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Advancing Korean, Year 5/6: TAC15 東亞

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Tarko
Senior Member
Korea, South
Joined 4487 days ago

119 posts - 148 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Korean, French

 
 Message 265 of 344
13 May 2014 at 11:21am | IP Logged 
Hooray! If you do a tour of the islands, come down to 전라도 and check out 완도, 진도, maybe some of the islands in 신안군. Plus the 김치 is miles better down here than elsewhere in Korea. I think this area is beautiful and very underrated. Send me a message, I'll treat you to dinner :)
1 person has voted this message useful



druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4664 days ago

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

 
 Message 266 of 344
18 May 2014 at 8:46pm | IP Logged 
2014년 5월 11일. Week 20.

Goldlists: 2
Podcasts: 30
Books: 1
-----
News Items: 6 (read) 13 (watched)
Written: 16
Conversations: 6
Grammar Practice: 3


Just reading at the moment. I'm on page 260 now and it's gotten much easier to understand most of Anne Frank's diary. I added some words that crop up again and again to Anki, but I have yet to review them. Would be good to study them now and reinforce that by reading, but I'm lazy...

The Real CZ wrote:
I loved Miss Korea. Definitely one of my favorites of all time and easily the front runner for best drama in 2014.

I thought it was one of the less formulaic KDRamas, so it definitely stood out. I really liked the different characters and how they depicted their relationships.

The Real CZ wrote:
I'm glad to see that you're visiting Korea again. At your level, the only difficulty I could see you having is simply needing to build up the mental endurance of using Korean so much throughout your trip. Just make sure to try to befriend Koreans instead of just speaking in English with the other foreigners after classes.

I'm so excited to be going to Korea again! I'll probably be able to spend a lot of time with Koreans I already know from my last visit or from their time as exchange students in Germany. Now that I think about it, I probably have almost as big of a social circle in Korea as I have in Germany :D Regarding the classes, I just hope there will be more people comfortable with Korean than people comfortable with English. Last time I got to talk a lot of Korean with my Japanese and Mongolian classmates.
I actually can't remember - have you been to Korea before? Or any plans to go?

Tarko wrote:
Hooray! If you do a tour of the islands, come down to 전라도 and check out 완도, 진도, maybe some of the islands in 신안군. Plus the 김치 is miles better down here than elsewhere in Korea. I think this area is beautiful and very underrated. Send me a message, I'll treat you to dinner :)

Oh, that sounds great! We should definitely meet up! It looks like yuhakko is also going to be in Korea in August, so maybe we can even make it a mini-team Gumiho-meeting :)
For some reason Jeolla is the part of Korea that has the most draw for me. Last time I went to Yeosu - the scenery and the food was great! I think you're lucky to live in Jeolla! I've actually been thinking about some islands in 신안군. I only know of 진도 as the origin of 진도개 ^^ Will have to look into those two islands as well!

Edited by druckfehler on 20 May 2014 at 9:08pm

1 person has voted this message useful



druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4664 days ago

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

 
 Message 267 of 344
26 May 2014 at 4:52pm | IP Logged 
2014년 5월 26일. Week 21.

Goldlists: 2
Podcasts: 30
Books: 1
-----
News Items: 6 (read) 13 (watched)
Written: 16
Conversations: 6
Grammar Practice: 4


I'm still mostly reading for the Super Challenge. I'm now on page 402 of Anne Frank's Diary. It's a really good fit for my current Korean skills. My reading speed and comprehension seems to have improved a lot after the first 100-200 pages. I now rarely find passages I have a lot of trouble with, although I do sometimes still read things twice, depending on my concentration and the complexity of the passage.

I think my reading comprehension is now comparable to my comprehension of English when I was about 15. That was the point when I went to New Zealand and drastically improved my English. I'm glad to have the opportunity to spend 6 weeks in Korea. Of course, it's not a long time, but it will help some. And it will probably be a really great experience.

For now, my plans for the time in Korea include the Sogang Korean Immersion Program, lots of sightseeing in Seoul, finiding a yoga studio and practicing with Korean instruction (that one will be an adventure!), hiking and outdoor sports with Korean meetup groups, meeting lots of old (and new) friends for dinner. And of course buying loads of books to take home! Maybe even a textbook to learn Chinese... It would be great to use a Korean textbook for what will hopefully be my next language.
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druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4664 days ago

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

 
 Message 268 of 344
10 June 2014 at 12:18pm | IP Logged 
2014년 6월 10일. Week 23.

Goldlists: 2
Podcasts: 30
Books: 2
-----
News Items: 6 (read) 13 (watched)
Written: 17
Conversations: 6
Grammar Practice: 6


I'm done reading Anne Frank's Diary. 460 pages of Korean! It was definitely great practice. Looking at some other books I have, I can see an increase of comprehension. I think it's not only a matter of knowing a few more words, but mostly a matter of being more used to reading in Korean and analysing unknown words for their Hanja roots.

While I haven't listened to podcasts in a while, I recently watched 수상한 그녀 (Miss Granny), a really entertaining comedy movie. It was totally enjoyable without subtitles and while the granny's dialect was difficult, I didn't feel like I missed much in terms of story and jokes.

I haven't done goldlists for a long time and I don't miss it in the least. Learning by exposure to lots of native materials seems more pleasant. Sometimes I do write words and their translation down, but I'm too lazy to put them through the goldlist system.

At the moment I'm more interested in improving my grammar knowledge. I want to learn at least a couple of new patterns which I can work on activating in Korea.
1 person has voted this message useful



druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4664 days ago

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

 
 Message 269 of 344
01 July 2014 at 12:36am | IP Logged 
2014년 6월 10일. Week 26.

Just a short update before I leave for Korea tomorrow morning. The numbers will have to wait until next week, I already packed the tablet I now do my updates on.

I'm really surprised this happened, but I finished another novel of 310 pages. Book no. 3 for the year. I read a Korean translation of the German novel "Measuring the World" by Daniel Kehlmann. I'm also on page 100 of the Korean young adult novel "Wolf Boy" (늑대 소년). In some ways, Wolf Boy is more difficult to read. The translations seemed easier, or maybe that's just because I was very familiar with Anne Frank's Diary and the context of Measuring the World (but I also watched the movie Wolf Boy, so that's hardly a convincing argument). I think reading both translations and native materials at the same time is a pretty decent strategy. I now usually read extensively, but I read some parts of those books intensively as well. It works well for me to do some intensive reading after about 100 pages, when some of the vocabulary has already become transparent through context and there are other recurrent words which I now recognise and wonder about, because I can't quite figure them out. That method makes for rather effortless memorisation.

Upping my amount of reading has come with great benefits. I find it increasingly easier to think in Korean, which I now do regularly. It's becoming one of my default thinking languages, along with German and English. I see that as a sign that I'm fast approaching or even at a B2 level now (although surely with some knowledge gaps). We'll see how my Korean stands the test of immersion.

I've also been writing and reading a lot more everyday stuff to prepare for the trip. I finally got 카톡 and read a lot about 맛집s (good restaurants) and hiking routes around Seoul. I'm very much looking forward to the immersion experience and to all the things I missed about Korea. I guess this trip will be a lot easier (yet still difficult) and possibly more interesting (as I'll more independent and will understand more of what's going on) than the one three years ago.

Edited by druckfehler on 01 July 2014 at 12:46am

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The Real CZ
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5445 days ago

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

 
 Message 270 of 344
01 July 2014 at 11:02am | IP Logged 
I hope you have fun in Korea druckfehler!

To answer your question, I haven't been to Korea yet. >_< Maybe in a few years once I'm
all done with school and have paid down the majority of my student loans I'll go.
1 person has voted this message useful



Evita
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Latvia
learnlatvian.info
Joined 6348 days ago

734 posts - 1036 votes 
Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian
Studies: Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 271 of 344
01 July 2014 at 11:28am | IP Logged 
Have a good trip, Renate! I look forward to hearing all about it once you come back.
1 person has voted this message useful



druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4664 days ago

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

 
 Message 272 of 344
10 August 2014 at 8:58am | IP Logged 
2014년 8월 10일. Week 32.

I'm finally finding the time for an update. My time in Korea so far has been very busy and productive
(although I caught a cold last week and have just been lazing around a lot this week to finally get rid of it). I
have a lot to report, so I'll probably spread that out over the next updates.

Today is my last day in Seoul, tomorrow I'll be on my way to one of the many Islands in Jeollanamdo. For
one month I have lived in a shared house with three Koreans, a Portuguese and a Japanese language
student. For the first two weeks it was just me and the Koreans, so I got to practice a lot, and even now the
main language in the flat is Korean.

The language program at Sogang ended on Friday. I got into level 5, because I apparently "talk like a
Korean" ^^. (One of the more sophisticated sentences I used was more or less a rendition of one of my
former audio sentence cards :D) Sogang offers 6 regular levels, 5 having been the highest one in this
summer program. We had
3 different teachers: one for Video/Listening and Writing Class, one for Reading and Speaking Class, one
for the afternoon Culture Classes. The instruction sort of reminded me of the G.L.O.S.S. methodology (lots
of native materials and summarising, especially in the video class) coupled with a lot of talking tasks we
had to do in pairs. The talking tasks sometimes got annoying - one student was barely understandable
because of her accent, one talked so quietly it was difficult to listen to him - practicing with actual Koreans
is just more effective. Another problem for me was that the program took up a lot of time with classes
everyday until 4 or 5 o'clock plus homework, so I felt that I had less free time than I thought I would. Trying
to do the program, meeting friends and exploring on my own soon got pretty exhausting. But all in all it's
really a very recommendable program. I learned quite a few new words, advanced grammar patterns and
useful expressions for doing presentations (level 5 had a lot of presentations) and writing. If I had the
chnce I'd probably do it again, but probably the regular language program without the culture classes.
While they taught quite a few interesting things about Seoul and most activities I participated in were fun, I
like to learn those things in my own pace and choose what to do according to my interests.

That's it for now, but I will probably write a lot more once I get home. Now the challenge is to survive on my
own for a week in the countryside and in Gwangju ^^ So far I'm handling survival quite well, having booked
my entire journey in Korean.

Edited by druckfehler on 10 August 2014 at 9:00am



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