), japchae (stir fried noodles), kimchi (fermented vegetables), bibimbap (mixed rice), or soondae (blood sausage). What many people don’t know about is the commonly eaten Korean soup called miyeokguk (미역국). Miyeok means seaweed and guk (pronounced with a long u) means soup. This soup can be seen in many Korean dramas and variety shows. Although I have been around this soup my whole life, I learned more while researching this soup.
According to one source, the origin of this food dates back to the Goryeo Dynasty when people had observed and quickly learned that after delivering a calf, whales would eat seaweed to heal. Another source indicated that the Goryeo people just liked eating seaweed and would make this soup for its taste. Nowadays, it is a tradition for mothers to eat miyeokguk after giving birth (it is actually the leading postpartum food in Korea) and also for people to eat this on their birthday. It is said that this food purifies blood, detoxifies the body, and helps the metabolism process. It’s very healthy for the mother and child because it contains a high level of calcium which will be important for nursing mothers. Usually a close relative or friend will bring the mother this seaweed soup so that she can heal quickly.
When I was younger, my grandparents and relatives would call me to ask, “Did Mom make you miyeokguk today?” and I was always confused why they would ask me that question until I was told this tradition. Since the mother had this soup after giving birth, the child has the same type of soup on their birthday as a thanks to their mother.
Another interesting fact I learned was that many people in Korea don’t have miyeokguk on the day of an exam or on the day of a job interview. This is because seaweed is slippery and gives the idea of slipping up and failing (or doing bad). That’s why some would “I had miyeokguk!” if they didn’t do well. What they do eat instead on these important days as a sign of good luck are chapssaltteok (Korean style mochi) or yeot (Korean traditional taffy) because they are sticky.
Like many foods, there are so many varieties of miyeokguk that can be made such as one with beef, another that has more seafood such as mussels and oysters, and another type with potatoes. Whichever recipe is made, the ingredients seem to be fairly minimal. The one for miyeokguk with beef contains dried seaweed, beef brisket, sesame oil, soup soy sauce, minced garlic, and water. I like how easy it is to make and that even though it is eaten for birthdays, it can be a side dish on any given day as well. It’s healthy, low in calorie, and I always feel refreshed after having this delicious soup.
I hoped to learn more grammar and review the vocabulary that I’ve been learning. I think I was able to complete these goals these past two weeks.
As usual, I met with Professor Kim over Zoom these past two weeks. The vocabulary we have been learning these past two weeks have been about different buildings, such as “bookstore”, “bank”, “department store”, and “restaurant”. She also tested me on different adjectives and miscellaneous items. I’ve been doing pretty well on the vocabulary test and things are getting easier to remember. Something Professor Kim has been doing that I’ve found very helpful is after each word we go over; she will ask me a question in which I have to use the word. I think it’s helpful to practice using the word and gives me a better context of when it would be used. It also helps me practice my speaking and grammar. After the vocabulary test, we did a conjugation activity. Professor Kim sent me a worksheet with a bunch of verbs on it. In one column I was supposed to change the verb to polite informal and in another column, I was supposed to change the verb to polite formal. This was an interesting and fun activity that gave me a lot of practice with conjugation. Some of the irregular verbs were tricky but it was a good reminder that those verbs had special exceptions. Another activity we did was finish reading the sentences that we didn’t get to in previous weeks. We were able to finish the reading activity which was good practice for my reading and speaking skills.
These past two weeks, I also met with Jannette. Since I practiced verb conjugation with Professor Kim, I wanted to practice verb conjugation and speaking with Jannette. We came up with hypothetical situations where depending on the context, I would conjugate the verb accordingly. I thought that this was a fun activity and was very engaging. I liked that it reflected real life situations and forced me to be aware of the context and who I was speaking to. I find it so interesting that depending on who you are speaking to, the conjugation of the verb will change. This doesn’t really exist in English, so it has been hard for me to get into that mindset. I often default to the informal conjugation of a verb even when I am speaking to someone older than me, such as Professor Kim. I think this was good practice to rewire my brain to think as a Korean so I can conjugate verbs correctly without much thought.
In order to practice what I’ve learned these past two weeks I will continue having practice conversations. I liked the activity that I did with Jannette where I would conjugate depending on the situation, so I think I would like to continue doing that. As I’ve said in the past, watching Korean dramas and movies has been a fun way to practice. I try to pick up on how they are conjugating verbs depending on who they are speaking to. It’s cool to notice how someone’s speech will change depending on whether they are talking to someone younger than them or someone older than them.
I think my strategies have been effective so far. My vocabulary continues to expand, and I am becoming more efficient at recalling vocabulary. I think that my listening skills are also improving after exposing myself to Korean more often. Understanding a sentence when watching Korean dramas or movies is a really great feeling and makes me confident in my learning.
In order to build on what I’ve learned so far, I hope to continue expanding my vocabulary and learning new grammar rules. I also want to make sure that I reinforce the material that I’ve learned in previous weeks so I will look over that material. I will continue using apps to teach me new vocabulary that I can try to use when speaking.
These two weeks were the last two weeks of this semester. So Brenda and I did the podcast and some research about North Korea which is also the topic of my final presentation. During the podcast, we discussed the topics we have learned through the whole semester. We talked about each other’s favourite Korean slangs and new words. We also made up sentences using those grammar rules and suffixes we have learned this semester. When we were making up sentences, I think I was using it fairly fluently. It didn't take much time to think. Moreover, we recalled the movie and TV drama we have wathced this semester. We talked about those classic senses of the movie and drama. Overall, the podcast was good.
The research we did about North Korea was very interesting. We learned about the language difference first. It was bery interetsing to hear those North Korean people speaking their language when I already know how South Korean lanugae sounds like. For me, it is still difficult to hear exactly which word or part of sentences is used differently in North Korean lanuage. But I can hear the difference of tone of North and South Korean. I found that the unique tone of North Korean is very strong and strict, which can also reflect their rigid national characteristics. I would include more details about the difference between these two Korean lanuage in my final presentation.
Another thing we researched about North Korea was North Korean food. The biggest difference between North Korean food and South Korean food is that North Korea does not have as many different kinds of food as South Korean does, and the North Korea has different name for food that appear in both country. For example, North Korea does not have 치킨（fired chicken）which is a very popular and famous food in South Korea. Also, North Korea does not have김밥(Kim bab), it only has 인조고기밥 (rice rolled in fake meat). The original kim bab is made with differet kind of real meat and vegetables. More interestingly, North Korean call coca-cola 미제단물 (American sweet water), where in South Korea it is 코카콜라(the transliteration of Coca-Cola). These also reflect that North Korea is not very receptive to foreign things, languages and so on. They prefer to do it in the most local way. Again, I will include more details about this in my final presentation.
Since this is the last biweekly jounal of this semester, I also want to talk about the future plans and the future challenges I might have. My lanuage partner Brenda is going to graduate this year, which means that I will have another lanuage partner next semester. This would be a challenge because it will take some time for us to learn each other and catch up with my progress in learning Korean with Brenda. Before being partner with Brenda, I also have another partner. So, I believe I can still be on the right track very quick. For the next semester, I want to keep learning the formal written Korean lanuage and try to have every class completely in Korean.
If I were to receive a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of Korean and its culture, I would like to study two things: aegyo and how that affect Korean’s pop culture. During my first year seminar class with Dr. Kissling, I actually got the opportunity to do a research paper on the purpose and effects of a phenomenon called “aegyo.”Aegyo can be described as performed winsomeness, or the feeling of childlike joy or innocence that is attractive or pleasing to others. More specifically, it is a layered articulation of behaviors, gestures, vocal and linguistic adjustments, narratives, and fashions that serve to enact child-like charm and infantilized cuteness. Then, I argued that aegyo gave an individual social power. I thought this topic was fascinating of itself, however, when I started to conduct intense research on it, there were not many published data and sources about this topic. I think something I would like to conduct if I receive this grant is to see how performers of aegyo switch up the grammatical structures of their sentences in order to sound more cute and innocent-like, thus making them more likeable.
Aegyo plays a significant role in East Asian countries mainly due to the influence of Korean pop culture and girl group figures that regularly practice performed winsomeness. I also want to research just how much aegyo is influenced by pop culture and vise versa.
I believe the best way to get started on this project is to immerse myself into the culture directly with people who use aegyo. As a result, I would travel to Korea to be in direct contact with the individuals and see the results for myself.
I have started to write in Korean through mostly text messages. At first, I started mainly having to text my parents in Korean. They would not necessarily correct me, however, I would see what they wrote and began to correct mistakes. If I wrote, “되서" and my parents used “돼서,” in the next text message, I would keep that in mind and change it the next time I text them. I do not really write free hand as much as possible because I somehow cannot make my handwriting in Korean look neat and clean. This is why I try to avoid it as much as possible. Personally, I think Korean is a very difficult language to write neatly when writing free hand. There are a lot of different characters that need to fit under one area. For example, for English, all of the characters/letters have their own space. However, for Korean, there are words like “안녕하세요" or “닭강정 먹고싶어요" in which there are multiple characters combined under one space.
I’ve started to see better now just how different Korean is compared to English. I realized that with Korean, we switch up the subject and the verb. For English, the verb comes before the subject. For example, in this sentence, “Go buy the store,” the verb, “buy” comes before the subject, “store.” However in Korean, it would be written as “가게를 사요.” “가게" is store and “사요" means to buy. So, the subject comes before the verb. Sometimes, I get this confused a lot between Korean and English, so when I start talking to my parents in English, I tend to text them in English too that day. However, when I talk to my parents in Korea, I constantly text my parents in Korean to avoid confusion.
Growing up, I listened to my parents play and sing various type of Vietnamese music. Their taste in music was and still is more traditional than my own. Their favorite types of music include folk and ballads. I find that these types of Vietnamese songs tend to be more poetic and symbolic than western music. Ballads often reference love stories using colorful imageries and metaphors to the natural world.
Traditionally, there are 3 main styles of Vietnamese music: The Hue style, the northern professional style, and the southern amateur style. The Hue style has an emphasis on solo pieces and is very traditional. This style of music is usually thought of as court music since it is typically used in ritualistic fashion or in fine art such as opera.
The northern professional style which is often accompanied by a lute is also traditional. However, unlike Hue the northern professional style of music is consider folksy. This kind of music is derived from ancient cultural practices that developed along the rivers of north Vietnam.
Lastly the southern amateur style which incorporates more western instruments such as violins and Hawaiian guitars is a mixture of the two other kinds of music. It attempts to take court music and give it folksier elements.
Vietnam also has its own traditional musical instruments. There are four groups of Vietnamese instruments: plucked strings, bowed strings, winds and percussion. Some of these instruments include the bamboo flute, Đàn đá (lithophone), Đàn tam thập lục (hammered dulcimer), and the k’ni (mouth violin) These instruments have long been attached to the /cultural and spiritual life of the Vietnamese. The k’ni is especially popular among many ethnic minority groups living in central Vietnam.
However, Vietnamese music is beginning to change. With the rising popularity of K-pop, Vietnamese pop music has started to change to imitate aspects of Korean entertainment. V-Pop like K-pop infuses parts of western pop music to tell stories. Music videos now present some type of “plot” and they can be quite colorful and creative.
One of my favorite V-Pop star is Sơn Tùng M-TP. Sơn Tùng M-TP is undeniably the biggest star in Vietnamese pop music today. In 2017, he became the first Vietnamese singer to reach one million YouTube subscribers. This achievement earned him the Gold Play Button – just one of his many awards. He is at the forefront of Vietnamese musicians who are blending styles from around the world to change the local music landscape, combining raw talent with style and entertainment value. He recently made headlines on international charts after a rather interesting collab with Snoop Dog.
However, I have also started to venture into lesser known artists such as Nguyễn Trần Trung Quân and Lê Trung Thành (ERIK). I am particularly interested in Nguyễn Trần Trung Quân mostly due to his rather controversial music videos’ creative concepts. Some of his pieces addressed topics such as transgender, sex reassignment, and same-sex relationship. In the conservative culture of Vietnam, controversial topics such as LGBTQ tend to be frowned upon, especially by the older generation, however, consider the success of Quân’s work, it is possible that the standard is slowly changing.
Below are links to the music videos on youtube. Please do check them out if you're interested.
Màu Nước Mắt - Nguyễn Trần Trung Quân | Official Music Video
TỰ TÂM - NGUYỄN TRẦN TRUNG QUÂN | OFFICIAL MV
Chúng Ta Không Thuộc Về Nhau | Official Music Video | Sơn Tùng M-TP
Here is a recording of my Podcast Interview with Language Partner Jimin and Tommy.
The file was too large, so I add a link to it:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mk8s_2TtPBwXnrw5u_jYYX3kYNeWLSa0
Thank you!
This week, my language partner and I went over a couple of grammar points to address some more complex sentences. We covered two endings ‘고 들었다’ and ‘지만’. The first refers to what someone has said previously in the conversation or something you heard someone else say a while ago. For example, in the conversation we practiced about the semester and classes, the sentence ‘I heard accounting classes are difficult’ came up. In Korean, this is ‘회계수업은 어렵다고 들었어요’. I was confused when we first read it because I thought the particle ‘고’ meant ‘as well’ and I didn’t see anything additional being added in the sentence. When I asked Jenna about it, she said that the ‘고’ in this context is referring to what someone has previously said. That’s how the ‘as well’ factors in by adding what someone has said to what you’re currently saying.
The particle ‘지만’ means ‘even though’ when added to the first part of a sentence making the second part contradictory. For example, if I was hungry even though I ate, I would say ‘밥을 먹었지만 배고파요’. ‘지만’ can also be used for ‘but’ in a sentence with the same placement as before. The translation to English switches the phrases, so this can be a bit confusing at first. If I wanted to read a book, but I didn’t have time, I would say ‘첵을 읽고 싶지만 시간이 없어요.’ This directly translates to, ‘I want to read a book, even though I don’t have time', but it can be understood in the same format as the first sentence.
After practicing some sentences using these two particles/endings, I decided to watch a video from Talk To Me In Korean about some conversational phrases that I thought would be helpful to know. In this video (linked below), viewers sent in questions about grammar, phrases, or anything else related to Korean for the teachers to answer. For the section I focused on, the question was how to say ‘let me think’ when someone asks you a question. There are a couple of answers to this depending on the use of self-speech (I wrote about this in my last post). If you look away from the other person and direct the phrase ‘let me see’ to yourself, you would say ‘어디보자...’. Before this video, I’d only known the word ‘어디’ to mean ‘where’. It was interesting to see the same word carry a different meaning when used in another context. Another phrase that can be used similarly is ‘글세요’ which is ‘let me see’ or ‘I’m not sure’. If you want to speak directly to the person who asked you the question, you can say ‘생각 점 해볼게요’ which literally means ‘I will think a little more’.
My language partner and I have covered a lot this semester, and I think I’ve been progressing with my understanding of the language. My weakest link is keeping up practice when I’m not actively receiving formal instruction. As I am graduating this semester, I will continue studying Korean on my own through the online resources I’ve utilized thus far. Patience is really important when learning a language, especially one that’s so different from your native one. I’ve learned a lot about how I retain vocabulary and remember grammar structures through this program, so I can use that knowledge in my further studies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phy0n8CB9Vc
I remember wanting to learn Korean during my first semester at Richmond, but as a transfer student, it was not yet feasible to take classes that did not fulfill either general education or major requirements. I am really glad that I was finally able to fit it into my schedule because I really enjoyed returning to formal language learning. It was obviously not ideal since we had to complete the second half of the semester remotely and I regret that I was unable to complete my lessons with Jimin. Regardless, it was an interesting experience and I think that I was still able to continue learning at home, albeit in a limited capacity.
One of the main things that I learned this semester is that language learning is a continuous process. Even if one becomes fluent in their target language, there is always something new to learn to keep adding to their knowledge. Even though I consider myself fluent in English, I realize that I am always improving and learning new things. I am going to be completely honest and say that I was unable to fully accomplish any of my goals but I was definitely able to make progress towards all of them. And surprisingly, I was able to achieve better understanding in some other areas that were not originally part of my focus.
Partially related to that point, I also realized that there are a variety of ways to effectively learn a language. I initially thought that the best way to learn a language is by the traditional textbook. After being forced to improvise my language learning at home, I realize that I can continue to learn even though I did not have complete access to my language learning partner. In fact, the best way to build knowledge of a language is to learn by different methods because of the different things you can learn by each. For example, being immersed into a primarily Korean-speaking environment at home has allowed me to actually implement what I had learned in my structured lessons.
In SDLC 105, the lessons that I enjoyed the most were those that talked about the origin of languages. I really liked learning about language trees and seeing how all languages are connected to each other in one way or another. It was especially interesting to learn about Korean specifically because its language family is still being contended, even though there is some consensus. I also enjoyed what we learned in the first few weeks of class, about the different characteristics of each language. This really put into perspective the cultural aspect of language, which I did not realize had such a significant impact on language.
During the summer, I plan on continuing my language learning the best I can. I will be able to keep practicing speaking with my family and also keep learning more about Korean culture. I know that there are also countless free and readily accessible resources for learning a language like YouTube videos, so I plan on relying on the Internet heavily to aid me. In general, I am excited to continue the lifelong process of learning a language.
It is official, Reba and I had our last meeting this past week. Not to reiterate, but I will be missing the ASL course we had together. I have never had a class that was as much fun as hers, and I always find it a gift to find a subject that doesn’t feel like schoolwork, which ASL does.
The semester has been an incredible one, and, looking back, I am very proud of the accomplishments that we have made. With the topics I have covered with Reba, such as family relationships, numbers, time, quantity, a numerous amount of verbs, sports, meals, games, jobs, tenses, holidays, places, culture, and more, I feel as though I have a strong understanding of the foundation of ASL. Although I do not think I can survive very easily in a deaf community, I do believe I now have the ability to deaf individuals in a way that could establish a basic level of friendship and respect. However, I still want to improve my ASL abilities. I do not want to stop my journey here, thus over the summer, I plan to continue my studies of ASL. I still have the books Reba has lent me, such as the “Signing Naturally textbook”, the application “Sign School” and I have my own American Sign Language Dictionary. I will also be using resources like udemy.com and italki.com. Udemy will help me build and developed my overall vocabulary, while italki will help me strengthen my communication skills and really solidify the usage of new ASL vocabulary. Learning vocabulary through memorization is a fine way of learning, but being able to actually apply those terms in communication is a completely different skill set. Thus, italki, or any type of conversing, is important in order to solidify my understanding of the new terms and language itself. In addition, I have also been looking into what events are being held in my area for the deaf. As it turns out, there is a deaf school around 20 minutes from my house! This must mean that there is a sufficient deaf population, at least within that area. So, I have been keeping tabs as to any community events that may be occurring either to support the deaf or even to interact with the community. Although I am nowhere near the appropriate level to do so, I would love to be able to help take care of children while also practicing my ASL. Whether that means I work at a deaf summer camp, or just help an individual family out and act as a sitter for a deaf child, I don’t have a preference. But, if I could kill three birds with one stone, hanging out with kids, earning some money, and practicing my ASL, that would be an incredible opportunity.
Reflecting upon the program itself, I was very happy with how it was structured. I apricated the time and energy I had to invest in learning the language, and I also enjoyed having to learn about the cultural aspects of the program. I knew very little about ASL before this course, not just the language, but the culture as well! This course has given me the opportunity to expand my understanding of both. Thank you.
This past semester has been amazingly awesome in regards to my ASL journey. I originally wanted to learn terminology and phrases revolving around emergency medical situations such as anatomical and physiological terminology and symptoms. I wanted this specific skill set because I am an Emergency Medical Technique and if I encountered anyone who was deaf or hard of hearing in the field, I wanted them to be able to communicate their information, symptoms, and the preceding events of the situation to me. However, looking back on this semester, Reba and I barely covered medical terminology. We actually focused on other topics such as numbers, relationships, food, furniture, houses, places, sports, spelling practice, and emotions. Nevertheless, I am not sad or regretful that we did not cover the medical terminology. In fact, I am proud and thankful for the information I have learned, despite the fact that it did not entirely follow my learning plan. I do not think my understanding of ASL would be as strong if we solely focused on medical terminology and phrases. My understanding of the language would be limited and I do not think I would have a great comprehension of how the language actually functions and its essential components.
In order to effectively be able to interpret ASL in an emergency situation, I need to have a strong understanding of the basics of the language. I need to improve my ability to read signs and increase my exposure to reading spelled out words. I need to have an understanding of the sentence structure and how to indicate tenses. All of these components were imperative to learn for understanding ASL, and I believe this past semester, I have gained at least some amount of exposure to these concepts. By no means am I an expert, but I do have the confidence to say that I have a strong beginning grasps on these concepts. I do not expect my ASL language journey to end after this semester as I plan to take the Self-directed Language Learning II course in the fall of 2020. During the fall, I will continue to increase my understanding of language’s grammar and increase my vocabulary. Until then, I will be using italki.com over the summer to practice my conversational skills and I will be using the books Reba has given me, along with
Reflecting upon this past semester though, my favorite part of the course was interacting and building a relationship with Reba. For the most part, it was just the two of us meeting together at least twice a week and I think I can say after four months, we have become friends. It was really interesting to learn about Reba’s upbringing as she is completely deaf – to hear about her family, her time at Gallaudet University, and her work with ASL champs. I had always been curious about different aspects of deaf culture, deaf interactions, and what it is like to be deaf in a world full of sound, and, although she does not represent the entire deaf community, Reba showed me a snapshot of her upbringing, experiences and how she handled such things.
If I had to find one part of the course that I thought could use improvement or I could change, I would try to recruit at least one other student to take the course with me. The one-on-one interaction with Reba was great, but I do wish I had a fellow classmate who I could connect with on-campus and practice our ASL together.
The most impactful article/piece of literature we had read this year for me was during the first week, the article “How to Successfully Learn a New Language This Year.” After reading the article, I was not shocked by any of the information, but it was somewhat of a waking call for how I should be approaching not only my ASL journey but also my Mandarin Language journey. I need to practice speaking with others and be specific about the goals I have for my languages. Simply just making flashcards and memorizing vocabulary is helpful to an extent, but it is through interactions and conversation that my language skills really solidify and my vocabulary usage transfer from short-term to long term memory. If I were to have another student on campus who was taking an ASL course with me, the two of us could really strengthen our understanding and usage of the language in a setting outside of the classroom and we could practice through fun, adventures modalities, such as playing bored games, going to the dining hall, or simply just walking around campus.
I have absolutely loved learning ASL this past semester and I look forward to continuing to improve my signing skills.
As the semester draws to a close, I have been reflecting a lot on my language learning journey thus far. It has been a very interesting and challenging semester to say the least, but I am pretty satisfied with the progress that I made. While I wish that I could have completed my SDLC 105 classes and lessons with Jimin on campus, I was also able to supplement my learning in more unconventional ways at home. I was unable to meet all my goals but considering the circumstances, I think that what I was able to accomplish is acceptable. Although my future self-directed learning in Korean is not yet determined at this point in time due to the uncertainty surrounding the fall semester, I definitely know that I want to continue my language learning in some capacity. Since my summer is currently empty due to cancelled internships and jobs, I plan on spending most of it self-studying Korean to pass the time, as well as to improve my skills. I decided to devote my last journal to outlining what that might look like.
Since high school, I knew that learning from textbooks and workbooks is most ideal when studying language; I did really well when learning French for three years and my one year of Korean at my old university. I also know that it will be difficult to obtain those resources during this time, so I have been trying to think of alternative ways to improve my Korean. I first plan on finishing my old workbook that I found at home since it was incomplete anyways. This will also help me review some easier concepts before moving to more free learning. Another thing I plan on doing is immersing myself into Korean entertainment. In high school, I had a lot of Korean friends, so I would watch a lot of K-dramas and listen to K-pop because we shared similar interests. At Richmond, I actually know very few Koreans so I rarely indulge in those things during the school year. Since I will have so much free time on my hands, I think it would be a good time to become more cultured with Korean media. Not only will it be fun, but I personally believe that there is merit in participating in a variety of different aspects of a culture to better understand the language. I can learn new vocabulary and phrases from watching dramas as well as listening to music. The last and probably most effective thing that I plan on doing is trying to transition into speaking full Korean at home. I currently speak Konglish, a mix of Korean and English, with my family, which means that I use whatever Korean words I know and then use English as a shortcut when I have no idea how to say something in Korean. My mom and grandma are both immigrants from South Korea, so Korean is their first language and they definitely are much better at it than I am. If I am unable to think of certain English words in Korean, I can either just ask them or look it up. This might be burdensome at first but it will eventually become more fluid as I expand my knowledge. Although this summer will be unique and unprecedented, this will be a great opportunity to continue my language learning in a new capacity, and I am really excited to start once I complete my last final!
I decided to devote this past week to preparing for my final presentation. For a while I was unsure of what I was going to present on. In class two weeks ago, we broke up into Zoom breakout rooms to brainstorm some ideas. My classmates had some good ideas but I debated between various ideas, with the main topic I was leaning towards being something related to health, in light of COVID-19. One of my majors is Healthcare Studies, and I thought it would be interesting to learn more about South Korea’s healthcare system and the cultural effects of the outbreak. I ultimately decided not to because my vocabulary is still not that advanced and I wanted to invest my time in something that would be somewhat challenging but still manageable. After considering a few more ideas, I ended up selecting something that meant a lot to me personally, the Korean flag.
To me, flags are a great way to represent one’s culture, especially because of the symbolism that flags often hold. Even though I was born and raised in the United States, I personally identify strongly with my Korean background whether it be through my music or food or personality. The flag means a lot to me, so much that I have one hanging in my dorm back in Richmond and a symbolic tattoo on my back. I had done some research on the Korean flag before, but I thought this would be a great opportunity to learn even more about its history as well as become familiar with the associated terms.
For starters, the Korean flag is called taegeukgi 태극기. Its design is minimal but the meaning behind it is very philosophical. The foundation is a clean white background, which represents peace and purity. For this reason, many Koreans in the past have fondly worn the color white. In each corner, there is a black trigram– starting from the top left corner and going clockwise, they are geon 건, ri 리, gon 곤, and gam 감. They are derived from Chinese characters and each represents multiple different things. Some examples are seasons, celestial bodies, cardinal direction, virtues, natural elements, and members of a family. In the center lies a red and blue yin-yang symbol, which is known as taeguek 태극. The red is on top and called yang 양, representing positive cosmic forces. The blue is called eum 음 and represents negative cosmic forces. Similar to Chinese culture, the taegeuk is supposed to represent balance in the universe. The taegeukgi has a lot of meaning and is inspiring to me, especially with the values of justice, vitality, wisdom, and fruition behind the trigrams. When I reflect back to one of our earlier lessons in culturals, a lot of what I learned back then is clearly shown in the flag and physically manifested in the Korean people. While I am grateful to be an American citizen and for my Western upbringing, I am also extremely proud to embrace my Korean-American identity. I am glad that I chose to research something that made me feel more connected to my culture while also being very educational.
For this cultural post, I am going to talk about a topic that is very prevalent today, which is regarding SARS-CoV-2. At this point in time, the coronavirus has impacted the lives of everyone and has caused a halt of schools, jobs, and social interactions. The virus that had originated in Wuhan, China, has now spread throughout the world and has now been declared a global pandemic. People are coming together and isolating in order to stop and slow the spread of COVID-19, but it seems as though it will be a long time until our normal days can resume.
South Korea was one of the first countries to get impacted by this virus, and they got hit very hard. However, South Korea has been able to deal with this pandemic very well, which caused other countries to try and follow their example. I think one of the reasons they were able to this is a result of the culture and mindset of the Korean people. While other countries have continuous new cases every day, South Korea has been able to nearly flatline their new cases back around in mid-March. A reason for this is that the Korean people emphasized that it was imperative that everyone who is sick to come out in order to contain the disease and virus. As a result, in just a month, South Korea was able to contain the disease. In the image above, we can see one of the drive-thru testing options they implemented to ensure that everyone who thinks they have it can get tested without going out and spreading the virus even further.
In addition to providing tests, South Korea was able to produce an efficient test kit for SARS-CoV-2. A test kit produced by Seegene and his team, comprised about 80% of all South Korea’s testing kits. The testing kit targets primary structures and gene sequences, like the spike protein, of the coronavirus for testing. This efficacy has caused other countries all around the world to reach out and try to purchase these testing kits. I am excited and so glad that this testing kit was found early on and is now being used to help those around the world contain this virus.
SARS-CoV-2 has caused an immense amount of pain and struggle for everyone around the world. As the number of cases began to rise at an exponential rate back in February/March, I was very worried. Though I am sad that daily life for everyone has become halted, I know that it is more important than we think about keeping everyone safe. During these difficult times where so many people are dying and getting sick, it is important that everyone does their part in battling this virus. That is why I think South Korea set a good example in their method of dealing with this virus because they took the necessary steps in order to contain this disease. I say this because other countries, America included, were slow to react regarding this disease. If they took precautions early on, then the situation may not have been so dire, but it is important that we continue to strive and do better for our future.
