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The Awesome Difficulty of Korean, Finnish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5544 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 81 of 559 10 June 2012 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | ||
Assuming you haven't already watched it, the story line of the very popular drama Secret Garden involves a boy/girl body swap, which I imagine would give off a similar vibe. I haven't actually watched that series myself, but I probably should since it is referenced and parodied constantly on variety shows. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6561 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 82 of 559 10 June 2012 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am putting all these recommendations in a special list so I don't forget them. I don't want to watch them all right now, I want to learn Korean first so I can actually understand what the characters are saying. It doesn't mean I'm not going to watch any dramas in the meantime, I just want to spend more time actively learning the language than watching TV shows.
One of the reasons I want to learn to understand Korean before I get (more) addicted to Korean dramas is I found out that it usually takes a week or more for the English subtitles to come out and I know I won't be able to wait that long if I'm really into a series.
Thanks for the tip. I already noticed it many times but I didn't realize it had so many forms. I'm sure I'll figure them out with the help of subtitles. Finnish I read a bit of my textbook (still on lesson 7) while watching tennis and then I finished LP's third text. I didn't like it that much, it was full of names for various types of not-that-close relatives. I don't need to know them so I'll move on to the next text pretty quickly. I'm also aware that some of the vocabulary or grammar might be outdated so I always check with Wiktionary before I enter a new word into Anki. Korean I didn't do that much with Korean today, I mainly worked with TTMIK's third lesson. The hosts said the lesson is not difficult compared to others because it only introduces two conjunctions (그리고 and 그래서) but I find it quite difficult, maybe because of the examples. I forgot to mention that I finally read through the first part of the TTMIK level 1 test dialog yesterday. When the focus of the conversation is that someone has a birthday and someone else has bought a present, and I don't know the words for either birthday or present, I don't know how I was supposed to understand the dialog. But that's history, now I'm getting some useful vocabulary out of it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5544 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 83 of 559 11 June 2012 at 1:08am | IP Logged | ||
Hmmm...I'm pretty sure that 선물 (gift, present) wasn't in TTMIK Level 1, but I could have sworn that 생일 (birthday) was in there somewhere. Then again, it's been a while since I've done those lessons, so I could be mistaken. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6561 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 84 of 559 11 June 2012 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | ||
Maybe it was mentioned somewhere in passing, without a translation, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the PDF's, I studied them quite thoroughly. Finnish Today was a good Finnish day - well, relatively good. Finnish has taken a back seat to Korean at the moment so I'm not spending much time on it. If I manage to do my reviews and study just a bit to add some new words to Anki then I'm going to call it a good day. Today I used my textbook as a source for vocabulary. I've decided that random words from random articles from the internet are not good for my Anki because those articles are above my level so those words have no context for me and it's very hard to remember them. The text in my book was about Finland, how big it is, how many lakes it has, how many people it has and so on. I didn't read all of it, just enough to get some new vocabulary. One of those new words was "sinuous". I didn't even know what it means in English, I had to look it up. I don't think it's a very useful word for me at this time but I added it to Anki anyway because I liked how it sounded - "mutkitteleva". Korean I studied the TTMIK lesson 4 today. It was very interesting and unexpected. The words for 'and' and 'with' are the same? And they're used as particles? Wow, I'm going to need some time to get used to that. But it's cool. As an aside, they finally explained why they add 씨 to each other's names. Ha, they should have done it about 25 lessons ago. Of course, I had already looked it up by now. They had many example sentences recorded by other people at the end. I didn't think they were very useful because some of them used grammar that I don't know yet. I hope it doesn't become a regular thing. I did like the quiz at the end. They left one of those example sentences without a translation or Korean spelling and we had to figure out what it means. I was excited at first (because I like tests because I usually do well in them) but then I remembered the infamous level 1 test and tried to prepare myself mentally for being completely clueless. Fortunately, it turned out that I wasn't completely clueless. The sentence was "I want to buy a computer and a phone." I picked up the "want to" part on the first listening but that was the only easy thing. I listened to it several times more but the speaker seemed very fast to me and not pronouncing things clearly. I knew the word for 'phone' and I thought I heard it there but then I thought my ears might be playing tricks on me. I wasn't sure whether the verb was 'to buy' or 'to go'. I thought the first word must be 'I' but it didn't sound like it to me. So basically I was very unsure and guessing the whole thing but my guess was somewhat correct. Surprisingly, I wasn't happy about that, I was more disappointed that I hadn't translated it perfectly since I knew all the words. I also studied the first dialog from unit 3 of My Korean again, this time with audio. They spoke so quickly I had trouble following even though it was only 13 seconds long. But I'm practicing my reading and listening skills this way. Anki The Finnish deck has stabilized in terms of review count, I think. I've been adding 5-7 words pretty constantly every day (sometimes less) and I have to review around 40-45 cards every day. I think these numbers are not likely to change much in the near future. I usually fail 10-15 cards (including the new cards) so I have to review them again. Today I reviewed 70 words altogether in 14 minutes, so says Anki. It's an acceptable amount. The Korean deck, on the other hand, is likely to grow and grow. Today I reviewed 53 cards in 18 minutes. My daily limit for new Korean cards is 12 (as opposed to the Finnish 7) so I predict my Korean review count will pass the Finnish one in a couple of weeks if I keep studying hard. The reason the Korean limit is higher is that I study every word twice (in both directions) so actually it's just 6 new words daily on average. I might reduce the maximum new card number if I find that my review sessions regularly take more than half an hour but I hope that won't be necessary. My total card count at the moment is 328 for Korean (70 delayed) and 553 for Finnish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6561 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 85 of 559 13 June 2012 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Finnish
I didn't like the 4th text from LP much either, I've gone back to my textbook, it's easier to read. I don't have a lot of energy to study after work so I prefer easier stuff. I did the usual things yesterday and today (worked with Anki) and I also listened to the Finnish radio for 10 minutes. I got the same feeling again - that I would understand everything if only my vocabulary were bigger. So I need to work on that. I am already working on that but it's going slowly. Damn, I wish there were more hours in a day. Korean I listened to lessons 5 and 6 from TTMIK. The lessons are getting harder, they have a lot of sample sentences and a quiz at the end. The quiz from lesson 5 was easier, I could make out every word, I had just forgotten what a couple of them meant. That's no big deal, it happens to me every day with Anki. I didn't do the quiz from lesson 6 yet, I'm too tired at the moment. One thing that was better in lesson 6 was that they explained some of the new words before giving the example sentences so I'll be able to understand them better and add them to Anki. I almost never understand these example sentences right away even if I know the words, they speak too quickly for my brain to process it. So I'm thinking it might be a good idea to listen to them again and again, maybe make them slower, put each sentence in its own file and randomize them... But I have very little experience with audio editors and I haven't decided yet if it's worth it. And those Korean conjunctions... 그리고, 그래서, 그렇지만, 그런데, why do they all begin with 그ㄹ? Are there 10 more like it? I'm afraid I'm going to mix them all up. I've been doing one lesson a day because I want to move forward quickly but I should slow down and learn everything there is in the lessons, not just the two conjunctions or whatever the current topic is. I find myself going back to Coffee Prince when I want to watch something in Korean. I'm afraid this show has spoiled me for all the other dramas. Russian Yesterday we had a meeting at work and I found myself uttering a phrase (about writing something) in Russian. It was almost like a reflex, I didn't think about it at all, it just happened sort of automatically. It was a funny feeling afterwards, I haven't spoken practically any Russian in more than 10 years. But I like how it's coming back to me without any effort at all on my part. I still don't plan on speaking it regularly though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5544 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 86 of 559 13 June 2012 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | ||
그렇다, and the similar 이렇다 and 저렇다, have quite a few forms and most of those are very commonly used words. However, many of them can be guessed by simply breaking them apart. For example: 그렇지만 = 그렇다 (to be like that) + ~지만 (but, however). The resulting word is usually translated as "however" but is more literally something like: "That's true, however..." 그래서 = 그래 (the conjugated form of 그렇다) + ~어서 (~ is true so..., because ~ is true...). The result means roughly: "so, therefore, thus" (or more literally: "because that is the case...") 그리고 = 그렇다 (no clue how/why it evolves to 그리) + ~고 (~ and...). The result is a standalone word roughly meaning "and" (하고 is sometimes used similarly). 그러면/그럼 = 그렇다 (the ㅎ drops with some endings) + ~면 (if ~ then...). The result is a standalone word roughly meaning "then". (그럼 is a contraction of 그러면.) Edited by Warp3 on 13 June 2012 at 10:43pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6561 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 87 of 559 14 June 2012 at 9:39am | IP Logged | ||
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I guess this is why Korean is considered so hard. You can break down words into syllables and combine them and make new words. You can kind of do the same in Finnish, too, but it's easier in Finnish because the basic words are longer and it's easier to recognize them. For example, the Korean word for "water" is 물. But the TTMIK hosts were talking about days of the week, and when they mentioned Wednesday they said that 수 is water. The dictionary says it's 수도 and 용수. I suspect this is just one example of a million. That's why I can't wait for the two paper dictionaries to arrive from Amazon, I hope they will be more help in this kind of situation than internet dictionaries.
P.S. The main dictionary I use at the moment is zkorean.com. I know there are better Korean dictionaries available on the internet but I need one with an English interface (for now). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5544 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 88 of 559 14 June 2012 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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수(水) is the Sino-Korean (i.e. Chinese derived) root for water and is the reading for the associated Chinese character. 물 is the pure Korean word for water (and thus has no associated Hanja character).
This is true with many words in Korean. Another example is that 사랑 is the pure Korean word for love, but 애(愛) is the Chinese root meaning "love" which is found in words like 애인(愛人; lover). As for the other two "water" words: 수도(水道) refers more to the water supply than the water itself. I hadn't seen 용수(用水) previously but based on the Chinese characters and Naver's definition, it seems to specifically refer to water that is usable for a specific purpose, rather than just water in general; 용(用) means "use". A few months ago Naver added an English interface option to their dictionary (look for the checkbox along the top that says "English Ver(영어버전)"). That site is where I go 99% of the time (with Daum as an occasional backup). Naver: http://endic.naver.com/ Daum: http://dic.daum.net/index.do?dic=eng 1 person has voted this message useful |
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