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This week we focused on improving fluency and understanding basic nikkud. Nikkud are diacritical marks that denote how a vowel is supposed to be pronounced. א this letter is "a" but as we know in english, there are many different ways to say the vowel. In english there are so many exceptions that you really just have to know the word to know exactly how it is pronounced, but Hebrew is more regular and so nikkud is a system to allow people to confidently pronounce unfamiliar words correctly.

Originally I had discussed with my language partner about if I really wanted to learn nikkud or not. My reasoning was that it isn't really a natural way to learn it, since it is tailored to foreigners who are learning hebrew as a second language. I figured that there wasn't really much of a point, because if I read something in Hebrew, unless its a religious text or a text specifically formatted for hebrew learners, it probably wouldn't have nikkud at all, so why learn something that I won't really use that often? But my language partner said that I should probably learn it anyway, since the idea is to have good pronunciation when you look up a new word, like how in English dictionaries there are phonetic markings that tell you how a word is pronounced (although truth be told I have never used these.) So I decided to at least familiarize myself with the most basic nikkud. 

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For this cultural artifact, I read some articles about cultural differences between Israel and the US, discussed my findings with my language partner, and thought about my own experiences abroad and in my home country. One of the things that jumped out at me was how in Israel, prices on things are usually negotiable. Some other countries do this to an extent, especially in Asia, where it isn't uncommon to barter and try to talk down prices, but in Israel, things are negotiable that to me don't seem like they should be. For instance, phone bills through national carriers are often priced way higher than what the companies actually expect you to pay. Even if they are surprised if you don't try and talk down the price, they will happily take your extra money. My friend told me that she has never payed a listed price for a haircut, which I thought was especially funny, considering that I would be terrified of making the barber angry (since she can really mess me up if she wants. In the US and especially in smaller cities and in the South even questioning a listed price for something would be perceived as absurdly rude, unless in a very few specific circumstances, like a craigslist tractor purchase or something. 

Another thing I noticed is the relationship with money. I know that some foreigners I have met think that Americans have a slightly weird way of thinking about personal finances, i.e. never speaking about or inquiring after others salaries, always splitting a check. One thing I have never received or given as a present is straight cash, because my parents always told me it was rude. The closest thing I could get is a gift card, which still seems a little bit impersonal. In Israel, the relationship is the exact opposite. At weddings it is considered rude to ask for anything BUT money. Some married couples will have an ATM at the ceremony so people can drop off cash right there. I think it is interesting how both these differences revolve around money, and how there are so many stereotypes, sometimes true and sometimes not in my experience with my family and my friends, regarding Jewish people and money. It reinforces for me the idea that stereotypes are not usually simply untrue, but instead built off of cultural unfamiliarity, 

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This time we focussed on understanding the Korean honorifics system. 

I learned that if we take a verb in its standard form and either add suffix -아요 to it if it ends with vowels ㅗ or ㅏ, or add suffix -어요 to it if it doesn’t end with these vowels, it results in a conjugation of the verb that can be used in polite informal speech. For example, the verb 보다 (bhoda, meaning to see) would be 보다 + -아요 = 봐요 in informal polite speech. 

If we take a verb in its standard form and either add suffix -습니다 to it if it ends in a vowel, or add suffix -읍니다 to it if it ends in a consonant, it results in a conjugation of the verb that can be used in polite formal speech to formally declare the topic of the sentence to the listener. For example, the verb 보다 would become 보다 + -습니다 = 보십니다. 

If we take a verb in its standard form and either add infix - 으시- it if it ends in a vowel, or add infix -시- to it if it ends in a consonant, it results in a conjugation of the verb that can be used in polite formal speech to emphasize on respect for the subject of the sentence. For example, the verb 보다 would become 보다 + -시- = 보시다.

If we take a verb in its standard form and add various combinations of the above endings to it to form another conjugation, it can increase the degree of respect and/or politeness implied by using that conjugation in speech. For example, the verb 보다 can become 보다 + -시- + 어요 = 보세요 which implies a higher degree of respect than 봐요 and 보시다. 

I also learned that if I want to refer to someone respectfully then I can either add the prefix 씨- or add the suffix -님. 

Korea has a very complicated honorifics system. This system has a lot of different terms for addressing someone respectfully, and there also exist multi-tiered speech levels which communicate different degrees of respect. This was relatively a little easier for me to wrap my head around because both Telugu and Hindi have honorific systems similar to that of Korean; however, Korean’s honorifics system is a lot broader so learning it and remembering it is much tougher. I am aware that it is extremely important to learn this though because in Korean culture there is a clear hierarchy where people older than oneself, people holding a higher social rank than oneself, and people working in more reputable professions than oneself are clearly meant to be held in higher honor than oneself. This hierarchy is held in very high regard and it is frowned upon when people don’t follow it while interacting with others. Hence, to make sure that I fully embrace Korean culture and definitely do not offend anyone I will dedicate my time and energy to learning this.

Just for fun: I watch a lot of BTS videos so when we started talking about honorifics in class I remembered a scene (shots included below) from one of their videos when one of the members addresses one of the older members without using honorifics.

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In the past two weeks, we began to learn Turkish grammar but only simple tenses. We just learnt the present tense and a little bit about past tense, and they are basically adding different suffix to the verb to show the tense, such as “d” or “yor”, which is similar to English grammar structure. But besides that, I did some exploration about simple tenses in Turkish and some of that are very different from English.

1. The present tense. Used to represent an action in the current state, an ongoing action, or an upcoming action.

For example: Ben televizyon izlemek çok istiyorum.

(I want to watch TV very much [now]. Action in the current state.)

Çocuklar şarkı söylüyor.

(The children are singing. Action in progress.)

Bu akşam babamın evine gidiyorum.

(I'm going to Dad's home tonight. The action is happening soon.)

2. Broad tense. Used to express habitual, regular actions or requests, blessings and other tone. (broad literal meaning: actions done in the past, now and in the future are still likely to be done.)

For example: Her sabah parka gider.

He goes to the park every morning. Habitual action.)

İlkbaharda çiçerler açar.

(Flowers bloom in spring. Regular action.)

Kapı açar mısınız?

(Could you please open the door? The tone of the request.)

3. Long-term tense. Represents a continuous action from the past to the present. There are overlaps with broadness, but the difference is that there is no clear explanation for whether the action will last in the future. It is mostly used for official speeches.

Çin ve Türkiye gibi gelişmekte olan ülkeler hızlı ilerlemektedir.

(Developing countries like China and Turkey are developing rapidly. The past development has continued to the present.)

4. Past tense. As the name implies, it represents the past action, and the action has ended when speaking. Like yo hice algo in Spanish or J'ai fait qqch in French

Üç gün önce sinemaya gittim.

I went to the cinema three days ago

However, unlike English, there are two other cases of Turkish past tense:

(1) past reporting. Emphasize that past actions are not personal experiences, because this tense is widely used in biography.

Dün gece şehrin doğusunda kar yağmış.

（It's said that it snowed in the east of the city yesterday.）

(2) emphasis in the past. Emphasize that the past actions are not personal experiences, but is truth.

Dün gece şehrin doğusunda kar yağmıştır.

(it snowed in the east of the city yesterday! ——I didn't see it with my own eyes, but maybe according to the snowman I saw today, I'm sure it really snowed in the east of the city yesterday.)

5. Future tense. As the name suggests, what happens in the future.

Onlar birkaç ay sonra Amerika’ya yerleşecek.

(They will immigrate to the United States in a few months.)

This week we learned tourism in Korea and some basic conversation that we can use when we visit there. The most commonly used is to ask road and ask others help to take pictures. When we want to ask: “where is the museum?” we can say: “박물관이 어디에 있어요?” 박물관 means museum and we can replace it with any other places we want to ask, such as 미술관  which means art museum, and 동물원  which means zoo. Besides these, Brenda also introduced many Korean famous scenic spot to us. In남산골 한옥 마을, also known as "A Village of Traditional Houses in the Namsan Valley", we can take part in cultural programs including wearing hanbok (traditional Korean costumes), calligraphy, making traditional paper (hanji), kites and masks, and sipping traditional teas. It is such an impressive trip to experience the life of ancient Korean surround by the modern buildings.

The second spot is 서울 타워(Seoul Tower), an observation tower at 236 meters which is the second highest point in Seoul. Some other attractions are  광화 멘 (Gwanghwa men), 양화 대교 (yanghwa Bridge), 반포 대교 (Banpo Bridge), and 경복궁 (gyeongboggung).

Once we arrived the attractions, we can say:  

여기서 사진 찍어도 돼요?

Can I take a picture here?

실례합니다. 사진 좀 찍어 주시겠어요?

Excuse me. Do you mind taking a picture of me/us?

한 장 더 찍어주세요.

Please taken one more picture

네. 찍습니다. 하나, 둘, 셋, 김치.

Are you ready? One, two, three, cheese!

"Say cheese" is an instruction used by photographers to smile. By saying "cheese", most people form their mouths into what appears to be a smile-like shape. Most time, we simply use "say cheese" as a cue to enter their final pose and to smile, and now "say" is almost always dropped from phrase, resulting in simply being "Cheese." However, in Korean, they use 김치(kimchi) which is a famous traditional side dish of salted and fermented vegetables, instead of cheese. When we pronounce ‘ -chi ’, as you know, our mouth is usually like smiling. Usually, in China people do not say “chesse”, because in Chinese it is called “nai lao” and the word could not produce the same mouth shape, so the Chinese version is to shout out “茄子” (qie zi) which means “eggplant”.

Some words we need to remember after class:

박물관 museum/ 화장실 toilet / 미술관 Gallery or art museum/ 식당 restaurant/ 백화점department store / 지하철역subway station 

I read an article about some important cultural aspects I found very interesting. Here are some of them:

1. Shake hands or kiss the cheek

In Turkey, hugs are for close friends and family. If it is the first time to meet, a handshake is perfectly acceptable. Turkish people also like to kiss their cheeks, which is suitable for any occasion when people greet each other. If you know each other and if you want to kiss, men would like women to do it first.

2. Prepare to drink a lot of tea

Tea is not just a hot drink. In Turkey, it's a sign of a warm welcome in the homes of enthusiastic hosts; drink tea and make more friends. You usually have tea, fresh fruit and candy after dinner. In addition, you might find someone is bargaining in the Turkish market while drinking teas together.

3. Don't worry if you are late

If you're late for a social event, people won't think you're rude. On the contrary, if you are the host, you may meet some laggards. In Turkey, time is considered to be relatively volatile, and unless it's a business meeting, you should be on time.

4. Be respectful to the elders

If you want to see a friend's parents, add "teyze" or "AMCA" after their name. These terms are meant to show respect. You can also try to pay homage with "ABI" or "abla" (brother or sister). When you travel, you may hear men call each other "ABI", which is a bit like saying "brother" in the context of friendship.

5. Gold means a lot in Turkish wedding

If you are going to Turkey for a wedding, please pay attention to the special significance of gold in the wedding. Guests will present gold coins to the bride and groom, as well as gold bracelets for family gifts. Gold is attached to a silk belt around the necks of the bride and groom. There is a simple and fairly common reason: gold is considered a reserve currency and will never depreciate.

6. In the mosque

Although Turkey is secular and modern, most of its population is Muslim. You must show respect wherever you worship. A woman should cover her head, arms and legs. Men should also make sure their legs are covered.

7. Do not shoes at homes

Never wear shoes at home. Put your shoes at the door. The owner may even offer some slippers.

8. Bring gifts

Turkish people are very hospitable. If you want to make friends with them, you will definitely be invited to their home. When you do this, it's important to bring a small gift: food or flowers are the most appropriate, and it's best to avoid alcohol, because many Turkish people don't drink for religious reasons.

9. The owner always pays

If you go out to dinner with your Turkish friends, it's important to remember that! Generally speaking, whoever treats pays. Sharing the bill is almost unheard of: it is understood that the guest will return it in the future.

Generally speaking, hospitality is a sign of welcoming Turkish friends and family. Surprisingly, mass tourism has not reduced the desire of Turkish people to welcome tourists. In the 21st century, Turkish people are keen to show foreign tourists their homes and countries and learn their cultures and ways just as tourists do.

My target language is Korean. The first step would be to go to Korea, assuming that my grant is enough. Learning while living in the culture and being engulfed by the language is, according to me, the best way to start studying a language. Then, I’d start looking into the language by following the diagram in Aitchison’s linguistics (given below) going from the inner most circle to the outer most circle. 

So, in order, I would look into the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of the Korean language, and then I’d look into the language from different perspectives by approaching it from various disciplines. In class we've looked into phonetics, phonology, morphology, and a bit of syntax, so all I need is a grant and I can start the research (I'm joking of course, but I am extremely glad that we delved deeper into some of the fundamental structural components of a language in class).

Korea has a very complicated honorifics system. In the English language, if you want to show respect to the person you’re interacting with or to the person you’re referring to in your sentence, you’d show respect by adding a Ms./Mr./Dr. or sir/madam before their name, or you’d refer to them by using their full name. This is probably the most complicated that the English honorifics system can get. However, in Korean culture people never really use full names while conversing, instead the Korean language has a complicated honorifics system. This system not only a lot of different terms for addressing someone respectfully, but there also exist multi-tiered speech levels which communicate different degrees of respect; for example different conjugations of a verb can imply different levels of respect.The thing that further complicates this is that in Korean culture there is a clear hierarchy where people older than oneself, people holding a higher social rank than oneself, and people working in more reputable professions than oneself are clearly meant to be held in higher honor than oneself. This hierarchy is held in very high regard and it is frowned upon when people don’t follow it while interacting with others. This is the reason why when people who are unfamiliar with the Korean culture want to learn Korean, they should learn the conjugations of words that imply high respect and politeness in order to make sure that they don’t offend anyone who embraces the Korean culture.

If I were to simplify the Korean honorifics system, I’d say that it has three main levels informal, standard, and formal. These can further be divided into multiple levels of respect and politeness, but this is the big umbrella. The formal is to show respect, the standard is for everyday speech, and the informal is for close relationships. For example, a student would talk to their upperclassman using formal speech because the upperclassman is older and more knowledgeable than the student; a person would talk to their classmates using standard speech; a daughter could talk to her mother using informal speech because even though the mother is older and definitely held with higher regard than the daughter, they probably share a close relationship so they can use informal speech with each other. This helps people who aren’t familiar with the Korean culture get a good broader picture of the situation. For me, understanding the Korean honorifics system was pretty simple because both Telugu and Hindi (Telugu more so than Hindi) also have similar honorifics systems where different terms can be used for addressing people politely and imply higher regard and different conjugations of verbs can imply different levels of politeness and respect. However, unlike Korean which has multi-tiered levels of speech, Telugu only has three main ones. Here’s an example that offers a glimpse into the levels of speech in Korean:

The standard form of a verb meaning ‘to see’ is 보다 and the words given below are all conjugations of the same word but they’re in ascending order of formality and politeness.

봐요, 보다, 보시다, 보세요, 보십니다

The words above don’t include many conjugations for informal speech (like the one used between close friends) because for a beginner, such as myself, Prof. Sumi Kim made sure to focus on formal speech. Yet there’s already 3 levels of formal speech which can give you an idea of how complicated the Korean honorifics system can get.

In the first meet up with Jenna two weeks ago, we went over formal conversation in Korean. I practiced talking about myself and my hobbies. I also practiced talking about what I want to do in the future and what I am currently doing in school (chemistry major and pre-med track). Jenna also gave me a worksheet with new vocab words about Sino-Korean. I learned about the influence of Chinese characters on Korean. Sino-Korean is used for dates, money, time and addresses/numbers over 100. On the other hand, Korean numbers are used for age, # of times something occurs, and different counters for objects. It was interesting that Korean uses different counting numbers for specific topics and subjects. This is different from English and it was kind of confusing at first. Furthermore, Jenna taught me how to count in Korean numbers up to 100. During the session, Jenna also taught me how to pronounce each number in both Korean and Sin-Korean. Away from the lessons, I have continued using radio garden to listen to Korean broadcasts and music. I spent around 10-15 minutes a day to just listen to random news stations or music stations. I also have been practicing speaking in Korean with my parents and my grandmother over the phone. I have called them multiple times every week and limited my English vocabulary. I can see an improvement in my ability to speak in Korean. Furthermore, my friend and I went out to eat at a Korean restaurant and I ordered the food in Korean. I will discuss this further in my cultural posts for this week.

For my second meet up with Jenna, we reviewed the Sino-Korean and Korean counting. I got quizzed on some of the numbers and practiced saying specific numbers like 43 or 124. Jenna also gave me more numerical vocab words in Korean, such as currency. She taught me the currency in Korean and how to count currency. Something interesting that I learned was that any won (dollar) amount larger than 10,000 is counted based on a certain base suffix, similar to how Americans use thousands to count dollars up until one million. Jenna also introduced me to times and dates in Korean. She taught me how to say the time in Korean. Something interesting about time in Korean is that the hour uses the Korean counting system while the minutes use the Sino-Korean counting system. Just as we say “half past 2” in English, Korean also uses a shortcut phrase for halfway of an hour. Korean also utilizes AM and PM, except that place them in the beginning of the time compared to English. For the dates, we use a mix of Sino-Korean and Korean counting for the months. Jenna also taught me the days of the week in Korean and how to pronounce it. Similar to English, Korean uses a common suffix like “day” in MonDAY, TuesDAY, WednesDAY, etc. Overall, I think I am proud and excited about the amount of Korean I learned in the past two weeks. I have learned numerical counting systems in Korean, as well as increasing my skills in speaking and writing Korean. I am excited to continue improving in Korean.

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If I got a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of Korean, I would first create a financial plan. I would create a budget for what I should do with the money and find the most efficient uses of funding. I think the biggest thing would be traveling to Korea to immerse myself in the culture and language. Just as we learned in the beginning of the semester, immersing yourself in a culture is the best way to learn a new language. I would find a place to stay in Korea in order to learn all about the culture. Culture and language have a strong correlation between one another, so learning about the history and culture of Korea would help me significantly in understanding and learning the language. My main topic I would be most interested in studying would be the music industry in Korea. I would go to as many different concerts in Korea across many different genres of Korean music. It would allow me to learn about the different fan bases, genres of music, and the culture of Korean music. I would want to study the differences and similarities between the Korean music industry and the American music industry. How has history impacted and influenced the music industry in Korea? For example, Jazz began in New Orleans by the African American communities in the early 20^th century. I would try to find any historical influence in Korean music and how it has impacted and shaped the music industry. Learning about different musical genres in Korea would definitely show structural components from class such as syntax, grammar, mood, voice, etc. Music is more complicated then spoken language across different cultures because of the artistic creativity and flexibility that music allows. A singer can change the pronunciation of a word or structure of a sentence to fit the flow of a song. Investigating words in songs that I learned to speak and write would be a very fascinating topic to research on.

추석

추석 (chuseok) is the Korean Thanksgiving day. The day of Korean Thanksgiving is on the fifteenth of August in the lunar calendar. The word 추석 means autumn eve literally, and there are many traditional activities for the celebration of the day.

The first thing is wearing 한복 (hanbok). 한복 is traditional Korean clothing that Koreans wear for important days of their life or traditional holidays. It is a long one-piece for girls, usually with long sleeves. The dress part of 한복is usually puffy and long enough to cover girls’ feet. For boys, they wear a long shirt as well, but with white pants under it.

On the day of Korean Thanksgiving, people will prepare a good meal at home with families and bring a good portion of the food to the graveyard of their ancestors. The food has a large portion of fresh fruits, which are relatively expensive in Korea. After displaying the food in front of the grave, they will pour some 소주 (soju), a traditional Korean drink, onto the grave. This is a way of telling their ancestors that the whole family is living a good life now. By serving the food and soju, they are also hoping that the ancestors are having a good life now, hearing their messages, and bringing blessings to the family for the coming year.

Since the day of 추석 is chosen based on the lunar calendar, it is always a day with a full moon. At night, people would look at the full moon with their family and make wishes for the next year. Many other traditional activities in Korea may vary based on regions, but even in modern society, the core of this holiday is for a family reunion. Nowadays, more and more young people move to Seoul to work, away from their families. Thus, over the Korean Thanksgiving break, most young people would make time to go back home and spend some time with their families.

Reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrnzOZ8FpPk&list=WL&index=7&t=0s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iznKCHgD3AA&list=WL&index=5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pu2SRY9XVg&list=WL&index=2

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