druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4863 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 313 of 344 23 March 2015 at 10:41pm | IP Logged |
2015년 3월 23일. Week 13.
Textbook Lessons: 3
TV News Items: 10
Written Bits and Pieces: 1
Current Super Challenge Count
Books: 46
Movies: 54
I'm still busy with the flat, but it's slooowly coming together. Despite a lot of distractions I've been making steady progress with the popular psychology book about emotional regulation. It's very good for study purposes as it's written in a very repetitive style. I learned quite a few new useful words thanks to that. It also contains an interesting list of words/expressions sorted by the basic emotions they are classed under. There are so many differently nuanced words! I know maybe one-third or one-fourth and have seen another third before. But all those different shades of meaning? Most completely elude me. Grasping nuances really is the pinnacle of language ability, I guess.
I'll be on holiday in Croatia in May, so I've taken that as an excuse for starting to watch 꽃보다 누나 (4 Korean actresses between 35 and 70? and Lee Seung-Gi travel to Turkey and Croatia). Although I've only watched up to their arrival in Croatia this far, it's fun. I'm really not used to variety shows, though. All those subtitles popping up on the screen... Isn't it completely impossible to follow everything at once? I think I'd even have trouble taking it all in if it was in German... How do you variety veterans do it?
I haven't done any more specific preparation for TOPIK yet. I'm starting to feel like just testing my level as it currently is, without making a lot of efforts to optimise my score. I do think I'll pass level 5 and I don't think my skills deserve to be called level 6 yet, so it's all good. But we'll see, I might just start to practice writing after all ;) I've been thinking about collecting useful phrases for argumentative essays which I come across in my reading. Really should start on that someday soon as it seems a good starting point for writing practice - not too difficult but still very effective for stylistic improvements.
Edited by druckfehler on 23 March 2015 at 10:44pm
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druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4863 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 314 of 344 08 April 2015 at 10:18am | IP Logged |
2015년 4월 8일. Week 15.
Textbook Lessons: 3
GLOSS Lessons: 1
TV News Items: 10
Written Bits and Pieces: 2
Current Super Challenge Count
Books: 46
Movies: 55
TOPIK is approaching and I've intensified my Korean studies a bit. I have finally taken the plunge and written my second text for this year. I did my first level 3 G.L.O.S.S. lesson. It was an editorial about the recovery of the job market but continuing problem of unemployment for young Koreans (내 아들•딸이 취직돼야 비로소 경기 회복). I was pretty happy to realise that I was able to read the text fairly well. I learned a couple of new useful words like 고용 (employment) and wrote a summary of the text. Writing wasn't as difficult as I anticipated either, but of course that is due in part because it was a summary and I was able to take most vocab from the text.
Although I still have a few pages of the psychology book left, I also started reading "Inside Korea" - the bilingual book about Korean history, politics, economy, culture... - again. I finally finished the history portion and am now on to politics. It's not easy, but I think it helps me a lot to improve. It's also pretty dry - I'm reading about the Korean constitution and the official roles of the president and the National Assembly. I'm looking forward to the next chapters, which will probably be more interesting (North-South relations, economy, society, culture...).
I don't have much time left before TOPIK, but I'm still using long-term study methods. The immersion will certainly help with the test and I don't feel like cramming vocabulary or something like that. I need to sit down and do a couple more practice tests, but I need several hours without interruption and find it difficult to make time for it.
Edited by druckfehler on 08 April 2015 at 10:19am
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Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6547 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish
| Message 315 of 344 09 April 2015 at 11:09am | IP Logged |
Since you are taking the TOPIK just for yourself, not to get into a Korean university or a Korean company, it makes sense to keep doing what you do and see where your level is at.
How are you doing with the Korean Grammar in Use books? How much of the grammar would you estimate you know at the moment?
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druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4863 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 316 of 344 20 April 2015 at 11:00am | IP Logged |
Evita, you're right, although... maybe one day I'd like to use Korean professionally, but that's not in the near future and I can always retake TOPIK then. Actually, I'm already half-planning to take TOPIK again next year to motivate myself to really get into essay writing.
Regarding Korean Grammar in Use, I have no idea how much of the grammar I know. To be honest, I've hardly used them and still rely on the grammar patterns I learned a long time ago and those pick up here and there. It would do me good to go through these books and I'll try to answer your question once I have my stuff sorted (still chaotic from the move ;)).
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druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4863 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 317 of 344 23 April 2015 at 3:18pm | IP Logged |
2015년 4월 8일? Week
Textbook Lessons: 3
GLOSS Lessons: 1
TV News Items: 10
Written Bits and Pieces: 2
TOPIK (practice) tests: 1 1/2
Current Super Challenge Count
Books: 46
Movies: 56
I overwrote this post by mistake :( I think it was talking about not using the internet anymore and getting 88 points in reading on a TOPIK practice test
Edited by druckfehler on 06 May 2015 at 2:01pm
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druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4863 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 318 of 344 24 April 2015 at 8:55am | IP Logged |
Update: I did the listening part yesterday and got 88 points as well. It felt easier than last time, but I still don't really get some of the questions (like "what attitude does the man/woman have" or "what is this person doing - explaining, stating their opinion...". For me these are always ambiguous).
I'll look at writing today and maybe learn some words and constructions and then just take the test tomorrow and go back to not feeling bad for not practicing grammar/writing/reading about boring topics :D
Edited by druckfehler on 24 April 2015 at 8:55am
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The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5644 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean
| Message 319 of 344 25 April 2015 at 2:05pm | IP Logged |
Druckfehler, without the Internet, how do you plan on looking up new words? Do you have a
really good Korean dictionary or something?
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Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5530 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese
| Message 320 of 344 26 April 2015 at 9:06pm | IP Logged |
That's a good point, CZ. For example, I own a great K-to-E print dictionary...which I never use
because Naver's and Daum's dictionaries are 100000% more convenient. Plus those sites
have other dictionary modes (K-to-K, K-to-J, etc.) for which I don't have print versions.
Edited by Warp3 on 26 April 2015 at 9:07pm
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