Strategies to Study Korean

I used two strategies to help me prepare for the Korean teacher’s certification examination. The strategy of studying Korean literature is to grasp of a literary work‘s theme. Above all it is important when a literary work was written. For example, poems written during the Japanese colonial rule usually have the theme about the hope of country’s independence usually. When I pretended to be a person living at that time while I was reading novels or poems, I was able to feel the mood of these days. This imagination helped me remember features of each period and do well on the exam. The strategy of studying Korean grammar is learning by rote. Korean has a developed rule of the honorifics; it’s built into the language. For example, you can greet someone with “annyong” and if you want to signify polite respect, you have to suffix “haseyo” or “hasimnikka”. In case of an irregular verb, “meokda” means ‘to eat’ and there are irregular honorifics; “deusida”, “japsusida”. I used to read the whole grammatical rules repeatedly and then write down the rules as I memorized them to check my weaknesses. After these practices, I was able to analyze the construction of a sentence and find several grammatical errors in an ancient dialogic paragraph. Even though I was not able to pass the teacher’s certification examination, these strategies helped me get a high score. After I go back to Korea, I am going to use these useful strategies again and I know I will pass this time.