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Advancing Korean, Year 5/6: TAC15 東亞

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ZombieKing
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4525 days ago

247 posts - 324 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*

 
 Message 97 of 344
08 October 2012 at 3:31am | IP Logged 
Hey Druckfehler, don't feel bad about your level in Korean. You're an inspiration! If anybody can learn Korean well without living in Korea, it's you :3

Also, I hope you're enjoying the process of learning Hanja! The more you learn, the stronger base you'll have in Mandarin should you decide to give it a go.

:) Good luck. All your hard work will pay off.

Edited by ZombieKing on 08 October 2012 at 3:32am

2 persons have voted this message useful



The Real CZ
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5647 days ago

1069 posts - 1495 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean

 
 Message 98 of 344
08 October 2012 at 4:30am | IP Logged 
I honestly suggest trying a month or two or intensive reading. Try learning as many words as possible. Then move onto extensive reading, or just use my method. I've been reading a lot of stuff in Korean and do quite a bit of translating. Intensive reading really helps learning the new vocabulary and grammar while extensive reading really enforces what you already know and it teaches you how to guess based upon context. My main method of reading is like what you said: it's basically extensive reading, but I write down words that commonly appear (2 or 3 plus times) and then you can add them to Anki.

I never read bilingual books, children's books, and weaned off of the subbed dramas early. It's like physical rehab: you have to push yourself beyond your limits instead of staying in your comfort zone. The person going through physical therapy could just stay in their wheelchair, stay in bed, etc. or put in the work and going out of their comfort zone in order to get where they want.

I have times of complacency where I just read webtoons on Naver and Daum and just watch dramas because it's easy. I don't make much overall progress doing just that, so I always find ways to push my level.
4 persons have voted this message useful



zhanglong
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4927 days ago

322 posts - 427 votes 
Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese

 
 Message 99 of 344
08 October 2012 at 8:28am | IP Logged 
To all my fellow language learners...I feel your pain! Once you get beyond a certain stage, your emotions can potentially seesaw between two extremes. One- I KNOW this language! Two- I don't know a damn thing!

Both are illusions; we are all making incremental progress on a long journey. It's like taking a train trip from Beijing to Lhasa. You need to enjoy the magnificent landscapes as you move along closer to your goal rather than scowl at the fact that you are not there yet.

Of course, everyone here already knows this; it's just nice to know that we're not alone in our attempt to learn a new language. ;)
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druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4866 days ago

1181 posts - 1912 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 100 of 344
08 October 2012 at 5:00pm | IP Logged 
Thanks for all your helpful replies! I'm really glad to be part of this team. Your encouragement and suggestions helped a lot to put my mini-crisis into perspective. It's always good to see that I'm not the only one periodically going through this frustration.

Warp3 wrote:
However...from your description above about translating dramas, it sounds like you have already exceeded my listening level by a good bit.

I guess it's hard to measure... My listening skills fluctuate quite a bit with every drama I watch - and movies, entertainment shows and real conversations are usually much more difficult for me than dramas.

Warp3 wrote:
Your comment about the difficulty in reading that book is a big part of the reason why I'm still on bilingual books at the moment. It's much more difficult to maintain motivation when you dive straight into a Korean-only story.

That's definitely true and I'm starting to wonder whether I should buy some bilingual books, just to get rid off the time-consuming dictionary lookups. But I've not had good experiences with bilingual books in the past (when studying Portuguese) - it didn't much help with language acquisition, because I never tried very hard to understand the Portuguese text. Maybe it works better if I take the Korean text more seriously. I'm thinking of 1st: Korean only - figure out as much as I can, 2nd: read English version, 3rd: Korean again - figure out the missing parts.

Warp3 wrote:
That's also why I've chosen to restrict myself from SRSing anything I learn from those bilingual books.

That sounds sensible. I've started SRSing words from 콩쥐팥쥐, but it's already starting to annoy me... I guess I'll keep going for now and just delete the deck once I'm done with the book.

ZombieKing wrote:
Also, I hope you're enjoying the process of learning Hanja! The more you learn, the stronger base you'll have in Mandarin should you decide to give it a go.

I can't seem to find enough time (or peace and quiet) for Hanja. I keep planning to do lesson 2, but I'm stuck. Well, I look at it now and then and that already helps a little. But I guess I need to set a specific time for Hanja each week - it's not something I can do quickly between other tasks.

The Real CZ wrote:
I honestly suggest trying a month or two or intensive reading. Try learning as many words as possible. Then move onto extensive reading, or just use my method.

With the last 3 books I read I looked up every unknown word, sometimes multiple times. It helped immensely, but it was a truly painstaking process. I do think you're right, though. I need more of the same, interspersed with extensive reading.

The Real CZ wrote:
I never read bilingual books, children's books, and weaned off of the subbed dramas early. It's like physical rehab: you have to push yourself beyond your limits instead of staying in your comfort zone.

Wow. I don't think I could have started with real novels... I did that with English, but either I've grown too complacent or it's just much more difficult with Korean. By now I think I should push myself beyond the children's books though. Once a task gets easier it's replaced by a harder one... :D Your physical rehab example is perfect.

zhanglong wrote:
Of course, everyone here already knows this; it's just nice to know that we're not alone in our attempt to learn a new language. ;)

Isn't it ironic that I had just posted something similar on your log... I guess one never knows when the I-know-nothing-extreme strikes :D You're totally right - the landscape on the way is quite magnificent. There's already so much interesting stuff I can understand and there's a lot I can say and write now that I couldn't say or write a year ago.

Onwards. :)
1 person has voted this message useful



The Real CZ
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5647 days ago

1069 posts - 1495 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean

 
 Message 101 of 344
14 October 2012 at 6:44pm | IP Logged 
I started with real books and comics because that's what I wanted to read and I pushed myself to get through them. It was either that or read a lot of graded readers and children's stories which I didn't want to do lol.
1 person has voted this message useful



druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4866 days ago

1181 posts - 1912 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 102 of 344
15 October 2012 at 1:28pm | IP Logged 
Monday, 15th of October - 38th week

vocabulary from list:11
hanja: --
lessons studied: --
extensive reading: 9 pages of 콩쥐팥쥐, 19 pages of 덕혜옹주, 2 newspaper articles
writing: --
listening: 2 episodes of 차칸 남자, movies: 박쥐, 황해, 피에타
speaking: 5 sentences ^^ and self talk


Reading has gone quite well this week. By now I can roughly understand the book for young adults I have without using a dictionary. I'm leaning towards extensive reading of the first two chapters - looking up all words - making word lists related to subject/learning selected words - extensive reading of the book, with occasional look-ups. On Sunday I went to a Korean film festival and picked up a newspaper for Koreans in Europe, which I read a little of. I was happy to almost completely understand an article about the worsening lifestyle of Germans :D I also kind of understood an article that explained why K-Pop doesn't carry mass appeal in Great Britain. For most articles I lacked a few or a substantial amount of words to understand them.

I tried some speaking and - surprise, surprise - it was a disaster, as usual. I had little trouble understanding what people were saying to me, but it took me too long to formulate coherent answers. With a tandem you get patient people who will usually wait for your reply, but I tried to talk to a promoter for books on Buddhism at the Frankfurt Book Fair and a restaurant owner, who switched to German when they saw I was struggling. Self talk is going rather well, though. I guess if I keep it up it will positively influence my speaking skills, if only a little.

new grammar:

-토록 to that extent
-(으)로써 by means of

Edited by druckfehler on 16 October 2012 at 12:42pm

1 person has voted this message useful



druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4866 days ago

1181 posts - 1912 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 103 of 344
15 October 2012 at 2:03pm | IP Logged 
The Real CZ wrote:
I started with real books and comics because that's what I wanted to read and I pushed myself to get through them. It was either that or read a lot of graded readers and children's stories which I didn't want to do lol.

I think this is quite a sensible approach. After all, the vocabulary overlap between children's books and, for example, newspaper articles is rather marginal and some of the words frequently used in children's books are totally irrelevant in other contexts.

I found children's books useful for starting to read longer sentences and get a better grasp on grammar. Some of the ones I read/am reading were/are also interesting culturally, which made/makes them less boring. On the other hand, I'm regretting some of the choices I made when I was in Korea - a book of "scary stories" I bought is both boring and difficult.

Edited by druckfehler on 16 October 2012 at 12:41pm

1 person has voted this message useful



druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4866 days ago

1181 posts - 1912 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 104 of 344
21 October 2012 at 12:42pm | IP Logged 
Sunday, 21st of October - 39th week

vocabulary from list: 60 words
new audio cards: 6
extensive reading: 5 blog posts, 1 chapter (9 pages) of 가난한 집 맏아들, 16 pages of 콩쥐팥쥐, 26 pages of 세계를 재다
intensive reading: 3 pages of 콩쥐팥쥐, 8 pages of 덕혜옹주
listening: 1 TTMIK 이야기, 2 episodes of 차칸 남자
speaking: self-talk


When I make vocabulary cards with pictures I often stumble on interesting blog entries and read them, which is a good strategy for consolidating new words. This week, among other texts, I randomly read a chapter of "가난한 집 맏아들". It was a story about the eldest son from a poor family of farmers who did well academically. The family sacrificed a lot for his success and in the end they became estranged from each other and the family didn't benefit from their sacrifices. I was happy to understand almost everything and I read it at a fairly fast pace - maybe 70-80% of my reading speed in English.

I also looked into what will be my first novel in Korean, 세계를 재다 ('Measuring the World'). It's actually a translation of a German novel by Daniel Kehlmann, which I got from a Korean friends. She had to read it for university. I haven't yet read the novel, despite its success, so I'm looking forward to it. I couldn't put it down when I started, so I ended up reading 26 pages despite my very incomplete understanding of it. By now it doesn't seem like an insurmountable task to read and understand the book.

I also went back to working on my deck of audio cards, which I had ignored for almost two months. I've eliminated the backlog of over 200 cards and I'm adding new cards at the same time. I realised once again just how effective this deck was and will be. I think it greatly improved my listening skills and it's one of the most effective ways of making any type of new vocabulary stick.

This week I once again focused on passive skills and vocabulary. I find this to be a good combination and think I'm making good progress. I continue to think in Korean for some parts of the day (mostly when I'm walking someplace) and I'm possibly getting a little better at it - I'm using structures that I wasn't aware I could use.

Edited by druckfehler on 21 October 2012 at 12:43pm



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