The language study in Yonsei University Korean Language Institute is not easy. In my language class, although it is level one, half of the students studied Korean characters for maybe half a year before they arrived in Korea. Therefore, the language teacher is teaching the characters very fast and would like to move on to the conversation level. I tried so hard to memorize all of the pronunciation and letters because they are very basic for reading. Now I am able to do greetings and introduce myself in oral Korean. And I am able to do vocabulary dictations with 80% correctness.
Everyday I spend 4 hours in Korean class, and at least one extra hour on homework. I need to practice harder to catch up. I signed up for an on-campus language exchange program. I’ll be matched with a Korean college student who wants to practice my native language. I can practice Korean and he or she can practice my language, while we also take part in cultural exchange. The program will start next week and we will meet at least once a week. That is not enough for me because I would like to make friends with my tutor and spend more time with them.
Besides studying, I like to travel and explore a lot. This weekend, I traveled to Namisum Island. It was a place made famous by a Korean drama. The drama was super popular in the early 2000’s. My mother was a big fan of it. I took a lot of nice pictures which matched with the drama scenes and sent them to her. She was so happy yesterday when we were doing facetime!