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Advancing Korean, Year 5/6: TAC15 東亞

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Evita
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Latvia
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734 posts - 1036 votes 
Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian
Studies: Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 177 of 344
08 June 2013 at 9:01am | IP Logged 
Congratulations, Renate, on passing level 4!
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Warp3
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United States
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 Message 178 of 344
08 June 2013 at 6:53pm | IP Logged 
축하해요!
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yuhakko
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FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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414 posts - 582 votes 
Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin

 
 Message 179 of 344
09 June 2013 at 11:17am | IP Logged 
축하해요 Renate! Always good to hear such good news!
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druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
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1181 posts - 1912 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 180 of 344
25 August 2013 at 7:18pm | IP Logged 
2013년 8월 25일. شهریور ۳ ۱۳۹۱.

I haven't been on HTLAL for ages and I'm very sorry about that to all my TAC team mates. I guess I just reached a point where I wanted to have a break from language study and I've had enough other things on my mind to keep me busy. It looks like I'm getting interested again nowadays, so I feel like resuming my updates.

Korean 한국어

I never really stopped spending time with Korean, but I didn't stick to studying for the past months despite having had plans to do so. So grammar and Anki have fallen to the wayside and I don't feel like picking them up again anytime soon.

Instead I attended several Korean barbecues where I got to talk a lot of Korean. Nowadays quite a few Koreans who can't speak German are attending the German-Korean meetings, which is great for me. Although I get complimented on my Korean (and my Kimchi-making skills :D) I realise how much more I will have to improve to call myself fluent. I'm still just bumbling along, being unsure about politeness levels and such and sometimes have a hard time even getting a decent sentence out.

I also sporadically continued watching 최고다 이순신 (You're the Best Lee Soon-Shin) and 굿 닥터 (Good Doctor). I'm just sticking with Lee Soon-Shin because the series is almost finished and because I still find the couples adorable. Good Doctor on the other hand has good, likeable actors, cute kids, some really great characters (love the nurses) and a touching and fairly interesting story. I'm surprised I like it this much, because I don't usually like medical series. I'm also still listening to the occasional podcast.

I think part of the slump was that I didn't have enough interesting study materials around, especially for reading. So I've ordered three new books that I'm very excited about. One is a translation of Pippi Longstocking ("Pippi in the South Seas"). The Korean title is َ삐삐는 어른이 되기 싫어. I loved the book as a kid and think it will be nice to read it again. And, most importantly, I'm sure it won't be quite as challenging as the other books I have lying around. I also ordered a bilingual book which gives an overview of Korean geography, politics, etc. called "Inside Korea". I think this will be a good method for getting exposed to more difficult vocabulary that is found in the news without having to consult a dictionary all the time. The third book is 카스텔라, a collection of 10 short stories by Park Min Gyu. Short stories seem a good alternative to full-blown novels, which I still find hard to get through. The stories are described as having a "fresh and lively style, unusual situations and characters" and as being full of "compassion to the alienated bottom of the society and criticism against the nature of capitalism", which I think sounds promising.

Persian فارسی

Persian is making a bit of a comeback it seems. I've been dating a great Iranian guy for 3 months, which is probably the best motivation. I would like to start studying Persian again if time permitted. As it is, I'm learning random words and phrases from my boyfriend and getting more of a feel for colloquial language.

Edited by druckfehler on 25 August 2013 at 8:57pm

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druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4860 days ago

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

 
 Message 181 of 344
25 August 2013 at 7:36pm | IP Logged 
It's very late, but thanks everyone for your TOPIK congratulations :)

Haksaeng wrote:
I'm curious, did you think the vocab was hard? I'm not taking the TOPIK, but I use a test prep book to study and some of the vocab really surprised me--words I had never even seen before. Also, did the listening seem sort of slow? The questions based on the recordings seemed challenging but the recordings provided by my book sounded unusually slow, to me.

The vocab was definitely hard. I think it might well be the biggest hurdle in the intermediate TOPIK and many people I sat the test with were complaining about it. The problem with the vocabulary is that they have texts about all kinds of different topics like statistics or sports or general knowledge economics. So depending on the way you study Korean it will be difficult to write the test even if you're quite good at the language in general. I'm lucky I studied some of the the G.L.O.S.S. lessons, which were very helpful in terms of vocabulary, and did extensive reading. I also got through 1/3 of the nouns on the vocabulary list of TOPIK 4, which helped immensely. The vocabulary list is not complete by any means (I encountered nouns which were not on the list), but it does cover the words that appear frequently. And yes, listening is slower than normal, but it speeds up gradually throughout the record until it's almost at normal speed. The beginner test was really bad in that regard, they talked so slowly that it was nearly incomprehensible...

Haksaeng wrote:
Do you read Hangukdrama, the blog? Shanna writes about self-studying Korean. She just passed Level 6 but she has been writing the blog for years and has written about each level of the test as she took it.

Yes, I read all of Shannas TOPIK experiences. She's very inspiring for passing TOPIK 4 and 6 after a relatively short time.

Are you planning to take TOPIK at some point?
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Warp3
Senior Member
United States
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Joined 5527 days ago

1419 posts - 1766 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese

 
 Message 182 of 344
25 August 2013 at 9:03pm | IP Logged 
Holy crap, she lives! I was starting to worry when there hadn't been any post activity at all for such a long time window. Welcome back! :)
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yuhakko
Tetraglot
Senior Member
FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4624 days ago

414 posts - 582 votes 
Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin

 
 Message 183 of 344
25 August 2013 at 9:24pm | IP Logged 
Agreed! Welcome back! I hope you rested well during that break !

Good for you to have found a group where you can practice (and get complimented for your
kimchi skills!)
Also, I gotta agree on the fact that having a relationship with someone speaking a
language you want to learn is awesome for motivation!
1 person has voted this message useful



druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4860 days ago

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

 
 Message 184 of 344
09 September 2013 at 12:02am | IP Logged 
2013년 9월 9일.

Korean 한국어

Sooo... I didn't really feel like I had enough to report last weekend, but I have plenty today. I've pretty much been diving back into Korean on all fronts.

I've been reading a bit and am now on page 100 of my novel 어떤 작위의 세계 - a milestone I'm glad to have reached. I still have a rather high ratio of unknown words (10-20 per page). Nevertheless I can get through some passages without a dictionary and feel like I'm not missing any important information. I have no idea when I will finish this novel... It has 270 pages and there are 30 more pages of commentary which I might also read. It's definitely a long-term project. Another long-term project is slowly coming to an end: I'm almost done with my book of 100 children's poems. I wrote down all the unknown words with translations and have been looking over that list now and then. I think I've learned quite a few new useful words through the book. I can't wait to start on Pippi Longstocking!

After declaring that I won't be doing Anki, I happened to open the TOPIK noun deck and started to work on it again. I'm doing 50 cards per day. For now it's only reviewing old ones (and there's a lot I have forgotten but relearning is very easy), but I've also been adding a couple of new cards. I really want to learn new words - it's the only thing that slows down my reading. Let's see how long I stay interested in the deck until I want another break.

I've also been speaking some Korean today. Just basic stuff at an intercultural festival, but as I haven't spoken Korean for some time it was good practice.

Edited by druckfehler on 09 September 2013 at 1:17pm



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