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What makes Korean so difficult? | ||
Tags: Korean | Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Oneota Diglot Newbie Korea, SouthRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5871 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 25 of 37 15 December 2008 at 11:54pm | IP Logged |
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Where is the language log? I don't see it listed, and search could not find it.
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| Oneota Diglot Newbie Korea, SouthRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5871 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 28 of 37 18 May 2009 at 3:30pm | IP Logged |
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I don't mean to be negative, but I have tried using Korean children's books and beginning readers for children. They are simply too difficult. Also, they are teaching based on a knowledge of spoken Korean. While I know that Japanese was successfully taught in Hawaii using Japanese kids' books, it was done undere the guidance of teachers.
I have one woman who is helping me. What we are doing now is have me write a journal text of my choosing (usually, what I did this week), and she then corrects it. I am slowly getting the past tense pounded into my head (though the text-books I have are all incomplete and unclear, so that I still make lots of mistakes that I shouldn't have to make). She tells me my writing is improving. On the other hand, I use a dictionary for maybe 80% of the words (not head-words - counted words) of what I write in spite of having an active vocabulary of over 1,000 words. I also regularly have the wrong word, since I have not been able to find an affordable good bi-lingual dictionary written for foreigners. All the dictionaries I've seen are either obviously junk or oriented to Koreans, so that I hardly know what's going on. This goes for paper and electronic dictionaries (online sources I've seen are a joke). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| skeeterses Senior Member United States angelfire.com/games5Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6663 days ago 302 posts - 356 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Spanish | Message 29 of 37 19 May 2009 at 4:21am | IP Logged |
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Oneota,
My recommendation is that you work your way through the Ganada Elementary books to get an idea of the basic structure of the Korean grammar along with some basic vocabulary. Upon doing that, you should then try your hand at the Korean children books, using a Korean-English dictionary to translate from the Korean to the English. At your stage, translating from English to Korean through the English-Korean dictionary will be a little tricky but translating from the Korean to the English should be within your grasp. As far as the grammar of the Korean children books are concerned, just try to get the main idea of what is being said rather than worrying about the all the possible word endings. The children books, while a good approach for learning vocabulary, won't teach you the necessary grammar for speaking the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7122 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 30 of 37 19 May 2009 at 12:31pm | IP Logged |
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I'll second the Ganada series.
They're not what I learnt with at the beginning, but I believe they are one of the best available. Good introduction of grammar points and a nice amount of drills to help consolidate it, complete with decent audio. Only about 20'000W each as well including the cd's.. Try Yes24.com if you're confident ordering online - it'll be a little cheaper than Kyobo or somewhere. As for children's books.. I bought a load of bilingual texts published by YBM - Huck Finn, etc - for about 4000W each... Or at a lower level, The Little Prince you can get from a vending machine in a bus station for 3000W and you should be able to find an English or German translation on a website somewhere to save you from even reaching for the dictionary. Understanding the gist is the biggest thing when you begin reading - it's infuriatingly slow when you have to reach for a dictionary every sentence so access to the translation will make it more enjoyable for you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7122 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 31 of 37 19 May 2009 at 12:45pm | IP Logged |
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My opinions on Korean difficult...
The most difficult aspect for me has been listening. The speed of speech was the killer for me early on combined with lack of vocabulary. These days it's dialect... since I've spent most of my time in Kangwon-do it's getting better, but still having problems with the in-laws most of all. Living in Kangwon-do made understanding people everywhere else pretty easy though hehe. Variation in pronunciation can be guessed a lot of the time - you will notice that things like 이쁘다 and 괸찮다 are used pretty extensively, but you can work those kind of things out pretty fast once you've noticed the difference a few times... you'll maybe even end up using that pronunciation - a bad habit? Interestingly, I've never had a problem with pronunciation outside of glottalised consonants, and even they are usually understood through context. Once you get your head around the fact that most Korean sounds are midway between two English sounds you're all set, e.g., 가 is neither /ga/ nor /ka/. Vocab problems can be an issue until you become familiar with which wordset to use in which situation, i.e., Sino-Korean or Native Korean. But this is similar with Japanese I assume - I'm still only starting Japanese so I can't be 100% certain. Honorifics aren't so bad and over-rated in my opinion.. Also, unless you are a translator or using Korean on a professional level constantly, then Koreans will let it slide ['봐주세요' ;)] ...I've even spoken to my in-laws in ban-mal when the conversation and drinks have been flowing because I just plain forget - not that I don't understand the concept. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aegi Diglot Newbie Korea, South Joined 6030 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English*, Korean | Message 32 of 37 19 May 2009 at 3:45pm | IP Logged |
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In addition to speaking Korean as often and as much as possible, I recommend this book, which may be useful to a beginning or intermediate learner of Korean:
Book 1 person has voted this message useful |
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