Blogs

Yut Nori Game

Yut Nori (윳놀이) is a traditional Korean game usually played during the Korean Lunar New Year (설날). It is considered a fun traditional game to build bonds with families and spend some time with them. It could be individuals playing against each other or in teams. In each game, there are usually four players or four teams sharing the same game board. Each team has four of its own distinct tokens, or mals (“말”, means “horse”) and starts the game with its mals at the home position of the team. As the game goes on, they win if they are the first to have all four pieces getting back to home.

There are four wooden yuts (윳) in the game. The wooden yut sticks are specially made for the game. While one side of a yut is made flat, another side has a round curve. For each round, a player throws the yuts into the air at once, and the yuts should land on the board. If not, they have to throw it again. Then, the player counts the number of yuts with the flat side up. The number of yuts with flat side up decides the number of moves the person’s mal is going to move on the board.

If the mals have one facing up, the player moves once. If two mals are facing up, the player moves twice. Similarly, when three mals have their flat sides up, the player moves three times. The interesting part comes when the player has four flat sides up when the player can move one of his/her mals for four steps. After that, he/she gets to throw the yuts again. If all the yuts are thrown to be facing downwards, then the player can move a mal for five steps and throw the yuts again as well. The names for the results from one to five are pig (도 ), dog (개 ), sheep (걸 ), cow (윷 ), and horse (모 ).

The rules for the mals on the board are very interesting too. If a mal from another team comes to the same position as a mal of your team, then that mal of yours will be taken from the board and start from home again. If two mals of yours meet on the board, they can move together as one mal, which will make you go back to your home position faster, but it is also risky that someone else’s mal might take both of them off the board at the same time. In addition, if a mal lands at the corner of the board, then the player can choose to go from the central shorter routes to go back home faster.

People play Yut Nori (윳놀이) in many Korean variety shows and I have been wondering for years what the rules are and how they know how many steps they get. When I tried to learn it from what they threw, it was really confusing because they called each throw different names and such. I’m glad that I now have a chance to really learn the rules and understand the game. It would also be really interesting to see Koreans playing this game with their own strategies.

References:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G90o0ai57EM

http://en.trykorea.com/article/about-korea/8/74/

            One curiosity of mine revolving around ASL is its origin. Who developed the ASL system? Was there an institution to teach the standardized system? Does it relate to British Sign Language? As it turns out, deaf education was not introduced until 1814, and thus, there is very little information about ASL before this time. However, what was known was that prior to this time, the deaf American population was only limited to a few thousand. No standard sign language system existed at this time, but individual communities developed their own signing systems to communicate.

            The biggest example of such happenings is at Martha’s Vineyard, an Island in the Dukes Country, Massachusetts. Today, the island is known for being the filming location for “Jaws” as well as a destination hotspot for the upper-class. However, until the later 19^th century, the island was a deaf utopia, especially within Chilmark, a small secluded town on the western end of Martha’s Vineyard. Many early Vineyard settlers carried a gene for deafness, and ultimately one in four children on the island were born deaf. Eventually, the residents developed their own signing system called Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) or Chilmark Sign Language. It is said that MVSL played a role in the development of ASL. This is just one example of an individual community developing its own sign system.

          It was Dr. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a mistier from Hartford Connecticut, who brought rise to a single standardized American signing system, also known as ASL. He originally took interest in the deaf community after meeting his neighbor’s deaf daughter, Alice Cogswell. To Gallaudet’s surprise, Alice was smart, despite not being able to hear. Gallaudet sought of ways to teach Alice to communicate and although he was unsuccessful in finding American deaf teaching techniques, he traveled to Europe where he studied under deaf instructors such as Abbe Sicard, Jean Massieu, and Laurent Clerc, all of whom were instructors at the National Institute for Deaf-Mutes, to learn the best deaf teaching techniques.

            As Gallaudet planned to return to America, he asked Cler to accompany him. Together, the two men established the first public free deaf school in America called the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut in 1817. Although Thomas Gallaudet passed away in 1851, deaf culture continued to gain popularity and recognition. Edward Miner Gallaudet, Thomas’s youngest son went on to continue his father’s legacy by serving at the superintendent of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind in Washington, D.C. in 1857 and by 1864, Edward had convinced Congress to pass legislation allowing the Columbia institute to issue college degrees. Also during this time, the Columbia Institute’s college division (the National Deaf-Mute College) opened which was the first college for the deaf. By 1893, the college was renamed to Gallaudet College and in 1986, it was renamed again to Gallaudet University. This was the first deaf university in the world! In 1965, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf was also established, becoming the second higher education institute for deaf individuals.

SDLC 113 Language Learning Journal Post #3

            Over the past two weeks, Jimin and I have been working on a lot of reading comprehension and writing skills. This includes reading recent news articles aloud and writing down vocabulary terms that I am unfamiliar with, along with multiple choice questions from Korea’s infamous college entrance exam- Suneung (수능). I somewhat dread but simultaneously anticipate these exercises drawn from practice exams for the Korean college entrance exam as they are extremely challenging to me and also rather long. However, I feel like this challenge is good for my language learning as it helps me to improve my Korean reading comprehension and problem-solving skills faster. We even tried timing myself, and though I didn’t perform as well as I could have if I wasn’t timed, I thought it was beneficial to have that extra pressure and mimic the experience that true Korean high school students go through. As I am currently studying for the GRE’s and even find the reading comprehension portion of that exam difficult, I can’t imagine trying to score well on the Suneung’s reading comprehension portion. I hope to try out the math section as well just for “fun.” As Koreans are stereotypically known to excel in mathematics, I expect myself to not score too well, but it never hurts to try. The website that we have been using is linked down below for those who are brave enough to try it out!

            Additionally, Jimin and I went over more vocabulary (especially slang) and idioms. It was fun to work on my slang as I have always struggled with keeping up with the latest sayings, and I think it will come in very useful when I’m talking to my Korean friends both here and back in Korea. I find it rather awkward texting in Korean, and thus I hope that my recent addition of slang and other vocabulary will help me text more naturally. Finally, I was thrilled to learn that the Korean movie “Parasite” recently won 4 Oscars and made Oscar history. It was kind of a weird but good feeling to feel extremely proud over the publicity and success that the Korean movie has achieved. In celebration, I had to rewatch the movie on itunes with my friend, and it was a good cultural experience as I was able to pick up on some new parts of the movie that I hadn’t the first time. For example, I was able to understand what some of the sayings that the actors said meant more deeply. I hope that Korea is able to gain more respect worldwide through films, as I believe that they are an easy way to approach different parts of the world. Attached is a news article that I read about the awards and the excitement buzzing throughout Korea following the ceremony.

            Lastly, I have been keeping up with my Korean language learning by making sure to facetime my family at least once a week. I find that even talking to them for an hour refreshes my speaking skills without it feeling like a school assignment. I also recently played a Korean game called “007” with a group of friends, and it came to me naturally to speak in Korean with them.

            In the next few weeks, I hope to further advance my Korean language and cultural learning by hopefully visitng New Grandmart, playing more Korean games, and reading Korean childhood folktalks.

http://www.kice.re.kr/boardCnts/list.do?boardID=1500234&m=0403&s=suneung&searchStr=

http://www.sportsseoul.com/news/read/884348

In the past two weeks, I had two sessions of my target language once with Jimin (because I couldn’t make it to my regular session) and the second time with Jenna. On February 6th, I joined a group that Jimin taught and we watched a clip of a Korean reality show along with a lesson on Korean proverbs. In the show, the celebrities were working together at a restaurant, so most of the terminology in that setting was familiar to me. Some of them used different dialects than what I had learned so understanding the comical jokes was occasionally difficult. I tried to avoid the subtitles as best as I could unless I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I don’t normally watch Korean shows by myself but while I was watching this, I thought of the alarming difference between Korean and American reality shows. It’s interesting how the stereotype for American reality shows is that they’re over the top dramatic while Korean shows tend to entertain through humor.

When I heard we were moving on to learning proverbs, I wasn’t looking forward to it because I assumed that it wouldn’t be useful. We ended up going over 47 different proverbs. After we read it together, one of us would directly translate it then each of us would get a chance to guess what it meant. Since they were old sayings, I didn’t know all the terms because some of them referred to objects that are not used in this century. In those cases, we did a quick search and found pictures to match the items so we could better relate to the proverbs. While going through these sayings, I realized that I had heard my parents say a couple of them and that there were some that overlap with English proverbs. I would never have imagined that I would enjoy learning proverbs as much as I did. Although there weren’t many proverbs that had positive, optimistic meanings, the direct translations were funny and were nonsense, so we frequently made jokes about them throughout the session.

On February 11th, I had my normal group session with Jenna and we learned bachims in writing. It was difficult to get the bachims right at first because how we write Korean is different than how we say it when communicating with others. A rule we learned was that if the next syllable block was a fake consonant, the bachim would also connect to the following word block. There were examples given and I was mostly familiar with them already. Then came the exceptions where specific bachims would actually create a different sound than what they would normally do if they were beginning consonants. When I learned Korean at a young age, we didn’t go through the specific rules about how some bachim combinations make sounds stronger. It was interesting to see the rules on paper and how I knew the rules without actually learning them. It kind of felt like I was working backwards but I’m glad that I can understand these specific guidelines of Korean. The continuous problem that bothers me is the countless amount of exceptions that come with any language. It’s frustrating to learn a rule then something that breaks the rule I just learned. I figured that I would have to just memorize these.

According to the inventory provided by the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, Korean is made up of majority stop (plosive) consonants with bilabial, alveolar, palatal, velar, and glottal points of articulation. There are a couple of fricatives and two approximant and lateral approximant consonants. It’s interesting to know that the majority of consonants are plosive, and it also makes sense to me. Korean has a few double consonants (ㅃ [p*], ㅉ [tf*], ㄸ [t*], ㄲ [k*], ㅆ [s*] ; *=no symbol in IPA to indicate this) that I think are difficult to explain and to translate the sounds. It is noteworthy to mention that /r/ and /l/ in Korean phonology is interchangeable while in English, there is a clear difference. This difference is always something I find amusing when I type out English words in Korean. Both /r/ and /l/ are expressed by the consonant ㄹ. Because I’m not a beginner in learning my target language, I already have the ability to read and speak the phonetic differences of the language. I learned the different consonants and vowels as a child. The alphabet song (“가, 나, 다, 라, 마, 바, 사, 아, 자, 차, 카, 타, 파, 하”) was the basis of my Korean language knowledge. Being able to distinguish the different sounds and connecting the sounds to characters has helped my reading and writing despite the lack of formal Korean language education. Learning about the linguistical aspect of the language, however, will help me see the reason behind parts of Korean I just understood as is. 

(Screen%20Shot%202020-02-16%20at%207.37.51%20PM.pngAttached image of Korean Phonetic Inventory)

In the last two weeks, I learned Korean proverbs (속담) and reviewed my understanding of final consonants (받침). In the first week, I went through 47 most commonly used, or at least known, proverbs. There were a few proverbs that I have heard of before and there were also some proverbs that I surprisingly knew the meaning of. The literal meaning of the phrases was easy to understand, however, it was the figurative language that confused me a little. When I found myself already knowing the proverb meaning, I was proud that I did. When I didn’t, I was curious to understand the meaning. For example, “남의 떡이 더 커 보인다" was a proverb I already knew the meaning of. Literally, the phrase says “another person’s rice cake looks bigger” and it holds the same meaning as the widely used “ the grass is greener on the other side”. A proverb both Tommy and I had a difficult time with was “등잔 밑이 어둡다" (“it’s dark under the lamp”). This proverb is indicating that the most important thing is right in front of you, “right under your nose”. This weekly meeting was really fun and filled with laughter because we tried to guess the meaning of the proverbs and Somyung joined the session. My weekly meetings with Tommy and our language partner, Jimin, are always enjoyable and productive because we always engage in the learning process while adding some form of fun, like videos, to support our learning. 

I also reviewed the rules of final consonants (I didn’t even know 받침 was “final consonant” in English) to strengthen my spelling skills with Jenna and her group (Vivian and Somyung). My meeting with Jimin got canceled. At the second weekly meeting with Jenna, we were all given a sheet of the different rules and corresponding examples. Although I learned how to speak the language, spelling (specifically 받침) has always been a difficult aspect of Korean. Being able to learn the different rules and when to apply them formally, is helping me think about the ways I type Korean when speaking to my family members and friends. In addition to single final consonants, there is something called double final consonants. These are the rules that I always have difficulty in spelling because, in speech, the second final consonant carries over to the next syllable. An easy example is the word “앉아" meaning sit. The first syllable has both “ㄴ” and “ㅈ”. The “ㅈ” however, is not pronounced with the rest of the syllable. Instead, it substitutes the silent “ㅇ” consonant. Therefore, the pronunciation is “안자” (which means something else). 

To put the material learned into practice, I plan to practice using a few of the proverbs I learned in my daily Korean speaking. The most applicable proverbs I would like to use are: “시작이 반이다”, “가랑비에 옷 젖는 줄 모른다”, and “하늘이 무너져도 솟아날 구멍이 있다". Once I can naturally and easily incorporate these proverbs into my thinking, speaking, and/or writing, I think I can measure whether or not I learned something new. In addition, the issue with 받침 is purely practicing with the spelling of words I use daily. Because I am aware of this, I asked my parents to look over my spelling when I used Korean with them over text and I will also work to text using proper Korean instead of text-language, which allows room for mistakes masked as accents/tones. 

During the third-fourth week, the main tasks that I worked on were listening, writing, reading and verbal communication of those tasks. My language partner (Zari) assigned a few video/audio interviews and songs to listen to and write reflections on. The second task that I completed with Zari was sharing my reflections on what I had watched and heard during the interviews and the songs. I spend most of the time discussing and analyzing the interviews and the songs where I also got the opportunity to share my perspective on the topics. The two interviews that I watched were of Shazada Reza Pahlavi (the exiled prince of Iran) and the songs were of Siavash Ghomeishi (an Iranian pop artist). The third task that I completed was reading cultural articles on the first fashion show held on the streets of Afghanistan and the Afghan documentary winning the British Bafta award. 

What I hoped to accomplish this week was to comprehend complex issues that are mentioned in interviews or news agencies. One of the major things that I wanted to accomplish this week was to see my level of comprehension of the political issues and if I had the ability to write an analytical reflection paper on it. The second thing that I wanted to accomplish was to carry a conversation about my analysis of the topic with Zari. The third task that I wanted to accomplish was to take a break from world issues and focus on some cultural aspects of the Persian language. I was able to accomplish this goal by listening to 4 songs of the renowned Siavashi Ghomeish and discuss the meanings of those songs with Zari. Furthermore, I was able to read the articles in Dari out loud and discuss its significance with Zari.

At the end of the week, my community partner and I narrowed discussed some of the goals that we had set during the first week and how we would continue to work on those goals. We are on a great path with our first goal of wanting to write discussion posts in Persian. However, we are continuing to build on our second goal of getting accustomed to typing in Persian. The upcoming homework that I have been assigned is writing my reflection paper on the computer. This is a great way of working on my typing and getting closer to my goal of being able to type on Persian comfortably. Also, we continue to work on the two dialects of Faris and Dari as there are great differences when reading articles in these two languages. 

The strategies that we used during this week were mainly through watching videos, listening, writing and speaking. I watched two interviews by Shahzada Pahlavi on his view of the current regime of Iran.  We found these videos on youtube, but the interviews were conducted by the BBC and some other news agencies. As I was watching the videos, I took notes in Persian. Sometimes I had to playback the video because of not understanding certain words. However, as I listened to it again, I realized that Iranian Farsi has borrowed some words from Egnlish and the way they are pronounced in Farsi is not something I was familiar with. For example, one of the words I didn’t understand the first time I heard was “Potancial” but when I listened to the interview again, Shazada Phalavi meant “potential”.  It’s very interesting. Soon I realized that there are also words in Dari that have been borrowed from English. For example, the word for workshop is “warkshop” in Dari. The second resource that we used was Ghomeshi’s webpage which had his songs and its lyrics in Persian. For homework, I spend a couple of hours listening to more interviews, writing about them and hearing songs in Persian. While watching these videos, I paid attention to how different the Persian dialect is from Dari. Again, I found out that I found it easier to understand the Afghan Persian dialect compared to the Iranian Persian dialect. However, I will continue to speak in both of these dialects and continue to build my vocabulary and understanding of both dialects. 

bi-weekly%20journal%202%3A17.docx

I would describe the phonetics inventory of my target language as uncomplicated, especially compared to the English language. The Korean language contains 14 consonants and 10 vowels and are combined to create syllable blocks. This is a much smaller range of letters to work with than American English so the sounds that can be produced are limited. The only sound in particular I can think of that is difficult to imitate for those who do not speak Korean is the “ㄹ” sound which is a mixed sound of the English “l” and “r”.

Korean sounds lack labiodental fricatives such as “f” and “v” and replaces them with bilabial stops such as “p” and “b”. When I first moved to the States, I didn’t know that the “f” sound existed, so when my family watched soccer, I genuinely thought that pushing someone to the ground during a game was called a “poul” since my dad would repetitively yell it. It wasn’t until years later when I played with my friends when I realized that it was really called a “Foul”. Another sound Koreans do not use is the voiced alveopalatal fricative, “z” sound which is replaced by using “j”. However in Korean, you can usually tell how hard a letter should be pronounced just by looking at whether the word uses single or double consonants. A problem with this rule is that the English “s” tends to always be pronounced hard. When my friends try to pronounce my Korean name, they pronounce it with a hard “s” to produce a “ㅆ” sound instead of a “ㅅ” sound.

I need to know more about the sounds produced when combining two different consonants to better understand the sound system of Korean. There are multiple ways to spell a sound in Korean, but there is only one way to pronounce a sound. This will challenge me when writing in Korean since there are multiple ways to write something with the same pronunciation and I have to find the correct way, but will help me when differentiating sounds when I listen to Korean. My dad is currently taking classes to develop his English pronunciation skills, so whenever he needs help, I try to describe the pronunciations through the Korean alphabet. This makes me think about the relationship between the Korean and English phonetic system.

As I mentioned earlier, I really want to get better at conversational Korean. My biggest challenge with improving my conversational skills in Korean is that I am too nervous to speak in improper Korean with other people. This goes to the extent that sometimes when I am having a conversation with someone in Korean, if I’m trying to say a word whose pronunciation I am not too sure about, I just say it really fast in the hopes that the other people will just get what I am trying to say. I realised that this does more harm than good. Knowing when saying each unit of the word clearly and more distinctly is more important than clubbing the various units together, and when not letting each unit sound too distinct and let them flow into each other is very important to how other people hear and understand what you’re trying to say. It is as Brenda mentioned, saying “안녕하세요” as “an-nyeong- ha-se-yeo” is better than clubbing these units together and saying “안녕하세요” as “anyonghasaeyo” or anything else that isn’t exactly how it is supposed to be pronounced; while, on the other hand, saying “ 잘했어” as “jal-haesseo” by letting ‘했’ and ’어’ flow together is more appropriate than saying “잘했어” as “jal-haed-sau” by showing clear distinction between the different units of the word.

So far, the way I have recorded what I learned was predominantly in written Korean. However, because the words do not always sound the way they are written and nuances in how it is pronounced are important. I recently realised that this is counter productive to learning how to speak Korean well. So, from now on, I am going to start documenting what I learn in ways that aren’t just writing; for example, by using audio recordings. This way, when I am doubtful about how a word should be pronounced, I can listen to audio files which would help me out a lot in practicing speaking and listening. 

Lately to practice pronunciations, I have been trying to memorise various Korean song lyrics and their meaning, and I have been trying to sing along with the artist at a slower speed. This has been extremely fun to do and immensely helpful, because it lets me practice listening and reading when I’m trying to hear and memorise the lyrics, it helps me expand my vocabulary by learning new words and their different tenses from the lyrics, it helps me get more comfortable with speaking because singing helps me get more comfortable with making the sounds that are used in the Korean language. I sometimes even record myself to see how I sound. Even small changes in how a word in the lyrics of a song is pronounced can effect the rhythm of the song. So, when I’m listening to my recordings, it’s easy to recognise when my pronunciations are a little off from what they should be.

Another thing I’ve recently started doing to better my conversational skills is watching a K-drama called Cheese in the Trap. It’s set in a college environment so I think that for my current situation, as a college student, I can get more out of this than other K-dramas. The last K-drama I watched (Boys Over Flowers) also helped me learn a lot fo new vocabulary and see various interactions but it was a high-school setting so it wasn’t as apt as this one. I’ll evaluate how watching this effects my language learning journey after I make significant progress in the show.

In the last two weeks, Brenda and I did both cultural learning and academical learning. For Korean culture, we learned about the relationship between South Korea and North Korea and the language people use in North Korea. For language, we learned several verbs with the same meaning used for different nouns and verbs with the same pronunciation but different meanings.

We started our culture learning with the latest Korean drama “사랑의 불시착（Crush landing on you）”. This drama is about the love story between a wealthy woman who comes from South Korea and a soldier who comes form North Korea. This wealthy woman came to North Korea because she suffered from a hurricane, and her paraglider was blown into North Korean territory. She was found by a North Korean soldier, and this soldier protected her while she was in North Korea. Since the story takes place in North Korea, the language those actors are using and the set in the drama are all in North Korean style. Brenda and I learned about how Korean language in North Korea is different from that in South Korea. We also watched a North Korean Youtuber, who escaped from North Korea to South Korea, talking about how her life was in North Korea. It was my first time to learn about how people live in North Korea. I was shocked because life in north Korea is very simple, even backward. This also inspired me to make the difference and relationship between South Korea and North Korean as my topic for my final cultural presentation. I want to research more about this topic.

The language learning class last week was very interesting. Brenda taught me several confusing verbs and we practiced by making up sentences using those verbs. The first group we learned was “to wear” for different clothing. In Korean, we use “쓰다” for things like hats or glasses, “신다” for shoes or socks, and “입다” for coats or pants. For better memorizing, I concluded the usage of these verbs by different body parts: “쓰다” is used for things wore on head and face; “신다” is for our feet; and “입다” is for our main body. Another group is “잊다” and “잃다”. Literally, they means “to forget” and “to lose”. “잊다” is used when you forget something you knew previously but cannot recall it at the moment. “잃다” is used when you forget or lose material possession. It is also used when you are unable to find the way to go your destination. In English, sometimes we use the same verb to express this two conditions. But In both Korean and Chinese, we have to use certain verb for “to forget” and “to lose”. As a Chinese native speaker, it is relatively easy for me to distinguish these two verbs and be able to know which is the correct one in different contexts.

In the past several classes, Brenda and consciously increased the frequency of our Korean conversations. The efficiency of our Korean conversations has been gradually improved. Although sometimes I was not able to express my ideas in Korea, I still try my best to give some words I knew instead of totally using English. Brenda also speaks Korean to me. She translates only if I am confused about what she was talking about. And the way she translate is using Korean I knew first, then guiding me till I getting the meaning myself. I think this is a very good way to practice my conversational skills in Korean, since it is not to convey Korean and English translation to me, but to make myself understand by guiding in Korean.

For this week's biweekly journal, I wanted to talk about some of the things I have worked on over the past two weeks. First I want to talk about a new show that I began to watch. The show I started to watch is called The Return of Superman. This show is about children, specifically celebrities' children. I always knew this show existed, but I never was interested until I found out that a new guest would appear. The guest was Kang Gary, who is a famous rapper, but also gained a lot of popularity through running man. He was an original member that was part of the show for 8 years but left the show to pursue his own passions. Within those years, Gary married someone and had a child. The child’s name is Kang Haoh. The show mainly shows the life of the child and the parents and what they do for 48 hours. This show was very helpful because it helped me to remember what it was like for me to learn Korean as a child. I am honestly hooked at how cute the child is, but also how well the child speaks for someone who is only 2 years old. Along with my other programs, I expect to watch this program to help me expand my Korean vocabulary, but also to learn more about Korean culture within a family context.

In addition, I had the opportunity to talk to my grandpa this week in Korean. My grandpa on my mother’s side is someone that I do not normally get to call, but through circumstances, I was able to give him a call. I was able to practice speaking formally to my grandpa and ask him how he is doing. He told me that he was doing fine and that he has been busy since he is getting ready to move to Riverside. I was surprised, but I was excited for him. I told him that I would ask my parents to go see him during spring break and that I would call him more often. He thanked me and told me that he appreciated the call. This experience was very new since while I am here, I do not get the opportunity to speak formally as much as I do back home in California. I knew that my formal speaking was rusty, but it was nice to practice and I hope to practice more by calling him in the future.

Lastly, during my lessons with Jimin I got to learn about a Korean dish called budaejjigae. In English, this stew is translated as Korean army stew, which is a stew that dates back to the Korean war. This dish was created by Koreans when they wanted to eat a hot and spicy stew during the rough times of war. The soldiers created a spicy broth and put everything they could find, including canned meat, vegetables, beans, and ramen. This concoction became a staple for many Korean soldiers and has since been a very popular dish for many Koreans to this day. During my lesson, I learned about the history of this dish and the recipe for how to make this popular dish. Hopefully, when I get the chance during spring break, I will be able to try to make this stew for myself and enjoy it. 

In the Korean alphabet, or Hangul, there are 24 letters in total that include 14 consonants (e.g. ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, ㅅ) and 10 vowels (e.g. ㅏ, ㅑ, ㅣ, ㅠ, ㅜ). The letters are then combined together to form into syllable blocks. 

This is how most of the consonants translate into the English sound: 

ㄱ= k

ㄴ= n

ㄷ= d

ㄹ=r/l

ㅁ= m

ㅂ= b

ㅅ= s

ㅈ= j

ㅎ= h

Unfortunately, the ‘ㄹ’ is a consonant that is very difficult to pronounce in English and really does not exist. Personally, the sound of the letter is a mix between the sound of an ‘R’ and an ‘L.’

Something that I found was very interesting when I first moved to the States was the way in which Korean people and others pronounced their last names. For instance, there are many people that have the last name ‘Kim.’ However, in Korea, ‘Kim’ or ‘김’ is actually pronounced as ‘Gim.’ However, for some reason, the consonant ‘ㄱ’ always translated to the consonant ‘K’ in English which I thought was quite interesting. 

Sometimes, I still have trouble pronouncing the ‘ㄹ’ sound, however, I think the most important thing is to continue to practice these words that contain this sound and target the exact place in my mouth where I can manipulate the air coming from my diaphragm to produce that consonant sound. 

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 last two Korean classes with Professor Kim, I learned about telling the date. The past two classes covered this topic. She printed out some pages from the Korean textbook and we went through some activities. We also read the dialogue which was good practice for my reading skills. I’m getting pretty good at recognizing the characters and their sound, but the hard part is putting everything together and reading quicker. I’m still reading pretty slow so that’s something I look forward to working on. The activities from the textbook taught us how to say the date. We also learned some useful vocabulary that relates to the topic, such as “birthday”, “Christmas”, “today”, “yesterday”, “tomorrow”, the months, and the days of the week. Professor Kim would ask us what today is or what yesterday was, and we would have to respond in Korean. She also asked us when our birthdays were and our friends and family’s birthdays too. I think we have done a good job covering all of the skills. We’re able to do activities that make us practice our reading, writing, and speaking. I can’t wait to continue learning about the date and other useful topics.

I’ve also met with Jannette these past two weeks. I have been practicing what I’ve learned in the Hagwon classes, as well as learning some different material. I practiced my speaking with Jannette, and we practiced having a conversation. One of the new things that she taught me was how to ask somebody about their interest. She taught me basic phrases that I had to write down. Beyond just learning these phrases, I was curious about the grammar behind the sentences. She was able to clear things up for me. The phrases I learned are very useful and will come up in most conversations. I learned things like “What do you like to do?”, “Where are you from?”, as well as how to respond to the questions. After reviewing the phrases, we had a practice conversation. We went through our greetings and introductions. Then we went into the phrases that I just learned. I asked her what she likes to do and where she is from, and she asked me what I like to do and where I’m from. Although it was a bit difficult to keep track of what she was saying and remembering how to say the phrases, I thought this activity was very beneficial. I definitely felt more confident after having the conversation and I liked how it replicated something that would happen in real life.

In order to practice what I’ve learned these past two weeks; I will continue to look over my notes and go over phrases that I’ve learned. I will try to use them whenever I can while interacting with my Korean friends. I also hope to have practice conversations with Jannette in our future meetings, since I thought that they were very helpful.

I think my strategies have been effective so far. I’ve been seeing progress in my Korean skills. My conversations are getting longer, and I am able to say more. When I listen to the other person speak, I’m able to actually understand most of what they are saying, which is a pretty good feeling.

In order to build on what I’ve learned so far, I hope to learn more useful phrases and vocabulary. I’ve learned pretty useful phrases so far and I think I have learned a lot. As always, as I learn more phrases and vocabulary, I hope to have longer conversations and talk about more topics.

          For this week, I hoped to dive further into some writing basics. I had a tough time with spelling words correctly, and especially spelling double combinations correctly in my writing. 

          This is why Jenna and I discussed the topic about 받침 or “double combinations” that go under a letter to produce a certain sound. First, we started off listing some 받침s we might possibly know. Personally, I knew of ㄱㅅ, ㄴㅈ, ㅂㅅ, ㄹㅂ, ㄹㄱ, and ㄹㅌ. She told us that we only pronounce the first consonant for the first syllable. Then, the second consonant of the 받침 carries onto the next syllable, if there is a next syllable. Another rule was that if there is already a consonant in the next syllable, the 받침 makes that syllable stronger. 

          For example, 앉아 would usually be pronounced (if said literally) ‘ahnj-ah.’ However, since there is a ‘ㅈ’ as the second consonant, that sound wound transfer over to the ‘아’ and it would ultimately be pronounced as ‘ahn-ja.’ Another example was ‘앉다.’ It would usually be pronounced as ‘ahn-da.’ However, since there is second consonant 받침, the second consonant would transfer over to the second syllable and be pronounced as ‘ahn-ttha.’ 

          Similar to Spanish, there are some letters in the Korean alphabet that is not pronounced. For example, in Spanish, you would not pronounce ‘hola’ with the ‘h’ sound in the beginning. It would just sound like ‘ola.’ Likewise, double combinations with the letter ‘ㅎ’ are not pronounced in the word. It doesn't really sound like anything, but more like a breath. For example, ‘싫어’ would be the same pronunciation as ‘시러’ or ‘shi-luh.’ The ‘ㅎ’ does nothing, and is practically silent. 

          Additionally, like English, Korean also has many homonyms. So, it is important to simply know the differences between writing ‘싫어’ and ‘시러.’ Although these two words sound the same, they are spelled differently and mean very different things. ‘싫어’ means I don’t want it while ‘시러’ could be cold. 

         A concept that was difficult for me to grasp were some of the consonants that make different sounds when paired with another particular letter. For example, ‘해돋이’ which if I read it as a non-native speaker, I would read it directly as ‘hae-dot-yi.’ However, somehow, the ‘돋’ paired with the next syllable, ‘이’ makes the second syllable into a ‘ji’ sound. So, in the end, ‘해돋이’ would be pronounced as ‘hae-do-ji,’ not ‘yi.’ 

          Since this week’s lesson was more technical, I will try to study and practice using these words by texting Jenna. Jenna told us that she would text me next week a question that will require me to use at least one of the double combinations written above, and see if I can use and spell it correctly. 

The semester is going by so fast and my Korean is improving just as much. Jimin and I began to study some Korean idiomatic expressions. Even though I try to study these expressions as often as I can every semester, there’s just so many out there to learn. Because it is not often used in a regular, informal conversations, I feel like it is hard to retain them once I learn them. Making vocabulary cards does help a lot but it is hard to find practical use of them. I do find some expressions in some of the videos that I watch, but some are expressions that I have never heard before. To be more interactive with these expressions, I began to watch Korean variety shows with quizzes related to these expressions. It is a lot more exciting and easier to retain once I engage myself to follow along a game. In addition, it is helpful to see many examples and different usage of these expressions. It helps me learn when and how these expressions are appropriate in different conversations. Jimin helps me so much in finding significant hints to learning these expressions. Identifying same letters used in different expressions can generally help me lead to its meaning. As I start to remember more letters, my learning speed improves by a lot.

In celebration to the new Korean Oscar winning movie Parasite, we watched some of the movie and read articles about the movie. I truly recommend watching this movie if anyone did not watch it yet. It depicts a lot of controversial topics of Korean society and it is very engaging with all the details put together in every scene. There are several debates about the meaning behind the movie. Although the title itself represents the message of the movie, it is up to the audience to decide whether the poor or the rich is the parasite. It was really fun and exciting to read all the thoughts on the movie and reading something so interesting really helps with my motivation to read Korean articles. I already feel like I have improved so much and found myself much more comfortable reading Korean.

Finally, I continued to speak Korean as much as possible with Jimin and other students. My parents were really surprised and proud that I was using so much Korean with them. This past week, I was helping my parents translate some documents that they needed, and I was surprised how I was able to handle both languages so comfortably. It took a bit of time to do it, but I felt comfortable doing it. I have always avoided these kinds of tasks and asked my brother to help my parents. In order to expose myself to more Korean usage, I gladly assisted my parents. I felt that the exchange between Korean and English in my head was very natural and it didn’t feel like there was a barrier in between. Although I had to look up some technical terms that I didn’t know, I was able to learn a lot of new vocabulary through this process. I think it is a significant improvement that I am taking more initiatives and am willing to use Korean whenever possible.

For the second class of this semester, my language learning partner, Jenna, printed out a news artificial published online that discusses the recent Coronavirus and the effects it brought. The article, similar to the news report we went over the week before, is written in a very formal language with large use of vocabulary that I have not seen. We read the lines out loud line by line first and then went through the words and phrases that we are not familiar with. We did encounter some phrases that are appeared in the weather report as well, but there were still so many vocabularies that are not commonly used in conversations that it took us some time to read through the sentences. After that, we tried to interpret the meaning of the whole sentence. Even though we were given the meaning of every word in the sentence, it would still take us some work to translate the whole sentence because there are many conjunction words or phrases that are implied. Sometimes the sentence might look like a long list of nouns and adjectives because of the hidden logical words. I do believe that with more practices like this throughout the semester, we will learn more vocabulary and be more comfortable reading the published articles with professional language.

For the past week, we learned about the final consonants (받침 ) and also the drinking culture in Korea. With the Korean lessons taken back home, I thought I should be already familiar with the final consonants, but it turned out that there are more rules and exceptions than I expected. For example, I did not know that ㄷ (d) sound is pronounced ㅈ (ji) when it is followed by the vowel ㅣ(i). Similarly, ㅌ (t) sound should be pronounced as ㅊ(ch) with the vowelㅣ(i). I did not pay attention to these before. In addition, we also went through the double 받침 combinations, and the rules for these are a lot more complicated. For example, for the double final consonant ㄹㄱ, the first syllable pronounces ㄱ while the consonant in the next syllable will sound stronger. These rules with exceptions are a lot to memorize.

I suggested the drinking culture to Jenna because even though I have seen a lot of people drinking soju (소주 ) on a Korean variety show or drama, I did not get a chance to learn about every detail of the drinking manner. Jenna printed out a handout for the vocabulary regarding drinking and a list of drinking manners in Korea. There are so many that I would not even notice if others don’t mention it to me. For example, when drinking with an elder, you need to wait for the elder to put down their drinking glass before you put down yours. We also watched a YouTube video together that shows how an English man learns about drinking culture by drinking with a Korean elder. It was very interesting to see him doing all kinds of wrong things first and then called out by his friend. It also helped to learn the manners better because he was making the mistakes that I would too if I was in that position.

In the article, I learned more about the phonology of languages. Also, the article mentions more about the biological or physiological side of languages, which is about how to make vocal sounds and articulate phones. Phones are segments of sentences and speeches and are represented by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). However, IPA is not comprehensive since many languages have their unique phones that are totally different than any other language. Take my target language, Korean, as an example. In total, the Korean language has 26 initial consonants, 7 final consonants, and 16 vowel sounds of which the entire language is based upon. When comparing Korean with English, I found that Korean doesn't include some phonemes that English has based on the information I acquired.The most significant of these are the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds in words such as then, and thirteen. Differences in syllable structure between the two languages may lead to the addition of a short vowel sound to the end of English words that terminate with a consonant or within words containing consonant clusters. What's more, Korean does not have voiced obstruents. All stops, fricatives, and affricates are voiceless. In conclusion, it is essential to be able to differentiate different segments in speech because without understanding them, I cannot understand what other people mean. And mispronounce words or sounds could make a huge difference to the meaning of sentences. Therefore, the alphabet must be read carefully and the pronunciation of consonants and vowels must be well memorized, which is the foundation of spelling and speaking. Also, I need to listen to more Korean and try to communicate with Koreans without afraid of making mistakes to practice and build more confidence about speaking Korean. 

Valentine’s Day just passed on Friday and there was so much love in the air. For this cultural post, I thought it would be interesting to focus on discussing and exploring Valentine’s Day in Korea and how it is different. I thought that Valentine’s Day in every country would be about the same but it’s a little different in Korea. After doing some research, I found that there are 12 “love days” celebrated on the the 14th of every month in Korea. The traditional Valentine’s Day in Korea is a little different where the women give chocolates or gifts to the men. Then men will show affection to their women in the following month on March 14th and it’s called White Day. On White Day, the men will have to reciprocate the gift they got the previous month but are expected to follow the Rule of Three which means they have to give a gift that is three times the value of what they received in February. In April, Black Day is a day to celebrate singles. Singles will get together and eat Jajangmyeon (Black bean noodles). It sounds like a pretty depressing day and to be reminded of your single status is rough which is why there isn’t really advertising. But it has been developing in recent years. Instead of being a depressing day, it’s more of a self- appreciating day now and a celebration of being single. The other days in the other months are called Diary Day (January), Rose Day (May), Kiss Day (June), Silver Day (July), Green Day (August), Photo Day (September), Wine Day (October), Movie Day (November), Hug Day (December).

I think that this is a really interesting cultural aspect. Especially when I did some more research and found that in other Asian countries, women give gifts on Valentine’s Day and White Day is a pretty big deal as well. White Day actually originated in Japan in 1977 when a Japanese confectioner decided that March 14th was Marshmallow Day. It didn’t really stick so they changed the name to White Day. It’s basically a day where men will reply to their gifts given to them on Valentine’s Day. White symbolizes the purity of love but it is also associated with sugar. Another really important part of White Day is that it’s important to include white into your gifts as much as possible. I really like the idea of women giving gifts and receiving even better gifts the next month mostly because I feel like it’s good to celebrate each other's love. I also think it’s interesting that these days exist and I think it’s something that could also be celebrated in Western culture as well. I feel like celebrating love is such a hallmark holiday for industries to make money but at the same time and it seems to be about the same in every country, it’s a really nice time for couples to be reminded and celebrate their love on these days. Although, it can be sad to think more about your single status when you are single on Valentine’s and White Day, it can also be a time to appreciate yourself and your friends more than you have had in the past. 

https://asiasociety.org/korea/valentine%E2%80%99s-day-korea