My hope when I signed up for this class was to learn more background knowledge about Korea, Japan, and China. Even though I’m not majoring in linguistics this class did not disappoint. We touched on and discussed many cultural and linguistical aspects of these three languages and connected them together. Some of the new things I learned about this term were Japans girl graphs and maid cafes, Chinas tea culture and level of polite speech, and Koreas language started from Chinese and their polite speeches. 

Since I didn’t know too much about Chinas culture or linguistic features before this class, it was harder for me to grasp some of the concepts. For example how one character could have five different meanings just by saying it in different tones, left-branching vs right-branching ( in general), and some of the history of the language. That being said, it was fascinating to learn how politeness speech in Chinese changed over time depending on the leader. Compared to America where English says the same no matter who the president is. This class’s information helped me get a better understanding of the linguistics behind these languages. I am also taking Korean 101 this term and it nicely connected with what I’m learning in that class. I don’t think I’ll be changing my major to linguistics, but I would like to learn more about it.