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This past couple of weeks have not been very eventful on the front of Korean language learning with my partner due to midterm week and the extended break.  However, I would like to write about some of my personal excursions to participate in some local Korean-American culture.  I have a few Korean-American friends on campus who go to the Richmond Korean Presbyterian Church each Sunday for a youth service.  They invited me to come to a service, so I decided to venture out and I went for two weeks.  There’s a bus that comes by THC to pick us up around 10:30am with the service starting at 11.  I really enjoyed getting to know more people in the Korean-American community on campus.  They were all very nice and were happy that I decided to partake in something they do every week.  Once we got to the church, there is the main hall where the senior service takes place, and we went to a trailer beside it for the youth service.  I believe that some renovations are being done, but I thought it was interesting how the services were separate.  Little did I know that, by chance, I would get to experience both types of services in those two weeks.  The first week was the youth service performed in English, half of which was spent singing songs with the youth band.  It was very fun because even though I didn’t know any of the songs, I was able to quickly learn the melodies and the lyrics were portrayed on a screen for us to follow.  Afterwards, we went to a section of the main church where a group of older women had prepared food for all of us to enjoy.  It was very delicious, and I was excited to have homemade kimchi.  Even though the service was not in Korean, most of the people there were bilingual, so I got to practice listening to and speaking some phrases.   

The second week was actually a joint service that only happens three or four times a year between the youth and parents/seniors.  It was held in the main chapel and was delivered in both Korean and English.  There was a guest priest who only spoke English, but there were translations of his sermon in Korean on screens to the side of the room.  With this, I was able to practice my reading and identify words I understood from the speech.  The main focus and reason for the joint service was the South Korean holiday on March 1^st, National Independence Movement Day, or 삼일 운동.  This public holiday commemorates the earliest social movement for independence against the Japanese colonial rule in the year 1919.  A part of the service was used to take a moment to acknowledge the suffering endured by South Koreans during the Japanese occupation and to pray for the country and China who at the time were some of the worst affected areas by the COVID-19.  We then sang songs that had the sheet music and Korean lyrics on a screen for us to follow along with the choir and youth band.  Overall, it was a lot of fun and I’m very glad that I was able to go and share some experiences with my Korean-American friends. 

For the past two weeks, it has been a time for my language partner and I to destress right before the start of spring break during the midterm season. We have been watching Parasite together and this is actually my second time watching it. I think it gets better each time you watch, mostly because you see little details that you had missed before. It’s also a movie that really makes you think. The plot is relatively easy to understand but there are resulting underlying messages that are important to the movie as a whole. 

I think Parasite is the perfect movie to watch in every aspect. In regards to social, culture, and education, it hits in all three of these categories. With the social aspect, you can really see the divide and inequality between the rich and the poor classes in the movie. Parasite is a movie about a family of four that is really poor and soon cons their way into a rich family. The poor family lives in a basement apartment in conditions that almost seem unliveable. They have a window that looks into the alley where sometimes people come to pee. Their apartment even flooded at one point when it poured outside. There was no way anything in the apartment survived. 

The movie highlights a term, Hell Chosun, which describes the socioeconomic conditions that make it a nightmare to get a job even after receiving a degree. This is common in Korea where the unemployment rates of college graduates are high. Another interesting part of this movie was greed. The poor Kim family was able to get a tutoring job with the rich Park family. This wasn’t enough so they had to introduce their daughter as an art therapist. Even that wasn’t enough, they had to have their mother work as the housekeeper and their father work as the driver. If the Kim family was able to stop themselves at the beginning and wasn’t greedy for more, maybe the tragedy would not have happened. Interestingly, it is also a story about greed. The most interesting part about the movie that makes you think is the title. It’s called parasite and I think it’s really up to your interpretation but the title really highlights the way the rich live. The rich rely and depend on the lower class to live comfortably. They aren’t able to do things like cook, clean, and drive without hiring the lower class which makes them the parasites of the population. Some people might think that the lower class are the parasites because they rely on the rich to provide them their money but I think that the lower class doesn’t specifically rely on the rich to provide them money but really they can get money from other sources as well.  

I was not able to watch the movie without english subtitles but I felt like it was still an important learning aid for me especially for listening and learning more about Korean culture. This is my second time watching the movie and it amazes me every time. I think it’s a movie that everybody should watch. It deserves the awards and recognition it has gotten.

My language partner and I only met once before the spring break. In fact, out last meeting was quite interesting. We did the topic of Korean slangs. Both Brenda and I believed that learning slangs is very helpful while learning a new language. By learning slangs, I believe that I can learn more about the development of language during modern times and how young people like to use their language in their daily life in a up-to-date style.

At the very beginning of our meeting, Brenda introduced her favorite Korean slang “꾸안꾸”. It is the short version of “꾸민듯 안꾸민듯”, which means that you tried to dress up but it looks like you didn't try. This is the highest level of fashion in people’s daily life. Everyone wants themselves to look fashion by wearing pretty clothes and make up. “꾸안꾸” means your well-thought-out fashion looks like something you've done very casually to others. This is exactly the highest level of fashion. South Korean people like fashion a lot. This “꾸안꾸” style of fashion is very popular among Korean people. If you search “꾸안꾸” on Instagram, you will see a lot of posts about what young Korean women or men wear in their daily lives. They like to tag themselves with “꾸안꾸”.

There are many more abbreviation-stylized slangs like “꾸안꾸” in Korean. A very popular one is “아아”, which is the abbreviation of “아이스 아메리카노 (ice americano)”. Ice Americano is Korean people’s favorite drink in daily life. So they use this abbreviation to order drinks in café. Another popular slang related to “아아” is “얼죽아” which is the short version of “얼어 죽어도 아이스 아메리카노”. It means that even if I freeze to death, I will drink ice Americano. This shows how much Koreans love ice Americano. In fact, “얼죽…” has become a fixed form of slang. We can add whatever we like after “얼죽” to express their enthusiasm and madness for something. Korean also have slangs in English letters. For instance, JMT is a Romanized acronym for the compound word “존맛탱” (jonmattaeng) and describes something that is “really tasty”. “JMT” appears frequently in Korean TV shows. Others like “TMI” and “TMP” are also Korean slangs, although they stand for “too much information” and “too much passion” which are totally in English. But actually, it is Korean people the first to use this kind of abbreviations.

 Certainly, abbreviation is not the only style Korean slangs have. Korean people call these slangs “신조어” which means “new words”. Brenda and I also watched a interesting video about “신조어” during our last meeting. I want to introduce one of those new words I have learned from the video. It is so funny that I can’t stop thinking of it during and after out meeting. It is “뜨또”, which is Justin Bieber’s tattoo. The reason is Justin Bieber has a tattoo on his arm which is the Korean words of his last name Bieber. The Korean is “비버”. The interesting thing is that if Justin Bieber raise his arm parallel to the ground. The tattoo “비버” will change from vertical to horizontal, then looks like a totally different Korean word “뜨또” that is meaningless. Therefore, Korean people use “뜨또” to represent Justin Bieber’s tattoo.

Due to the surge of COVID19 and also due to spring break, I was unable to meet with my language learning tutor Jimin for our usual weekly tutoring sessions. As the pandemic is very critical especially in South Korea, I find it only appropriate to discuss the situation itself in my language learning journal post. Upon reading several Korean news articles about the pandemic on naver.com, and also by talking to friends and family back in Korea, I began to realize the severe and widespread impact that the coronavirus is inflicting upon people all across the world. In a conversation with my mom, she told me she stood in line for 2 hours in front of a local pharmacy to obtain merely 2 masks, and that Korea is now switching to a system where they distribute masks to people on different days according to the last digit of one’s birth year in order to ration the low supply of masks and also to decrease human contact. Below is a picture that simplifies the distribution schedule. Personally, I think this is a rather efficient and safer method of distributing masks in order to help even out the supply and prevent too many people from gathering in one place. My parents are especially concerned for my safety as I am in a completely different country, and thus I am doing my best to handle the situation as best as I can on my own.

            Based on my research, there have been 8,162 confirmed patients, 16,272 currently being tested, and 75 dead from the coronavirus. Compared to the US, as many Asian countries have a cultural custom of wearing masks even when mildly sick, there are many more people in Korea wearing masks outside. In fact, it is hard to find anyone who isn’t wearing one. This cultural difference is quite shocking, for my parents keep telling me to wear a mask when going anywhere outside, but it is a little daunting for me to do so as people will often stare if I do. IN Korea, most subways are empty, as well as many other commercial places where large amounts of people normally gather, such as shopping malls, popular streets in Seoul, and many more. Below is a standard flier that is circulated throughout Korea to encourage people to increase caution and maintain personal hygiene in order to prevent further spread.

            Finally, Korea’s most critical exam for high school seniors – Suneung – has been delayed for a couple weeks. This is due to the delay of the start of the new school year in Korea. This is most likely very shocking for many high school students who have studied to no end for many months, but it is a measure that has been taken in order to prevent the spread of the virus among students. Overall, this worldwide pandemic is rather alarming and devastating, especially with my last semester of college being pretty much canceled. We can only hope that this all dies down soon, and in the meantime, prepare and isolate ourselves. Attached are some links to the articles that I read.

https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=5926931&cid=43667&categoryId=43667

http://news.kbs.co.kr/news/view.do?ncd=4402070&ref=A

https://www.ytn.co.kr/_ln/0103_202003151555582142

In Korean classes over the past two weeks, Ms. Kim has brought word cards to reinforce our learning of Korean characters. The contents of the word cards are all things we use everyday, or familiar animals like lions(사자), cats(고양이) and dogs(개). During the practice, I can consolidate my memory of Korean letters and learn some new words. 

Grammar is an essential part of learning a language. Because we are still students, when we study or travel to South Korea in the future, we will meet many people who are older than us, so it is very important for us to learn and use polite and formal style of Korean.  So the first thing we're learned is final polite & formal style verb ending, “십니다”, which is used with a verb stem to formally explain or declare something to a listener. In view of the composition of Korean words, there are two situations, one ends with a vowel sound and the other ends with a consonant sound. When the verb stem ends in a consonant, we will use “십니다”. When the verb stem ends in a vowel, we will use “ㅂ니다”. Because “ㅂ” is a consonant sound, words that end in a vowel sound can be combined with this sound very well, whereas consonants and consonants can't be fused, they need to exist separately. To get a better understanding, Ms. Kim gives us a few examples. “가다” means “to go” and its main part “가” is end with “ㅏ”, which is a vowel, so by the definition we need to use “ㅂ니다” and write as “갑니다”. However, when we look at “있나”, which means “to exist” or “to have”, we can see its main part “있” is end with “ㅅ”, and since it’s a consonant, by adding “십니다” we get formal word “있십니다”. Although there are many rules in Korean, most of them follow the rules for classifying vowels and consonants, which are easy to do with practice. 

We continued to watch Korean drama, “Crash landing on you”, in class and after class. We all enjoyed this, not only because we were familiar with the actors and actresses but also because of the unique plot and their excellent performance. I like the hero very much and I just watched his another Korean drama not long ago, which called “Memories of the Alhambra”. Before I started watching the show, I always thought it was a love story, but it was actually a science fiction theme and it’s about a VR game. He used guns in the drama, and I suspect that his good acting and good looks, which fit the image of a soldier, helped him get the part in “Crash landing on you”. We will continue to talk about the show in the next class and learn some words and daily expressions. Although there are some differences between the north Korean language and the south Korean language, the grammatical structure and most of the vocabulary are the same, and we can learn a lot from them.

At the beginning of every class, Prof. Sumi Kim always asks us a bunch of questions such as ‘how have you been’, ‘what did you do yesterday’, ‘what did you do last week’, ‘what day is it today’, ‘what are your plans for this week’, et cetera. All the questions that she ask always draw on the materials that we covered in the previous classes and make me work on giving proper responses. At first I wasn’t very good at it, but after she did this for a few classes, I actually got a pretty good sense of how to structure the responses. Plus, I find these questions especially helpful because they make sure that I’m using words related to the activities that I’m often participating in which really helps me remember the vocabulary that I am most likely to use and betters my conversational Korean. Words and phrases like ‘study’, ‘sleep’, ‘dorm’, ‘project’, ‘meeting friends’, ‘dancing’, et cetera. are well registered in my head because of the consistent repetition. I can clearly see that the conversations that I have with my friends for practice have been getting a lot better thanks to a better vocabulary suited to my needs which I’ve developed because of Prof. Sumi Kim and the K-drama Cheese in the Trap.

In class these past two week we started learning Korean adjectives like good, bad, big, small, et cetera and the appropriate particles to be used with them along with new vocabulary . We also learned that based on what noun you are counting, the counting unit used can vary. I mean that saying 5 people, and saying 5 books is basically the same in English but in Korean after you say the number you attach a ‘counting unit’ to it and then mention the object, and the counting unit varies from object to object. This is an extremely new concept to me, and honestly it is a little hard to remember which counting unit relates to which noun, but Prof. Sumi Kim asked us a lot of questions to help us get used to using the correct counting unit. It is still hard to remember all of them because there are so many, so I am going to focus on the ones that are more commonly used like the one for cup/glass/bottle, the one for people, the one for book, et cetera.

So far I think my language learning journey is going pretty well and I am able to grasp things faster than when I first started, and though there always seem to be new things that seem really hard, we have been able to learn them. I am definitely retaining information much better too because of the new approach that Prof. Sumi Kim came up with which involves asking and answering a lot of questions. Plus, I think laying the groundwork was the toughest part, but adding to it has been getting better and better as I keep learning new things. I am still trying to figure out a good way to practice my pronunciations and speaking more.

The week before spring break, Jenna, Vivian, and I discussed about the March 1^st Movement, also known as the Samil Movement (sam literally means three and il means one). We watched a couple of videos on YouTube and talked about them afterwards. Growing up, I was exposed to only some of the aspects of Korean culture such as the food, main holidays with family, and some folklore. The history aspect didn’t interest me much until recently. I knew the main parts of Korea’s history, but I wasn’t aware of this movement. I learned that it was a protest for independence from Japan and that more than a tenth of the population took part in it. Ryu Gwansun was one of the organizers who was arrested and tortured and ended up dying from her injuries. The fact that she was younger than me yet brave enough to stand up for her country was amazing. It was surprising to learn that many of the leaders were religious leaders. The video also showed the prison cells and how some of the torture techniques were used on some of the protesters. The videos and discussion afterwards helped me to understand how far Korea has come to become this country. It was an insightful lesson that I’m could reflect upon.

During spring break, I went on a trip to D.C. with the first-year Bonner Scholars. Even though the students couldn’t speak Korean, some of us thought that we could watch the Oscar-winning film, Parasite. The subtitles were on, but I tried to ignore them so that I could really listen to what the characters were saying. Everyone enjoyed the movie and we talked about how great the symbolism was because every country could relate to it. I surprised when some of my friends asked me about the setting in Korea. They wondered if Korea “really looked like that” and I replied that the two houses featured were on the extreme sides since most Koreans live in apartment complexes in the city.

While in D.C., we used subways (along with walking of course) as our way of transportation. During those times we got bored, so Ellie and I decided to teach a Korean game called Bunny Bunny. In the version that I normally play, the word for carrot (당근) comes up. When I said that we could use “carrot” instead, they insisted that we teach them the word. They picked up on the game quickly and we played during our free times. During the long walks, I taught my friends a couple more words and phrases. Some examples are 하지마 (stop it), 인정 (I admit/recognize/agree), and 아줌마 (refers to “aunt” or a middle aged woman).Many of them enjoyed the crash course and it was fun to use bits of Korean to communicate with them. I told them that their Konglish skills were definitely improving. I only spent a short amount of time giving them vocabulary words, so I was impressed that they were able to recognize the them even after a couple of days.

Biweekly Journal March 15

            For this past week, Jenna and I met up to talk about the start of my cultural presentation. I threw some ideas for my project on Korean culture to see what the best topic would be. I had three main ideas for the cultural presentation. The first was about Korean food culture and how it differs with American food. A lot of Korean meals contain three main parts: entrée like meats and fish, soup made of cabbage or tofu, and banchan which translate to sides and appetizers that harmonize with the entrée. The next topic I thought of was Korean clothing and traditions. Modern fashion in Korea as well as traditional clothing in Korea. One example of a popular Korean tradition is Hanbok, which is usually worn during ceremonies and special occasions. The last topic I was thinking about doing for my cultural presentation is about Korean sports and the most popular types of sports in Korea. After a small bit of research, I found that the most popular sport in Korea is baseball. For that project, I would learn about the importance of baseball and how it has contributed towards Korean culture. Jenna told me the food and clothing would be best for the cultural presentation. So, I aimed to choose which of the two to start working on for the cultural presentation for the next few weeks.

            The week after, Jenna and I went over some of the summaries I wrote for a couple of articles. One article was about Korean baseball and the other article was about how the coronavirus was affecting Korea. I learned a lot of new vocab words as well as recognized some of my mistakes in my summaries. Jenna helped me look over my writing and helped me fix some of my mistakes. For this week, I wanted to work on differentiating between two common spelling mistakes I always do when I am writing Korean. These are the variations of the “eh” pronunciation.   

These two sound exactly the same in Korean and I always get this spelling wrong. I wanted to go over a couple of the common spellings for this vowel with Jenna. She helped me with some of the common words in Korean that is most used with each of the vowels above. The difficult thing about these vowels is that there is no set pattern to which one to use. Jenna told me I just have to memorize which words involve which vowel. This will definitely be hard in the beginning, but reading a lot of Korean articles as well as writing more Korean in the next few weeks will definitely help me recognize and get a feel for which vowels I should use. For next week, Jenna gave me a conversation in Korean to read and go over. It was about going to the movies and dinner in Korean. It was a generic conversation that had a variety of spellings that I could apply to my Korean writing.

In the presentation I shared about my study plan for Korean language acquisition. For this semester, I planned to study vocabulary about several aspect of life. However, I underestimated the number of words we have in languages. Until now, I am still studying the list about school-related expression. After I started to use the textbook Integrated Korean, I followed the sequence in the book. Using school-related topic, the book introduces simple grammar and expression. Personally, I appreciate the structure of this book because it is related to international college students who can use the phrases immediately in everyday conversations. I decided to change my focus mostly on school-related topic and study vocabulary which is relative. 

The class which me and Jenna watched two series of Korean drama, makes an obvious relation between the textbook and tutoring class. There’s one line the protagonist said “준비가 아직 안 된 거 같아서요.” In the context it means ‘I don’t think (I’m) ready (to prepose) yet.” However, the subject and the verb can be omitted in spoken language if the context makes them obvious enough. The play writer utilize this grammar feature to twist the plot. I didn’t notice this correlation before we turned on the Korean subtitles and analyze the lines. By watching the drama, I understand more about Korean culture in both work place and school settings since there are plots happened in those places. Language plays an important rule in identity recognition, especially in Korean which is a language has several different levels of formality. In my opinion, the best way to describe the relationship between language and culture is that they both reflect and affect each other. 

To improve my communicative competence, I would need opportunity to communicate in Korean with others and receive instant feedback about my mistakes. I went to the church in Richmond last week and I found there is many opportunity for me to input and output Korean. I would go to the church as much as possible. My goal for Korean is being able to talk to Korean speakers therefore my listening and speaking competence are highly emphasized in my study plan.

          According to my PanOpto presentation video, I wanted to improve on two main aspects: improve my Korean for my future career as a prospective business student and to also further improve my grammar skills. My learning guide consisted of certain activities that I wanted to accomplish in order to achieve my goals. First, I wanted to understand and better listen to television news and different media broadcasting coverages about current event topics. I knew that improving my ability to comprehend news and current event issues would be vital for me to succeed in the future as a hopeful businesswoman. As a result, I informed my language partner, Jenna, that I would like to read different articles and understand the technical lexicon used in these professional articles to a better extent. This is why for the next few meetings, Jenna printed me a few articles and some were about weather. At first, I thought it was odd to simply read about the weather because I thought my Korean level was sufficient enough to read the weather, however, I was very wrong. As soon as we hit the first sentence, I already had around 6 new vocabulary words I had never seen and it shocked me how much of the article I failed to understand in the first try. This is why Jenna and I worked to read each sentence one by one carefully, unpacking different vocabulary words and phrases along the way. 

          I remember a recent discussion about individualism vs collectivism and I think this discussion helped me greatly to understand a big cultural difference between the United States and South Korea’s culture. I read a recent article regarding the coronavirus and how different countries handle this news in different ways. In Korea, since it is a collectivist country where the people work together for a cause, the coronavirus (although it spread rapidly in the beginning because it was so new), actually dissipated faster and is slowing down more than the United States now because everyone worked together to stop the spread. I think in the United States, we have more of a “everyone for themselves” kind of motto especially with the millennials failing to prioritize the health of the country (elders) over their own entertainment. 

So far I think that my language learning has been progressing well. Although I have not had that many lessons yet, I have learned a great deal and have been accomplishing things to help achieve my goals. Jimin has been really helpful at tailoring the lessons to my aims and interests, which is not only beneficial for my learning but also keeps me engaged in the materials. I also enjoy how we touch on a variety of topics throughout the lesson so that I have more things to work on before the next time we meet, instead of just focusing on one area. 

Since I already have experience with Korean, I really have not been able to apply what we discuss in class. My lessons are more focused on fine-tuning my skills thus far since I have a pretty strong foundation in the language. I think that culture has an important role in learning a language, since it helps make the material more relatable. I also have a strong relationship with Korean culture and learning Korean has helped me further develop that. To improve my communicative competence, I should work on applying what I learn from Jimin to real-life scenarios. Since I talk to my family almost everyday, I have already been able to incorporate some of what I learn into my conversations with them. I would say that my plan mostly emphasizes discourse competence and sociolinguistic competence. The former because I am trying to expand my vocabulary to develop the ability to read more difficult texts, and the latter because I want to work on becoming a better speaker.

Looking back to my PanOpto video, I had created a goal for each of the 4 language skills: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. The majority of what I wanted to accomplish was met except learning about vocabulary related to medicine and the human body. Instead, our group thought it would be more beneficial to learn terms used in weather reports. While reading the article, I was surprised by how many expressions I didn’t recognize. I could describe the weather as sunny, windy, or cloudy, but the advanced terminology used in the articles confused me. Luckily, I was told that the expressions were commonly used in each report, so I just needed to understand those vocabulary terms to interpret the readings. Even though I didn’t learn about it in class, I still was interested in learning some of the organs in Korean, so I used multiple websites to look them up. I never knew that the words for heart (심장) and kidney (신장) were so similar and many of the other parts sounded alike.

In class, we discussed about derivational and inflectional morphemes. Before, having that lesson, I didn’t think about how a word might change by adding on a morpheme, but now I am more aware and am able to recognize them in my target language. Discussions regarding language structures helped me distinguish the differences between English and Korean such as how sentences are structured.

Language and culture go hand in hand. Language brings those alike together and create a unique culture apart from different languages. An example I can think of is around friend groups. In Korea where it is a collectivist culture, the people that make up a friend group are usually very similar when it comes to personality, interests, and how they dress. In the U.S., I find that the people that make up a friend group are unique from each other and might have different personalities and traits but are bonded with a common thing (whatever that might be).

To further improve my communicative competence, I think I need to challenge myself outside of my comfort zone and immerse myself more into the culture. Instead of texting short Korean phrases, attempting to have a full conversation in my target language would help. I would say that I have more than basic interpersonal communicative skills because I can communicate beyond basic exchanges, but I am not at the level of cognitive academic language proficiency.

My Learning Plan

Where are you now?  What can you do? What do you know?

Use the Levels of Competence document and the LinguaFolio® checklists to assess your current abilities in your language.  For more information, see the SDLAP Wiki.

Interpersonal Communication

Advanced: Expanding 1: I have little difficulty understanding and speaking in Dari, however, there is room for improvement when it comes to speaking Farsi. 

Interpretive Listening

Advanced: Expanding 2: I have little difficulty understanding people who speak Persian (Farsi/Dari)

Interpretive Reading

Advanced: Expanding 2: For the most part I can understand almost everything that I read. I do have some difficulty interpreting Persian poems.

Presentational Speaking

Advanced: Expanding 1: I am pretty comfortable speaking in Persian but it has been years since I have given presentations in this language. 

Presentational Writing

Advanced: Expanding 1: I feel pretty comfortable writing in Persian, however, I am not able to type as comfortably on the computer. 

What is your ultimate goal?  What is your goal for this semester?
What do you want to be able to do with this language at the end of this semester and in the future?

My ultimate goal is to become comfortable delivering presentations and converse in formal Dari. My goals for the semester will help me with this ultimate goal because they are steps building towards achieving this main goal. I would like to be more comfortable with speaking about what I read. For example, I am able to read news articles and completely understand what I am reading. However, I struggle at times to transfer that information to another person through “formal” Dari. The way that Afghans daily converse is different than how we speak formally about a topic. So I would like to be able to grow in this area. Secondly, I would like to get better at typing in Persian. I am able to write via pen and notebook, however, I am not able to type as fast as I can in English. Lastly, I would like to learn more about the cultural aspect of Iran and Afghanistan. There are a lot of interesting and fascinating things that are happening in these two countries. So I am interested in keeping up with it. 

What tasks will you complete and what activities will you do this semester to meet your goals?  How will you document and evaluate your progress?

Novice learners should consult the ‘Language Tasks’ page of the SDLAP Wiki and incorporate the required tasks in their learning.  Be as specific as possible when planning activities, e.g., “I will watch YouTube videos to learn how to talk about the family.” or “I will consult a grammar text to learn about possessives.”  Make sure you include some tasks that are relevant to your interests, e.g., “I will learn to understand soccer commentary.” or “I will learn to talk about the stock market.” Culture and language are, of course, inseparable.  It is expected that all your language will be culturally appropriate and that every task will contribute to your cultural competence.

My language level in Persian is advanced. This is due to Dari being my native language. However, there are areas that I want to improve. For my language plan, there is a lot of emphasis on conversation, critical analysis of topics at hand and being able to type in Persian. The plant outlined below mentions the steps that I will be taking to make sure I grow in these areas of my language learning. I will be using many different tools to work on my language. Some of these tools include academic papers, news, youtube videos, and documentaries and poetry. 

During our lessons for the past two weeks, we decided to focus on some modern cultural developments.  The first week, we watched a web-drama that has become very popular in South Korea called XX.  Web-dramas are different from regular TV dramas because they are easily accessible on mobile devices and are very short, about 20 minutes.  Regular TV dramas can be an hour to an hour and have plot developments more similar to movies.  Web-dramas serve as a quick break from school, work, or running errands as they can be watched while stopping to eat or taking the bus.  In XX, the plot is fast-moving enough to have some development in only 20 minutes yet is still intriguing to keep watchers engaged throughout the series.  Even though new episodes are still coming out, the earlier ones are available on YouTube with English subtitles.  Something I realized while I was reading the subtitles is that I understood the meaning of the words and the flow of the conversation deeper than what was being portrayed at the bottom of the screen.  My understanding of cultural practices and observations of conversational interactions between people in Korean for so many years has allowed me to understand something more than just a translation.  The subtleties and hints at social cues and contextual meanings of the dialog are obvious to me even if the subtitles don’t capture it quite right.  I’m glad to notice a change like this that isn’t explicit knowledge of grammar or vocabulary, but an understanding of cultural application.  This is encouraging because this realization reveals that I will know how to execute the language once I become fluent. 

I mentioned in a past journal that the spoken Korean language is filled with assumptions of small details that are given by circumstances or the speaker's allusions.  I was saying how I found it frustrating how so many implications could be in one sentence because it made it difficult to understand.  My reaction was in response to a conversation that we were reading in class to one another.  Because I was one of the speakers, I had a hard time understanding some implied components of the conversation.  However, when we watched the web-drama, XX, I realized that I could grasp more than what the subtitles were telling me.  When I realized it was the implications I was beginning to understand, it gave me some relief that it wasn’t quite as difficult as I had previously believed.  I’m glad that the time that I have spent listening to conversations not only has allowed me to better familiarize myself with how the language sounds in terms of cadences and intonations but also the more detailed meaning of what is being said.  Something I would like to do as an exercise is to watch another episode of XX and choose a conversation between two characters to dissect.  I can take what the subtitles say and compare it to my understanding of the dialog and then run it by my language partner to see how accurate the translations really are and if I understood the implications properly.   

bi-weekly%20journal.docx

Biweekly Journal March 1

            Last week Jenna and I practiced writing letters. During class, I wrote a letter to my parents in Korean. The sentences I wrote were very basic and simple sentences, but I focused on practicing my grammar, spacing, punctuation, and bachims from last week. I wrote around four to five sentences for my parents. Jenna looked over and checked to see my spelling and grammar. She told me how many mistakes I made in the letter and I looked for what mistakes I made without Jenna telling me. This was a great way for me to find my own mistakes and look for what I have done wrong. Although I might have been wrong with some of the mistakes, I thought I made, I was able to find a couple of the mistakes Jenna found. After looking over the mistakes with Jenna and correcting it, I attempted to rewrite the whole letter again using the correct spelling and grammar. For homework for this week, I decided to write another letter to my sister in Korean. I went over my letter with Jenna to see what mistakes I made for this letter. I found a couple of mistakes on my own, but Jenna pointed out a couple more that I looked over.

            Over the last couple of weeks, I found that I have gotten better at grammar and spelling in Korean. Although the sentences are simple, I have been getting better at writing full sentences with correct spacing, grammar, and spelling. For example, my bachims have gotten increasingly better with less mistakes. I think the best practice for me is to rewrite my mistakes and recognize my mistakes. For the next few weeks, I hope to continue to improve my Korean writing skills and recognize my mistakes. I will also continue to read Korean articles on Naver and continue to listen to Korean music. Also, I think a great idea to get better at writing Korean is to watch some Korean drama shows and some YouTube videos. I’ve been watching a lot of sports highlights in Korean and it has been good to listen to some of the vocab words they say. Also, I have been watching Korean news broadcasts. These news broadcasts talk about the weather as well as current news.

            For my next short-term goal, I hope to get faster at writing Korean and be able read Korean faster. I think I should start to read more articles in Korean and understand words through context. I’ll aim to read at least 2-3 articles for next week and write a summary for them. Jenna will be able to read over it and see if I have any mistakes. One of the most common mistakes I am having is the “eu” and “ee” spelling in some of the words. I feel like when I pronounce the words I want to write; I will be able to use the correct vowel of either “eu” or “ee”. This is the one grammatical mistake I will focus on for next week.

For the past two weeks, I’ve kept my lesson plans relatively the same. I’ve changed the default language on my phone for about four weeks now, and I think I can see the results of this change. When I’m on my phone, I catch myself constantly thinking in Korean. At first, I made lots of mistakes because I could not understand all of the words in the settings and applications. After about the third week, I was able to associate words with the images correctly. I am most challenged by this method when I am notified of a software update or any other settings in Korean. Since I receive different notifications all the time, I take my time to determine the meaning of the notifications. When I could not figure out the words after a few minutes of trying, I translated the words using Google translate. While Google translate is not the best method of learning a language, the site completed most of the task. I am not sure if I will continue this learning method as it does not challenge me as much anymore. I am thinking of improving upon previous learning methods that I have incorporated in the past.

About four weeks ago, I also changed the default language on my computer to Korean. I think changing my default language on my computer is much more difficult than changing the language on my phone for several reasons. First, the computer has a plethora of settings that a phone does not have. When using my computer in Korean, I have to take multiple attempts before I select the correct settings. The images that indicate each setting are also different from those of my Iphone. Currently, it’s much easier to associate words to images on my phone because I’ve been practicing more often. I could not practice much on the computer because I could not complete assignments for other classes in an efficient manner. I would only switch the default language to Korean only during my free time when I would practice. Second, I was not entirely familiar with the Koreanized internet settings that would appear when I clicked the right mouse button. This applies not only to the settings, but also websites as well. I saw changes in the default language of sites like Youtube, which I visit frequently. Third, I have never practiced typing Korean on the computer. While I do have some practice from typing in Korean on my phone, I realized that it would take more practice and greater muscle memory for me to master the skill. When I type in Korean on my computer, I constantly try to remember which buttons I would press when I type on my phone. This process slows me down significantly as I only type a few words per minute. For the next two weeks or so, I am going to research methods that I can use to get better at typing in Korean.

I hoped to learn more useful vocabulary, phrases, and grammar for basic conversation. I think I was able to complete these goals these past two weeks.

The class two weeks ago was unfortunately cancelled because Professor Kim was sick. For our Korean class this past week, we reviewed the material we learned before. She tested us on some of the vocabulary we learned last time. The vocabulary was mainly about the days of the week, the seasons, and some other random vocabulary we learned. After taking the test, she asked us how we were in Korean. I think I’ve been able to express a little more about what I’ve done the past week, which is a good sign. It’s good that I am able to improve little by little and express more about myself. She also asked us questions about the date, such as “What day is it today?” and “When is your birthday?”. This was a good review of when we learned how to say the date. I was surprised that it stuck pretty well and I was able to recall it pretty easily. After reviewing the material about telling the date, we moved onto a new subject. The rest of the class, we learned about how to say if things are in a room or not. Professor Kim gave us a packet full of dialogue and practice activities and we went through it. First, we read the dialogue and tried to understand what it was saying. I think I was able to understand a good amount of it, but I still didn’t know everything. Then we did the activities in the packet. We were given a picture of a classroom and were tasked to say what was in the classroom. This was a good activity, but it made us practice our grammar, as well as learn some more vocabulary. We learned words like “seat”, “map”, “desk”, “chalkboard”, and other vocabulary that has to do with a classroom. We also did an activity that taught us some adjectives. For example, it gave us a picture with a big bag and a small bag, and we had to say if the bag was big or small. A grammar point we learned was how to say something in agreement. It was a pretty simple grammar point, since we just had to add an ending to the sentence. I think we were able to learn a lot these past two weeks.

I’ve also met with Jannette these past two weeks. I have used this time to review and practice the things that I learn with Professor Kim. Along the way, Jannette also teaches me more useful vocabulary and phrases that have to do with the topic I learn in the Hagwon class. Like our previous meetings, we will have practice conversations to have a more real-world experience with Korean. I think having these practice conversations is helpful and allows me an opportunity to speak to someone as if I met them on the street. It’s always a little hard to come up with things to say on the spot though. Once I get through all the phrases that I know, it’s difficult to think of other things to say and sort of improvise. I hope that this skill will continue to develop as my knowledge of Korean increases. These practice conversations give me more confidence to speak Korean to more people.

In order to practice what I’ve learned these past two weeks; I will continue to look over the packets that Professor Kim has given me and try the activities again. I will continue to try to incorporate Korean into my everyday life as much as possible, whether it’s with friends or even just to myself. I also hope to continue having practice conversations with Jannette in our future meetings.

I think my strategies have been effective so far. I like that I’ve been learning more vocabulary, because that allows me to say a lot more things. My reading skills are getting better and my speaking skills are slowly improving as well.  I think the activities and lessons I’ve learned so far have been helpful in my journey to learn Korean.

In order to build on what I’ve learned so far, I hope to learn more useful vocabulary and new grammar points. I want to move towards more complex conversations, as well as cement my knowledge in the basics.

In the last two weeks of 110 SDLAP, I focused on Korean idioms/idiomatic expressions with my language partner. 관용어 in Korean, idioms are typically traditional says as well as commonly used expressions. The Korean language is full of idioms. Knowing and using idioms, therefore, provide proficiency and a deeper understanding of the language as well as culture. It’s actually really interesting to recognize that human body parts are utilized frequently in Korean idioms. For example, 코가 놉다 (“nose is high” = arrogant) and 코 묻은돈 (“money with snot” = baby/toddler’s saved up allowance) both use the word 코 (nose) and have no correlation in meaning. Another example is the usage of 눈 (eye): 눈이 놉다 (“eyes are high” = have high standards) and 눈밖에 나다 (“grow outside of eyes” = to be out of favor with someone). There are plenty of non-body related idioms such as 파리 날리다 (“flies flying” = so empty there’s flies in the room). When my language partner Jimin and I listed this specific goal, I wanted to make sure I could get comfortable enough to use common idioms on a daily basis, or at least understand a large portion of typically used expressions. It was reassuring to already know the meaning of some of the idioms. It gives you a little bit of confidence to know some of the material you’re learning and also fuels your motivation. 

I like the way Jimin introduces the material to us. She writes the content up on the board (one by one) and asks the group (Tommy, Somyung, and I) what we think the meaning is. As the group throws up funny definitions and tries to understand the idioms, I take time to write down the Korean phrase as writing practice. I think it gives me good spelling (where to place the 받침 - learned in a previous week) practice as well as handwriting practice. Being able to learn cultural context with others who are learning and studying the language is really helpful. Being able to interact with not only Jimin but others like Somyung and Tommy gives more speaking practice and fun, which adds to better retention.

This past week, I sadly couldn’t make it to our weekly meeting. The group watched the four Oscar-winning movie Parasite. Luckily, I’ve watched the movie twice, so I didn’t miss out on much. Watching movies in the language you’re learning, including TV shows and listening to music, helps with picking up phrases and words. As someone who isn’t a beginner, it’s always nice to hear Korean more frequently through media since I’m no longer surrounded by family and friends who speak Korean. Parasite is a difficult movie––difficult but perfect to understand an aspect of Korean society. As it’s a social criticism and commentary on social class and mobility, it shows the reality (and sort of exaggerated reality) of Korea. Reflecting back on the two times I saw the movie, I learned culturally new things each time and also reflected on my experience growing up in the country. I think the movie really puts you off but also makes you think a lot––very vague statements, but I don’t want to spoil anything! I really think watching Kdramas and Korean films are one of the best additional resources as it exposes you to the culture and language while providing entertainment.

The language family of the Korean language is a debate and depending on different theories, Korean is part of different language families or isolate. The most prominent family Korean is linked to is the Altaic/Ural-Altaic language family. This family group includes languages of central Asia such as Turkish, Mongolian, Finnish, and Hungarian. Korea's history with China and Japan in addition to the history on the peninsula also shape other theories and the language itself. In Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula, two different groups of languages were spoken until the 7th Century when the Silla kingdom united the three kingdoms of the Peninsula and made the Silla dialect the dominant language. The modern writing system of Korea (한글 Hangul) was devised by King Sejong the Great for efficiency and accessibility. Previously, the language used Chinese characters to represent the sounds/meanings of Korean, and only the elite had the time to learn thousands of characters in the Chinese language. Because of the close proximity and shared usage of characters, modern Korean still reflects a lot of Chinese influence (i.e. vocabulary, proverbs). This understanding makes it easier for me to understand the importance of learning 한자 (hanja), old Korean with Chinese characters, when I was little. The historical events of Korea (Japanese occupation, English influence from the US, and ancient Chinese/Mongolian dynasties) also provide some insight into the creation of words following King Sejong’s innovation of the modern Korean language.

According to the previous class, languages change over time through historical events and changes in the people who speak and write the language. Pronunciations evolve, new words are coined or borrowed, new meanings are added to words or usages change, and grammar also changes. Linguists study the formation of sister/daughter languages and compare the differences between languages within a family (or the language itself). The past and present of languages are studied, and therefore make predictions possible.