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Determining which language family Korean belongs has been a controversial topic between linguistics. The Southern theory is that Korean belongs to the Austronesian family while Northern theory is that they belong to the Altaic language family; furthermore, others will categorize Korean by itself as a language isolate. Due to China and Japan’s historical interactions with Korea, we can see its effects on the language. About half the Korean vocabulary consists of Chinese derived words and many Koreans learn 한자 (Chinese characters) because Koreans would write in Chinese characters that represented sounds in Korean before hangul was devised in the 15th century. Similarities of grammatical structure and the use of pitch accents can be seen in both the Japanese and Korean language. Researching language families enhanced my understanding of how it is easier to pick up a language in the same language family as yours because there are more grammatical similarities and word cognates. Language will change over time as cultures move into areas and intertwine with each other. It can also change depending on how and how often language is used. When we talked about idioms in Korean class, Jimin mentioned that the wording (not meaning) of some idioms were slightly altered to fit the current culture of Korea. How the youths in Korea speak right now is totally different than how they spoke when Korea was a monarchy. Linguists track, and extrapolate these changes by looking at the similarities between the languages’ vocabulary, grammar, and sound changes. This can also be used to predict how languages will develop and grow in the coming years.

Recently, the film Parasite won a leading four awards at the 92nd Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. It became the first South Korean film to receive Academy Award recognition, as well as the first film not in English to win Best Picture. So for the past two weeks, Brenda and I made “Parasite” the theme of our class. We read a Korean news article about “Parasite” and watched the film Parasite.

The news article we read is about the social problem disclosed in the film Parasite, which is “불평등(inequality)”. The news article compared the inequality phenomenon in South Korea and that in the US. The main idea is that compared to South Korea, the inequality disclosed by the film Parasite is much more serious in the US. The article reasons this idea by providing scientific data and explaining those data in terms of metaphors that people can easily understand. But our purpose of reading this news article was not to learn from the context, but to learn more about the written Korean language. Brenda and I focused more on the structure of the article, the structure of a single sentence and the level of formality.

This news article is a formal article. After reading this article, the first characteristic I learned about formal Korean article is its structure. Usually, the main idea is provided at the very beginning of the article. The main ideas are always clearly stated in one sentence before the articles start. Then, the authors will give plenty of reasoning to support their main claims. In the last quarter of the whole article, the author will give the counterclaim. This section will only make up a small part of the article. And will be given the reason why the counterclaim does not justify itself as soon as the counterclaim is briefly explained.

As I was reading those formal written Korean language and trying to understand the meaning of them, I found that the structure of each single sentence was very complicated. In a formal style article, sentences are usually written in an inverted sentence pattern. In another words, I need to read from the end of the sentence, then back to the beginning in order to understand the meaning. This would be a challenge for me, while learning formal-styled Korean written language. Also, lack of vocabulary will be another challenge. So I will keep memorizing more vocabulary and practicing using grammatical rules in each Korean class. I will also keep reading Korean articles with Brenda, and I believe I will make progress at the end of this semester.

Keeping this article in mind, I watched the film Parasite. I paid more attention to the inequality between wealthy people and poor people the film was trying to expressed while watching. Before watching this film, I thought it would be a very heavy realistic film, making people realize the serious social problem by watching a painful and ironic story. But in fact, the movie is fun, but also full of anger, and a strong sense of injustice.

Since this week was midterm week, my language partner and I came to a consensus that for this Korean language meeting, we should watch a Korean drama to not only de-stress from our hectic schedule of tests and assignments, but to also learn and listen to actors speak in Korean as well. For the meeting, Jenna prepared for us episodes from a web series called “XX” starring Ahn Hee-yeon, Hwang Seung-eon, Bae In-hyuk and Lee Jong-won. Each episode is only about 25 minutes each, so we had the chance to watch two episodes for the time being. Personally, I have not watched korean dramas in over 7 years, and transitioned over to watching American tv shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Friends. Culturally, there is a significant difference between Korean tv shows and American tv shows. Korean tv shows are more heart-wrenching, unrealistic, and always more romantic. On the other hand, I realized that American tv shows focus a lot on real-world problems, are more dramatized, and talk about problems that are more controversial. For this meeting, I was excited to invest myself once again to watch a Korean drama because that is actually how I first started to learn Korean when I was young. I remember actually reading the subtitles more than actually watching the various scenes and cinematography and listening to the actors speak. 

For the first episode, we decided to keep the English subtitles on and watch the series. Although I am pretty proficient in Korean, listening and talking Korean with my parents and friends are very different to the Korean spoken in an artistic/film platform. “XX” was particularly harder to understand because it is a very recent drama that just stopped airing on television. It used much more modern slangs that I was not aware of and used more poetic lines in the script. For example, in the drama, they used the word “열공” which I had no idea what it meant. I asked Jenna what that meant and apparently, it is an acronym for “열심히 공부해” or “study hard.” Additionally, since I have not watched Korean dramas in a long time, the overall vibe and cinematography of the typical Korean drama evolved drastically. Before, anyone could expect what kind of beginning it was going to have and how it was going to end. However, this drama was very unique and spontaneous, which made me realize just how advanced Korea’s film has gotten. 

For the second episode, since I have a better grasp of the characters and the overall plot, Jenna turned the subtitles off which made the watching and listening infinitely harder. Now, I had to think more about what the characters were saying and I found myself repeating the words said by the protagonists. This actually helped a lot because I found myself retaining a bunch of vocabulary words and phrases said by the characters. 

Overall, I think this meeting has made me fall back in love with Korean tv shows and I realize that I actually learn the best “XX” is a modern drama, I also learn a lot about Korea’s culture and how it has changed. In the future, I hope to continue watching the later episodes on my own time and try to watch it without turning the subtitles on once again.

In the past two weeks in Korean class, we have learned more phrases and words. We first learned three question words, what, where, and who. Then Ms. Kim asks questions around these three question words to make us familiarize with those words. While asking questions, we learned several kinds of words according to different questions and situations. First we learn the words for the four seasons, spring (봄), summer (여름에), autumn (가을) and winter  (겨울). Ms. Kim says there is an old Korean movie called spring, summer, autumn and winter, although I haven't seen it. I know that the first name of a female Korean singer is봄, so I am familiar with the word of spring.

We also learned some Korean food names, such as tofu soup (순두부찌개), barbecue (불고기), bibimbap (비빔밥) and many more. I often go to Korean restaurant with my friends in Richmond, and one of my favorite dishes is seafood noodles (해물 짬뽕). Ms. Kim told me that although I ate the seafood noodles at a Korean restaurant, it was a Chinese dish for Koreans. Because China and Korea have a close relationship historically, a lot of Chinese food was brought to Korea. Because people in different places like different tastes, Korean people have improved Chinese food, and that's why I didn't find out it was Chinese food. The most popular dishes are noodles with Fried soy sauce (짜장면), seafood noodles (해물 짬뽕) and sweet and sour pork (탕수육). In China, the noodles with Fried soy sauce (짜장면) are salty and contain minced meat, but in Korea the noodles are sweeter and have lots of sweet onions and have no meat. When learning words, I found an interesting combination of Korean words. Take the word seafood for an example, sea in Korean is 해 and things in Korean is 물, as we combine this two words together we’ll get해물. We can understand it as something in the sea, which is seafood.

Since we are college students, Ms. Kim also taught us some common words used in college, such as professor in Korean is교수님. Korean people value age and seniority, even if two people are only one year apart. I'm a sophomore, and my fellow student is a junior. When addressing each other in Korean, I would call her "senior" (선배), while I would refer to her as "junior" (후배).

In addition to vocabulary, Ms. Kim also briefly introduced the Korean suffix. In the Korean greeting sentence “안녕하세요” consists of a noun plus a suffix to form a verb, “안녕” is the noun and “하세요” is a distortion of the original suffix. The original suffix is “하다”, because greeting is a polite expression, the suffix should be changed when greeting the elder, we use “하” plus “시” plus “어요/아요”, which is “하시어요”instead of하다”, so we add “안녕” to the front of suffix and get “안녕하시어요”. Although the principle of suffix deformation is such, but because people pronunciation habits, over time it become “안녕하세요”. This is a very simple suffix, and we will learn more about suffixes and grammar in the future

I can’t believe it is already halfway through our semester. I have noticed so much change in my Korean familiarity and comfortability. Last week, I started to use an app called Duolingo in my free time. Some of the high-level lessons in Duolingo really does test my ability in grammar and spelling. It is quite challenging and fun. Duolingo is another way to get a regular practice of my Korean, especially in writing and reading. Another thing that’s great about it is that it lets you pick a topic of your choice. I been trying to do two lessons a day, but sometimes the reset time isn’t quite right with my sleeping schedule, making me lose the streak. The streak is one of the things that make it attractive. It’s a small goal that is achievable and make you more competitive among your language learning community in the app, similar to a snapchat streak. I really recommend trying this app if anyone hasn’t tried it before. I think it is really important to find different ways to practice your language to make it more fun for yourself and engage in an effective learning experience.  

Another thing I been trying to do past two weeks is listening to the Korean radio. There are so many types of radio and some are really funny, and some are really soothing to listen to. I especially like the funny stations and the news stations. It is an amazing way to practice your listening skill. If you are not a person who likes to listen to a radio, there are radios specifically for starting and ending your day. I tried having it on while I was getting in bed, and it was a lot better than I thought. Many of them play some nice Korean music and it helped me fall asleep. Now, if you’re into the K-pop industry and various idols out there, there’s so many radio stations featuring many idols and celebrities. I hope you guys give it a try and explore with it.

Jimin and I have been continuing to practice idiomatic expressions and reading different articles. We read some recent newspapers and there are so many articles on coronavirus in Korea. Number of coronavirus cases keeps on rising today, and CDC has raised a level 3 alert for South Korea. I have so many families and friends in Korea, especially in the city of Daegu where the recent breakout occurred. Reading these newspapers really scare me sometimes and I hope the situation gets better as soon as possible. Everything aside, my language learning experience has been great past two weeks. With continuous practice with the idiomatic expressions, I am now able to refer to different expressions in different situations that I come across. My reading and writing are improving as well with the new approach with Duolingo on my own. Finally, I’ve become so comfortable listening to Korean while watching videos and listening to radios. As I find new ways to explore my language learning career, it makes me so happy that I could apply my Korean skill in so many ways, and that encourages me even more to study and practice harder.

During the past two weeks, the main tasks that I worked on were reading and speaking in Persian. Due to the distress caused by the spread of coronavirus in the world, my language partner (Zari) and I read and watched the news about it. Recently, this virus was spread in Iran causing tens of deaths and infecting hundreds of people. The spread of this virus has had a significant impact on schools and sites of worship. We spent most of our time discussing and analyzing the impact of this virus on Iranian people, society and culture. Most of this news was recorded by BBC Persia. Furthermore, we discussed the danger of such a virus spreading to countries in Afghanistan where sanitation is one of the poorest in the world. The second task that we completed was completing some grammar workshops from the book called, Intermediate Persian: A Grammar and a Workbook.

What we hoped to accomplish this week was to analyze the intersection of the rise of complex issues such as this virus and society. What I learned from the news was that there are hundreds of Iranians and other people who travel from Iran daily. I think this news by itself is a form of awareness to people who are not from Iran and see this country isolated or very strict about traveling. The second major thing that I gained more knowledge on was the distrust between the people and the Iranian government. When the virus was first spread in Iran, the political officials declared it as a scam by the enemies and said that it was not a major problem. When people heard this news, they did not take the precautions that were needed to stop the spread of this virus which lead to tens of people dying. However, once the Iranian people saw the contradictory news between what the government officials and what this virus was doing, it created distrust among the people. It was interesting to see the way language that was used by the government officials in comparison to people who were speaking about this virus. The language used by the government officials was one that was very proper but also in a way that minimized the harm associated with this virus. On the other hand, common people were more panicked and straightforward on how they felt about the spread of this virus in their country. Furthermore, the spread of this virus has caused the Iranian government to cancel Friday prayers and stop people from attending religious shrines. 

The past two weeks have been a bit of a different kind of studying with my language partner because we spent most of our time reading and listening to the news. Regardless, my community partner and I continue to work on some of the goals that we had set during the first week such as getting accustomed to typing in Persian. While we focused most of our time on listening and conversing, I also took the time to type some short reflections about what we learned. Additionally, I started using the grammar workbook to reinforce and consolidate my knowledge of certain grammatical points. We continue to work on the two dialects of Faris and Dari. 

Similar to the last weeks, the strategies that we used during this week were mainly through watching videos, listening, writing and speaking. I watched videos on BBC Persian along with printing Persian articles from this new agency. Every time I watch or read the news in Persian, I continue to take notes of certain words that I may not be familiar with or if there are any questions that I have about the usage of grammar. 

Recently, Jimin and I have been exploring many different Korean folk tales to not only share nostalgia about our parents telling us bedtime stories when we were children, but also to look into the stories for their deeper meanings that we didn’t realize before. Korean folk tales serve as an excellent way to learn more about Korean culture through the different values and morals that they highlight. A couple of the ones that we read include The Princess and the Beggar, The Korean Cinderella, The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon, and Heungbu and Nolbu. The Princess and the Beggar is a rather feminist Korean folktale that revolves around a weeping princess who chooses a village beggar as her partner as she refuses to marry based on social status. This forces her to be expelled from her father’s court, and eventually, the beggar becomes rather skilled and educated enough to be welcomed back to court with the princess. The Korean Cinderella is a twist on the original Cinderella story that involves a Korean girl named Pear Blossom is treated as a slave by her stepmother and is forced to complete 3 nearly impossible tasks. With the help of some magical creatures, Pear Blossom is able to complete them and also become a nobleman’s wife. Overall, I thought the theme revolved around karma, and that this version of the Cinderella story was more unexpected and deep in meaning. The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon is the story of a tiger who mistakenly thinks that a dried persimmon is a deadly predator and runs away. It illustrates the dynamics between the strong and the weak, and ends with the moral that even the weakest can win against the strongest by outwitting them. Finally, Heungbu and Nolbu was one of my favorite folktales that Jimin and I read, and it was also the one that I was most familiar with already. This tale was written in the late Joseon Dynasty and is one of the most popular bedtime stories for Korean children. Heungbu and Nolbu are brothers, with Nolbu as the greedy older brother and Heungbu as the kind and empathetic younger brother. They found that their father was to split his fortunate in half for each of them, and Nolbu dramatically threw out Heungbu’s family in an effort to keep the fortune all to himself. Following this, Heungbu remained impoverished until he came upon an injured swallow that he nursed back to its full health, after which swallow gifted Heungbu with seeds that yielded gemstones. Nolbu demanded Heungbu to tell him of his secret, and after Nolbu tried to recreate the fortune himself by breaking a swallow’s leg, Nolbu was showered with misfortune. Overall, this tale emphasizes that good deeds bring wealth and luck. Additionally, it challenges the traditional Korean value that the eldest son is the most important of the family. Overall, I felt that these Korean folktales are a very valuable part of our Korean cultural learning, especially since they are one of the first lessons of Korean values for Korean children. Even though the writing and vocabulary is very elementary, I thought that the deeper meanings behind the stories made them worthwhile for my Korean cultural learning. In the future, I would like to explore more advanced Korean novels that also have Korean values embedded in them.

          As of 2017, there are 7,099 languages in existence today. Since there are so many distinct languages worldwide, it is crucial to be able to organize and categorize these different entities. According to Scribd, a language family tree can be broken up into smaller subdivisions, or languages branches. For example, other well-known branches of the Indo-European Language family include:Germanic, Celtic, Hellenic, and Baltic languages. Currently, I am studying Korean as my target language. While Korean is among the world's most misunderstood and misrepresented languages because of its obscure origins, scholarly evidence suggests that Korean and Japanese belong to the Altaic language family, which also includes Turkish and Mongolian. On the other hand, some linguists actually insist that Korean is a language isolate. In Korea when I was very young, I remember learning a few Chinese alphabets and phrases called “한자” or “hanja” was a requirement in our curriculum. This was probably the case because Korea was heavily influenced by China and Japan in its history. This makes sense on why some of the roots of Korean words actually are the same roots as Chinese words. A great deal of Korean words are comprised of hanja. Learning hanja will help me to memorize the words more quickly, as knowing the roots will help me in this process. In English, it can be equated to knowing Latin and Greek root words. Knowing the root of a word can help me better understand its meaning and remember it later. In addition, Languages can transform through genetic or genealogical classification which can be described as the way in which languages develop new traits and characteristics while also maintaining its ancestral roots. Linguists try to track it as best as they can, however, sometimes, this task is very difficult, so we might actually have more language families than we are aware of. 

We are about half-way through this semester and as I look back on my work in this program, I can say I am very proud of what I have accomplished. Prior to the start of this program, I only knew the alphabet in sign language, plus a few obscure signs such as “restrooms”, “mother”, an elephant”. However, after just five weeks of instruction, I am able to generate and participate in the conversation with my instructor. Just this past week, we had a full 30-minute discussion relating to our living situations, spring break plans, family dynamics, and our favorite colors. Although I knew and it was emphasized in the beginning of the course that participating in dialogue/signing is the best way to learn a language, I forgot the entire effectiveness of such a method. Granted, I did not sign everything correctly during my conversation, but I was able to convey my information/points acutely enough that a deaf individual was able to understand me! It is AWESOME! Nevertheless, although I have learned so much, I still know so little.

            When Kay, the translator, comes in, I am astonished by her ability to interpret my instructors incredibly fast signing. I might be able to understand a small portion of the story due to the intrinsic nature of sign language, along with my few weeks of training, however, the speed at which Reba signs is almost indistinguishable. However, Kay can interpret! As a hearing individual who helps the deaf community, Kay helps inspire me to continue my sign-language journey.

            In addition, Reba has recently asked me to assist her with her sign-language course here at the University of Richmond through the School of Professional & Continuing Studies. I am unsure as to what this entails entirely; however, the fact that she thinks I am able to help other students learn the language has really given me confidence in my abilities. I believe the vocabulary she will be teaching to her other students will be very introductory as the course is only one day a week for four weeks. Nevertheless, I am applying the final “Teach” portion of the “Learn. Do. Teach.” model. On top of this, Reba has explained to me that the members of her ASL Champs group, the ASL teaching origination she works for, will be having a dinner get together. The purpose of such an excursion is to practice ASL outside of a classroom setting in a fun, satisfying manner. And Reba has invited me to this event! I am so excited to meet other people who as passionate about ASL as I am excited to finally be introduced to deaf community members.

            Despite the fact that the course is going incredibly, and I look forward to it every week, I do wish I was able to learn more medical terminology, as that was my original goal for learning ASL-to be able to questions and treat deaf individuals in a medical emergency. However, learning a language is a process and takes a great amount of time and training. So, I understand that this too will come in time.

For the week before, I practiced conversation with my language partner, Jenna, and learning partner, Christiana. Jenna printed out a handout of conversations of two college students talking about the semester so far. We read through a list of vocabulary first, including some related words such as (semester), (class), and (major). We also learned the words for some subjects or majors, including chemistry, computer science, and finance. For each word, we would read it out loud first and then guess its meaning by its pronunciation. There are some words that are very similar to English, which makes them easier to remember. There are some words that sound like Chinese as well, but they turned out to have completely different meanings, which would sometimes confuse me a little bit. As we went into the conversations, however, the vocabs make much more sense to me. Christiana and I chose a character each and read through the conversation line by line. After finishing reading the sentence, just as we did for the list of words, we would guess a rough translation for the sentence. Then, we looked into the sentence more closely and figure out its transition, logic, and phrases used. We all agree that this is a really effective way of learning new words as well as having conversations. When I was confused about a particular word, we would refer back to the list of words we just learned or wrote down the new phrases on it, which helped me learn the new words faster. We love this kind of practice and it builds up our confidence in speaking too.

This week, we watched a Korean Web drama named “XX” together. Different from the most commonly seen Korean dramas with twenty or more episodes and an hour and a half for each, the web dramas are much shorter. They have usually around or even less than twelve episodes, and each episode takes around twenty minutes. Nowadays in this fast-speed society, not a lot of people would spend twenty hours on one drama – it’s too much time commitment. Instead, the web dramas are much shorter and easier to watch on commute. As more and more people start to watch web dramas, the quality of web dramas improved a lot over the past five years. Compared with the first web drama I watched three years ago, “XX” is well-made with higher quality in its soundtracks, choices of actors and actresses, and storytelling. Another interesting thing I noticed in web dramas is that they are slightly more obvious in promoting the products they are sponsored in when compared with TV dramas. In TV dramas, if the actor or actress is sponsored, say by a clothing brand, then they would wear this brand for a larger portion of time while fitting into the settings and characters. The brand name would appear at the very end of the episode but not in the drama. On the other side, the web dramas would actually show the brand name and its products in a scene and have the main characters talking about how they like them. This also shows how the web dramas have a really limited time for their audience to stay focused and interested, so they have to send out the messages in a more direct way. I love learning about these cultural topics and discuss them with my partners.

For this week’s biweekly journal, I want to talk about some of the high and low points of these past two weeks. To start, I just want to say that I did not have the opportunity to practice Korean as much as I would have liked to. Due to the past two weeks being midterm season, I found that a majority of my time was spent on studying. However, I will talk about some of the things I was able to do amidst midterm season.

            First, I was able to call my parents and family, but not that much. However, when I did get the opportunity to call them, I made sure to only speak in Korean so that I was able to practice my fluency and competency. In addition, I was able to talk to them about the COVID-19 and potential plans for when I come back home for spring break. These are two prevalent topics since the COVID-19 is supposedly starting to spread in California and the fact that I will be going there for spring break. My parents would freak out and ask me if I had a mask and to be careful.

            Second, on YouTube, I started to watch a bunch of Korean content creators. From Yeon’s couple, Korean Englishman, and Gabie kook, there are so many channels that I started to watch. Some of these channels are great to watch because they add in English subtitles, so if I didn’t understand something, I am able to look at the translation and understand what they were trying to say. In addition, there are channels that do not have English subtitles, so I am able to practice listening and understanding what native Korean speakers say and sound like.

            Lastly, I want to talk about future plans, since I was not able to practice and learn Korean as much as I would have liked these past two weeks. This upcoming week, I will focus on calling my family as usual, and work on my fluency and ability to speak Korean. Also, I will finish up my schoolwork to ensure that I can have a restful spring break. Looking into the future during spring break, I will dedicate this time mainly to rest and interact with my family. While I am back home, I will be placed in an environment where I will get the opportunity to speak Korean for a significant amount of time. Going back home to see my parents and family will allow me to not only practice but learn since I am able to ask my parents for clarification. I can get this clarification because my parents also have the ability to speak a little bit of English. In addition, my family spends a lot of time watching Korean entertainment programs, so it would be nice to spend time with them and watch these shows with them. I am excited to go back home and spend time with my family, and also for the chance to impress my family members on how much I have learned about the Korean language over these past few weeks.

Korean is the language of the Korean peninsula in northeast Asia. It is believed that the ancestors of the Korean people arrived in the Korean peninsula and in Manchuria around 4,000 BC. They displaced, or assimilated, the earlier Paleosiberian-speaking settlers. Many small Korean tribal states were established in these locations between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD. There are many theories about the origin and affiliation of the Korean language. What makes Korean linguistic affiliation very difficult to establish is its long history of contact with Chinese and Japanese. According to the so-called Southern theory, Korean belongs to the Austronesian language family. However, according to the Northern theory, supported by a number of linguists, Korean is a member of the Altaic language family. At the same time, some linguists point to some similarities between Korean and Japanese, suggesting that it might belong in the Japonic group of languages. With the issue of the affiliation of Korean being unresolved, many sources classify it as a language isolate. During the Japanese occupation of Korea, Japanese was declared the official language of Korea, and the use of Korean was officially banned. Koreans were even forced to change their family names to Japanese ones. With the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945, despite national division and civil war, Korean was once again established as the official language of both Koreas. After the division of the country in 1945, each Korea developed its own national standard and language policy. Today, Modern Korean is used in all spheres of life in both Koreas.

The reason why people are continuously interested in learning the history of languages is that it provides a historical and social context of a language that help people contextualize and familiarize with languages' historical applications and their modern relevance. It is also how linguists predict how languages changed and will change over time. There are many different reasons for language change. Changes can take originate in language learning, or through language contact, social differentiation, and natural processes in usage. Example of a type of change can be sound change. By learning the pattern of language changes from the past to the present, linguists can assume and predict that the same pattern will occur from the present to the future. However, it is just not that simple regarding various changes in societies, cultures and interactions between cultures. 

In the past two weeks we first learned about words for different professions, and how to say what we are aiming to become, and to express this to out peers we learned how to ask for someone’s major and how to tell them our own. I’m currently planning on becoming a computer scientist (컴퓨터 과학자). 전 컴퓨터 과학을 전공하고 있습니다 (I am majoring in computer science). Then, we learned about how to say what the date is. 김수미 교수님 (Prof. Sumi Kim) helped us practice this by asking us what the current day’s date is, what the past day’s date was, what tomorrow’s date would be, and when our birthday is. Along with the saying the date, we also learned how to say which day of the week it is: 월요일 (Monday), 화요일 (Tuesday), 수요일 (Wednesday), 목요일 (Thursday), 금요일 (Friday), 토요일 (Saturday), and also how to say this week (이번 주), last week (지난주), and next week (다음주) which is really useful in my everyday conversations with friends about projects (계획) or exams (시험). 김수미 교수님 (Prof. Sumi Kim) helped us practice these by asking us what we did the previous week, or what our plans are for this week or the next. Almost every time Prof. Kim asked us any question about what we did the previous day, or the past week, or over the weekend, my answer was always 춤 (dance). This was because I spent a lot of time practicing dance for Block Crew. This actually helped my language learning because a lot of my friends in Block Crew speak Korean, so whenever they spoke to each other I could practice my listening skill, started picking up new vocabulary, and even spoke a bit of Korean whenever I could. For example, whenever we’re learning new steps, someone would repeat the step and ask the person teaching “이처럼?” which means “like this?” Other times when someone dances really well someone would say “대박” which can be used to express that something was really good. And in general I got more used to saying and listening to the words 뭐 (what), 언제 (when), 어디 (where), 왜 (why), 어떻게 (how) to the level where they started popping up in my head naturally when I think of saying any of those words to anyone. So, sometimes when my friends call my name I respond with “뭐?” (what?) or “네?” (yeah?). Some of the credit for this habit of mine goes to the k-drama Cheese in the Trap. I’ve been learning a lot of useful words and phrases and getting a good idea of how interactions in colleges in Korea look through this k-drama. I’m currently working on accumulating a list of words and phrases that were used in the show which I thought were really useful. 

One of the best parts of these two weeks was a moment when I received a V Live notification (picture attached at the end) on my phone which said that 방탄 소년단 (BTS) is holding a live stream because it was Suga’s birthday. I picked up my phone to see the notification, saw that it meant “Surprise Live! BTS: Min Suga’s birthday was 2 days ago,” and I put my phone down. It was only after a second that I realised that the notification was in Korean, and I was able to read it comfortably and understand what it said without a second thought. Objectively, this isn’t extremely big because there weren’t any diphthongs in the words which would make it harder for me to read it, and there wasn’t any complicated vocabulary used, but to me it definitely served as a testament to the progress that I have made in my language learning journey.

Note: V Live is a South Korean live video streaming service that allows celebrities based in the country to broadcast live videos on the internet and live chat with fans.

According to the so-called Southern theory, Korean belongs to the Austronesian language family. However, according to the Northern theory, supported by a number of linguists, Korean is a member of the Altaic language family. At the same time, some linguists point to some similarities between Korean and Japanese, suggesting that it might belong in the Japonic group of languages.

한자, words borrowed from Chinese characters, is present in Korean due to the spread of Buddhism from China to Korea. However, the most Chinese characters in Korean is not due to this religious spread, instead it is due to a text called 천자문. Some characters were borrowed directly from the text in simplified Chinese, some were translated based on their pronunciations of Chinese. The characters which are borrowed from Chinese characters change in terms of stroke orders. Research shows that some words borrowed from Chinese are gradually losing its popularity through time since schools abandoned the teaching of 한자 in 1971. Some words remain in common usage in contexts. I noticed this when I first began to listen to Korean because there were Korean words that I can somehow match the Chinese pronunciations. This special language borrowing and mixing makes Korean more approachable for me to learn in both terms of written and spoken.

To predict how language is going to change in the future, we can look at the factors which are causing changes and are retaining the change of language in the past. Internet platforms which provide people to communicate are causing the major change of language. Schools and other education organizations are slowing down the changes because students will study the standard language there, therefore the tradition is maintained. As the example above, after schools decided not to teach Chinese characters, the usage has been declining.

K-pop is gaining a lot of my attention through the past few years. Aside from the entertaining benefit to me. Its influences on other cultures are remarkable. People who are affected by the hallyu select common used words in K-pop fandom and mix them in their daily conversations. From the asset of social linguistic, word borrowing and language hybridizing are both a result and a reason for identity recognition.

For example, the word 오빠, elder brother, is widely used in international fandoms as a reference to their idols. However, international K-pop fans don’r use this word under the grammar rules. Instead, they mix English or Spanish or Thai with this Korean word to show their identity as a K-pop fan. Similarly, the phrase 사랑해 is commonly used in fandom to express their love towards their idols. Nevertheless, international fans use this phrase despite grammar as well as the formality of speech. These two examples are not enough to provide enough information to reveal the whole picture. By digging into the culture in terms of language, I can get a wider view on this interesting issue.

On February 28th, I had my first official Korean lesson with Jimin at 815. We began by going over a list of terms that she had prepared for me in advance, so that she could gauge my level of Korean. I was able to read all the terms but did not understand a number of them. However, when she read them out loud and used them in the context of a sentence, I was able to identify all the terms. I explained to Jimin that although I had been taught Korean in formal settings in the past, these were brief and did not account for a majority of my skills in Korean. I grew up speaking Korean at home, so I best understand the language when it is spoken out loud to me. I thought this was really interesting because in English, I prefer visually reading words over auditory comprehension. Actually, when I have to listen to podcasts or other types of verbal lessons, I find it extremely difficult to retain the information that is being relayed, and I often have to listen to the material several times before I understand everything that I am hearing. This is probably due to the fact that I grew up as an avid reader, so I have a stronger connection with written rather than spoken words. But with Korean, I can say or understand words better when they are spoken, and even though I am mentally aware of the words, I usually do not know how to properly spell or write them. It does not help that my mother uses informal language with me, also known as banmal 반말. I remember when I had my first Korean class in college, I was so surprised to see the proper forms of words and their different tenses. After discussing this with Jimin, we decided that we would make it a goal to focus on formal language since I do not have a good foundation in that area.

After going through the list, we then moved onto learning about some Korean history. Jimin told me that there was a national holiday coming up on March 1st, which celebrates the Samil Movement 삼일 운동, translating literally to the March 1st Movement. This event was one of the earliest public displays of resistance against Japanese colonial rule of Korea in the early 1900s. It also served as a catalyst for Korea’s eventual independence. To teach me about this event, we looked at a comic which described its importance. Although I could read everything and generally understand the pictures, there were a lot of terms that were more advanced than my level of reading comprehension, so Jimin explained the story as we went through the pages. One of the prominent organizers of the movement was Yu Gwan Sun 유관순. She was recognized for her peaceful demonstrations of protest, starkly contrasting against the extremely violent forces imposed by Japanese military personnel. She is commonly acknowledged as Korea’s “Joan of Arc,” and she devoted her entire life to fighting for Korea’s independence, dying in jail at the age of 17. I do not know much about Korean history and this event was really interesting to learn about, especially since it is relevant to the upcoming date. 

To close our lesson, Jimin went over a few slang terms that Koreans use when texting. I thought that a lot of them were pretty clever, although some were really silly and made me laugh. All in all, I thought that this was a very successful lesson. I learned a lot and a variety of different topics, all of which were really interesting.

After doing some research on the internet, I was surprised to discover that the language family of Korean seems to be highly contested. Most sources claim that Korean belongs to the Koreanic language family, and consider to be a language isolate. This term is used to describe a language that does not demonstrate any sort of genealogical relationship with other languages, one that does not share a common ancestor with other languages. However, there is some support for the notion that Korean belongs in the hypothesized Altaic family, which mostly has speakers from parts of Asia and some parts of Europe. The Koreanic language family includes Korean languages spoken in both North and South Korea, spanning from the ancient languages spoken from 57 BC to the present-day.

I thought this was really interesting to read about because I had always thought that Korean was a descendant of Chinese languages, but after reading further about its history, I learned that Classical Chinese was not introduced to Korea until a couple of centuries later. It amazes me that Korean has managed to maintain its individuality, even with Chinese and Japanese influences in Korea.

Languages transform through genetic or genealogical classification, which describes the process in which languages develop new traits and characteristics while maintaining its ancestral roots. Language families are formed when proto-languages produce daughter languages, which become parental languages to their own daughter languages. In order to understand the relationships and connections between different languages, these 145+ families are organized into language family trees. However, the extent of our understanding of languages is limited by the availability of recorded history, so it’s possible that there are more language families or the ones we acknowledge now are not accurate.

Since the last biweekly journal, I have had one session with Jenna and another with Jimin. On February 20th, I joined a group that Jimin taught and learned a lesson on Korean idioms. She explained to us that they were different than the proverbs we previously learned because proverbs are sayings people say while idioms are phrases that have a meaning of its own that is different than the direct meaning of the individual words that make up the phrase. Jimin would write each phrase on the white board and we would all read them out loud together. I thought it was interesting that most of the idioms mentioned body parts such as the eyes, nose, or hands within the phrase. I was able to recognize more idioms than proverbs. One that stood out to me was “손이 크다” which directly translates to “hands are big” but actually means to be generous or to over prepare for an occasion. My mom would use this one very often and people would use this idiom to describe her. Many of the idioms we went over focused on describing the personality of a person while the English idioms I am familiar with tend to describe situations and how a person acts. Similar to the proverbs, I thought that the direct meaning of the idioms were pretty funny, but unlike the idioms, the direct translations all made sense in a way. The idiom, 코가 납작해지다 directly means that one’s nose is being flattened but the actual meaning is to be shamed by someone or refers to one’s self confidence being lowered. I was able to guess several of the idioms right away. An example is 코가 높다 which directly means that someone’s nose is high. When I imagine that, I think of someone proud and it actually is used to describe someone who is arrogant.

The following Tuesday my group and my language partner Jenna watched a short Korean drama called “XX”. After watching two episodes, we discussed how different it was compared to other TV series in Korea. It was about how two people (one a head bartender and the other a owner of a bar) meet after ignoring each other for five years because one slept with the other’s boyfriend. The setting was unique and the problems that kept rising were fairly real which made this show more intriguing. Throughout the episodes, the idiom 바람 피우다 came up multiple times. It directly means to avoid the wind but really means to cheat on someone. I was excited to hear that phrase because I had just gone over common idioms five days before and I was learning how it was used in a sentence by watching the show. The subtitles were on, but I didn’t necessarily need them when the characters were talking. The only part I used the assistance was when they were discussing business and corporations. Watching the show also helped me practice listening because they were talking fast and I had to focus so that I could catch everything they said. Overall I thought I learned more about how native Korean speakers talk in their everyday lives using more complex phrases.

For this week, after finishing watching the Oscar awarded movie "Parasite", we dig deeper into the plot, the meaning and the interpretation of scenes and the story. Therefore, my language partner and I had a conversational interview based on this topic and particularly how I felt about the movie. 

영화 어땠어요? (Do you like the movie?)
재밌었어요. 영화 좋아해요 (I really like it and it is a great and super informative movie)

어떤 점이 재밌었어요? (What do you think was interesting about the movie?)
그 집에서 일하던 도우미분이 복숭아 아르레기가 있으셨는데 복숭아 가루를 주변에 부으며 사모님에게 아주머니가 폐렴이 있다하며 속였어요

(It is when they spill the peach powder around the servant and try to get her fired.)

기생충이 어떤 뜻인줄 알아요? (Do you know what "Parasites" mean?)
이 영화에선 기생충은 가난한 가족입니다 부자 가족한테 의존하며 속입니다.(Biologically speaking, parasites are organisms that live on or in a host organism and get their food from or at the expense of their host. In the movie, the Kim clan, and the former servant's family are parasites who get money, food, and shelter from the Park's while the Park's is the host.) 

Then, after finishing discussing the movie, we turned our gears and started to learn more about sentence structures and how to say verbs and write them in different tenses. For sentence structures, in Korean, sentences consist of either a “subject + verb” or a “subject + object + verb.”  For example, I like bananas (바나나 좋아해요). Bananas, the subject will be put in the first place and the verb "like" is put at the end. Another example can be, I do not like to study (저는 공부한느걸 싫어해요), using Korean sentences rules, the sentence will be translated as "study I don't like". Furthermore, we discussed how to express verbs in different tenses, including past tense, future tense and present tense. For the verb "watch 보다", for example, the past tense will be Watched 봤다, the present tense will be Watching 보고있다 and the future tense will be Will watch 볼거다. For the verb "eat 먹다", we have Eating 먹고있다, Ate 먹었다 and will eat 먹을거다. For the verb "like 좋아하다", we have liking 좋아하고있다, liked 좋아했다 and will like 좋아할거다. After seeing these examples, patterns of changing tenses can be found evidently. When applying these verbs into sentences will be like I will go to sleep at 9 PM
()저는 9시에 잘거에요) and last week, I watched the movie “Parasite” with Raymond (저는 지난주에 용준이랑 기생충 봤어요). For next week, we will formally expand these topics about Korean sentence structures and grammar and I'm looking forward to learning them. 

For this cultural post, I want to talk about a Korean movie that won four Oscar awards -- 기생충(Parasite). This movie is influential because it depicts and reflects realistically the gap between the rich and the poor in Korea. Parasite’s message isn’t particularly subtle; the meaning is right there in the title. Parasite tells the story of a poverty-stricken family, the Kims, who cunningly place themselves in the service of the Parks, an obscenely wealthy household who have been unknowingly harboring a stranger in their basement for years. The basement-dwellers could be easily viewed as parasitic, along with the Kims; the two families rely on the Parks for income, food, and shelter, and enter their house deceptively, aggressively competing with each other. Parasite outlines how the working class are forced into conflict against one another, fighting for scraps, while families like the Parks live a comfortable life, fueled by the labor of the many individuals working beneath them. The Parks are not depicted as villains, but in their naivety and casual entitlement, their parasitic nature is laid bare. The rainstorm that floods the Kim’s house with sewage, followed by the extravagant birthday party for a spoiled child, being raised to believe he is an artist (while being taught by a genuinely talented artist) clearly illustrates the imbalance.

What surprises me the most is knowing that Kim clan is not the only "parasite" in the house but the former servant is a "parasite" as well. This movie shows conflicts and disparity between different classes of people throughout and subtlely without telling a word that Kim's are poor and Park's are rich, this information is all shown by small details and the surroundings. There is one specific scene where father Kim is introduced by his daughter to the Parks as a driver, he is sitting outside of a glass room waiting for the Park finishing the meeting. The clear border between glasses is considered as the gap between the rich and the poor in Korea. The rich will also be powerful, superior and "big" in society just as the size of the image of Park comparing with that of father Kim. It also implies that the poor are trying to cross the borderline and draw food, money and shelter from the rich.