Author Archives: crystar

Blog#3

Posted on by
1

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.

Blog Post #2

Posted on by
1

     These pictures are of a Korean Church sign over on River Road. I used to pass by this sign every day when I took the bus after class. Based on the signs, the English service is at 10 am and the Korean service is at 11:30 am. While I’m not religious, I did volunteer at a Seventh Day Adventist Church for nine years. I’ve always been curious about this church because I’ve been learning Korean off and on by myself for a while and now I’m taking Korean 101. I think this connects to our class because it incorporates languages, religious aspects and that even though they don’t speak the same languages they can respect each other. 

     In class, I’m learning a lot of the history and background of how Korean, Japanese and Chinese have become what they are today. I’m mainly focusing on Korean, but it’s interesting learning about Japanese and Chinese linguistic backgrounds. I grew up learning Spanish and English at the same time, while I’m not fluent in Spanish, it does have similar grammatical structures as the languages we’re learning about. That being said, I’m struggling with Chinese the most, it has the most variations and the complexity confuses me at times. I seem to understand the in-class material, but have a hard time with the readings we do for the quizzes.

Hello!

Posted on by
Reply

Hello everyone, my name is Crysta Reece, I’m Chicana ( Mexican-American) and I’m a Sophmore at UO. My major is Asian Studies and I’m minoring in Korean. I was introduced to Asian culture at a young age, my sister and I are seven years apart and she was really into anime and manga when I was learning how to read. I was a very nosy little sister and just had to do everything she did, so before reading chapter books I read manga and anime subtitles. When I made friends in elementary school, I found it odd that they didn’t know what anime and manga were. As I got older, I started heavily watching Asian dramas ( mostly Korean), listening to K-pop and researching Koreas culture. And now I want to be an ESL teacher in South Korea, but I still have a lot more research and planning to do. I think this class can help give me more information about Korea, as well as, China and Japan.

Outside of school, I have a full-time job and six cats! ( Ducky, Sugar, Yinie, Sister, Calico, and Shadow)

The one in the picture is Ducky, he was born on Mothers Day 3 years ago with six other kittens. However, we only kept three of them, Ducky, Yinie, and Handsome who lives with my sister.